Have you ever wondered why and how two of the oldest philosophies/religions in the world came to be? More importantly, have you ever considered the ultimate concepts contained in those philosophies ? While I do not know, with certainty, about their origin and development, it seems likely to me that they were a direct attempt to understand the basic meaning of life, and at the same time, discover the nature if its origin. While the Abrahamic religions were busy bargaining with their god, and offering sacrifices to him, the contemplative far-easterners were desperately trying to understand if such an entity actually existed, and, if so, in what environs.
My research tells me that the contemplatives were way ahead of the sacrificials who had dreamed up a scheme of power and control right out of their own playbook—that is to say, they manufactured a god patterned directly after their own possessive, egotistical selves. Their god was theirs alone and could not be shared with anyone.
In the meantime, the contemplatives, like many native Americans, were driven to see their god in everything (wind, sun, stars, waters etc.). Without benefit of any scientific knowledge, just as Jesus, they were able to grasp the existence of God in everything. Jesus could not explain the specifics, he just knew that the spirit of God existed in everything. He saw that everything in existence was evil by virtue of its selfishness, and by his knowing, he felt himself to be commissioned to die in atonement for the Father’s faults so the Father could be Perfect Love . So, he died that we may live in eternal bliss.
Can there be a greater thrill? I’d vouch to say that no one, who professes an Abrahamic religion, is any closer to God than any Hindu or Buddhist who ever lived. We, each, are loved equally by our Perfect Loving Creator, with no one possibly being more favored over another—there are no such things as higher places in heaven.
For full elucidation, please read my two little books, Wilderness Cry and Peace in Spirituality. Press releases and video trailers attached
I have been reading many posts the last few days about anxiety, depression, lack of self-esteem etc. It should be noted that there is always a significant up-tick in these feelings during dark of winter, and especially near Christmas-time. There are two categories of anxiety; one type is generated by real circumstances such as concerns about where your next rent payment will come from. That is conscious anxiety and normal. The next type, which is universal, is subconscious anxiety which has a much different generator. It is instilled in us at an early age before we are rational. We are made to believe that we are bad by well-meaning parents, teachers, preachers and others. Those ideas and feelings are stored in our subconsciousness. We don’t remember the specific incidents which caused the ideas and feelings, but we have a general feeling of uneasiness and don’t know why. The more we have been poorly indoctrinated in our formative years, the greater feelings of guilt and anxiety we exhibit. Greater degrees and extremes of anxiety may, and frequently do, lead to depression, even to the point of taking ones own life. Depression is caused by our failed exhaustive attempts to ward off punishment generated by the guilt instilled in us. We see defensive reactions exhibited in many ways but two stand out. One is the overbearing hot head know-it-all who has to be right all the time; would argue a point “till hell freezes over”, and all the time likely being wrong. The other in the cowed, meek, person who exhibits no feelings of self esteem. Typically, that person is shy, backward, hates to meet new people, doesn’t like crowds, would panic if asked to speak to a public audience, and typically will cling to one or two people in their lives. Usually they live in constant fear but have no idea why. In my powerful little book, Wilderness Cry, I show how Ideologies and Religion are the two main culprits in causing those problems. Both of those entities impose on us ideas and demands totally contrary to our God-given nature. As infants, toddlers and small children, we are not capable of a rational analysis of these contrarian ideas; we simply are left with the built-in ideas that we are bad which generates guilt; guilt generates need for punishment; punishment generates anxiety which generates feelings of worthlessness and depression. I show in my book that religions and ideologies in general have ignored Jesus’ command for us to love one another as ourselves. If that were the norm in our society, our children would be inculcated in a framework of love and acceptance. The result would be dramatic. Universal peace would prevail, anxiety would be reduced to a minimum, and people would be God-loving and people-loving. It will likely never happen because of Power, Money and Control. Dictators and Church Hierarchy will never relinquish their Power. For an understanding of how to rid yourself of these anxious feelings and for a complete elucidation of many, many more concepts, you must read my book, Wilderness Cry- a Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe. Amazon and all on-line book retailers.
As I understand ‘Magisterium”, it refers to the teaching authority of the Church which directly stems from the apostles of Jesus. On the surface, all of that sounds very good until one does a little scratching into the deeper layers of that ‘presumed and assumed’ authority. A little historical review might be helpful in attempting to interpret the mismanagement of that Magisterium.
After Jesus’ crucifixion, all sorts of stories were fabricated concerning thereafter events. The bottom line eventuated into an interminable squabble and disagreement among the bishops who professed absolute theological power within their domain. It seems obvious that those who established the concept of those unquestionable domains presumed that all bishops would have identical understanding of Jesus-events. However, as is usual for most human endeavors, there evolved a situation whereby many differing views about Jesus, his words ,and activities existed among the bishops of the so-called Christian world.
Christianity had spread rapidly along both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, across North Africa on the south and all the way to Rome, Spain and Portugal on the north. At the time all that territory was under the domain of the Roman Empire which was divided into two sections. Eventually one section fell to the other and the Empire became consolidated. All that territory from Judea to Portugal was under Roman control and rule. Rome had made a pact with the Jewish community which allowed the Jews to continue their form of religious sacrifice and control of their constituents. The Jews were allowed to punish but were not allowed to perform capital, punishment —that was strictly reserved to the Roman authorities.
Most of the 1800 bishops of Christianity resided in the Eastern section of the Empire. While the Christians were supposed to be producing for the Empire, they were instead squabbling, and at times, outright fighting among themselves about the ‘Jesus thing’— productivity was very low — morale was even lower — the peasants were being severely oppressed by both Rome and the Jewish hierarchy. Zealots who attempted to organize an overthrow of both governments were common in Jesus’ day — they all met the same fate, crucifixion.
Jesus, himself, was a zealot but in a different way. His method involved an attempt to show his brethren that the god they were worshiping was a myth. It was a ‘vengeful god’ who demanded ‘perfect sacrificial offerings of appeasement’ to control his ire. Those perfect offerings could only be provided by and offered by the High Priest — always at considerable cost to the peasants. It was a prefect money making scheme. Jesus’ plan was to educate his followers that the ‘real God’ was all love, and, furthermore, the only way they could have peace was by living that love through accepting their God and their neighbor as is. Jesus’ plan was subliminal — when enough constituents followed his teaching, the money-making scheme of the High Priest would gradually dissipate – a new government of love supported by good civil laws (10 commandments) could and would eventuate.
Jesus knew he was a traitor and what his eventual fate would be — that makes him the ‘hero of all heroes’. He mainly remained on the outskirts teaching in the hope that over time his followers would understand and accept his teaching of God and love and would perpetuate them across the world. It seems to me that Jesus was a total failure in his efforts, and here is why.
Three hundred years after Jesus’ death, because of all the squabbling which contributed to a lack of productivity, Emperor Constantine called the bishops into council at Nicaea. He commissioned them to form a consensus of Christian belief and practice — it would be the official religion of the entire Roman Empire backed by the Roman army — the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed.
In complete disregard for Jesus’ teaching of an all-loving God, the bishops’ new religion was patterned exactly after Jewish sacrificial ritual with them and their designees (priests) as the only people who make those sacrifices of appeasement. However, despite completely ignoring Jesus’ teaching, they conveniently attached his name to their religion for obvious ‘propaganda reasons’.
Of course, in establishing their new religion, they set themselves up as ‘lord and master of all’ — they were the absolute authority concerning anything to do with faith, morals and/or practices — they were the absolute interpreters of God’s wishes and demands.
Early on, priests and bishops were allowed to be married unimpeded. Then there was a time when bishops could be married but could not sleep in same room with his wife —guards were posted to insure. Then priests could not be married at all. That fact was one of the factors resulting in the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Church in the eleventh century.
In my short eighty-nine years, I have witnessed ‘God changing his mind’ innumerable times. Here are some of the most notable: from the time I made my first Holy Communion in 1940 until I was twenty or so, no one was allowed to take Communion without total fasting from both food and liquids from midnight on — taking Communion after breaking one’s fast was a ‘mortal sin’ and would send one straight to hell if one died before confessing that sin. Likewise, deliberately allowing one’s teeth to touch the Communion host was a Mortal sin with similar consequences. Of course, deliberately breaking any one of the Ten Commandments was a mortal sin. The ‘real hammer’ fell on breaking the laws of the Church, particularly those to do with attending Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation and the Church’s laws concerning sex and marriage. Marriage to a non-Catholic was strongly discouraged and the ceremony could not be done inside the Catholic Church building. Divorce was out of the question, and marriage to a divorced person who had not obtained an official annulment from the Church carried the same dire consequences of mortal sin. Artificial birth control was ‘out of the question’ and, furthermore, it was the topic of most homilies during my childhood and early adulthood. Infant baptism within the first ten days after birth was mandatory for fear an infant would die beforehand and be sent directly to Limbo where it would ‘never see God’. Then, of course, there was the stain of sin which remained with us despite God’s forgiveness and that stain combined with the small (venial) sins we committed largely guaranteed that each of us would spend time in ‘Purgatory’ burning off the stain before entering heaven. We could decrease that time by reciting ‘indulgence bearing prayers. In fact, there was once a time when one could ‘buy indulgences’. That gave great hope for the rich since they knew from scripture that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
The foregoing examples are just a few of the shackling, tormenting, controlling guilt-driven edicts of the Magisterium— all intended to ‘keep the troops in line ‘and the hierarchy in total dictatorial uncontested control. Then suddenly the Magisterium changes in some areas: one only has to fast one hour before receiving Communion. Then, almost as quickly, one was not required to fast at all. Furthermore, the Communion hosts were being distributed by the faithful and in addition, the recipients were encouraged to chew the hoist vigorously— what a turnaround — God must have been in a drunken stupor to change his rules so abruptly— I don’t think so. The changes in God’s rules came when those who professed magisterium realized people were not heeding them and, worse yet, were dropping out of the Church — money-well going dry.
