I am aware that the above referenced quotation is and has been a periodic recurring reading in Roman Catholic liturgy service for several decades. I am also aware that during those six decades or so, I have yet to hear it or its meaning addressed in any homily. As a matter of usual routine, the selected epistle and gospel readings and their significance are addressed in the homilies with specific application to us, the communicants. Having noticed this aberration has caused me to ponder its reason, and after due consideration, I believe I know the “why”. It has to do with the basic fundamentals of religion.
You will recall that the God of the Jews was a vengeful God who demanded sacrifice to soothe his brow. Those sacrifices were usually burnt offerings which were both provided by and offered by the High Priest for a “pretty penny” –– a real money-making scheme. The Jews thought of their God as residing in some ethereal place called heaven who would send a messiah to restore paradise right here on earth just for them. When Jesus appeared, they recognized him as that messiah but when they ask him when he was going to restore the Kingdom, Jesus told them the Kingdom of God was spread out all over the earth around them and they didn’t see it. Their consternation became really magnified when Jesus told them he first had to die, but before his death at his last supper, he instructed them to recreate his body and blood from bread and wine.
Those Bishops who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church in 325 AD, honoring their Jewish heritage, created a new ‘sacrificial religion’ known as Christianity. So, now we have the ‘sacrifice of the Mass’ — still attempting to appease an angry, vengeful God, and awaiting Jesus’ return so he might ‘restore the Kingdom’.
It seems quite clear to me that John recognized God in everyone of us. We, however, are blinded now and cannot see our glory, but when we die and see our reflection which is God, we will know and understand all just as our Father God — we are his children — his reflection. Obviously, John’s understanding is in total conflict with us making sacrificial offerings to ourselves. Both Catholic priests and Protestant ministers alike have nowhere to go with John’s philosophy except to negate the validity of their own existence — so, that reading gets routinely ignored.
Likely, there are many others, but I am aware of only four people who recognized God’s presence in all creation, Jesus, the Apostle John, Francis of Assie, and Meister Eckert, a German philosopher. It took me sixty years of intense study, reading and investigation before I stumbled on a course in Particle Physics which made it very clear to me that everything in this universe is made of identical perfect particles of energy which because of their basic characteristics, already exist in eternity but make the substrate for everything that has a temporal existence. Cumulatively, they form a ‘perfect rationality’ and a perfect ‘truth system’ outside of which there is no truth. That understanding not only allowed but demanded an essential definition of God as ‘A Perfect Rational Being’. When we die, our immortality will be exposed and we will see ourselves in that state of Perfect Rationality just as the One who created us — that will truly be ‘heaven’.
I am aware that the above referenced quotation is and has been a periodic recurring reading in Roman Catholic liturgy service for several decades. I am also aware that during those six decades or so, I have yet to hear it or its meaning addressed in any homily. As a matter of usual routine, the selected epistle and gospel readings and their significance are addressed in the homilies with specific application to us, the communicants. Having noticed this aberration has caused me to ponder its reason, and after due consideration, I believe I know the “why”. It has to do with the basic fundamentals of religion.
You will recall that the God of the Jews was a vengeful God who demanded sacrifice to soothe his brow. Those sacrifices were usually burnt offerings which were both provided by and offered by the High Priest for a “pretty penny” –– a real money-making scheme. The Jews thought of their God as residing in some ethereal place called heaven who would send a messiah to restore paradise right here on earth just for them. When Jesus appeared, they recognized him as that messiah but when they ask him when he was going to restore the Kingdom, Jesus told them the Kingdom of God was spread out all over the earth around them and they didn’t see it. Their consternation became really magnified when Jesus told them he first had to die, but before his death at his last supper, he instructed them to recreate his body and blood from bread and wine.
Those Bishops who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church in 325 AD, honoring their Jewish heritage, created a new ‘sacrificial religion’ known as Christianity. So, now we have the ‘sacrifice of the Mass’ — still attempting to appease an angry, vengeful God, and awaiting Jesus’ return so he might ‘restore the Kingdom’.
It seems quite clear to me that John recognized God in everyone of us. We, however, are blinded now and cannot see our glory, but when we die and see our reflection which is God, we will know and understand all just as our Father God — we are his children — his reflection. Obviously, John’s understanding is in total conflict with us making sacrificial offerings to ourselves. Both Catholic priests and Protestant ministers alike have nowhere to go with John’s philosophy except to negate the validity of their own existence — so, that reading gets routinely ignored.
Likely, there are many others, but I am aware of only four people who recognized God’s presence in all creation, Jesus, the Apostle John, Francis of Assie, and Meister Eckert, a German monk and philosopher. It took me sixty years of intense study, reading and investigation before I stumbled on a course in Particle Physics which made it very clear to me that everything in this universe is made of identical perfect particles of energy which because of their basic characteristics, already exist in eternity but make the substrate for everything that has a temporal existence. Cumulatively, they form a ‘perfect rationality’ and a perfect ‘truth system’ outside of which there is no truth. That understanding not only allowed but demanded an essential definition of God as ‘A Perfect Rational Being’. When we die, our immortality will be exposed, and we will see ourselves in that state of Perfect Rationality just as the One who created us — that will truly be ‘heaven’.
It seems rather obvious to me that, when Jesus began his public ministry, he was already prepared to accept an ignominious death for his traitorous teachings. Otherwise, he would not have stayed on the periphery of Israeli society during his early endeavors. He knew he must educate his followers and fellow countrymen alike in sufficient numbers about his new concepts of God and God’s perfect love so that after his death they would be able and willing to spread the ‘good news’ despite resistance from the Jewish hierarchy. His plan entailed a vigorous education of his closest associates, the twelve apostles so that after his death they would be equipped with both the understanding and determination to continue his mission — converting the Israeli populous to an understanding that God is all Love rather than the oppressive vengeful God of the Jews who demanded sacrificial offerings as appeasement.
That ‘sacrificial religion’ of the Jews had become a money-making sham scheme for the hierarchy, while simultaneously, created a double whammy of oppression of the poor peasant populous — bilking them of their hard-earned money by virtue of having to pay the High Priest an exorbitant fee for his ‘perfect offerings’, plus oppression from the Roman Empire for whom they were forced to labor.
Likewise, it is clear to me that Jesus had a genius mind. He knew nothing about particle physics (Quantum Mechanics), but he did understand that the Spirit of God resides in every existence — otherwise, nothing could be. For me, that understanding is borne out by his last-ditch effort at enhancing their understanding by telling them at his last supper that the bread he held in his hands was the same as his body. The Gospel of Thomas relentlessly reinforces the idea that not only is the Spirit of God in Jesus’ person but also in everything in existence, and I accept that concept without reservation.
