Tag Archives: heresy

THE INTERNAL GOD : A Book Mention

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BEWARE YE WHO ENTER HERE.  I may be a heretic.  (The original Greek sense of this word implies one who is free to choose.)  But the evolved  meaning is one who holds an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted.  Thus, Jesus of Nazareth was a heretic who was guilty of choosing freely to oppose the mainstream religious practices at the Jerusalem Temple ;  and of loving too much, getting himself crucified by those with whom he differed about how to worship — those who thought they owned the practice of worshipping “correctly.”  

I hope I model myself after such contrarians as Moses, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus.  But I may be very wide of the mark.  It’s above my paygrade to know ; and above ours to judge.  “Judge not, lest ye be judged” said Jesus. Yet so much of religion is based on the silly question of who’s in and who’s out? Who knows?  Certainly not me.  If you think you know, beware, for there are those who feel sent to kill the heretic.  You might be drawn in to joining a murderous crowd. 

Ok, about the title of my essay, The Internal God.  The more common expression is eternal, forever-lasting.  But most of our observations tell us that almost nothing is eternal — as even the Sun will eventually run out of energy, explode, or vanish into a black hole, whatever that is.  Ah, but ideas can be both internal and eternal. — Just imagine going to the tool crib for a seven and being told they are all presently being used by other borrowers – sorry, wait your turn.  “Seven” is eternally available to everyone.  Your ability to grasp the concept of number, or beauty, or justice, entitles you to use it.  But be careful — powerful tools often cut in two directions.  For example, those who want justice when they’ve been wronged also want forgiveness when they have transgressed.  

So where is this internal God?  Let’s be clear — I am not God!  But perhaps consciousness, the awareness of the presence of an ideal — the I AM — is God in us.  This is an elusive concept.  It can’t be possessed. But it can be beheld. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20,21 see various renderings via pulldown menu).  ¿ So, can you see God in me? (Probably not, if I choose not to see God in you!)  Yep, words are slippery, and it’s our task to squeeze’em to get all the juice.  

There’s a new book which speaks to such a broadened approach, titled THAT ALL SHALL BE SAVED: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation.  It is likely to draw fire from those who prefer “that old time religion” which crucified Jesus and his fellow heretics.  An excerpt can be read here.

 

¿¿ Who Crucified MOTHER EARTH ??

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In the Moonlight, by Albert von Keller. 1894. Oil on canvas: 150 x 100,5 cm,   (Wikimedia commons.)

Nearly 2000 years ago a devout Jewish heretic was hanging on a cross, put there for the crime of loving too much.  Some accounts say the Romans nailed him up there ;  others, that the rulers of the Jewish Temple had arranged it.  

Even tho’ I didn’t yet reside on this planet, I know it was me, a Christian heretic, who required it — due to my reluctance to deny myself the false pleasure of being my own god.  (Clearly, I’ve failed, but as I’ve matured somewhat, I’ve come to think of pleasure as a counterfeit of joy.)

It’s GOOD FRIDAY again, and humanity is asleep in its dreams of technology-as-savior.  Many of my Christian friends are in utter denial that Earth’s climate is changing rapidly, and have elected someone who has ordered  removal of the few safeguards America had cobbled together to delay us from snuffing ourselves.  Yes, friends, global warming is very real, as you can assess with you own eyes, by watching this one-minute satellite animation of 25 years of arctic ice declining in a blink of geological time.  (Heed the evidence of your eyeballs instead of Limbaugh’s lies!)  Remember :  the industrial revolution is only ~200 years old — so 25 years is a long portion of that! Prior to our harnessing of carbon energy, the CO2 levels had remained mostly steady for 10,000 years.  200 years ago they were about 280 ppm ;  today they are over 400 — preparing to cook us like planet Venus, accord to astrophysicist Adam Frank.

We are crucifying our Mother.  Some of you, who will accuse me of deifying Nature, have deified a man who would be shocked to find himself to have been designated as God-in-the-flesh — by Emperor Constantine, (“the Great Decider”) who wasn’t even a Christian until decades later on his deathbed, when he accepted Christ.  Yet the divinity of Jesus has been “settled doctrine” since the year 325AD.  Kids, he was a man who accepted the dangerous assignment of teaching us of our divinity, but not to invite us to worship him, or into our current thinking that we have a right to ruin Creation thru wasteful living, by claiming to be our own God-in-the-flesh. He was a man who came to teach us we are all divine, when and as we discover that obedience is freedom.  “Oh, but I couldn’t possibly be like Jesus — please excuse me from your heresy, sir.” Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me, said he.  We must each do our own thinking, rather than letting church bullies decide such momentous things for us.

So, how to change course?  (Is it even possible?)  Twelve-step programs tell us we must admit our addiction.  Yes, my name is ____ and I’m addicted to carbon, soot, darkness.  But rather than distracting ourselves by attempting to minimize our addiction with a smaller carbon footprint, we need to step up to calling for policy changes that bring us a radical recovery thru energy conversion.  Light, instead of carbon.  The apostle John summarized his experience of Jesus in a single, short sentence :  God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  But that sounds so naive!  Could it be true?  What about the holocaust, and birth defects?  

Look, no matter how thin you slice the baloney, it always has two sides.  And the problem of evil is no different.  So, what’s the flip side of that?  (Glad you asked.)  ¿How about the problem of the ideal?   And what is the ideal of sustainable living on the planet we’ve been given?  I will not hasten to answer, but I suspect it has something to do with light — seeing it, being it, loving it.  Yes, Jesus did say I am the light of the world.  But he also said you are the light of the world.  Yeah, you!  And me, too. All of us together, no outsiders, not even Judas!  He stretched out his arms and welcomed us all into the Father’s creation, our walled garden.  Love her. Protect her.  Rescue her.  We’ve been blessed with a gift of dominion.  Let us not trample, but walk here gently.