Fast-forward to today; not a word ever about birth control, abortion, divorce, mixed marriages — only an occasional sideswipe mention of a Holy Day — never a word about any Church Law. In fact, the only sin ever mentioned is sex sin — oh that lovely controller — it’s the Church’s last holdout.
So, what has happened? Just yesterday, Pope Francis publicly declared that he is seriously considering allowing priests to be married. He made mention of the fact that that rule prohibiting marriage is not rooted in basic theology but simply in the rules (magisterium) of the Church. So, again, the Vicar of Christ on earth is interpreting God’s mind and has determined that since the number of vocations to the celibate priesthood are tumbling and foreign priests are being imported from Africa and Central and South America to fill the void, it is high time to change the rules. That’s only common sense to me but it does not ameliorate one degree the torment that I and billions of other Catholics have undergone at the hands of an ‘almighty, ironclad hierarchy hiding behind the armor of Magisterium’ —that old dog is simply too tired to hunt anymore.
Of course, this commentary beats up on the Catholic Church but, believe me, it can be applied to all protestant churches just as well but in a different way. They revolted for just reason from the Catholic Church but, in doing so, they put all their eggs in one tattered basket full of holes — a book totally corrupted by both honest mistake and deliberate change so as to suit the whims of the writers and rewriters and rewriters ad nauseum — they have no more credibility. Like the Catholics and their near mimickers, they all worship a false god’. I am allowed to say ‘false god’ because not one of them has ever or can define the ‘essence’ of the god of whom they speak.
I can and have defined my and Jesus’ God. Our Godis a Perfect rational Being who is ‘all love’. It cannot be hurt, helped, pleased, displeased, or changed in any way. If it could, it would not be perfect. There is a ‘Perfect Rationality’ which pervades our entire universe — it shows in every event that has ever occurred since the beginning of time at the moment of the Big Bang. The result of every event is andalways has been perfect for its foregoing set of circumstances — direct evidence of God’s Perfection, Love, and Reliability.
Please read my little books, Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic for as broader understanding. If you would like a humorous ‘Huck Finn’ rendition of my childhood, read Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky. All available hard copy and digital from Amazon-Kindle and autographed hardcopy directly from me – handg@comcast.net.
You may think this is a stupid question, but have you ever wondered why you think there is a God? I have, and my answer to myself is likely to be similar to yours —I was taught it by my parents and teachers in school. But just where did our parents and teachers come up with such an idea? Most likely, the same places as we did. But where did the idea come from in the first place? But also, there are some people who don’t think there is a God. Have you never wondered how that can be? As a small child who had been taught about God, I couldn’t imagine anyone not believing in God — nonbelievers had to be bad, evil people who would be condemned to hell forever — a terrifying thought — I felt so sad for them.
But then I wondered where information about God came from in the first place, and sure enough, I discovered it came from priests and preachers who had learned about it from the Bible and were ‘duty bound’ to tell us all about it. I didn’t question that bible information as a small child but, when I reached age twelve to fourteen on and began to learn something of the history of Greek and Roman gods, as well as the many diverse religions in the world, I began to wonder how and why that could be.
Of course, being raised in a strict Roman Catholic tradition which overtly professed to be the only ‘true religion which worshiped the only true God’, I was amazed that there could be so many bad people in the world. My ambivalence toward them contained a mixture of distrust of them and, simultaneously, sorrow for their wayward ways— they were all likely to go to hell or, at least, have a much harder time getting into heaven than we Catholics would.
It was about that age when I began noticing possible ‘cracks in the armor’ of my own religion. I had been taught that, when we prayed to God asking him for favors, he would answer our prayers. But what I observed was the complete opposite — he never answered a single prayer that either I, or our parish combined, asked for. It was so obvious and hurtful that I felt compelled to ask my parish priest why that was. He told me straight out ‘it was God’s Will”. I determined right that moment that my religion and likely all religions were ‘barking up the wrong tree’— God’s Will could not be changed. I didn’t know why but I determined right that moment to find out.
It took sixty-five years, but I did find out, and I discovered who the real God is. The God I discovered is a perfect Rational Being, not a wishy-washy, willy-nilly myth who could, not only be bargained with, but also could change his mind on a whim and give you a resounding thrashing for offending him. My God is perfect in all respects which means he cannot possibly change anything he has created. Neither can he change himself — no entity which is perfect can be changed. If it could, it would not have been perfect in the first instance and, certainly would not be perfect any more.
The implications of that understanding are staggering, not the least of which is the fact that ‘physical miracles,’ as depicted in the bible, are a pure impossibility and represent the mythical thinking of the ignorant, superstitious, and likely, biased people who compiled and rewrote the bible thereafter ad nauseum. We have absolutely no way of knowing what the original writings said — they could have, but not likely, given a correct assessment of God and events.
Those who formed the first official Christian religion were obviously ‘hell-bent’ on making their preconceived mythical ideas of a Messiah who would restore paradise just for them come true. So, it seems obvious to me that literally all their stories about Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and expected ‘second coming’ are ‘fairy tales — God’s perfection demands it — physical miracles are an impossibility. A common expression among people is, ‘God can do all things.” That sounds good to the unsuspecting, but the truth is far different. God can do absolutely nothing that he has not already done, and, furthermore, that ‘something’ which he did 13.8 billion years ago was to release his Perfect Rationality in the form of perfect particles of energy known as quanta (plural of quantum) into our universe. He set the wheels of change into motion, andtime began. Those are the ‘scientific’ facts.
So, the big question is, ‘why do we have a God anyway?’ All through recorded history, every group of people worldwide has recognized a higher power than themselves who controlled and influenced events in their lives. Some recognized gods in celestial bodies. Others saw god in other natural entities such a water, wind, etc. All, noting that both good and bad things happened in their lives, attributed those events to their imagined higher powers. So, they did the obvious thing. Since they had both good and bad happen in their lives, they assumed that god was responsible for both —pleasing god brought good things and displeasing him meant trouble. Most, then, came to the same conclusion —their god (s) needed appeasement —he needed his ‘feathers smoothed’ — sacrificial religion was invented.
It is noteworthy that a respectable percentage of people do not accept the concept of a God. Also, it is noteworthy that no one can prove or disprove the existence of a God, but since I have defined the essence of such a God as ‘a Perfect Rational Being,’ I am demonstrating both a scientifically and philosophically sound basis for God’s existence— I still can’t prove it.
What I can show, however, is that there exists a perfect rationality which pervades our entire universe. That perfect rationality when ‘boiled down to its basics’ means that every event that has ever occurred or ever will occur in this universe always yields perfect consequences for its given set of inciting circumstances. If that were not the case, nothing could be predictable or trustworthy.
Our universe is so large that no human mind can visualize it in one scene — we have no yardstick. However, we are able to observe the same perfection everywhere we look. Therefore, we are allowed and even mandated to recognize that the entire universe operates under the mandate of a perfect truth system — there is no truth in this universe outside that perfect system.
Since I have defined God’s essence as Perfect Rationality and that Perfect rationality coincides with the observable Perfect Truth System in our universe, I believe it is not only allowed but also mandated that we accept a concept of God. Our God, however, is a far cry from the picky god presented in the bible — that god was wishy-washy who constantly changed his mind, whereas the God of our universe is perfect, stable, unchanging, and unchangeable. The biblical god is human-like because he represents the mythical imagination of his creators — human beings —beings which the ‘real perfect God’ allowed to come into existence.
So, certain conclusions should be obvious. Any and all religions which imagine that they can influence God in any way are both illogical and illegitimate. I do not know with certainty the details of other great world religion such as Buddhism and Hinduism but, as a cursory insight might dictate, I believe they are more contemplative in an attempt to understand the nature and desires of their gods, Buddha and Brahma. In contrast, the Abrahamic religions are in the business of appeasing and influencing their god— both for purposes of gaining favors and escaping wrath — their god can be really mean. Not only that, but there are at least 33,000 different versions of the Christian’s god, at least two versions of Allah, and an unknown number of Jewish gods —several to say the least.
So, why do we have atheists? I don’t know anyone’s specific reason but, I suspect many have observed the conglomerate of gods and their associated admirers and have concluded those gods to be fairy tales — on that point, they are correct. Likely however, they are not familiar with our Perfect Rational God who has no mandates except that everything shall perform perfectly in this universe. That God needs no appeasement and makes no demands other than Perfect Truth. He accepts everything as it is because he is in everything and everything is in him.
From a human aspect, I believe it would do us good if we would recognize God’s presence in everything and express our gratitude to God for our lives, our sustenance, and our eternal life in him. I also believe that recognition would bring us closer to the capability of honoring Jesus’ command to love both our God and our neighbor. All other animal groups seem to understand that and have structured, ordered existences— we call that instinct — I wonder what they really know and understand about God.