Three hundred years after Jesus’ death, so-called Christianity had spread to all the civilized world most of which was under control of the Roman Empire. There were 1800 Bishops in the Empire and each Bishop was the ultimate dictator in his domain of all things pertaining to Jesus and his teachings. The problem was that literally no two of them seemed to have identical understanding of Jesus, what he said and what he did. There was a great need for copies of the original writings about Jesus and those copies were made by people who were not always either capable or honest about their work. There was much squabbling between various jurisdictions. Consequently, those copies were frequently altered to suit the whims of the bishop. Other times, honest mistakes were made by the transcribers. The net result was (is), we have no way of knowing exactly what Jesus said and did.
What we do know is this; by the year 325 AD, productivity by the squabbling Christians was at a low ebb. Additionally, both the Roman army and treasury had become depleted by the expense of all the foreign wars they had been waging. The official religion of the Empire was called Mithraism which was accepted very well by the populous. However, Emperor Constantine reasoned it would be much wiser to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire rather than further deplete his army and treasury by attempting to coerce the Christians into productivity. Accordingly, he called a Council at Nicaea of the 1800 bishops. He offered to pay for all their travel and lodging expenses. Despite that, only a mere 300 or so attended — Constantine presided. The council lasted from May till August when a consensus was finally established. During the Council some twenty to thirty were excommunicated. The remainder chose to relent to the most vocal and numerous and the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed and made the official religion of the Roman Empire.
As a direct ‘slap in the face’ of Jesus, they totally ignored his teaching of an ‘All-loving God’ and reverted right back to the sacrificial religion of the Jews which Jesus despised. Just as the King, the High Priest and Sanhedrin had done, they set themselves up in positions of power with Pope, Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops. The lowly priests and deacons did the ‘scut-work’. So, just as any house built on a rotten foundation, it began slowly crumbling. Seven hundred years later a big power split occurred with the Great Greek Schism, the final blow came a few hundred years later when Martin Luther and others has seen enough of the corruption and bolted the Roman Catholic Church — the Protestant Reformation began and continues incessantly.
The net result of all that activity is this; as of last accounting, there are currently over 45,000 so-called Christian religions and sects in the world — each claims authenticity and righteousness. The larger ones are continuously attempting to ‘steal’ the other’s constituents through the process of ‘missionary’ work — build the empire and power base at all costs. So, what we have today is 2.2 billion Christians in the world each of whom believes in a ‘mythical god’ just as the Egyptians and others did thousands of years ago —not one of them can tell you ‘Who God is’ — I can, and I did.
At this point, I will digress and apologize for being repetitious but, even though many, many of you have seen and heard this before, there are also many ‘new readers’ who have not. So, for their sake, I ask for your forbearance.
Through the process of understanding the fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics (particle physics), I was able to understand that there is a Perfect Rationality in this universe. That Perfect Rationality exhibits a Perfect Truth System outside of which ‘there is no truth’. That recognition and understanding mandated my mission and permission to define the essence of God— God is a Perfect Rational Being. ‘It should be noted again that no one can prove the existence of God — neither can anyone disprove it. However, observing this Perfect Rationality mandates me to accept the presence of God in all existences.
I am aware of no person nor religion who shares this similar understanding. So, for the benefit of new readers and as reinforcement of understanding among previous readers, I will describe a graphic of Trinity God: a perfect Rational Being, God the Father, with his Perfect Intellect reflects upon himself and sees a mirror image of himself. That mirror image, being in the supernatural, is a living being, God the Son. Two Perfect Identical Rational Beings perpetually viewing each other have no choice except to love, choose, will accept each other. That perpetual loving, choosing, willing, accepting each other carries the image of its generators and is The Holy Spirit, the Will of God, the third person of the Trinity — one Godhead, three identical Persons.
In the real world, God the Father’s reflection is registered in all the perfect particles of energy (quanta) which exist in eternity, but which form the substrate of all gravid existences which, themselves are temporal. And what does that mean? It means that those particles of energy which are the Son are Eternal but the gravid objects they make (protons and neutrons) are temporal and will one day (75 billion years hence is best estimate of our most noted scientists) return to the singularity of God from whence they emanated. Who knows how many trillions of times that cycle has repeated itself? Nobody but God himself.
You might ask just how does Jesus fit into that equation? And I would say nowhere except in the imagination and scheming of the Jewish Christians who were determined to have a Vengeful God who demanded sacrifice for appeasement. Those scheming Christians were the three hundred or so Bishops who formed the Holy Roman Catholic Church. They and their predecessors are the ones who dreamed up all the fairy tale stories and ideas about Jesus.
Jesus was a traitor to the Jewish religion. He knew from the beginning that he would be killed for his treason, but his zeal, compassion and love for his fellow man drove him to be my hero. As for his endeavor, he was, in fact, a total failure. He has been totally misrepresented to billions and billions of unsuspecting followers.
All of that means little — God, our Creator has Perfect Love for each of us — none more so than another. We can hurt each other, but we can’t hurt or please God — he is Perfect.
Many of you are aware that I have written extensively about this subject with near four hundred blog post and three books, Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. If your interest leads you there, you should read Wilderness Cry – a scientific and philosophical approach to understanding God and the universe, first. Then you will likely want to read the others. In addition I have written an historical and humorous little book, Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky. all are available both paperback and digital from Amazon-Kindle and from me (handg@comcast.net).
Have you ever wondered where the idea of ‘free will’ came from? I, like you were brainwashed into thinking there is such an ‘entity’, and for that reason didn’t question it until after years of study and research, I was able to do something never before done — define the essence of God — “God is a Perfect Rational being”. That startling definition of God’s essence ‘blew out of the water’ everything I had ever been taught about God and religion, including the erroneous concept of ‘free will’. In fact, I was forced to reconsider everything I had ever been taught about God, the Bible, religions in general, and specifically, Roman Catholicism. I discovered that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. So, we are forced to attribute the fairytale stories of creation, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and everything through the Book of Deuteronomy to his imagination and his ever-present overlording of the Israelites for purpose of control.
The most compelling of Moses’ control methods was his ability to convince the Israelites that he, and only he, could converse directly with God. God gave him the Ten Commandments which, of course, being human, they violated perpetually, and thereby generated a stockpile of God’s wrath — the framework and cornerstone of ‘sacrificial religion’ for appeasement of a vengeful God were laid. That religion would, in fact, eventually become the stimulus which incited the heroism of Jesus of Nazareth to attempt liberation of his brethren from that oppression by instructing them that God is ‘All Love’ and needs no appeasement. The moneygrubbing, power mongering Jewish hierarchy were not about to have their playhouse disrupted — they hung Jesus on a tree for that treason.
Three hundred years later, those who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church at the behest of Roman Emperor Constantine totally ignored Jesus’ teaching of an ‘all-loving’ God, but using the fame of his name created a Church patterned exactly after the sacrificial religion of the Jews and set themselves up in position of power and total control— the exact thing which Jesus despised and willingly died for.
