LSP54: Why Hatred Is a Free Will Choice - And Why Everyone Needs to Face the Truth About Hatred

 

It's common these days for spiritual leaders of all stripes to speak eloquently and volubly of love's power to heal the world. We're especially keen to talk about the power of love after we've been asked to deal with yet another horrific attack on innocent people, such as the recent gun attack at Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida  or the van attack in Toronto. When our fellow human beings choose to behave like monsters, we're quick to respond by sharing thoughts and prayers on social media, holding candlelight vigils, and making donations on crowd-sourcing sites. This is all well and good. What I don't see is a willingness on the part of influential commentators to ask why the violent perpetrators felt such hatred towards others and why they thought it was okay to act on their hatred. I don't see people asking what hatred is and why we're seeing a resurgence of this beastly human emotion throughout the world.

It's not good enough to sweep these questions under the carpet by proclaiming that hatred is simply a void in a person's head where love should be, as if it's not the hate-filled person's moral responsibility.

Hatred is not a lack of anything. Hatred is a moral choice. And unless a person can demonstrate that his/her biological brain has been catastrophically damaged by a head injury or a psychotic break or a viral attack or mercury poisoning or severe dementia or something else along the lines of an extreme physiological force, that person is responsible for the choice to hate others. 

As with all major meta-choices in life, hatred is a learned behaviour that evolves over time. You don't suddenly wake up one morning and decide to hate everyone whose name starts with a "J" (unless, as mentioned in the paragraph above, you've experienced a traumatic brain injury). Hatred is way of coping with a life you just don't like, a life that doesn't match what you believe you're entitled to. Hatred rewrites your brain's moral code and gives you permission to override the quiet whispering of  your soul's inner voice (that is, your conscience).

Irrefutable proof that hatred is a moral choice is found in the history of slavery among human cultures throughout time, region, and religious tradition. No one of conscience could ever believe that slavery is acceptable to God or the soul. Yet countless millions have persuaded themselves that slavery is a morally acceptable way to take what they think God owes them. Shown here is part of an Egyptian wall painting on display at the British Museum, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2024.

Here is my working definition of hatred: Hatred is the choice to project your own personal responsibility onto somebody else so you don't have to deal with the consequences of your own thoughts, feelings, or actions. 

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of happiness.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own selfishness.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own status addiction.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for your own lack of self-knowing and self-love.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you've made a mistake.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not special and you're not chosen and you're not "better" than anyone else.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people for the rage you feel when someone tells you you're not perfect and you're never going to be perfect.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people because you don't think you should ever have to deal with your own feelings of shame or guilt.

Hatred is the choice to blame other people when you realize you haven't yet achieved your "rightful" place as a saviour, Messiah, or enlightened teacher of justice and mercy, a place you're so certain you deserve.

Hatred is an inevitable consequence of your own belief that you already know yourself so well that you couldn't possibly fool yourself into believing things about yourself that simply aren't true.

In short, hatred is your brain's way of trying to prove to itself that you're a really nice person who's trying to save others when, in fact, you're a mean, nasty person who's narcissistic and selfish and refuses to take personal responsibility for your own choices and beliefs and attitudes towards others.

Among the narcissistic self-delusions that create no end of human suffering are these:

• a belief that you're incapable of making mistakes because you have all the right education and all the right knowledge
• a belief that you're better than other people because you have the only correct ideological understanding of the universe
• a belief in the superiority of your own mental processes because your logic is obviously impeccable
• a belief that you deserve to feel moral outrage if anyone suggests you should feel shame or guilt about the choices you've made (including religious choices)
• a belief that you're using all your exquisite knowledge and specialness and logic to save other people from their own stupidity (though you probably realize you shouldn't say this part out loud)

Hatred is a terrible force, and it creates indescribable suffering in the world, but it exists only because individual human beings and certain communities allow it to exist.

It exists where individuals and ideological communities refuse to be honest with themselves about what human beings are capable of when they embrace a loving and humble relationship with God and with themselves. 

Of course, the choice to love with humbleness and courage is also a choice. Love and hate are at opposite ends of the free will spectrum. But the great thing about free will is that you can change your mind about the kind of person you want to be. Even if your family, religious community, or social community have encouraged you to be a person who hates, you can always decide you no longer want to be that person. You can decide to learn -- to remember -- how to love.

A particular passage in the New Testament summarizes these thoughts beautifully. The passage I'm thinking of is found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, so it's long been attributed to the apostle Paul. I'm pretty certain, however, that this short and timeless ode to Divine Love was written by Jesus and later stolen by Paul as part of the latter's ongoing efforts to make his teachings seem more closely aligned with those of Jesus.

It goes like this (using the NRSV translation, mostly):

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have piety, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. 