I am fully aware that what I have just said cuts through the heartstrings of ‘devout people who have been led to believe they can influence God’ — truth seems to always hurt. However, it is truth which liberates. By liberating, I mean, just as Jesus did, ‘pulling from you that terrible blanket of guilt, imposed originally by irrational religion for purposes of control, but which ultimately transformed into power and money. Dr Martin Luther King said it best, “The truth will set you free”.
Many of you know I have expounded and expanded that philosophy in my little books WILDERNESS Cry, Peace In Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. In addition, I have published a semi-historical, semi-autobiographical book, Growing up In Fancy farm Kentucky. All are available Amazon-Kindle and from me, handg@comcast.net.
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All comments or questions appreciated and will be answered if requested.
Everyone knows what fear is — if we are normal, all have experienced it. It is the natural emotion of unpleasantness which rational people experience when they perceive danger of any kind from any source. It can be applied to individuals, groups, organizations, or nations. As an example, I suspect that everyone living in Ukraine is fearful of Russian invasion and its potential consequences. Likewise, I suspect most fans of the opposing NFL Super Bowl teams are fearful their team will lose.
The fear I want to address today is the fear which religion has of science. Knowing that all religion is founded on ignorance, superstition, mythology, astrology, imagination, and wishfulness makes any religion shudder at the prospects of scientific knowledge undermining and refuting it basic fundamental tenets. In fact, Pope John Paul II once told Stephen Hawking to not study the beginning of the universe because it was the ‘work of God’.
So, what does that tell us? It tells me that science was getting too close for comfort by scientifically discrediting the Church’s fundamental belief about creation as outlined in Genesis — Adam and Eve story —all the creation story in Genesis. That story describes an infantile insight into the size and makeup of the firmament, which in my childhood bible, was depicted as a semi-globe extending from the edges of the flat earth in all directions, with the sun, moon and stars above. It represented their imaginary God’s six days of hard work. In fact, he was so tired after all that work, he had to rest an entire day —hence, we have Sabbath.
So, with that in mind, a few examples discrediting that mythology might help.
1. In 2008, a gamma-ray burst was observed. It was a violent cosmic explosion, 7.5 billion light-years away, which is halfway across the visible universe. It could have been seen with a naked eye from the surface of the Earth. People who saw it were looking billions of years into the past with their eyes.
Here is another discrediting piece of evidence:
2. The oldest and therefore farthest known galaxy we have discovered to date is over 13.7 billion light years away. It’s called z8_GND_5296. Its light has taken so long to reach us that the star which collapsed to form the gas that particular Sun is made out of wasn’t “born” yet. Galaxies this far away from earth help astronomers understand the very early universe and how it has evolved over time. Due to the expansion of space, that distant galaxy technically wouldn’t be there anymore and would actually be “currently 13.1 Giga (13,100,000,000,000) light-years away from us.
3.Galileo was placed under house arrest by The Holy Office until his death in 1642 for defending his views about the Earth not being the center of the universe. The Vatican formally acknowledged they were wrong, and Galileo was right in 1992 — can you imagine, 350 years later. Pope John Paul 2 also grudgingly admitted the Church was wrong in burning people to death for being witches, but in so doing he attempted to ameliorate the gravity of that activity by declaring that only a paltry few hundred thousand, rather than the acclaimed millions, had been burned at the stake.
4.The largest galaxy in the observable universe is an elliptical galaxy, IC 1101. It has 100 trillion stars and is 6 million light years across. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy has a mere 100 billion stars and is 120,000 light years across. Can you imagine? — and light travels 186,000 miles per second through space.
5.Another astonishing observation reveals the nature of a neutron star which is the super-dense core of a collapsed supernova (megastar). It is so dense that if an object was dropped from one meter (39.37 inches) above the star’s surface, it would hit the surface at a speed of 7.2 million km per hour. One kilometer is equal to 0.62 miles. So, 0.62 x 7,200,000 means the dropped object from such a short distance would accelerate to a speed 4,464,000.00 miles per hour before hitting the surface — incredible. As a comparison, an object dropped from the outer reaches of the earth’s gravitational pull can attain a maximum speed of only about 120 mph before hitting the earth’s surface. Consider this then; it has been postulated that the big bang, roughly 13.8 billion years ago released all the energy particles in this universe from a spot no bigger than a pin head — some unimaginable density known as ‘The Singularity’. I think of it as God. Not a ‘personal God’, not a ‘whimsical God’, but rather a God of Perfect Rationality — a Rationality which cannot possibly be changed without total destruction of its own Perfect Truth System.
6.Also, there is a “one-electron universe” hypothesis which proposes that there exists a single electron in the universe that propagates through space and time in such a way that it appears in many places simultaneously. We know that there seems to be an inestimable number of electrons in the universe. In fact, each uranium atom alone has 88 electrons rotating around its nucleus. So, as Hawking proposed, there may be an inestimable number of parallel universes in existence.
As a consequence of the above astrological and cosmological observations, it should be rather obvious that those immensities could not be attributed to a God depicted as a grizzled old man sitting in the clouds somewhere above the earth, tired from his work but still willing, able, and eager to thrash us humans severely for breaking his laws.
So, with those few examples, the Church has plenty of reason to be very fearful of science (truth).
From the very beginning, the Church has proclaimed itself to be the unquestioned and unquestionable, ultimate authority in matter of faith and morals. That ‘faith’ encompasses the Genesis story, a flat earth, an earth as center of the universe, devils, witches, hell, purgatory, limbo, indulgences, and much more mythology. Eventually, attempting to shore itself up, it proclaimed the Pope to be infallible, and the Bible to be inerrant. That ‘old dog’ might have hunted once upon a time, but I believe without doubt ‘he won’t hunt anymore’.
In the Roman Catholic Church, there are liberal and conservative factions. The so-called liberals, among whom are Pope Francis and many bishops, are trending away from old, hardline theology and pseudoscience to a more adaptive understanding and acceptance of science while, simultaneously, not budging on the basic theme of Eucharist — sacrifice of the mass. The hardline conservatives seemingly would still love to live in a universe with a ‘flat earth’.
It seems to me that the liberal group have begun to realize that the Church can no longer defend its foregoing philosophy of a vengeful God who, not only allowed ‘hell, purgatory, and limbo’ to be created, but also, demanded that every human individual be functionally and emotionally attached to the overt sex into which it was born. They recognize the scientific truth that variations in sexual identity regardless of sexual tools, just as every other gravid entity in this universe, are an indisputable fact of life as observable by the bell-shaped distribution curve— not everyone is heterosexual, nor does everyone identify emotionally and sexuality with their birth sexual tools, as the hardliners would have it be. Pope Francis seemingly has condoned gay marriages and seems to be in accord with LGBTQs place in life.
As noted before, I have observed changes in the Catholic Mass consecration prayers which seem to be subtly moving away from the old Zodiac form to a more ‘modern’ form. However, it still depicts a God who is selective in his choice of adherents to him. In former days, that prayer read “from age to age, you gather a people unto yourself, so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made…..” Now it reads; “you never cease to gather a people unto yourself so that, from the rising of the sun to its setting, a pure offering may be made….”. That ‘perfect offering’ in the older version seems to be a direct holdover from Jewish ritual whereby the High Priest made a Perfect Offering to appease a vengeful God — does anyone remember Jesus running the High Priest’s money changers from the temple and overturning their tables? I do.
It should, therefore, be rather obvious that those who formed the Holy Roman Catholic Church in the first instance in 325AD, did so in direct disregard for Jesus and his dictates of love, but rather, formed a church directly patterned after the Jewish religion, with them and their successors in total control. They did, however, conveniently use a contrived version of Jesus as their purported pattern.
It has taken 1700 years, but it’s finally catching up with them — science is displacing them and their mythology. They may paint a smug air but I’ll bet you those who truly understand the ‘gravity’, of their situation are ‘trembling in their boots’.
I’m neither stupid nor dumb but I am fully aware that I and my elder Catholic brethren, who remember ‘how things used to be’, will soon be gone. Then the gradual but subtle changes in the church to bring it into a closer conformity with realistic science, will go unnoticed by the majority — the church will conveniently sweep its dirt under the carpet, pretending as though it never happened, and very few will ever notice. That exact process has been going on already for centuries —it’s their only way out.
The next time you have an opportunity, ask your priest or minister; “exactly why did the Jewish hierarchy want Jesusdead? What was he preaching that precipitated such disdain for him?” I doubt many direct meaningful answers will be forthcoming. The bibles that we have now have been altered so much as to make that reason obscure. If the bible did tell us directly, there would be no need for any priests or preachers in their present capacity. We must ‘read between the lines’ to discern that truth. Certainly, if any one of them did know, it is very likely it would not be divulged to us — there’s a very specific reason for that. If they did tell us truthfully, they would negate any need and purpose for their existence in their present capacity.
What Jesus was preaching was in direct opposition to the Jewish sacrificial religion and their hierarchy saw it as a direct effort toundermine their livelihood. They were making a fortune feigning appeasement of a wrathful, vengeful, but merciful God while Jesus was teaching about an all-loving God who rejected no one. Jesus reportedly told us that our only duty was to Love (accept) God, and love (accept) our neighbor as ourselves.