So, with that backdrop, we see a Church that put God in Heaven, sitting on a throne with Jesus sitting at his side, overlording his kingdom from which he was totally separated. As time marched on and the Christian theology was gradually being developed, the great Dominican Friar, Thomas Aquinas formulated a philosophy which explained everything the Church needed for understanding. Aquinas recognized a rational person has an intellect and a will. His interpretation of their functions was designed to satisfy the Churches concept of how sin comes about. He reasoned that even though the intellect may think one thing the will was free to choose as it liked at its own discretion —that was his fatal mistake which has shackled the world with erroneous understanding ever since. I have explained this many times before but let’s do it again.
A very simple test will dispel forever the concept of ‘free will’ for you. Let’s use the example of a red-hot stove eye. We must assume two things — we have been burned before and know that it is very painful and to be avoided, and we must assume we are rational (not crazy — irrational). Now, it is our intellect which ‘knows these things’, not the will. So, if I tell you to lay your hand on that red-hot eye, you wouldn’t dare —that is your common-sense rational intellect which tells you ‘That would be a terrible choice and to be avoided’, not your will. The will must always do what the intellect decides is the better of two choices. In this case, quite obviously, the better choice is keeping your hand away.
Likewise, if you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, you have two choices, jump off or stay put. If you are rational, your intellect tells you to stay put and your will must obey. The will is simply the ‘executive’ arm of the intellect. Synonyms for ‘will’ are choose, love, accept. They represent the ‘driving force of the intellect. They are the Holy Spirit or Will of God in the Trinity — they are the perpetual willing, loving, choosing, accepting force between the Perfect Intellects of God the father and God the Son.
The truth of the matter is there is no such thing as’ free intellect’. Yes, we are free to think and analyze but whatever final choice we make must be what our intellect considers to be the better of the final two possible choices. That does not mean nor imply that another rational human might not make a different choice based on previous experiences — that is what makes each of us distinct individuals with no possibility of any two being alike. That is the foundation of Jesus’ teaching of love — Jesus readily saw that peace could never be achieved without love of each other. His teaching has been totally ignored and world strife is ever-present.
Thomas Aquinas was simply attempting to satisfy Catholic Church philosophy. He knew absolutely no science of any kind. That ignorance allowed him to proclaim male masturbation to be the most grievous sin that could be commit because all the babies were in the male semen and were being spilled to their deaths. Aquinas’ attitude is understandable because from Moses’ time till Thomas Aquinas, three thousand plus years, the Jewish and Western world existed in a strict ‘Patristic’ society. Women were little more than glorified slaves. So, there was no way that a woman could have been thought of more than just a simple ‘brood sow incubator’. The almighty male injected the babies into her, and she simply incubated them till birth — such was the ignorance that prevailed from Moses time until Vatican 2 Council.
I still hear the term ‘free will’ occasionally and it makes me cringe because I know that person lacks a proper understanding of rationality. We would be much better off if we replaced the term ‘will’ with ‘love’. We would better understand that we are free to love what our intellect tells us is good (better), and we are free to reject what our intellect tells us which is least desirable.
Most of you reading this already know from my previous discourses and from reading my books Wilderness cry and Provocative Catholic that I have addressed this concept before, but for the few who have not, I feel compelled to visit it again — the cornerstone of ignorance found in every religion with which I am familiar.
If each of us did not have a rational intellect with which to discern truth, we would be like identical robots, all with identical programming. However, since our individual intellects have been exposed to dramatically different stimuli, each has been formulated into dramatically different individuals which allows (causes) us to make decidedly different judgements about seemingly identical information. Just consider an election of any public official. The majority will always vote for the winner but for a multitude of different reasons — each person’s intellect dictates its choice of winner based on a variety of different considerations.
Jesus was brilliant. He could clearly see the blatant scamming of his brethren that was going on by the Jewish hierarchy and their sacrificial religion. He became so incensed that his ire finally drove him to make an onslaught onto the temple — while thrashing the moneychangers with a whip and overturning their tables, he called them a brood of vipers and a den of thieves and demanded them to leave his Father’s house. Jesus was so determined to liberate his countrymen from the guilt driven sacrificial religion of the Jews and supplant it with a no-religion understanding of God’s Perfect Love that his intellectual common sense became overwhelmed by momentary irrational anger which drove him to that final fatal act — it seems apparent that he knew it was going to happen anyway.
My firm belief and understanding are that at his last supper, knowing full-well that he had failed to completely indoctrinate his illiterate apostles to his way of thinking, he made one final attempt at gaining their understanding. He explained to them once again that he, they, and all of God’s creation were of one substance — God is in all, and all is in God— God is All Love and cannot possibly reject himself.
Jesus’ final instruction and advice went totally unheeded by those who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church some three hundred years later. As a direct slap in the face, they ignored Jesus’ teaching of an All-loving God and formed another sacrificial church of appeasement, the likes of which Jesus despised. They used their collective intellects to ‘spit in Jesus’ face’ all for their own personal power, control, and money (empire building).
—eternal strife prevails to this day and always will until The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality, which I called for several years ago, is heeded. That means that each of us must understand and accept that we, and every gravid object in this Perfect Universe, are made of identical Perfect Particles of Energy which collectively represent God. Each of us shares a commonality with the Perfect Will of God, The Holy Spirit, which is imbedded in each particle and keeps it Perfect. That understanding stems from the knowledge that there is a Perfect Truth System in this universe outside of which there is no truth, and that truth is exhibited by those Perfect Particles of Energy. That knowledge and understanding mandated me to define God as A Perfect Rational Being.
AS an addendum, a few years back, I came to the sudden realization that I had many, many questions but absolutely no one alive to answer them. That realization mandated me to write a brief history of my life in Fancy Farm, Kentucky. I believe you will find it both informative and humorous.
During the last seventy years, as I have studied history, philosophy, psychology, medicine and religion, I have experienced a gradual evolution of understanding concerning religion — more importantly, Christianity. It seems rather obvious that Jesus of Nazareth was the most notable figure the world has ever encountered. During his lifetime, his apostle, Peter, recognized him as the Christ or King. After his death, his followers continued and propagated that understanding — hence Christianity.
Much has been written and rewritten about Jesus — what he did, what he said, and what he meant. It is the “what he meant” that has been interpreted so many different ways — hence, we have 45,000 different so-called Christian religions, each proclaiming righteousness. Any rational person would be correct in asking why and how that can be.
My study and understanding of Jesus make the answer to that question quite simple — the very first official proclamation about who Jesus was, what he said, and what he meant was biased and overtly incorrect for a very specific reason. The people who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church were so ‘hell bent’ on perpetuating a ‘Jewish religion with a sacrificial twist’ to the new Christian religion that they completely ignored Jesus’ basic teaching of love. Not only that but they camouflaged Jesus’ teaching and intent which was to liberate his people from the oppressive, costly, sacrificial religion of the Jews with an understanding that God is ‘all love’ and has no ‘needs’, especially appeasement.
