"Let Every Man Be Persuaded In His Own Mind"
The Lost Art of Saying "I don't agree"
"Be sure to choose what you believe and know why you believe it,
because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some
belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you." Robertson Davies,'The Deptford Trilogy ' (p477).
Early in life, people believe what they have been told and taught
to believe by those who have been also so taught before them. For better
or worse, most humans on the planet still believe what others have
taught them from the beginning as if, by chance, they just happened to
luck out and end up being born into a family that absolutely had the
final truth on most topics already understood. Of course we know this is
not really likely.
But humans are mostly content not to look out and wonder if what
they have been told is really true. Most humans, it seems, are not so
much interested in truths as they are with comfortable beliefs.
Comfortable beliefs don't really have to be true, but they are
satisfying as long as one does not think too deeply about them or
question the facts or their presentation.
Truth on the other hand can be very uncomfortable and yet while
true, pushes the person away from that set of beliefs they were given at
birth and expected to abide by. This causes no end of drama, as those
who are content with beliefs, do all they can to punish and coerce those
who opt for truth over belief.
One of the pitfalls of sitting in just about any congregation of
the Churches of God is the phenomenon of an entire congregation seeming
to be in 100% agreement with what the minister is teaching and saying
every week. Of course, this is an impossibility in real life, but
sometimes the COG experience does not take place in real life. It can
be somewhat surreal at times. This is particularly true in RCG, PKG and
PCG with assorting smatterings in UCG and LCG. It is emotionally and
literally impossible for any group to "all speak the same thing." Truth
or even beliefs simply do not work like that and are filtered
differently by each and every member and minister. All speaking the
same thing usually means being in compliance with the ministers view of
the world, who he thinks he is and where in the world of prophecy we are
now. Crazy stuff!
They may over talk to them about how wrong they are, or not speak
to them again to punish them for straying outside the tribal beliefs. In
some pathetic cultures, they simply kill you and solve the problem of
you're influencing others to rethink their own beliefs, given by the
tribe. It is not nice to fool Mother Nature, but it is even worse to
buck the tribal beliefs and wonder if maybe you have not been told
everything.
Today we see that discomfort over beliefs vs. truths in the
rancorous debates over evolution vs. creationism. While the facts of
evolution are generally true, details to follow, creationism is falling
quickly out of favor as the explanation of how life and mostly humans
came to be on this planet. The people who defend creationism do so to
defend their belief on how God did or didn't do something. Their belief
is based on an ancient text. It is also based on the absolute need to
defend the inerrancy of the text and reality of God as we have been
taught "him" to be in Sunday School.
Science defends evolution based on evidence that there might be
more to life than what is contained in ancient texts. They don't claim
to understand it, but are willing to step outside a box that
creationists aren't, because there is so much evidence that contradicts
the Biblical account.
Now creationists are endeavoring to defend the text as being good
science, but it simply can't be done anymore. Showing animals in Old
Testament stories spotted and stripped poles before birthing so that
they produce spotted or striped offspring is something even they will
have to admit is not how it works. That's really bad science on the part
of the Bible, but made perfect sense to them three thousand years ago.
Modern genetics really is the answer to really bad biblical "science."
Other beliefs, based on biblical texts are falling out of favor due
to overwhelming evidence that contradicts them. Most honest pastors and
theologians know that the birth stories of Jesus are not literally
true. Most know, the story of Jesus is not all that unique in human
history and the archetype of a dying God/man, persecuted, crucified,
dead three days and risen again is not a once told story of Jesus.