The Jewish hierarchy incited the crowd to proclaim Jesus a traitor deserving of crucifixion. He knew they would, but he was determined that his people would know the one, true, all-loving God. Just as important, he wanted them liberated from the terrible persecuting blanket of guilt imposed on them originally by Moses, but perpetuated by the hierarchy, all for power, control, and money. To this day, I have been unable to discern much real improvement. Oh, we no longer have people being burned to death as witches, or for denying the earth is flat. But we still have a God who is wrathful but merciful, rather than a God who is all-loving and accepting.
As suggested in my little book, Wilderness Cry, If the church does not rapidly convert it basic tenets to coincide with known and accepted science, its ‘days are numbered. The church must heed my call for The WorldwideCommunion Spirituality so people may become like-minded about a singular concept of God’s essence and the reality of his attributes. Then, and only then, can fear beeliminated from the Church, and peace and joy can prevail.
You may wonder at the validity of this title – just what does it mean. Well, selfishness may be defined as ‘anything directed at self’. So, as we observe and investigate, we note that literally nothing escapes that singular notation. And, of course, as with every truth in this universe, selfishness is no different –God made it ‘to be that way’.
It is likely that, just as I, you were taught and led to believe that selfishness was a sin. That’s because we did not understand the parameters of selfishness or sin. We know that the concept of sin was introduced by Moses to help him in the civil management of his flock. So, considering that, let’s examine the parameters of selfishness.
Every living thing in this universe has needs —food, hydration, shelter, reproduction. For those needs to be fulfilled, it is an absolute necessity that those requirements be directed at self. So, are they to be categorized as sin? – I think not. Extremes of selfishness which we call greed has not been catalogued by the Catholic Church as one of the seven Cardinal Sins — Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth. However, I’d bet a bunch that the cataloguers squabbled quite a bit about whether or not it should be.
Sin, of course, was/is considered to be an offense against God — we hurt God’s feelings — make him unhappy — displeased him. I have shown many, many times in my books and other writings that such ideation is pure foolishness. God isA Perfect Rational Being and, as such, cannot possibly be hurt, displeased, or pleased. Such change in demeanor or attitude would immediately negate God’s perfection and, would, simultaneously, bring him out of eternity — remember, change equals time — there is no time in eternity.
What we are doing with extremes of greed, and any other activities known as sin, is hurting and displeasing our fellow man —we are sinning against our neighbor —we are violating ‘The Golden Rule” and Jesus’ command for us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Again, I have shown that we do not have to ‘like’ (like implies a pleasant sensual experience) anyone or anything, but we must ‘love’ (accept) our neighbor as he/she is.
Then, how is everything in the universe selfish? Again, I have shown in my writings how that even inanimate entities are perpetually selfish. Every grain of sand is constantly bearing down on its neighbors in an attempt to create a bigger, better spot for itself. Likewise, ever solid gravid object is doing the same. Gases will distribute themselves evenly throughout the extent of any space. The elements of wind and precipitation are gradually wearing away the rocks, mountains, and any structure which attempts to block their paths — in time, all will be reduced to a flat surface which offers no resistance. Why do you suppose that is? Without doubt, if there is a God, and I believe there is, it is because God allowed his universe to begin and evolve through a process of built-in imbalance called entropy. That imbalance ensures that change is perpetual — everything is changing in an attempt to come to an equilibrium.
That imbalance(entropy) creates a perpetual ‘need’ in everything. Those needs demand change, and change is measured in units which we call ‘time’. Consider this; if there were no needs, there would be no change; if no change, there would be no time; if no time, only ‘eternity’. We know that God exists in eternity. We also seem to know that at the moment of the ‘big bang’ God release his energy in the form of quanta of several different types. A quantum is the smallest particle of energy, which is perfect in both form and function, is unchanging and unchangeable, is indistinguishable from its counterparts, can neither be created nor destroyed by man, and cannot be further subdivided. As such, each exist in eternity just as God — collectively, they are God.
At the moment of their release, they instantly went about doing perfectly what they were designed to do — they formed the protons and neutrons which make up the nuclei of every atom, and together with electrons, they ultimately formed all the atoms of every element in the universe. Those atoms, of course, have needs and thereby react with other atoms to form compounds of all sorts and descriptions, and ultimately formed all the structures in our universe today. More importantly, at the moment of their release, change in the universe, time, began.
So, here we are nearly fourteen billion years later, and perpetual change continues. Knowledgeable physicists tell us that the universe will likely last another 75 to 100 billion years before it finally ‘balances itself’, and selfishness and time ceases — all will have returned to the ‘singularity (God) from whence they came.
So, you see, without selfishness, we, nor anything else, would be here. Likewise, do you see how ignorant, superstitious, and greedy men have created innumerable cultist religions, all feigning an attempt to appease an angry God?
The native Americans and many other cultures recognized the presence of God in everything. They had no scientific knowledge, but their instincts told them so.
It is scandalous to say the least, but I’ll have to ‘cut the early Israelites a little slack’ — they were stone-cold ignorant — they knew not one basic scientific fact. However, the King, High Priest, and Sanhedrin soon discover how lucrative their religion could be. Guess what — they seized upon that discovery with selfish ’greed’. Remember what Jesus had to say about them? He called them ‘a den of thieves’ — a brood of vipers — he overturned their moneychangers’ tables and drove them from the temple — such was his zeal.
Three hundred years later, those who formed the Holy Roman Catholic(universal) Church at the behest of Emperor Constantine, totally ignored Jesus’ teaching of an all-loving God, and, while using his name as a shield, fashioned a church exactly after the format of Judaism — with them in total control, of course —I doubt their sincerity.
I cannot, however, cut modern-day churches any slack. The science has been exposed now — ignorance, mythology, superstition, astrology, and witchcraft have long-since gone ‘out the window’. They persist, however, in religion — I wonder why.
Have you ever taken note that power and control = money? I have, and I’ll bet my last dollar that, if the ‘money-well dried up’, those who masquerade as our ‘spiritual caretakers’ would vanish like ghosts in the night. What do you think?
You may be scandalized by what I’m about to say but “God’s power in our universe is limited”. It is limited by his own reflection of himself. For at least 13.8 billion years it has been limited by the Perfect Truth System which he designed and released into this universe. That system is composed of all the perfect particles of his energy known as quanta. More importantly, that perfect truth system contains all truth which exists in this universe.
While we have no way of knowing, God may have trillions of other truth systems in other universes. However, we would not be able to recognize or understand any truth in any other system because it would be grossly different from ours — neither could we even know another system exists. The world-renowned scientist, Stephen Hawking, postulated that since a single electron can be in 10- to -the exponential -power -of- 50 (1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000) places simultaneously –some imponderable number, each of those places represents a different universe in existence — each with its own individual truth system different from ours. If it were the same as ours, it would not be a separate universe — it would, by necessity, be in our universe.
When God designed our universe, he established it with Perfect Truth which means no truth can be changed and no truth can be added or subtracted. If any ‘truth ‘could be changed, it would no longer fit into our Perfect Truth System. Furthermore, any change would immediately disrupt the entire system and it would immediately and completely implode. Therefore, God is powerless to change anything.
The implications of that understanding are staggering. They uproot, negate, and nullify all known concepts of God and religion — all are invalid because none ‘knows God’ — all have professed a God who can do whatever they want him to do. That represents pure child-like imagination which has been built on imagination, superstition, astrology, and mythology over the centuries but continues to be universally professed, promulgated, and practiced worldwide.
In ancient times, they even professed that they talked with God, bargained with him, and created pacts with him — such was, and still is, their imagination. They proposed and believed that by begging God incessantly, they can coax him to ‘perform a miracle’ just for their selfish selves. The Bible as well as the history of so-called Christian churches have professed innumerable instances of physical miracles — all based on ignorance, superstition, and I suspect in many instances, self-serving interests.
Here is why physical miracles are a philosophic and scientific impossibility. God is a Perfect Rational Being. With his Perfect Intellect, he envisioned all the perfect particles of energy which constitute the quantum substrate of every gravid entity in this universe. Everything in this universe is composed of those perfect particles. Those particles are perfect in both form and function, they are indistinguishable from their counterparts, they are unchanging and unchangeable, and can neither be created, nor destroyed nor further subdivided by man. Therefore, just as God is perfect and unchanging, they all exist in eternity — they are God’s reflection — they are God.
So, suppose God attempted to honor one of our prayers and change his basic nature (perform a miracle) at our insistence just to ‘honor our will’ (our begging and pleading), what would happen? Well, in the first instance, God is perfect and cannot change, and secondly, assuming that he could and did, everything in the universe would instantly be destroyed — the Perfect Truth System would cease to exist because the perfect nature of everything would instantly become so distorted as to be nonfunctional — it would be instantly destroyed — not a chance.
So where did these ideas of miracles come from anyway. I’ll tell you my conclusion. They came straight from the human imaginations which fashioned their ‘one true God’ after their own, very imperfect, nature’ — with pleasure, joy, anger, vengeance, wrath, befriending, scorning, loving, hating, accepting, rejecting, judging, bargaining, happiness, sadness, grief, greed, envy, jealousy, demanding, justifying, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. In simple terms, the image of God portrayed to us from all time carries the implications of every ‘human emotion’ known or imagined.