They were very careful in their propagated writings to hide the exact cause of Jesus’ execution for treason — they say only that the crowd was incited to yell “Crucify him. Crucify him”. The hierarchy wanted Jesus dead because they recognized his intent to educate the public to God’s ‘Love’ rather than God’s ‘Vengeance’ as was proposed by the Jewish religion. The High Priest, of course, were making a fortune off the peasants who were forced to purchase ‘perfect offering specimens’ from him, and, in addition, pay him an equally extortionate price to make the offering in their behalf. It was a money-making racket and Jesus perceived it as such. Therefore, the bible tells us Jesus drove the money changers from the temple with a whip and overturned their tables.
Now, fast forward 300 years. During that time Christianity had spread throughout the Roman empire and there were 1800 bishops, each with his own ‘twist’ of understanding about Jesus. They were noted to be constantly squabbling amongst themselves and, consequently, were not producing as desired for the Empire. Constantine, the Emperor at the time decided to solve the problem once and for all — make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. So, he called a general council of Bishops at Nicaea. Of the 1,800 Bishops in existence at the time, only 300 or so attended. They pow wowed for three to four months before reaching a consensus — the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed — and the Jewish sacrificial religion was perpetuated. They set themselves up in positions of power and control with the Pope as official head and with Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops controlling selected parts of the world. Priests were the workhorses who attended to the day-to- day needs of each parish. That set-up ensured the upper brass lived in luxury, and all the while, Christian (Catholic) philosophy, theology, and liturgy were constantly evolving — a never-ending process.
Soon enough, overt abuses became apparent with bad popes and bishops using their power for evil purposes. Eventually, the power struggle between Rome and the Eastern Church became so strong as to prompt the Great Schism in 1062 or thereabouts. Then, the Medieval Church again became so corrupted as to prompt Martin Luther and others to bolt the Catholic Church, and the Protestant reformation began — it continues incessantly to this day with, with more and more sects and churches appearing annually — and why?
The answer to that question seems very apparent to me — power, control, and money generated basically by the mythological and imaginary wishful thinking of those in control. The Jewish religion fostered an idea that Adam’s long-suffering progeny had been promised a Messiah who would restore paradise just for the Just. The rest would be cast into torturous oblivion forever. This past Sunday, at Catholic mass service, the first reading in the Dioceses of Owensboro was from Daniel where he describes a time when Michael, a great prince shall arise and all the good shall live in eternal happiness including many who shall arise from their tombs whilst, simultaneously, all other shall be in everlasting horror and disgrace (paraphrased). Then, the second reading from Paul suggest that Priests offer daily sacrifices of appeasement, but Jesus offered himself as the ultimate sacrifice for or sins and now ‘sits at the right hand of God’ (paraphrased). Then, the gospel reading taken from Mark depicts Jesus describing the ‘last days’ and saying no one knows when they will happen but the Father, not even the Son. But all will happen before the current generation (forty years) passes. (paraphrased).
Now, lets dissect those readings and compare them with our current Catholic, Christian teachings and beliefs. The last sentence of the Nicene Creed which summarizes Catholic belief, says, –“I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come” — a direct holdover from the Jewish sacrificial, imaginary, mythical religion. Then, concerning Christianity’s propagation of Paul’s suggestion that Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins — nowhere in the bible does Jesus say he came to die for our sins. My understand is that philosophy was gradually developed or several hundred years, but there again, is based on someone’s imagination, and not on anything Jesus said. Now, concerning Marks description of Jesus describing the last days, it seems apparent that whoever wrote that did not comprehend what John had to say and what our Nicene creed has to say, “God from God, Light from Light, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made”. Now, if that is true, it would be impossible for Jesus not to know everything just as the Father does. But all that demonstrates the miniscule, imaginary, mythological thinking at the time and has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Consider this, there are no seats or places in heaven as the ancients are continually imagining. Heaven and eternity are a ‘state of being’ where no change is possible. It has no places, no seats, no amphitheaters. It is a state of spiritual being of oneness in God not oneness with God — God is in us, and we are in God.
It is this total lack of understanding which has created the religious morass we see today. Will it ever cease or change? I believe will in time but not for the better. More and more, people are becoming disenchanted with religion. Each person has his own reasons but if asked to explain them, he might find that difficult — he just has a gut feeling of religion’s uselessness.
All that is sad because the world could understand that if there is a God, it loves us each equally because each of us, as is everything in existence, is enveloped in that God — God is in all, and all is in God. With that understanding, we would be justified in gathering asone singing incantations of love, praise and thanksgiving to our God for our existence, our sustenance, and our eternity in him forever.
Everything in existence is composed of identically the same perfect particles of energy which are maintained in their perfection by the Spirit, Will of God. With that understanding, I again call on the world to understand and recognize The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality which means that we and everything inexistence are bonded by the same spiritual commonality in God.
That philosophy is developed and described in detail in my little book Wilderness Cry – A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe. There I do something never before done — I define the essence of God. That definition has unbelievable implications which are explored and analyzed in detail in its two sequels, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic. In addition, I have written a semibiographical, semi historical little book, Growing up in infancy Farm Kentucky. I believe you will find it informative, entertaining and humorous. All are available from Amazon-Kindle both hardcopy and digital. and from me, autographed – handg@comcast.net. If you purchase online and would like it autographed, I would be happy to do so free.
We all know what help is — it is an assist of one kind or another. Of course, it comes in ‘all shades of gray’ from overt to occult, from miniscule to maximal, from intended to accidental or incidental, from desired to rejected, etc.
When we interject God into the equation of ‘help’ as the ancient Greeks did, we create a new dimension beyond our control or insight. They are given credit for coining the phrase, ‘God helps them who help themselves’. The obvious implication of such a saying is that one must help himself first before God will ‘assist’.
When I was a child, my mother often repeated the adage that ‘heaven helps them who help themselves’ — a rather obvious reference to the Greek saying. That entire idea centered on the fact that, if one wanted something done, he must apply himself to the task before any assistance from God could be expected. That was a stern admonition to me and my siblings that we were responsible for our success or failure — work hard and God will assist and therefore, success is likely — be lazy and non-applying, God will ignore you, and failure will likely be guaranteed.
So, I learned at a very tender age of five or six that God would not put our seeds in the ground, cultivate the soil to assist their growth, or remove the weeds from our crops — if we did those things dutifully, then God would assist with warm sunshine and rainfall and a successful crop might be expected. Notice, I said ‘might’ be expected — nothing was guaranteed, but experience had shown success to be the norm. The bottom line was ‘hard work, and dedicated persistence’ was the best way of assuring God’s assistance —a lesson I never forgot.
I didn’t know how God’s assistance worked except I could see that most of the time, God provided the essentials of nature which, combined with my hard work, led to success. There were times however, when God did not provide the essentials for healthy plant growth — usually manifested by either too much or too little rainfall. Those were the times when we, as a devout Catholic community, came together in prayer begging God to assist us with proper amounts of heavenly water.
