[J.D. August 18, 2018]
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Here's An Idea...
Someone should set up a controlled study to see if there is a correlation between a person's inability to determine when someone is acting and the inability to spot phony political candidates. I got this idea after hearing an avid Trump-supporter talking about a program on T.V. that used actors to depict U.S. military personnel pretending to speak candidly with a reporter about their experiences in Iraq. The Trump-supporter spoke as if the actors were real soldiers expressing their real thoughts and feelings. But, when I saw the same program, it only took me a few seconds to tell they were only acting, because people just don't talk the way they were talking naturally. And I wondered, how could anyone not see that they were just actors? And I realized how I have often wondered the same thing about why so many people can't tell that Trump is an idiot pretending to be intelligent. The only thing he (Trump) is any good at is doing what other people tell him to do, and then taking credit for it when it makes him look smart, or blaming the person who told him what to do when it doesn't. In other words, acting. And he's not very good at that either.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
The Necessity of "Evil"
They say, ignorance is bliss. I say, ignorance is everything. Without it, we would be unable to perceive space and/or time at all. It is not the hindrance to experience that many presume. It is the reason for it!
And what is ignorance but "evil"? When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. So-called, "evil" is that which is opposed to God. And since "God" is "The Truth" (or "The Living Truth", as I like to say), anything that opposes the truth --- any truth --- opposes "God". And nothing opposes the truth more than ignorance.
We are all intimately familiar with the suffering that our ignorance can cause. What few are aware of though is the simple fact that like "evil", ignorance is the cause of all suffering. Not only is this a basic premise of Eastern religions and philosophies, it is also a self-evident truth, that ignorance itself very effectively conceals.
The way ignorance conceals itself is a fascinating subject all by itself (reminiscent of "the greatest trick the devil evil pulled..."), but one I'll presume for the moment to be already understood. The important thing to realize here is that ignorance and so-called "evil" are essentially one and the same thing. And that being established makes it possible to realize the necessity of "evil" in order for anything at all to even exist, in the sense that we commonly know existence (i.e. our ability to perceive experiences).
In order to make this clear, imagine a world without ignorance (and without "evil"). Such a world would be inhabited by beings (technically, A Being) that was by definition omniscient (all-knowing). Such a being (or beings) would be unable to perceive space and time at all, because to it/them no moment in time, nor place in space, would be prominent. All moments, all places, and thus all events, would be completely imperceptible due to the inability to separate one from the next.
When you thus think about it, the primary function of ignorance (again, like "evil") is to cause the perception of separation from one moment to the next, and from one place to the next. Without ignorance, there would be no way for us to "know" where, or when, we are. There'd simply be no basis for any limited sense of experience at all. We would simply be "God" (singular), and nothing more; there would be no "Creation" as we know it (by limited perception).
And thus, ignorance and "evil" must have been invented and created by "God" for the very sake of Creation itself!
Think about what that means. If properly realized, it could be the key to our universal salvation. And if not properly realized, the cause of a lot more suffering.
And what is ignorance but "evil"? When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. So-called, "evil" is that which is opposed to God. And since "God" is "The Truth" (or "The Living Truth", as I like to say), anything that opposes the truth --- any truth --- opposes "God". And nothing opposes the truth more than ignorance.
We are all intimately familiar with the suffering that our ignorance can cause. What few are aware of though is the simple fact that like "evil", ignorance is the cause of all suffering. Not only is this a basic premise of Eastern religions and philosophies, it is also a self-evident truth, that ignorance itself very effectively conceals.
The way ignorance conceals itself is a fascinating subject all by itself (reminiscent of "the greatest trick the devil evil pulled..."), but one I'll presume for the moment to be already understood. The important thing to realize here is that ignorance and so-called "evil" are essentially one and the same thing. And that being established makes it possible to realize the necessity of "evil" in order for anything at all to even exist, in the sense that we commonly know existence (i.e. our ability to perceive experiences).
In order to make this clear, imagine a world without ignorance (and without "evil"). Such a world would be inhabited by beings (technically, A Being) that was by definition omniscient (all-knowing). Such a being (or beings) would be unable to perceive space and time at all, because to it/them no moment in time, nor place in space, would be prominent. All moments, all places, and thus all events, would be completely imperceptible due to the inability to separate one from the next.