Consequently, with that in mind, it is understandable that the Israelites would fashion a religion of ‘sacrificial appeasement’ based on their concept of God. As that religion evolved over the centuries, the Jewish hierarchy began to see how their religious practices could be profitable to them. Number one, only the High Priest could make the sacrificial offering. Number two, the offering had to be a ‘perfect specimen’. Number three, that ‘perfect’ specimen could be provided only by the High Priest, and he charged heavily for his specimens and his services. The poor peasants were being oppressed mercilessly by their own government and religion as well as by the Romans under whose domain they struggled. Their religion forced a perpetual blanket of sin and guilt on them, and the Romans oppressed them with taxation — a double whammy.
By Jesus’ time, the oppression was unmerciful. There were zealots everywhere inciting riots hoping to overthrow both governments —they all failed — all were crucified. Jesus knew that. He also knew that the picture of God painted by the Jewish religion was a sham. He knew God was in everything and that God was all Love. He tried to educate his chosen apostles and followers to that fact in hopes they would spread that Good News (gospel) to all the world after his death. He knew he would be crucified but he was determined. It is very obvious that he was a total failure.
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I am allowed and even mandated to say ‘total failure’ for the following reasons. Jesus despised religion and openly said so. He called the hierarchy ‘hypocrites’, a ‘brood of vipers’ and ‘a den of thieves. He overturned their money-changers tables and drove them from the temple. He knew his days were numbered but his zeal overwhelmed him – he knew the real God was within him and all creation and he was determined that all the world would have that knowledge also. He was determined to liberate hisbrothers and sisters in God from the guilt imposed on them by the Jewish religion for simply being the human animal God designed them to be.
During the three hundred years after Jesus’ death, all sorts of ideas and teachings regarding Jesus, his words, and activities sprang up. So determined were the Jews to have a ‘recreated paradise just for themselves’, they obviously fabricated all sorts of stories about his Resurrection, Ascension, and his expected return to earth to finish the job – two-thousand years and nothing yet — don’t hold your breath – ‘it aint gonna happen’.
As noted above, those events are an impossibility – God would need to ‘change his nature’ – not a chance. Emperor Constantine, noting all the discord and constant haggling among the 1800 bishops, which was contributing to the ‘Christians’ lack of productivity in his domain, wisely decided to make a Chirstian religion the official ‘State Religion of the Roman Empire’. Consequently, he called those bishops into council at the ancient Turkish city of Nicaea – only 180 or so attended. Constantine commissioned them to form a Christian religion of their liking –it would be the official State religion enforced by the Roman army. Any dissenter had two choices, instant beheading or banishment to the wilds. After much haggling, with some being excommunicated, they reached a consensus – the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed.
Totally ignoring Jesus’ teachings of love and acceptance, they formed a church patterned exactly after the Jewish God, a God of ‘Mercy and Justice’ rather than Jesus’ God of Love. They created a liturgy exactly as the Jews – a sacrificial ritual intended to ‘appease’ an angry God. They used Jesus’ name to give it authority, but they did not use Jesus’ teachings of love – Jesus failed – he is failing still.
Jesus keen insights told him that the Jewish God was nonsense. Their God was sitting in heaven ‘up there’ over-lording his creation, always ready and willing to wreak havoc on any and all parts of it which were ‘down here’. Jesus’ God was ‘in all things’ — all things were/are a reflection of their creator — ‘See the lilies of the field…..’.
It should be rather obvious then that God’s mind cannot be changed –it has been set in stone from/for all eternity. All the begging and pleading for God to change his nature and ‘bend his will’ to ours is senseless – we must submit our wills to him and willingly accept our fate.
Our only justifiable prayer is ‘Thank you God’. When we congregate, our eucharist should be a communal praising and thanking God for our existence, our sustenance and for our eternal destiny in him. Our communion must be a recognition we are one with all creation – our spirit and the spirit of all creation are one in the Holy Spirit, the Eternal Will of God. That recognition and understanding is Spirituality. In that light we could all become like-minded in God – peace could prevail. So, once again, I call for the acceptance of The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality which recognizes and accepts that understanding. It is our only hope for peace. Irrational religion must be replaced with a rational understanding of God.
We must change – God is powerless to change.
As many of you know, I have written extensively about these subjects. In Wilderness Cry, I define the Essence of God. In Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic, I elaborate on many, many subjects emanating from that definition of God’s essence — most importantly, I define Spirituality and its necessity for peace to prevail. In addition, Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky, will give you both an historical and humorous insight into my upbringings and childhood exploits through my first year of Medical School.
How many hundred, maybe thousands, of times have we heard the term ‘God’s Will’? More importantly, how have we understood or interpreted that term? — just what exactly is God’s Will?
In my writings, I have explained God’s Will many times. However, I am dedicating this post exclusively to that subject. To understand God’s will, one must by necessity both understand and have a clear mental and philosophical picture of both the Trinity and rationality. Of course, we all have been told innumerable times that the Trinity is not understandable by us mere mortals — I can prove that idea to be completely erroneous.
I am not taking total credit for defining Trinity, but I am takin exclusive credit for both understanding and demonstrating scientifically and philosophically how Trinity works. The basic definition was presented to me by a young Jesuit priest who was retreat-master for our Saint Louis University Medical School graduating class in 1958. He explained to me and two of my classmates how Trinity God should be understood and visualized.
God, the Father should be thought of as a Perfect Intellect.
When that Perfect Intellect reflects upon itself, it sees a mirror image which, being in the supernatural, is a living person identical to the Father — The Son — second person of Trinity.
Then, what choice do two Perfect Intellects viewing each other perpetually have except to love,
choose, accept, will, each other? — obviously none. That loving, choosing, accepting, willing each other carries the exact image of its generators and is The Holy Spirit — The Will of God.
Now we have three identical persons but only one God.
So, there you have an easy to visualize Trinity God — but how is that Trinity exhibited in the real universe? That is where the concept of Perfect Rationality coupled with knowledge of Quantum Mechanics (particle physics) enter the picture of understanding.
Let’s tackle Perfect Rationality first. We humans are rational, but our rationality is very imperfect because we do not know everything that is available to be known in this universe — its designer does. Brute animals and even one cell animals seem to have a rationality also — they act and react to stimuli also. It would seem, however, that they lack the ability to cipher.
Philosophically, me must admit that the Perfect Intellect who we call God, who designed every building block in this universe, loved, chose, accepted, and willed those building blocks into being. That loving, choosing, accepting, willing by that Perfect Intellect, the Will of that God, is the Holy Spirit— the driving force which, not only brought them into existence, but maintains them perfectly — they are branded, so to speak, with The Will of God. Those building blocks are a mirror image of their imaginer — they are the Son, the second person of Trinity.
Now, let’s apply that understanding to God’s Perfect Truth System—Quantum Mechanics. A quantum is the smallest particle of energy in existence. Each quantum has the following characteristics: each is perfect in both form and function, each is unchanging and unchangeable, each is indistinguishable from its counterparts, none exists today than at the moment of their creation roughly 13.8 billion years ago, and none can be destroyed or created by man. There are many varieties of quanta, each with specific duties and actions. Some you are likely familiar with — electron and photons — some less familiar are bosons, quarks, fermions, gluons, neutrinos, etc. Because of their characteristics, just as God, they exist in eternity, they are a mirrorreflection of God, they are God. Collectively quanta comprise the substrate for every atom in existence — atoms can be split, quanta cannot. Furthermore, quanta provided all light and thermoelectric energy in the universe. All truth is contained in them. Collectively, they constitute a Perfect Truth System — there is no truth in our universe outside the Perfect Truth System of God’s reflection. That truth is there for us to discover. I seriously doubt we have discovered one ten-trillionth of that truth so far.
No one can prove or disprove the existence of God — that is the only faith we must have. However, we can certainly demonstrate conclusively, the Perfect Rationality which pervades the limits of our universe. The great particle physicists, Stephen Hawking suggested that the universe could have just ‘happened’, Big Bang and all. And that may be true. However, Quantum Mechanics demonstrates clearly that a Perfect Rationality exists in our universe and that Perfect Rationality encompasses all truth —it is a Perfect Truth system. Any consideration of God must encompass the concept of a Perfect Rationality as its designer and sustainer which negates the validity of all religion.
If there is God, and I accept that there is, it must be a Perfect Rational Being. A perfect Rationality encompasses Perfect Love. Perfect Love has no expectations — concepts of hell, sin, purgatory, limbo, an earth-like heaven, and the like are pure nonsense. All the Old Testament and most of New Testament are pure fairy tales emanating from some ignorant (not knowing), superstitious imaginations, and have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
We have absolutely no way of knowing what Jesus actually did and said, but one thing seems clear — he understood that God existed in all things. Furthermore, he clearly saw the collusion between Judaism and Rome which collectively were oppressing his people. He recognized the Spirit of God within himself. It is possible Jesus was a mad-man, but his understanding and insight drove him to call the Jewish hierarchy what he saw — a brood of vipers — a den of thieves. He knew he would be hanged on a tree for his heresy, but he was determined to pull the terrible, controlling ‘blanket of guilt, imposed by religion, off the world. He had hoped to educate his followers so they might spread the word worldwide — obviously, he was almost a total, failure.
Throughout the centuries many great thinkers have recognized God’s presence in everything. As far as I can tell, Jesus was the first — ‘split a piece of wood and I’ll be there. Lift a rock and find me there’ (paraphrased). Other notables were Saint Francis of Assisi and Meister Eckart, a famous German theologian. Likely there were many others but for fear of excommunication or burning at the stake, they kept it to themselves.