Way too often, to our chagrin, nothing changed, and our crops continued unabated in their torment — I was dismayed. Seeing my mother and father struggle so hard to provide a living for their six boys, and then seeing God not answer our pleading for help was extremely stressful for me. I was twelve years old and good friends with our parish priest. His answer to my question of ‘why wouldn’t God help’ sent my head spinning. He said,” It’s God’s will”.
That statement tore into shreds my mother’s adage of ‘heaven helps those who help themselves’. The obvious question for my maturing, inquisitive mind was, why? Why were we doing all that praying if God would not listen? I had no clue, but one thing was for certain, I would find out.
The first difficulty I encountered was attempting to understand who God really was. I learned in my history lessons that the ancient Greeks and Romans recognized a God for nearly every niche and cranny of human consideration. They relied on those Gods to bring success to whatever endeavor they chose.
Then, I learned that the Israelites discovered there is only ‘one true God’, and all the others are pagan myths. The latter info came by way of Bible studies and Catholic Catechism classes. All of that seemed well and good but still did not solve my dilemma about why God seldom answered our prayers when we most needed him.
As I grew and studied more, I made a very startling discovery — everyone talked about God as though he was their ‘next door neighbor’ but no one could tell me exactly who God is. In fact, I discovered that absolutely no one had ever been able to decipher the God about whom he spoke. Additionally, no one could prove that a God actually existed.
Out of seemingly nowhere, along came Jesus of Nazareth injecting a dramatic new piece into the puzzle of God. I discovered through research of biblical writings that for centuries the Israelites had been expecting a messiah who would restore Paradise just for them. When Jesus began his public ministry, the Jews were being severely oppressed by both their own government with its money-making machine of sacrificial religion, and the Roman Empire under whose ultimate control they existed and for whom they toiled — with that understanding the plot thickened for me.
I am as certain as I am sitting in my chair right this moment that Jesus has been totally misrepresented. I believe without doubt that Jesus’ representation as God’s only Son who was sent by God to die as the ‘perfect sacrifice’ for forgiveness of our sins is a fabrication of untruth intended to perpetuate the total control over human lives as was the custom of the Jewish hierarchy.
Whereas the Jewish religion offered Perfect Bloody Sacrifices of animals for appeasement of their angry God, the new ‘Jesus-religion’, Christianity, would offer a ‘Perfect Unbloody’ sacrifice to that same God in the form of a ‘recreated’ Jesus. Of course, true to form, that recreation and offering could only be done by the ‘priest’. Consequently, the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed at the urging of Roman Emperor Constantine in 325AD. Things went well until the death of Constantine’s son who succeeded him.
Later Emperors were not as friendly to Christianity as Constantine. There was a rather constant haggling over unsolved religious concepts as various theologians and bishops struggled to define exactly what ‘Christianity represented’ and how it was to be practiced and considered. Many of those were driven and engendered by ascetics such as Augustine and Jerome whose philosophy was so restrictive as to propose that humans should deny their sexual identity — sex became the ‘whipping boy’ of Christian society and persisted as such until recent years. Of course, as might be expected, the proponents of sexual dampening became its greatest abusers.
Eventually, because of differences in concepts about the Holy Ghost as well as power struggles between the Roman Church and the Eastern Church, The Great Greek Schism occurred in 1065 or thereabouts — the cat was out of the bag. I am not as familiar with the continuing history of the Eastern Church as with the Roman, but it is quite obvious that differences of one kind or another existed there also because of the number of Eastern Orthodox Churches that sprang into existence.
Meanwhile, in the Roman Church, there were periods of relative tranquility. However, because the papacy was not only a religious headquarters, but was also an extremely important and powerful political position, prominent powerful families dominated the papal seat, frequently resulting in the many and frequent atrocious abuses. As time progressed, many Christians had seen enough, and the inevitable breakaway of the Protestant Reformation began.
That breakaway set the stage for what we see today — over 44,000 so-called Christian sects, branches and denominations, each claiming superiority of spirituality. Not only those divisions in Christianity, but, just as importantly, the constant tension between the western Christian world, the mid-east Muslim world, and the far-east Buddhist and Hindu worlds generated continual wars and threats thereof.
All that division and hostility has been, and continues to be, generated by one simple cause — not one of them could then, nor can now, define the essence of its God which led directly to the absolute misunderstanding, presentation, and projection of Jesus of Nazareth. Everything from the first word Moses wrote to this very moment has been and continues to be pure mythology —they always have been, and still are, worshiping a ‘mythical god’.
So, When I came to that stark realization, I was ‘forced internally’ to solve and resolve the problem — if there is a God, its essence must be defined — we must know who God is. My encounter with Quantum Mechanics enabled me to understand who that God must be. I understood from that encounter that there is a perfect rationality in this universe which generates and maintains a perfect truth system outside of which there is no truth. Immediately, I knew who God is. God is a Perfect Rational Being. The implications of that definition are staggering — many, many of them are examined and explored in my two sequel books to Wilderness Cry, Peace In Spirituality and Provocative Catholic.
Additionally, that definition of God immediately explained graphically the Trinity as here described. A perfect Intellect reflecting upon itself sees a mirror image of itself, which is the universe and everything in it, The Son. Father and Son viewing each other perpetually and eternally have no choice except to accept, love, choose, will each other—the Holy Spirit or Will of God.
That realization instantly created a major question — what about Jesus? As I backtracked and studied the New Testament more vigorously, it became suddenly obvious that nowhere does it say why the Jews wanted Jesus dead — the bible we have is very careful to hide that fact. Also. I discovered that nowhere does Jesus say he came to die for our sins — my understanding is it took several centuries for the Church to completely develop that philosophy. What I did observe was Jesus saying he would give us two commandments: Love your God with your all and love (accept) your neighbor as yourself. (paraphrased). Then I chanced upon The Gospel of Thomas which was rejected by the Church Fathers as canonical for obvious reasons — it painted an entirely different picture and understanding of Jesus. In it Jesus kept explaining over and over, using different examples, that he, they, and everything in this universe are one in God —we are in God and God is in us. That’s what he told them one last time at his ‘last supper’ — the bread and wine they were eating and drinking were one in him, and them, and God. He advised them to always remember and reflect upon that truth each time they supped.
With that understanding, it rapidly became obvious that Jesus’ purpose was to eliminate the oppressive, illegitimate religion of the Jews and replace (supplant) it with an understanding that God is all love — he needs no appeasement— he needs nothing — he loves (accepts) all without strings. Therefore, our only justifiable prayer is thanksgiving to God for our existence in him.
Jesus plan for supplanting the Jewish religion was to remain in the outlying areas away from the authorities while he indoctrinated his apostle and acolytes so they might continue to spread his doctrine long after his death — Jesus knew he would eventually be crucified as a traitor.
Quite obviously, Jesus’ efforts were totally fruitless. Villains and scallywags, using his name but distorting his teachings to suit themselves, formulated a Church patterned exactly after the oppressive sacrificial religion of the Jews which Jesus despised — a house built on a false foundation will inevitably crumble. And crumble it did— the grains of meal continue to fallfrom the loaf which was rotten from the beginning.