Most recognize that the Old Testament did not spring out of vacuum,
but rather out of the pagan cultures and Egyptian influences that
proceeded it. Most who take the time, realize the concept of God evolves
even in the Old Testament right on through the New. The simple
Christian, "loving father God" of today is not how it all began. Today
we have a difficult time thinking an all knowing, all caring, all
forgiving, all everything God would define himself as a "jealous God"
who punishes generations of people for the sins of their great great
grandfathers. Although literalist Christians are very comfortable with
that because, "God says, I believe it, that settles it for me." Whatever
is not comfortable to even a literalist is dismissed as your not really
understanding the text, or that God, while jealous, is all the other
good stuff too. I think if I hear, "for the wisdom of man is foolishness
with God", "My ways are not your ways", or "God does not see as a man
sees", one more time as a way to bale the literalist out of a pinch, I
shall scream :)
With just a bit of time today researching a favorite topic on the
Internet, one can find that there is much much more to the story, the
facts and the implications of a topic than what they simply had passed
on to them from mom and dad who got it from their mom and dad, who got
it from ....
Many today are coming to realize that the entire drama played out
in the New Testament as the literalized story of Jesus was first played
out in the heavens and still is today as the earth rotates around it's
axis and around the sun. The rising and setting of the Sun of God in the
heavens, which is literally the "light of the world" and literally as
the sun, delivers us from darkness, and "in which is no variableness nor
shadow of turning" is a type that literalists christians will someday
have to come to terms with. It is no coincidence that when Jesus is said
to have been born of a virgin on December 25th, at the end of the three
darkest days of the year, Virgo, the Virgin precedes the sun rise and
thus literally "the Virgin brings forth the Sun."
It is no coincidence that the Lamb is "crossified" in April when the
Sun is in Aries,the Lamb, at the junction of the celestial equator and
the sun's path across the heavens at the spring equinox (equal night).
Humans have seen this story acted out for thousands of years. The entire
circle of the zodiac, and the path the Sun/Son takes through it, tells
the identical story of the life and death of Jesus and every other
God/man in all cultures. The names have been changed to protect the
innocent when it comes right down to it.
It has only been since the corporate and literalist church and
church fathers demanded the allegory be believed as literal history upon
pain of death that all the conflict and heartache of religion began.
Taking an allegory and making it literally true is why the Bible seems
to have so many problems and is not the harmonious piece of work that
the Church would have one to believe. Many of them know it is not, but
won't tell you because it does not keep the system alive if people think
for themselves.
It is not to a literalist
church's advantage for you to realize that a real God does not require
you to go through anyone and certainly does not need you to show up at a
specific building at a specific time where you learn specific and
contradictory truths from the one true minister, and lose about ten
percent of your annual income to boot. That's religion.
True spirituality is an inside job. What we see today in
literalized Christianity is crowd control and a demand that people stay
put in the box and reject any contrary facts in the name of Faith. Faith
is what is demanded when the facts start to scare the powers that be.
In truth, Paganism = truth when one understands Christian origins. The
Christians met the pagans, and in spite of appearances, the pagans won.
So, back to original point.
Most of us had our truths pre selected for us and we simply were
expected to carry on the traditions. But we live in a world where
information is much more available to show that most likely we have not
all been told the truth of many things. Frankly, most won't even bother
to look outside their given truths. I know that. Some will look and in
horror at being wrong, will retreat back to where it is safe and comfy.
Some will be intimidated for a time to not look, though they want to.
Some ministers today are forced to warn their parishioners NOT to
go on the Internet and research the real background of their church,
religion or sacred story. Whatever you do, don't use the search words
"Jesus mythology", or "pagan Christian origins", or "Astrotheology",
"Errancy", "contradictions Bible" or a host of other words combined in
such a way as to open your mind and infuriate everyone else who does not
want you to learn one bit more than the guy, and it's mostly guys, who
is the provider of his truth to you.
But go for it anyway, and remember...
"Be sure to choose what you believe and know why you believe it,
because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some
belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you."
Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com
Early in life, people believe what they have been told and taught
to believe by those who have been also so taught before them. For better
or worse, most humans on the planet still believe what others have
taught them from the beginning as if, by chance, they just happened to
luck out and end up being born into a family that absolutely had the
final truth on most topics already understood. Of course we know this is
not really likely.