I sincerely trust I have made this rather complicated subject clear for your understanding.
Now I shall revert to that ‘retreat’ in 1958. The young Jesuit who painted the picture of Trinity for me and two of my classmates cautioned us sternly to tell no one. I did not understand his cautious approach to such a startling understanding that day. It was sixty-five years later when I encountered Quantum Mechanics, that I was suddenly able to do something never before done, define the Essence of God — Instantly, God became a Perfect Rational being — the young Jesuit’s definition suddenly rang true. That definition and understanding had devastating implications for all religion—all became illegitimate — all suddenly were cultist— none knew the mythical god they worshiped — all had false expectations and understanding of God — all were basically worshiping Zeus and Apollo.
That young priest knew what his fate would be if he dared to confront his Church and superiors with his knowledge— he would have immediately been excommunicated from the Catholic Church, as well as be expelled from the Jesuit Order of priests. But he was brilliant — I can never thank him enough for his candor and courage.
Most of you reading this know that I have written extensively about this and related subjects. My First book, Wilderness Cry was met with many emotions, including exhilaration by many, bewilderment by others, disbelief by a few, expanded clarification by others (still going on), but absolutely no attempt at refutation. Amazon Books basically called it a masterpiece of courage and understanding. Covenant Books called it a ‘Beacon of Enlightenment.’. My second and third books, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic, expand and expound on God’s attributes and offer a failproof pathway to world peace. It is only through The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality, which I called for three years ago, that peace can be achieved. That concept entails a like-minded understanding and acceptance by everyone that the Holy Spirit of God (God’s Will) is stamped onto every perfect particle of energy in this universe. As such, all are brothers and sisters in the Substance of God. Irrational religion must go. Rational Love and Praise of God, plus acceptance of each other must take its place.
Growing Up in Fancy Farm Kentucky was written under duress, so to speak — my hunting buddies kept insisting. So, I had to do it. I hope you will find it entertaining.
The word gullible means ‘easily persuaded to believe something’. In that light, we may say that all little children are gullible because we witness it on a daily basis — nowhere more convincingly than ‘Santa Claus and Easter Bunny’. So, why are little children gullible? The obvious answer is simple — ignorance — they do not know any better. However, as they grow and become educated about life and living facts (reach the age of reason), they realize both entities are fairy tales or myths. They soon learn that Santa cannot possibly come down a chimney —neither can reindeer fly. Likewise, they soon learn that rabbits don’t lay eggs, especially candy ones.
With that understanding, how is it possible that so many adults seem to be very gullible about so many things, especially politics and religion — after all, they are educated adults, aren’t they? I suppose, because that may be a semi rhetorical and semi direct question, we need to explore the ‘whys’ of that question.
The ‘rhetorical’ part stems from our preconceived idea that ‘we all share the same common idea about something’ —in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes, we may think others share our thoughts and understandings, but we are, in fact, badly mistaken. It is impossible for any two people to have an identical idea. That reason rests in the fact that no two personalities are anything alike. Therefore, no single idea can possibly be interpreted identical to another person’s—similar yes, identical no.
The ‘direct’ part stems from the very mistaken idea that others think like we do. To dispel that idea, all one has to do is tune in to different news programs on television or radio talking about an identical subject —the unsuspecting would be terribly confused by what he heard— likely an opposite idea would be proposed concerning the same subject. Then it becomes a matter of ‘whom do you believe or ‘trust’. Based on your pre-programming and built-in biases any individual may choose one or the other or, possibly neither. There’s an old saying that ‘birds of a feather flock together’, and another that says, ‘misery loves company’. So, often in our bewilderment and/or ignorance, we may choose sides—unabashed gullibility.
It seems to me that those sentiments and actions are applicable more to religion and politics than anywhere else. However, they apply to all sorts of situations in our lives — consider sports. Except in very unusual situations could one find themselves not rooting for their child’s team — what about college and Pro teams. Many people recognize a consistent winner and feel exhilaration at being emotionally attached to it. Others may have a thousand different reasons for rooting for a player or team —it’s all about our individual perceptions and expectations. Mind you, however, of the thousands and thousands who may root for the same team, no two do so for identical reasons — each has his own bias.
In the case of politics, we have a dichotomy of basic opinion among voter-age adults, and why is that possible — don’t’ most people think alike? —not on your life. Each person has specific and/or preconceived ideas about most things. Others may not have given a certain subject much thought or attention and thereby, be subject to persuasion which leads to ‘flocking ’with a certain group without really knowing why —it’s a convenience thing — built in gullibility.
I am convinced that most choices of social and religious concern have been instilled in us from childhood on so, when we become adults, we find it natural and easy to ‘go along’ with the crowd we’ve been taught to identify with — sadly, many don’t give it a ‘second thought’— built in gullibility.
On the other hand, there are many people who for various reasons may begin to question some of their indoctrination. For instance, a child who has been indoctrinated in extreme liberalism and eagerly accepts the concept of ‘government giveaways’ may ‘change his tune abruptly when he gets a real job and sees his paycheck riddled with taxes — gullibility may be corrected instantly.
In my own case, even though we were paupers living with five brothers in a three-room shack with no electricity and with the ICRR freight line running through our front yard, my parents instilled in us the concepts that ‘hard work, determination, and our religion’ were the most important things in life — all were ‘built in’ concepts of life from day one. The hard work and determination part stuck like a postage stamp, but at about age eleven to thirteen, I began to question in my mind the validity of certain religious concepts.
At that time in history, 1944-46, questions about Tenets of Roman Catholicism were scorned and, disrespectfully, went unanswered. However, I had an ‘ace in the hole’. I was an altar boy (acolyte)and good friends with our parish priest. That relationship came about two ways — in 1935, he had prevailed upon my mother to compose a history of our little community of Fancy Farm, Kentucky and in addition, I had a good quail and rabbit dog— Father Russell liked for me to take him hunting with Ole Bear. Accordingly, I had no fear or qualms about asking him questions about our religion.
Being an altar boy brought me front and center with most church activities including the dozens of times we as a parish prayed incessantly for God to perform a miracle for us and make it rain when our crops were dying of thirst and the like – not one prayer was ever answered – it never rained – not even once. I asked him straight out why God would not ‘answer our prayers’? —after all, we were God’s ‘most love’ people. His answer, “It is God’s will” flattened me. My mind began spinning like a top —the obvious pertained. If it were God’s will, then all that praying, which we did incessantly, was a ‘total waste of time and energy and terribly misdirected — obviously, God’s will could not be changed — my gullibility about God and religion had been shattered. At that moment, I did not understand the implications, but I became determined to learn the full meaning of that statement. As stated in my little philosophy book, WILDERNESS CRY, at that moment I embarked on a journey of understanding.
It took me sixty-five years or so to complete the journey and dispel all traces of gullibility by finally accomplishing something never before done — define the essence of God. I had to explain why God’s will could not be changed. It was a daunting task but with a gratuitous encounter with Quantum Mechanics (particle physics), it was startlingly simple and easy. In the ever most simple six little words God’s essence could be defined — God is a Perfect Rational Being. Nothing can be added or subtracted from that definition.
The implications of that definition are staggering. Most important of all, it means God is Perfect Love. Nearly as important, it immediately negates and nullifies any and all religions ever to be known because none of them can define the God of whom they speak. In light of that definition, it should be quite obvious that God’s will cannot be changed — if God could change his will, his very nature would by necessity change — the ‘perfect truth system’ in this universe would be lost and the universe would immediately implode— not a chance. Something perfect is complete — it cannot be hurt or helped, pleased or displeased, or changed in any way. Therefore, the obvious pertains — we have only one justifiable prayer— “Thank You Lord God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (Will of God) for my life and sustenance here on this earth, and for my eternal life in you forever”. Amen – gullibility eliminated.
So, it should be rather obvious that we can eliminate all gullibility about religion by knowing and understanding God’s essence. Should we congregate? Yes, but with a different mindset. WE should gather to celebrate God’s love of us and all his creation with joyous praise of thanksgiving — hopefully, making us more accepting and loving of both God and our neighbor. We are not obligated in any way to do so but I believe it would give us an awareness of our Creator never before appreciated — God is Perfect Love, not merciful, not angry, not hurt, not pleased or displeased. God accepts and loves all hiscreation with a Perfect Love because he is accepting and loving a mirror image of himself. All creation is ‘the Second Person of Trinity’ — Jesus was our one and only representative who recognized that and willingly gave his life that we may know.
Jesus was killed because he told the Jewish hierarchy that they were a den of thieves and a pit of vipers because they imposed their guilt-ridden religion which feigned appeasement of an angry God while, all the time, bilking the public of their hard-earned resources. Jesus despised religion and openly said so.
And, three hundred years later, those who established the Holy Roman Catholic Church completely ignored Jesus and established a Church patterned exactly after Judaism, hierarchy, sacrifice, and all. Still yet, those who broke from the Roman church with the Protestant Reformation patterned their ‘gazillion’ churches after a book which is so contaminated and corrupted as to be nearly useless – another form of blanket guilt – none knows God – all know how to bilk our resources.
If you have not done so, please read my little book Wilderness Cry. You will then want to read Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic – gullibility gone — wouldn’t it be nice if gullibility in politics was that easy to eliminate?