So, where does “heaven helps them who help themselves” come into the picture? Knowing who God is makes that answer simple. God has created for us a perfect universe in which to function. All we need to do is apply it by helping ourselves. If we grow food, we utilize the conditions available to us for growing crops suitable to our climate. If we work at a ‘public’ job of any kind, we are helping ourselves by earning money with which to buy food and other necessities and luxuries of life while simultaneously producing equipment, supplies and technology used by others in their endeavors. It should be obvious that all who are capable must apply themselves to a task or possibly multiple tasks so that all may benefit — God has given us a ‘perfect system in which to operate’ and make our efforts productive. That alone is the sum of God’s interest.
Those who beg God to do this or that and those who expect God to perform miracles just for them have been terribly misguided, but they are not to blame — we all have been brainwashed into believing such nonsense — such are the fruits of irrational religion. Religion benefits only those who perpetrate and perpetuate it. Religion is the biggest money-making, empire building, scheme the world has ever known and it is, equally, the most destructive force the world has ever known.
So, if there were a utopia in this life, which there is not, it would be a world where every capable individual diligently applied himself to a task so that collectively, we all might share in the necessities and luxuries of life. That would be Communism. But there is no utopia. Consequently, brave men with great minds and determination have designed the best system of government yet discovered — Democratic Capitalism. While not perfect, it has proven to be the best yet. It only works because it attempts to control to some degree the God ordained, built-in quality of greed which every living entity possesses and exhibits.
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As I have noted many, many times before, I have published three books on this subject. I strongly urge you to read Wilderness Cry. Likely then, you will want to read Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic. For a little historical and autobiographical humor, you might like Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky. All available Amazon-Kindle, and from me— handg@comcast.net
Historically, homo sapiens have always sensed a need to explain various environs and events in their lives. That, of course, is logical since they are rational beings. In ancient times and up until about five hundred years ago their only universe was the earth, which was flat, the sun which rose and set regularly, the moon which changed shapes and positions routinely, an occasional comet, shooting stars, and the Milky Way about which they had no comprehension.
Attempting to explain our beginning and the beginning of the universe, Moses, who is credited with writing the first five books of the Old Testament, concocted a ‘creation story’ which from a scientific standpoint is pure mythology, but which has been accepted by millions and millions as ‘Gospel Truth’. For the uninitiated, his story seems like a very plausible explanation of events surrounding the beginning of time.
Moses explanation of creation involved only one true God whereas, all other peoples recognized gods and goddesses of every shape and description — each with a specific purview. For centuries before and after Moses, those gods and goddesses were given credit for regulating literally every aspect of human as well as vegetative existence.
Moses’ recognition of one God set the Israelites apart from the rest of humanity, and rather instantly created hostilities between them and their ‘pagan’ neighbors.
We know the rest of the story from the Old and New Testaments. The earth remained flat supported on five crocked, wobbly legs, and always in danger of toppling into the netherworld below. Hence the prohibition during the Inquisition of having sex on any elevated structure — the vibrations from such activity might cause the unstable legs to give was and sink the earth into the netherworld. The penalty for such a breech was burning at the stake. That prohibition was not lifted until three years after Vasco da Gama sailed to India and back proving the earth to be round.
A little over one hundred years later Galileo discovered the sun to be the center of our little universe instead of the earth, which belief had been mandated by the Inquisition, with burning at the stake as the penalty for non-believers. Galileo’s explanation was immediately rejected and he, himself, barely escaped execution by fire for publishing his discovery — he was forced to recant his findings and spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest— religion had become the most powerful force on earth — the earth’s policeman — little has changed.
Religion and ideologies such as communism, which is anti-religion, are continually threatening each other with wars while attempting to dominate the world scene. Each is perpetually attempting to explain the nature of existence with either a mythical god or with the denial of a god’s existence at all.
The basic cause for all this division is one simple fact — everyone’s god is different — no one knows who God is. They all talk about god or the lack thereof as though they know for sure but not one except Jesus of Nazareth has ever known to this day except for me. Francis of Assisi and Meister Ekert, a German Monk recognized the presence of God in everything, but both failed an attempt to define God’s essence. Egotistical of me you say? If you think so, I dare you to define the essence of God, or to find anyone else in history who has done so irrefutably as I have. Jesus recognized God’s Perfect Love but even he did not understand how and why it was so — he had no benefit of science for help.
We have little knowledge of the exact words Jesus used to describe God, but the bottom line is this; Jesus recognized God as perfect love. And what is ‘perfect love’? It is the acceptance of all his creation without exception. Jesus was brilliant — to be able to arrive at that conclusion with no scientific support is truly amazing. Jesus intuitively understood that nothing could be in existence without God ‘living’ within it. He knew nothing of particle physics which tells us that everything in this universe is made of identical perfect particles of energy which because of their unchanging and unchangeable perfect size, shape, identity, behavior, and function always have and always will exist in Eternity — they not only represent God, but they are also a mirror image of God — they are the second person of the Trinity. The Perfect Love relationship between God and his Living Reflection is the Holy Spirit or the Will of God — the existence-giving principle of everything. That, my friends, is a clear, concise definition of The Trinity. By God’s very nature, he can exist only in Trinity form.
Jesus perceived that concept and boldly said so in the disguised writing of those who either did not understand or did not want to accept the demise of the Jewish religion. Jesus knew what his fate would be but his zeal for the truth drove him onward. His hope and plan was to replace the lucrative Jewish Sacrificial religion with a’ ‘common understanding of praise and thanksgiving’ to God for our existence and support — the meaning of ‘eucharist’ is ‘thanksgiving’.
However, the long-suffering Jews, who expected a messiah to restore the fairytale Paradise created by Moses, were not about to turn loose of that idea and the lucrative sacrificial religion attached to it. So, in due time, 325 AD, they formed the Holy Roman Catholic Church which was patterned exactly after the Jewish sacrificial religion. However, the new religion utilized the recreated body and blood of Jesus as an ‘unbloody’ sacrifice rather than continue the Jewish custom of ‘bloody sacrifice’ of animals. That recreation of Jesus is performed by the priest during the ritual of the Catholic Mass. That religion was established as the official Religion of the Roman Empire and remained so throughout the lives of Emperor Constatine and his son who followed his reign.
With the loss of Empire support, abuses galore began to appear and they persist to this day. Because of disagreements and dislikes of Roman Catholicism authoritarianism and dominance, the Eastern Church split from the Roman Church in the eleventh century. Several centuries later the fragmentation of the Roman Church skyrocketed with the Protestant Reformation. That fragmentation has escalated into near logarithmic proportions until, at the last accounting, there are over 45,000 so-called Christian religions and sects in existence — that number continues to climb at a rapid pace.
So, back to my statement about God’s essence. Nothing in existence has meaning withoutanessential definition, God included. When I became aware that God’s essence had never been defined, I determined at a rather young age to do so myself. I am not only unashamed but rather, very happy that finally, after years of persistent study, analysis, and considerations of all sorts, I was able to do so.
