Fundamentalism is Holding Up Evolution
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/03/16/funda...
03/16/07
Fundamentalism is Holding Up Evolution
eileen fleming
"I said, 'You are "gods": you are all children of the Most High God." -Psalm 82:6
It has been said that evolution is being held up by fundamentalism and the surge of fundamentalism throughout all faith paths sends shivers through cynical atheists and mystics alike.
The bumper sticker actually did get it right: "We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
According to the 1987 classic, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace , Dr. Scott Peck defines the spiritual life as fluid and that one may pass back and forth repeatedly through any of the four-probably more-stages of the soul.
Stage one upon this journey -that begins from within-is essentially our infancy in the spiritual life. Like a wild child, a person in this stage reflects the inner chaotic and anti-social, unregenerate soul that is interested only in its own self-satisfaction and ego, much like the stereotypical spoiled child. Stage one people may claim to love others, but their behavior reflects they love their own pleasure, money, power, prestige, and security above any other. For stage one people, it really is all about them.
The good news is that the vast majority of humanity responds to that inner tug which is God, for lack of a better word. Katherine of Sienna wrote that within us all is the divine diamond. But life and all our baggage dulls the flame of our divine brilliance. Stage two souls seek to "let their light shine" and will live virtuous lives and do many good works. They also can be judgmental of others, self-righteous, rigid of thought, cold of heart, legalistic concrete literal thinkers and may even be guilty of a lukewarm faith. They want to do right and they even may desire to love and please God, but have not yet fully opened up to the Inner Light, as Joan of Ark did when she challenged church and state and persisted that she had intuited God within -even while being fried.
Stage two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above. The difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one wouldn't even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to the fact that we are to be our neighbor's keepers and they will respond to a friend-and like the good Samaritan, even to a total stranger in need.
Most theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief: the opposite of faith is fear. Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved! This evolution has led them to the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount AKA:The Beatitudes which sound like crazy promises, but is the litmus test of how we will be judged, if we claim to be a Christian.
About 2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and began to teach the people;
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own limitations and sins honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God.
How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven't got a clue, as to the depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The Universe. God's name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, "My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours." -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never hold a grudge. In other words: how happy you will be when you also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled."
In other words: how happy you will be when your greatest desire is to do what "God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8
"Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy." In other words: how happy you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your 'enemy.'
"For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you." Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God."
In other words: how happy you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
"Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God."
Oh how wonderful the WORLD will be when we all seek justice and pursue it, for there can be no peace without justice.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, their's is The Kingdom of Heaven." And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no more and that is the Kingdom of God .
Now, a stage three soul may well reject Christ as God, but often agree with the philosophy of Jesus, which Thomas Jefferson laid out when he weeded out the miracle stories from the gospels and clarified the teachings and ethics of Christ in:
THE LIFE AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH
1. Be just: justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart.
2. Treat people the way we want to be treated.
3. Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION.
4. Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
5. Do not judge others.
6. Do not bear grudges.
7. Be modest and unpretentious.
8. Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.
9. Being true to one's self in more important than being loyal to one's family...those who think they know the most are the most ignorant...
A stage three soul will see that a neighbor is everyone on the planet and not just those who think and look the same. Stages three's are seekers, doubters, skeptics, atheists, agnostics and frequently adults who grew up disenchanted with institutionalized religion. Their inherent intellectual curiosity leads them to seek their own way towards the Mystery of the Divine through philosophy and the study of multiple faith paths choosing and discarding according to their "inner light." Stage three souls often become activists for social justice and reform and the new wave of philanthropy from the blessed trio of Warren Buffet, Linda and Bill Gates fills mystics -and maybe some cynics?- with hope for a future that honors the unique sacredness of every life.
It has been said we are all called to be mystics in the market place and a stage four, such as Thomas Merton and Rumi give voice to that experience of the curtain being lifted and seeing through the glass a bit less darkly.
A mystic can best be understood as one who is in love with the divine mystery and is viscerally connected to the unity of all creation.
Mystics are not navel gazers, they feel the pain of the world within their hearts and grieve at what humans do to the other when they have no clue that The Divine is within the other as much as within themselves.
Mystics have detached from their concepts of God-not by their own efforts, but by the invitation and action of God upon a willing and simple soul in love with Pure Being, AKA:God.
The mystic fool, Saint Francis, the leper kisser of Assisi , was so head over heels in love with God in everyone and all of creation that most people of his time considered him crazed, or at least, extremely eccentric.
One needn't be a mystic or move beyond stage two on the spiritual journey to do what is good and right just because it is good and right.
On that foundation alone people of faith, atheists and agnostics can surely find something to agree upon.
Or would only a mystic see that?
"I said, 'You are "gods": you are all children of the Most High God." -Psalm 82:6
March 16, 2007 © Copyright Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author Keep Hope Alive and Memoirs of a Nice Irish American Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.