How often we hear our priests or preachers speak about ‘a merciful God’ or ‘God’s mercy’. And personally, I cringe every time I hear it. The concept of a ‘merciful God’ is a direct holdover from the old Jewish idea of a God who is basically vengeful but one who can at times be merciful. The imagined demonstration of that mercy comes only as a consequence of our incessant begging and pleading with God to forgive us and is often accompanied by some sort of sacrifice on our part. In the old Jewish days, that sacrifice was in the form of burned offerings of perfect specimens of one kind or another which could only be supplied by and offered by the High Priest.
When the Roman Catholic Church was formed at the behest of Roman Emperor Constantine during the first council at Nicaea in ancient Turkey in 325 AD, the sacrificial offering changed from a ‘perfect offering’ of some animal or produce specimen to the ‘unbloody sacrifice’ of the recreated body and blood of Jesus, himself during the Catholic Mass ritual. Of course, just as in the Jewish ritual, only the priest could provide that recreated Jesus and then offer him to God his father in hopes of appeasing our vengeful God and thereby garner his mercy.
To the unsuspecting, all that may sound well and good. However, in light of my definition of our God’s essence as ‘A Perfect rational Being’, none of that concept fits. First of all, since God is perfect, he cannot possibly be hurt, displeased, or please; therefore, no attempt at appeasement is rational. Secondly, God’s perfection demands he be ‘Perfect Love’. Perfect Love means ‘acceptance without conditions’ — God loves us and all his creation unconditionally, regardless of what we do or don’t do. Therefore, philosophically speaking, there cannot be any legitimate rational concept of a ‘merciful God’—that idea is a direct holdover from Mosaic Law and ancient Jewish ritual.
You may protest that when we murder, rape, steal, etc. we are sinning against God. Not so — we are sinning against each other, and that’s why we have civil laws. Moses used that identical tactic against the Israelites when they became hedonistic and distrustful of both God and Moses while wandering in the desert. Moses was intelligent — after all, he weaseled his way out of murder while in Egypt and then managed to become leader of the Israelites. So, he sat down and reasoned to a good set of ‘civil rules’. His intention was to get the Israelites to correct their wayward activities. However, they just laughed at him. So, he resorted to the last weapon he had at his disposal — he invented sin. He presented a second set of civil rules to them but, his time, he presented them as God’s rules with the stern admonition that any lawbreaker was ‘sinning’ against God and certainly would reap God’s wrath.
Of course, being human, they all sinned incessantly in one way or another. Since, in their minds, they were offending God, they reasoned that he must be appeased — the concept of ‘sacrificial appeasement’ came into being while hoping for God’s mercy. Eventually, the Israelites reached the Promised Land, but the dye had been cast — God must be appeased at all costs — and cost it did. A hierarchy was established with a High Priest who became the ‘chief appeaser”. His services did not come free. Neither were they haphazard — a specific ritual was established, and religion was invented.
By the time Jesus came along, usurpation of both power and wealth by the High Priest was so open and arrogant that Jesus railed against it. He knew he would be killed for his attitude and teachings but his determination to liberate his brethren from the ‘stifling yoke of guilt’ imposed upon them by Jewish religious abuses drove him onward. He attempted to educate his followers about the true, all-loving God, before his death so they might tell the world — God is not and cannot be merciful — God is all love. In fact, Jesus’ only direct command was ‘to love your God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself’.
Whatever his aspirations and hopes, it is quite obvious that ‘Jesus was a total failure’. Oh, that his word had been heeded. We would not have thousands and thousands of ‘fake, mythical religions’ tearing at the heartstrings of people everywhere. We would have an earth covered with loving, accepting, people who are at peace with God and each other.
Accordingly, once again, I enter my plea for ‘The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality’ which is the recognition and acceptance that every particle of energy which makes up everything in our universe is ‘branded’ with The Holy Spirit, The Will of God — otherwise it could not be.
For complete elucidation of these concepts and many more, please read my little books, Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. I believe you would find my book Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky, both educational and amusingly humorous. All available Amazon Kindle, and from me, handg@comcast.net.
NB: all comments and/or questions are welcomed and will be addressed forthrightly.
How many thousands of times we have heard from preachers and others that we have ‘free will’! And on the surface, to the unsuspecting, that statement may seem true. However, on closer examination, we can prove it to be %100 incorrect — there is no such thing as free will. Here is why.
For centuries, Thomas Aquinas and others have proclaimed that the will is an ’independent operating function’ of rationality. It seems clear that their objective was to satisfy the Churches’ meaning of sin and thereby, impale us with a blanket of guilt for purposes of control. In other words, they were determined to make ‘the foot fit the shoe’ rather than ‘allow the shoe to fit the foot’. By that, I mean that clearly, either they did not understand, or they would not accept the proper relationship between intellect and will.
The term ‘rationality’ applies to the concept of an ‘intellect’ which ciphers and perceives and a ‘will’ which accepts and achieves. Aquinas and others suggested and proclaimed that the will was an independent operator — no matter what the intellect suggested, the will was free to do as it pleased. I can prove to you that they were sorely incorrect. I can prove through your own observations that the will must choose what the intellect determines to be the better of two choices.
Let’s consider some every day, ordinary circumstances. Without doubt, most of the choices we make every day were predetermined by each of us a long time in the past — we call that routine. For instance, we learned early in life not to deliberately touch a very hot object, nor to chop at our fingers with a sharp tool, nor go out into the bitter cold naked, and literally thousands of other things we do or don’t do routinely. And how did those routines come about? It is our intellects which perceive the harm and tells us from experience not to choose those activities because they hurt us — our wills must obey if we are rational.
So, when people lose contact with reality, we describe them as being psychotic or insane —they say and do things which are totally irrational. But even there, it is their intellects which have gone awry.
The will is simply ‘the executive arm’ of the intellect. In a rational person the will must choose what the intellect present to it as the better choice. Many choices become routine because they have been learned in the distant past. However, it is likely that not a day goes by without some new, different, or perplexing situation presenting itself. So, what happens next? With our intellects, we analyze all possible solutions. We may begin our analysis with many possible solutions but usually rapidly narrow them down to three or four. From there we may seek advice, do research, and analyze each possibility more carefully. However, eventually we always narrow the choices down to two possibilities. Then with our intellects, we must choose one over the other, and which ever one the intellect settles on as being better, the will must choose — the will cannot choose otherwise.
Here’s the catch. Present five or ten people with the same dilemma and observe the results. It is possible that each may conclude a different option as being best. And how is that possible? Simply because each of them has been prejudiced by millions of previous experiences and choices which influence their final selection. If it were not that way, we would not be different individuals — we would all think and choose exactly alike.
So, it should be quite obvious that not even the intellect is free. In a rational person, it is never allowed to make an irrational selection. Despite that, because of personal, previously ingrained predisposition or prejudices, what seems rational to one person may seem irrational to another. And then we spend the rest or our day ‘scratching our heads’ and proclaiming, “I just don’t see why she wanted to do that”. Did you ever hear of ‘politics or religion’? Seem like nowhere is that “I don’t see why” illustrated better than in those two quandaries.
In general, humanity is hampered severely by ignorance which means ‘we do not know’. How often have we heard someone say, “If I had known that I would have done differently”? Obviously, we can’t know everything, and to make matters worse, we are constantly being bombarded with misinformation, disinformation, and oftentimes, deliberate lies. We simply do the best we can. We must do and act on what our intellects tell us is the better of the final courses of action to take.
I have outlined that understanding in my books and have extrapolated that knowledge to demonstrate many concepts regarding our relationship with God and our fellow man. I have demonstrated the importance of those concepts in the innate understanding of individual ‘personality development’ and have shown how important they are to understanding each other and ourselves.
So, go ahead. Stick your hand against a red-hot stove eye — let your will tell your intellect to ‘get lost’. I expect that now you understand ‘there’s no such thing as free will’ — if you’re rational, that is.
If you have not read my thesis, Wilderness Cry, I strongly urge you to do so. I’ll bet you’ll then want to read Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic. You may wish to know about my ‘Tom Sawyer’-like childhood. If so, Growing Up in Fancy Farm Kentucky is for you.
We are rapidly approaching one of the most beautiful and wonderful times of the year for Christians —the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It has become a custom to celebrate that occasion with a combination of grandeur and stress. The grandeur is exhibited by the effervescent display of adornments, music, and celebration with family and friends —frequently religious celebrations also. The stress involves many issues, the greatest of which revolve around two things — resources and effort. All to frequently people become stressed out trying to stretch their meager budget to meet the requirements of a ‘perfect gift’ for someone. The effort comes in the searching and searching for that ‘perfect budgetary gift’.
In near total contrast to the ‘meager monetary expenditure and major emphasis on the religious’ celebration of that event which I experienced as a child and young man, today’s celebrations have escalated into the exact opposite — major stressful monetary outlay and hoopla but little emphasis on the basic meaning of the event itself. I think I know why.