So, here’s my answer to your claim of my egotism. Having an awareness that everything in this universe is composed of perfect particles of energy, having an awareness that there exists a ‘perfect truth system’ outside of which there is no truth in this universe, and being aware that all truth is contained in those perfect particles and their behavior compelled me to recognize that there is a Perfect Rationality in this universe. So, no one can prove there is a God. Neither can anyone prove there is not God. However, I believe the perfection exhibited in this universe lends more credence to the existence of God than not. Therefore, I am justified and mandated to proclaim an irrefutable definition of the essence of our God.
God is a Perfect Rational Being.
In all humility, I feel so blessed be able to proclaim and explain that God to you. It has been eight years since I first published my little book, WILDERNESS CRY – A Scientific And Philosophical Approach to Understanding God And The Universe. In that little treatise, I state clearly that I welcome all meaningful dialogue and/or rebuttal. To date, not one person has attempted rebuttal. However, there have been many requests for clarification and better understanding of the basics of Quantum Mechanics (particle physics) — I have graciously and eagerly obliged all. I am always eager to explain and discuss the many important concepts related to the understanding of God’s Perfect rationality, and its many, many ramifications and implications.
I know for certain that all religions which are based on concepts of the Mosaic God are illegitimate because all are worshiping a mythical god created by Moses. Not one religion or person except Jesus has come forth with an acceptable definition of God’s essence. Jesus’ definition of God as all Love was bitterly rejected by the Jewish hierarchy because it would have destroyed their power base — he had to be quieted before his teaching caught on among the public. Accordingly, he was sentenced to crucifixion which was the penalty for treason.
Jesus is my hero.
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Since publishing WILDERNESS CRY, I have published two additional books, PEACE IN SPIRITUALITY, and PROVOCATIVE CATHOLIC. Those books explain the many automatic ramifications stemming from God’s Perfect Rationality. I believe, without any doubt, that they are a must read for your happiness. Their understanding will enable your spirit to relax and begin to bask in the warm glow of God’s never-ending Love. I strongly encourage you to engage them. All are available both e-book and paperback from Amazon-Kindle. Additionally, I have published a semi-historical, semi-autobiographical account of the first twenty-two years of my life, Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky. I think you will find it rather educational, entertaining, and humorous. It is also available from Amazon-Kindle. Additionally, each of my books is available autographed directly from me – handg@comcast.net.
PLAGUE-This word is derived from the Greek word plaga which means strike and the Latin word plaga which means stroke or wound. In everyday usage it carries the implication of some disease or condition which annoys, aggravates or impedes us as individuals, family groups, communities, cities, or nations.
For instance, we may hear someone say that she has been ‘plagued’ by migraine headaches all her life. Or we may observe that a family seems to be plagued by chronic poverty. On a larger scale, a community may have been ‘plagued for years’ by a very poor water supply. In modern times it seems that certain cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and others in the US are ‘plagued’ by homelessness and filth—Chicago is ‘plagued’ with gun violence.
In the fourteenth century a disease caused by a rat borne bacterium known simply as the ‘Plague” wiped out millions of people in Europe, Middle East and North Africa. The ‘great potato famine’ in the mid 1800’s killed nearly half the population of Ireland—they simply starved to death. The Plague of 541 killed 10,000/day in Constantinople—it was caused by the same rat-borne organism as the Back Death in Europe centuries later. The Old Testament speaks of ‘Plagues and Pestilence’.
Throughout history there have been several other major ‘Plagues’ in Europe and elsewhere. The general idea is that a plague is something that strikes without warning and severely wounds and/or aggravates.
Currently, the entire earth is recovering from a devastating pandemic ‘plague’ caused by the Covid-19 virus. It certainly seems to have struck an unsuspecting and ill-prepared humanity with virulence and vehemence—and it rages on. It has killed millions worldwide and will likely kill many more before it runs its course—likely, it will be back. Hopefully, we will be better prepared the next time.
There is one ‘plague’ which has beset the human race on an unrelenting, persistent basis since the beginning of recorded history. Anyone who has the meagerest familiarity with world history knows that continual strife among mankind has been perpetuated by one source— religion. There is no way I have of knowing the exact number of deaths caused by ‘religious wars’. However, because of their persistent occurrence, it is safe to say that the war-tally would at least equal the plague-tally. The United States alone has lost nearly three million soldiers in its wars—a span of a measly 250 years.
Many wars have been generated by the godless trying to defeat the godly. Some notable examples are Fascism, Communism and some forms of Socialism. In general, these ideologies are anti-religion—-a religion in reverse.
The Jewish people have been embroiled in some form of strife and conflict ever since their exodus from Egypt. During the last fourteen hundred to two thousand years, the three Abrahamic religions have been in constant turmoil among themselves. In addition, intrareligious hatred and rancor have perpetuated unrelenting upheaval.
During my 90 years, I have not known a single day of prefect peace, and today the hatred, fighting and killing continues at a torrid pace, and why? — religion. Everyone’s god has mandated a vendetta against their neighbor’s god. In Christianity alone, we have 45,000 different gods and guess what—not a single one of them is willing to ‘give an inch’ to the other. So, they are not ‘overtly’ fighting right now, but they have in the past—I’ll guarantee you that, given the opportunity, they would again. Basically, they are a like a pit full of venomous snakes banded together for the purposed of self-defense against an intruder—I won’t bite you if you won’t bite me. They have a larger ‘common enemy’—hostile Islam and Communism. Just let those two common enemies disappear and see what happens—all hell would break out among Christians just as it was when Constantine called the first council of Nicaea, and the ‘all powerful Catholic Church was formed.
Hopefully, in this ‘civilized world’ that would be an overstatement, but no guarantees. Human nature dictates that each person wants every other person to think the same way, and if they don’t, there’s an undercurrent of aggravation—even under the best of circumstances. If that undercurrent ‘boils over’, as it frequently does, then overt hostility, either verbal or physical, breaks out—such is our selfish nature.
So how do we overcome such adversity and eliminate this most major plague—the answer is simple, its application complicated—we must all have the same God.
That may sound like a ‘foolish’ suggestion—everyone knows who God is—or do they? If you cannot define the essence of your God, then you have no God—you have a myth. Guess what—everyone’s myth is different just like ever child’s Santa is different.
How then do we all have the same God? The exact same way we all have the same pencil, or brick or toothbrush—we can define their essences.
Take note of this—no one before me has ever defined the essence of God. I did it with six simple little words so full of astounding meaning—God is a Perfect Rational Being. I was able to conclude that essential definition by virtue of my encounter with Quantum Mechanics (particle physics) wherein I learned the most basic identical and perfect nature of all physical existences. That perfect rationality pervades everything in existence. More importantly, it refutes and eliminates the Biblical mythology associated with God. It defines clearly the Trinity nature of God. It shows the absolute necessity of Jesus’s heroic sacrifice by which we all are liberated by love from the shroud of guilt imposed by organized sacrificial religion. It shows, with absolute certainty, God’s perfect love which precludes any possibility of Hell, Purgatory, Limbo or Heaven as a place with seats closer to God. It shows without imagination that heaven is an eternal state of being in oneness with God— a state of perfection which supersedes any human happiness.