In Solidarity "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine, Do Something e
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Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" to be released Feb. 2007
Antichrists Among Us
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=3143&submit=Back
March 16, 2007
Antichrists Among Us
by Eileen Fleming
To be anti-Christ, is to be anti/against what he taught.
::::::::
The term "antichrist" only appears five times in the Bible, but a cult not based on sound theology has created an urban legend that seeks Armageddon. The term "antichrist" never appears in John's Revelation or Daniel, two disparate works of literature written three centuries apart and under very different circumstances, yet the Left Behinder's weave them together.
The small texts that mention the "antichrist" were written to attack the Gnostic understanding of who Christ was. A Gnostic relies on intuition and not on dogma and doctrine. Gnostic's were most certainly free spirits and most all of the writings we have about Gnostics, have been the attacks upon them.
That all changed when the Nag Hamadi Library was translated and published, for what had been deemed heretical by those in power in the fourth century can now be read in most every language.
Biblical scholars today agree that many books of the Bible were written by others in the name of an apostle, for the quickest way to gain credibility is to trade on another's reputation.
We may never know if the author who coined the term "antichrist" was actually the apostle John who wrote I John and 2 John-the only sources where the term appears.
John also say's much more:
"Dear Children,
...as you have heard that the antichrist is coming; even now many have come..."- I John 2:18
"This is how we know who the children of God are not: anyone who does not do right; nor anyone who does not love his brother."-I John 3:10
"If anyone has material possessions and see's his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ...let us love with actions and in truth."-I John 3:17
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear because fear has to do with punishment."-1 John 4:8, 18
The theology promoted in the Left Behind fiction is a theology based on fear and punishment.
The followers of this heretical theology worship a false god: a punitive father, who seeks obedience, is patriarchal, demonizes woman, gays, lesbians, and seek empire on this world and cares naught for the fragility of Mother Nature. They resist what science offers, in particular they are antichristic in their refusal to see that stem cell research could lead to actual HEALINGS of diseases, and JC was very big into healing.
I cite John 5: 1-6, which in some readings is prefaced with an angel from heaven, who would descend and agitate the waters of the Pool of Bethsaida.
Only the first leper, blind, or invalid who made it into the water would receive a healing. One day while Jesus was there, he walked by a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" The man answered he had no friends to help him get into the water first. Jesus asked him again, "Do you want to be healed?"
JC is always a gentle man, he never pushed anyone into anything!
The antichrist theology is the opposite and in the 21st century, these fundamentalists among us are seeking theocracy based on fear of others and they seek empire in this world.
Not at all what JC was about; he was about liberation from the bondage of corrupt teachers of The Law, that God loved ALL and the Kingdom of God is NOT of this world.
Antichrists do not have eyes to see that nature is God's primary temple, and war the greatest abomination...
During the time when the writer of John was writing about the spirit of antichrist, Gnosticism was still in its evolution and far from the intricately developed system of the second and third centuries when the church and its institutional hierarchy became firmly established. During the time John was writing against the false teachings, the Gnostics were by and large libertines who denied Christ's humanity. Some said that Christ only appeared to have a body; others said the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at his baptism and left him when he died.The Gnostics left no testimony in their behalf, so all we have had to go on is what was written against them and the texts that survived that have become the Nag Hamadi Library.
These texts offer no new information but prove that early Christians were just as diverse as Christians today.The Armageddon groupies believe they will be lifted out of the misery of the world, and neglect to reflect upon the antichrist within, which is how centuries of theologians understood the term. The term anti/against Christ is best understood to be anti/against what Jesus taught.
Christ was ALWAYS pointing to the Father, saying he only did what the Father wanted, and the prophet Micah summed it up best:
"What does God require? He has already told you o'man! Be JUST. Be Merciful! And walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8
The antichrists take certain scriptural passages literally, and totally neglect those they do not want to see or hear. Such as, Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, and Luke 12:10 which are simpatico with Gnostic Thomas saying 44:
Jesus said: "Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."
The Holy Spirit, AKA the spirit of God is within all created things. One should wonder what spirit is driving those that torture and bomb another, for just who would Jesus torture and bomb?
No religion owns God and no church owns Jesus.
Jesus has been hijacked by the right wing fundamentalists and the time of his liberation from the antichrists is NOW. Christ was no Christian, that term was not even coined until three decades after he walked the earth.
But JC was a social justice radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who challenged the job security of the temple priests and disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces for teaching subversive ideas such as all people are equal and valuable.
The antichrists of today, neglect the non-negotiable's that JC commanded that his followers must do: LOVE, pray for and forgive your enemies, treat all people the way you want to be treated and remain NONVIOLENT, even if nailed to a cross.
Christ dealt compassionately with sinners and outcasts, but hypocrites received his wrath.
Compassion, which is sorrow for the suffering of others, is accompanied by the urge to help. This should define the Christian attitude.
If there is no compassion within a Christian, then it is the spirit of the antichrist that rules.
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" to be released Feb. 2007