The fairytale picture surrounding the birth and early life of Jesus as presented by Matthew (2: 1-23, paraphrased) in his gospel is very exciting to little children — astrologers (magi, wise men, kings) following Jesus’ star to where it stood over where Jesus lay. But first the star directed them to King Herod where they inquired of the whereabouts of the new-born king. Consultation with his own sages prompted Herod to instruct the astrologers that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem, to go ‘check him out’, and report back to him. The star then guided the astrologers to Bethlehem where the found Jesus, worshiped him, and presented him with gifts. After being warned in a dream of Herod’s ill intentions, they went back home by another rout. Also, Jesus’ father, Joseph was warned in a dream, and fled to Egypt with Jesus and Mary. Herod then ordered all males two years old and younger in the Bethlehem area to be slaughtered in the hopes that Jesus would be included.
There are several points of interest to be noted here. Of the four gospel writers, Matthew is the only one to describe such an astrological series of events. Mark and John do not describe the birth of Jesus at all and Luke contradicts Matthew completely by saying that, after the days of purification were completed, Joseph and Mary took Jesus directly back home to Nazareth.
It has been well established that astrology, the pseudoscience of astronomy has permeated the development of religious beliefs from day one. Astrology was accepted as the absolute ‘science’ of how the celestial bodies influenced human lives and livelihoods from two to three thousand years BC onward. The Zodiac had been developed centuries before Jesus and was known to be influential in determining much about each person’s relationship with God and nature. The Chinese, Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, and others had somewhat differing adaptations and interpretations, but the bottom line was basically the same — celestial bodies exerted a major controlling effect on what happened here on earth. Researchers note that much of the Old Testament is filled with astrological impressions. In fact, many scholars have suggested that the twelve tribes of Israel are based on the twelve zodiac figures —what about the twelve apostles?
Roman Catholic history shows conclusively that Astrology was accepted as absolute ‘science’ until well after Galileo proved them wrong about many things. In fact, there still exists a huge Zodiac embedded in the stone of Saint Peters Square in Rome. It has been noted that the Zodiac was used to determine the best timing for building Saint Peter’s Basilica. Taylor, in his book, Sex in History, noted that up until about the year 1800, the Pope always had ‘an astute astrologer’ at his side when making major decisions.
Also, of major note is the fact that there is an entire liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church and its near mimickers celebrating the Epiphany (enlightenment) based on Matthew’s description of the astrologers from afar.
My contention is that all this is total nonsense — tantamount to ‘Santa Claus’ for adults. It is a fairy tale. Any rational being knows that stars cannot come close enough to ‘stand over’ a birth site or any other site for that matter. The nearest star to our earth is 93 million miles away. As I have noted many, many times before, for any such event to occur, God would have to change his nature. Since God is A Perfect Rational Being, no chance is possible in God. If it were possible, all truth would instantly be abolished and likely, the entire universe would implode immediately because nothing could function as designed.
So, without doubt, the Christmas story, from that standpoint, is a total myth. Mind you, I did not say nor imply that Jesus is a myth — far from it. As an historical, figure, Jesus is as real as dirt. I am convinced, again without doubt, that almost everything written about Jesus, which we have today, is also a myth. I am convinced it was written by people who were determined to have their mythical predictions about a messiah found in the Old Testament come true. We have absolutely no way of knowing what Matthew or any early writer actually wrote — all we have is a single copy made from literally hundreds of copies made over a two-hundred-year period by people who were fighting and arguing among themselves about who Jesus was and exactly what he said and did. We have someone’s ‘last word’ and, even that has been written, altered, and rewritten ad nauseum by biased writers who had ‘an axe to grind’ during the last fifteen hundred years — oh, how many ‘versions’ of the Bible there have been!
So, how do we or should we think about Christmas? We know that Jesus was not born on December 25. That, simply, is a date set aside by the Church to counteract a pagan ritual occurring on that same date. Regardless, it is a date of celebration of Jesus’ birth, and for that reason, it deserves our utmost attention —after all, he is the most important person ever in our lives. He is the one who, contrary to his Jewish upbringing, recognized the presence of our Perfect God in all his creation, and more importantly, had the courage and bravery to say so very emphatically. He knew he would be crucified for saying so but his unbelievable insight and courage drove him to be our liberator. He knew and understood that God is Perfect Love, that God exists in all his creation, that God could not possibly reject himself, that there is, therefore, no such thing as a sin against God — an idea with which Moses had impaled his people for purposes of control, and which later was used by the Jewish hierarchy to extract the poor peasants’ wealth. He had the courage to call them, to their faces, hypocrites, a den of thieves, a brood of vipers. He had hoped that his apostles understood him and would ‘spread that gospel’ to all the earth — quite obviously, he was a total failure. Just look at what we have today — a world exactly resembling what Jesus saw, only worse. Those who plagiarized and bastardized his name for personal gain are much more rampant and, I might say venomous, in their approach than ever. Religion created in his name has been torn, and split so many times and ways that he and his teaching of love are unrecognizable— seemingly, not one of them knows the Jesus I know — not one confesses a God of Perfect Rationality and Love.
So, why has Christmas turned into a period of mass turmoil laden with stress rather than a calm glorious celebration? I’ll give you a hint — it’s called secularism. And why secularism? Plainly, as people have become more educated, they have recognized the mythology proposed by so-called Christianity — religion has become more and more irrelevant on a larger and larger scale. Consequently, they turn to the only thing that gives them consolation and pleasure, Santa Claus for the children and gifts to everyone else. Christmas has become a season for giving —where does it end? Not a day goes by that we do not get a minimum of five requests for charitable contributions. Those requests usually start in late November and continue until after Christmas—of course, we have already contributed to most of them earlier in the year, but that matters little –they prey on our sympathy.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a glorious celebration of the birthday of ‘the real Jesus’? —it likely will never happen and that is sad indeed.
If we were allowed to recognize Jesus’ real mission and intention, and recognize the real God, we would be offering them our only legitimate prayer — ‘thank you dear God for my life, my sustenance, and my eternity in you, and thank you dear Jesus for liberating me from the ‘vengeful’ God of the Jews’.
I have expanded and expounded that philosophy extensively in my three books, Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky is a humorous presentation of my childhood life in the Fancy Farm Community. All available Amazon-Kindle and from me, handg@comcast.net.
Have you ever wondered why and how two of the oldest philosophies/religions in the world came to be? More importantly, have you ever considered the ultimate concepts contained in those philosophies ? While I do not know, with certainty, about their origin and development, it seems likely to me that they were a direct attempt to understand the basic meaning of life, and at the same time, discover the nature if its origin. While the Abrahamic religions were busy bargaining with their god, and offering sacrifices to him, the contemplative far-easterners were desperately trying to understand if such an entity actually existed, and, if so, in what environs.
My research tells me that the contemplatives were way ahead of the sacrificials who had dreamed up a scheme of power and control right out of their own playbook—that is to say, they manufactured a god patterned directly after their own possessive, egotistical selves. Their god was theirs alone and could not be shared with anyone.
Can there be a greater thrill? I’d vouch to say that no one, who professes an Abrahamic religion, is any closer to God than any Hindu or Buddhist who ever lived. We, each, are loved equally by our Perfect Loving Creator, with no one possibly being more favored over another—there are no such things as higher places in heaven.
ng many posts the last few days about anxiety, depression, lack of self-esteem etc. It should be noted that there is always a significant up-tick in these feelings during dark of winter, and especially near Christmas-time. There are two categories of anxiety; one type is generated by real circumstances such as concerns about where your next rent payment will come from. That is conscious anxiety and normal. The next type, which is universal, is subconscious anxiety which has a much different generator. It is instilled in us at an early age before we are rational. We are made to believe that we are bad by well-meaning parents, teachers, preachers and others. Those ideas and feelings are stored in our subconsciousness. We don’t remember the specific incidents which caused the ideas and feelings, but we have a general feeling of uneasiness and don’t know why. The more we have been poorly indoctrinated in our formative years, the greater feelings of guilt and anxiety we exhibit. Greater degrees and extremes of anxiety may, and frequently do, lead to depression, even to the point of taking ones own life. Depression is caused by our failed exhaustive attempts to ward off punishment generated by the guilt instilled in us. We see defensive reactions exhibited in many ways but two stand out. One is the overbearing hot head know-it-all who has to be right all the time; would argue a point “till hell freezes over”, and all the time likely being wrong. The other in the cowed, meek, person who exhibits no feelings of self esteem. Typically, that person is shy, backward, hates to meet new people, doesn’t like crowds, would panic if asked to speak to a public audience, and typically will cling to one or two people in their lives. Usually they live in constant fear but have no idea why. In my powerful little book, Wilderness Cry, I show how Ideologies and Religion are the two main culprits in causing those problems. Both of those entities impose on us ideas and demands totally contrary to our God-given nature. As infants, toddlers and small children, we are not capable of a rational analysis of these contrarian ideas; we simply are left with the built-in ideas that we are bad which generates guilt; guilt generates need for punishment; punishment generates anxiety which generates feelings of worthlessness and depression. I show in my book that religions and ideologies in general have ignored Jesus’ command for us to love one another as ourselves. If that were the norm in our society, our children would be inculcated in a framework of love and acceptance. The result would be dramatic. Universal peace would prevail, anxiety would be reduced to a minimum, and people would be God-loving and people-loving. It will likely never happen because of Power, Money and Control. Dictators and Church Hierarchy will never relinquish their Power. For an understanding of how to rid yourself of these anxious feelings and for a complete elucidation of many, many more concepts, you must read my book, Wilderness Cry- a Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe. Amazon and all on-line book retailers.
WILDERNESS CRY by Hilary L Hunt MD 