When you thus think about it, the primary function of ignorance (again, like "evil") is to cause the perception of separation from one moment to the next, and from one place to the next. Without ignorance, there would be no way for us to "know" where, or when, we are. There'd simply be no basis for any limited sense of experience at all. We would simply be "God" (singular), and nothing more; there would be no "Creation" as we know it (by limited perception).
And thus, ignorance and "evil" must have been invented and created by "God" for the very sake of Creation itself!
Think about what that means. If properly realized, it could be the key to our universal salvation. And if not properly realized, the cause of a lot more suffering.
[J.D. August 5, 2018]
The Hypocrisy of Personal Salvation
The core premise of Christianity is personal salvation. Every time I see a Christian movie, or hear a Christian song, even if it doesn't advertise itself as Christian, I can sense the hypocrisy of this premise in its message. It permeates everything Christians do and think. And it is "evil" in every sense that the wise men who constructed the scriptures that Christianity pretends to base itself upon meant when they spoke of evil.
What is "evil" if not the essence of that which is opposed to God in the particular sense that God Is The Truth (i.e. "Christ"?). So evil is simply that which opposes the truth, any truth (since all truth is Truth), it is not --- as most Christians seem to believe --- that which maliciously causes us to suffer.
Of course there is a link between suffering and the absence of truth. And I think it is this link that causes so much confusion, whereas the truth itself is abundantly clear. We invariably suffer when we fail to realize or are otherwise "separated" from the truth. Or, to put it another way, we suffer only when we are deceived, which the Christian Bible tells us, and most Christians superficially agree (I say "superficially" because if they truly believed this then they could not believe in personal salvation, which directly contradicts the belief that suffering is caused by such ignorance).
"Salvation", as the relief from all suffering, must be universal, not "personal" at all. This becomes apparent when you consider the meaning of truth, and suffering, and the relationship they have with each other. And significantly it becomes even more apparent when you consider the meaning and difference between "personal" and "universal" salvation.
Universal salvation means that if one is saved, then all are saved. In order to appreciate this, you should realize that "universal" means everything and everyone... throughout all space and time. In other words, the "infinite all", or "God" Itself. The Bible emphasizes this "Oneness of God" throughout the old and new testaments. So do all other "great" religions (even those that worship multiple "deities" still emphasize the "Oneness of All"), not to mention the apocryphal texts, commonly accepted philosophies, and even modern science (e.g. the proven scientific concept of "non-locality" is just a complex way of saying, "there can be only One..."). So the concept of universal salvation is essentially saying the same thing as no less than the salvation of God. And that is the only salvation that matters, and should matter, or even can matter, because God is the only being that can be real, and not just the illusion that we "personal" beings are while "separated" from the truth of our Oneness.
Personal salvation then, turns out to be only a selfish and limited concept, where we are freed as individuals from our personal suffering, but it also becomes a painfully obvious form of self- and mass-deception. There can be no personal salvation if there is only One Being to be "saved".
Most religions are aware of this dilemma and often attempt to cover it up by convoluted arguments that often seem to make a lot of sense until the basic premises are closely examined. Their premises will invariable at some point call on you to have "faith" in one or more ideas. Often these ideas are rooted in some scripture, and sometimes they are rooted in only thin air. The apologist will simply ask you to "believe" that "God is good", and therefore "He" would never allow "evil" individuals into "Heaven" unless they become "good" also, or something equally nonsensical.
But, all arguments aside, the Truth is simple, obvious, and plain to see. Even a child can understand it. You don't need any "Bible", scripture, or even words to understand it. In fact, it is best understood without words at all (which is again something that the sages who wrote the Bible, not to mention many other religious, philosophical, and scientific texts, have repetitively tried to tell us). The man named "Jesus" himself chastised the zealots around him for seeking Truth in the scriptures instead of seeing it right in front of them.
In order to be as plain as possible, I'll put it simply like this: Power is the ability to act according to one's own volition. And, if a Being has the ability to act according to Its own volition, but chooses not to, for ANY reason (as Christians claim God does in order to give humans the necessary "free will" we need to determine our own fate --- a critical part of the core Christian premise of personal salvation), then that Being is still acting according to Its own volition, and hence still has "power". In other words, power... that is, REAL power, not the illusion of power that exists in the limited sense of human experience... can NOT be transfered, given away, granted, or otherwise shared in any sense. To do so would be the same as surrendering ALL power. And by the same simple logic, existence itself cannot be given away, granted, or otherwise shared, because to do so requires power (i.e. the ability to act according to one's own volition).