In my book, Wilderness Cry, I define the essence of God and outline its implications. In my sequels, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic, I show the absolute only way that peace may ever be achieved—we must all be likeminded. The only way that can happen is for everyone to have the same God—adherence to present-day religions makes that absolutely impossible.
As we all become likeminded, the terrible plague of war will be eliminated, and peace will prevail. Several years ago, I called for the Worldwide Communion of Spirituality which is the recognition and acceptance that we and everything in existence are of the same substance, the perfect particles of energy which constitute the Perfect rationality in this universe — God.
You will learn more about me and my upbringing by reading Growing Up in Fancy farm Kentucky.
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I encourage you to read and study my books so you may have a clear understanding.
All Christianity is based mainly on two suppositions or inferences lacking a basis in biblical fact. Simply stated, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say he came to die as a sacrificial offering of appeasement of God the Father for our sins. In addition, nowhere does the Bible clearly state the reason why the Jewish hierarchy wanted Jesus dead. Furthermore, it seems perfectly clear to me that the ‘second neglect’ is prompted by the ‘first neglect’. Please allow me to explain.
As you will recall Moses psychologically impaled the Israelites with Ten Commandments and associated threats of certain retribution from God for infractions. Those in charge reasoned to a conclusion that God was perpetually angry with them because of their continued noncompliance. Therefore, it became obvious to them that God must be appeased. That appeasement came in the form of sacrificial ritual. Accordingly, a High Priest was appointed — he, alone, was allowed to make that sacrificial offering. Those offerings were of material goods, usually produce or animals, and were required to be a perfect specimen of its kind. Furthermore, because the specimens were mandated to be perfect, only the High Priest could produce them. Of course, they didn’t come free. The peasant sinners were required to purchase the perfect specimens from the High Priest — it became a lucrative mandate for the High Priest and King
Now, fast forward to Roman control of Judea. The Jewish hierarchy had established an agreement with Rome whereby Rome would allow the Jews to keep their form of ‘religious government’, but the Jewish peasants were required to produce for Rome. In other words, the Jewish people were being enslaved by both Rome and their own Jewish sacrificial government.
Enter Jesus — during Jesus’ lifetime, according to self-proclaimed historian Aslan, there were literally hundreds of zealots who, because of their oppression, aspired and conspired to organize armies and overthrow both the Roman and Jewish governments. They all met the same fate, crucifixion, which was the mode of death reserved for all traitors. Furthermore, those crucifixions were staged on the highest hill, Golgotha, along the road approaching Jerusalem — high visibility and warning to would-be traitors.
Jesus was a traitor of a different kind. He had no intention of overthrowing the rulers by force, but rather by subversion. Please allow me to elaborate this point — it defines Jesus — neither is it made clear by the writers and rewriters of the Bible. It is very clear to me that Jesus was a brilliant observer and thinker. He recognized a God far different from the vengeful God of the Israelites. Jesus’ God was perfect in all respects and differed from the Jewish God in two major aspects. He was all loving rather than vengeful. Just as important, God was in everything and everything was in God rather than a ‘grizzled old man-like God sitting in a cloud somewhere overlording his creation with a perpetual angry frown on his brow. Jesus saw God as all love — he could not possibly hate, hurt, or reject any part of his own creation. “Hear ye. Oh Israel, I’ll give you two commandments. You shall love your God with your entire being, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself (paraphrased)”. Jesus despised the Jewish sacrificial religion which constituted a double-edged sword for his people — oppression by the hierarchy and oppression by God as presented by that religion.
It is clear to me that it was Jesus’ teaching of an all-loving God which angered the hierarchy. Knowing that he would be crucified for his heresy, Jesus had hoped to have his teaching of love spread worldwide by his apostles and disciples. Therefore, he spent most of his public life in the hinterlands away from Jerusalem in the hopes of spreading the ‘good news’ (Gospel) to as many as possible before his apprehension. It is likely we will never know whether or not he was immediately successful, so corrupted is the written word. It certainly is obvious that ultimately, he was a near total failure — overtly, there have been few of us who shared his views throughout the centuries.
Those bishops who established the Holy Roman Catholic Church at the request of Emperor Constantine, some three hundred years after Jesus’ death, most certainly ignored his teaching of love. They explicitly reverted to the sacrificial religion of the Jews, only with a new twist — Jesus became the unbloody sacrifice. It is my understanding that such philosophy was not proclaimed immediately but rather was developed over several hundred years. In any event, Jesus has become the sacrificial lamb of appeasement of God the Father for our sins — I am convinced Jesus would reject that teaching one hundred percent.
Jesus’ only purpose for his teachings of love was to supplant the sacrificial, oppressive religion of the Jews. He wanted the world to know that God loves all his creation and accepts it just as he created it to function. He wanted us to know that so-called sin is not against God but rather against our fellow man — ‘thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’.
So, with that explanation, it should be obvious that the generators of the 45,000 so-called Christian religions worldwide have distorted the written truth over the centuries to accommodate the validity of their existence — not one of them knows or preaches the Jesus and God whom I know. Not one of them has successfully, irrefutably defined the essence of their God. In truth, they can’t because their God is the God of the Jews — a total myth. I have made that definition of God’s essence — God is a Perfect Rational Being.
But, just as in Jesus’ day, the God of the Jews provides them with trillions of dollars annually to enrich their pockets while maintaining power and control over their constituents. That is what Jesus railed against — that’s what got him crucified. He was a traitor to the Jewish religion.
Jesus seemed to know, just as I know, that “God is a Perfect rational Being”. No one can refute that. I thank God that crucifixions are outlawed these days, or I would be hanging there with him. Jesus only intention and purpose was to be our Liberator — he would free us from the oppressive God of the Jews as imposed by Moses and show us the God of Perfect love.
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I have elucidated that philosophy in succinct detail in my little book, Wilderness Cry. In addition, I have expounded on its ramifications thoroughly in my two books, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic. If you care to know more about my upbringing, Growing Up In Fancy Farm Kentucky may be to your liking. All are available Amazon-Kindle and from me, autographed. handg@comcast.net.
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, therewould 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 and High Priest, soon discovered 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?
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I have elucidated this concept to the fullest in my books, Wilderness Cry, Peace In Spirituality, and Provocative Catholic. In addition, I have published a semi-historical and humorous book about my ‘pioneer childhood’, Growing Up, In fancy Farm Kentucky. I believe you would do yourself well by their reading. All are available at Amazon-Kindle and from me, autographed. (handg@comcast.net).
WILDERNESS CRY by Hilary L Hunt MD 