So, the Truth is plain for anyone to see. All we need to do is stop deceiving ourselves with nonsensical words. There is only One God. And that means there is only One being, One Authority, and One Will in all of Creation (or "Cosmos", as I prefer to call it). This knowledge only seems to contradict our experience because of the way we are currently taught to deceive ourselves with beliefs that hypocritically contradict the simple Truth that exists without words, and yet speaks plainly to all of us. We have only to quiet our minds to hear it.
What is "evil" if not the essence of that which is opposed to God in the particular sense that God Is The Truth (i.e. "Christ"?). So evil is simply that which opposes the truth, any truth (since all truth is Truth), it is not --- as most Christians seem to believe --- that which maliciously causes us to suffer.
Of course there is a link between suffering and the absence of truth. And I think it is this link that causes so much confusion, whereas the truth itself is abundantly clear. We invariably suffer when we fail to realize or are otherwise "separated" from the truth. Or, to put it another way, we suffer only when we are deceived, which the Christian Bible tells us, and most Christians superficially agree (I say "superficially" because if they truly believed this then they could not believe in personal salvation, which directly contradicts the belief that suffering is caused by such ignorance).
"Salvation", as the relief from all suffering, must be universal, not "personal" at all. This becomes apparent when you consider the meaning of truth, and suffering, and the relationship they have with each other. And significantly it becomes even more apparent when you consider the meaning and difference between "personal" and "universal" salvation.
Universal salvation means that if one is saved, then all are saved. In order to appreciate this, you should realize that "universal" means everything and everyone... throughout all space and time. In other words, the "infinite all", or "God" Itself. The Bible emphasizes this "Oneness of God" throughout the old and new testaments. So do all other "great" religions (even those that worship multiple "deities" still emphasize the "Oneness of All"), not to mention the apocryphal texts, commonly accepted philosophies, and even modern science (e.g. the proven scientific concept of "non-locality" is just a complex way of saying, "there can be only One..."). So the concept of universal salvation is essentially saying the same thing as no less than the salvation of God. And that is the only salvation that matters, and should matter, or even can matter, because God is the only being that can be real, and not just the illusion that we "personal" beings are while "separated" from the truth of our Oneness.
Personal salvation then, turns out to be only a selfish and limited concept, where we are freed as individuals from our personal suffering, but it also becomes a painfully obvious form of self- and mass-deception. There can be no personal salvation if there is only One Being to be "saved".
Most religions are aware of this dilemma and often attempt to cover it up by convoluted arguments that often seem to make a lot of sense until the basic premises are closely examined. Their premises will invariable at some point call on you to have "faith" in one or more ideas. Often these ideas are rooted in some scripture, and sometimes they are rooted in only thin air. The apologist will simply ask you to "believe" that "God is good", and therefore "He" would never allow "evil" individuals into "Heaven" unless they become "good" also, or something equally nonsensical.
But, all arguments aside, the Truth is simple, obvious, and plain to see. Even a child can understand it. You don't need any "Bible", scripture, or even words to understand it. In fact, it is best understood without words at all (which is again something that the sages who wrote the Bible, not to mention many other religious, philosophical, and scientific texts, have repetitively tried to tell us). The man named "Jesus" himself chastised the zealots around him for seeking Truth in the scriptures instead of seeing it right in front of them.
In order to be as plain as possible, I'll put it simply like this: Power is the ability to act according to one's own volition. And, if a Being has the ability to act according to Its own volition, but chooses not to, for ANY reason (as Christians claim God does in order to give humans the necessary "free will" we need to determine our own fate --- a critical part of the core Christian premise of personal salvation), then that Being is still acting according to Its own volition, and hence still has "power". In other words, power... that is, REAL power, not the illusion of power that exists in the limited sense of human experience... can NOT be transfered, given away, granted, or otherwise shared in any sense. To do so would be the same as surrendering ALL power. And by the same simple logic, existence itself cannot be given away, granted, or otherwise shared, because to do so requires power (i.e. the ability to act according to one's own volition).
So, the Truth is plain for anyone to see. All we need to do is stop deceiving ourselves with nonsensical words. There is only One God. And that means there is only One being, One Authority, and One Will in all of Creation (or "Cosmos", as I prefer to call it). This knowledge only seems to contradict our experience because of the way we are currently taught to deceive ourselves with beliefs that hypocritically contradict the simple Truth that exists without words, and yet speaks plainly to all of us. We have only to quiet our minds to hear it.
[J.D. August 4, 2018]
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