What love looks like: Light, openness, shared space, healing beauty, one well of water that quenches the thirst of all people equally. Shown here is the well in the cloister garden of Westminster Abbey, London, England. Photo credit JAT 2023.

LSP50: Where to Draw the Line on Free Speech? Conscience in the Identity Politics Debate

On this morning's National Post website (February 18, 2017), there's a commentary piece with this headline: "Where to draw the line on free speech? It needs to be guided by judgment and conscience, not rules." The author, Andrew Coyne, raises some good points about mutual obligations in a democratic society such as Canada's. He points out that "the spirit of free speech" is important, that "free speech exists, as a legal guarantee, in part because of the foundation of social values in which it is embedded."

What the author doesn't address in his very reasonable piece about free speech is the underlying crisis our society currently faces with regard to conscience. Conscience -- the source of our ineffable and awe-inspiring courage and inner strength -- is quickly and efficiently being killed off in our society. Without conscience, we simply aren't able to understand our mutual obligations, let alone grasp the meaning of "the spirit of free speech." Without conscience, we don't have the courage to recognize and confront hatred. Without conscience, we stagger from crisis to crisis and hurl cliches instead of insight at complex issues. Without conscience, we can't hold the line against any of the philosophical movements designed to eradicate differences between individual human beings and our neighbours. Without conscience, we start to believe there's only one right way to be: our way or the highway.

In short, without conscience, people aren't able to be the loving and potential-filled individuals we're capable of being.

 

The foundation of social values in which "the spirit of free speech" resides is due in large part to the long arc of Christian values that have slowly evolved over the centuries. Despite a history riddled with Christian leaders who perpetrated mistakes and terrible abuses (some of which have been acknowledged and atoned for), one important aspect of Christianity (and Judaism before it) is the strong emphasis placed on women's worthiness before God. You can't have a fully functioning human conscience unless you're willing to trust that God does not place men above women in Creation or in human society. Shown here is "The Vision of the Blessed Clare of Rimini" by Francesco da Rimini (prob. about 1333-40), on display at the National Gallery, London, UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

In place of conscience, without much awareness that what we're doing is dangerous to our longstanding sense of social values, we're tacking together a murky blend of laws, ideologies, logic, and dualistic right-and-wrong morality that currently masquerades under the noble banner of identity politics. Identity politics purports to be a salvific trend which will add to our foundation of judgment and conscience once we totally accept and absorb and see the wisdom of the myriad small but necessary laws that must be put in place -- just temporarily, of course -- to protect certain individuals who believe it's their RIGHT to never feel offended and never feel challenged in their personal beliefs. Identity politics is an ideology designed to give people permission to stop listening to their own conscience and to listen instead only to the System 2 pleasure and happiness networks of their own human brains. The strategy can be summed up in this way: if it gives you a brief neurological high, it's great; if it demands you do the hard work of understand and accepting your neighbour (or yourself!), it's not only awful and unfair, but should be made illegal.

We've seen its ilk before under other names, names such as fascism and totalitarianism and religious fundamentalism of all stripes. These philosophical movements may appear different in the specific political and economic laws they apply to their citizens, but one thing they all have in common is the methods used to eradicate conscience among their citizens. Once you kill off conscience in the majority your citizens, of course, you can do pretty much anything you like, as successful tyrants such as Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot and Mao have shown us.

Regimes such as these -- along with many others now and in the past -- start by trumpeting their claims for Truth. (Obviously, they're not going to tell you it's really a Big Fat Lie.) Next they bombard you with a constant stream of words and speeches and polemical essays filled with countless "wisdom words" (e.g. peace, justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, sacredness, oneness) to try to force their way into the System 1 networks of your brain -- the networks that are responsible for important emotional and spiritual traits such as empathy, courage, trust, love, morality, fidelity, curiosity, patience, and openness to change. These networks are programmed to respond to cues around relationships and learning and purpose, so they're vulnerable to attack through heart-based words (as every spin doctor in history has figured out).

I should stop here and point out that System 1 (what we tend to call "the Heart") is one of two major processing streams used by the brain. The other is System 2 (what we tend to call "the Mind"). Researchers in Dual Process Theory, which posits the operation of two different yet equally important processing systems in the brain, are starting to see both the benefits and the pitfalls of having two brain systems with different priorities that can, under certain circumstances, start to compete with each other -- a problematic situation that all too many people today have experienced firsthand.

Once the non-empathetic but highly logical and fiercely dogmatic leaders of a ideological movement have forced their way into your brain's System 1 networks, they start to chip away at your own natural, built-in sense of self. They try to make you doubt your sense of self. They try to make you doubt that you should even have a sense of self. They try to force relativism on you and they try to force determinism on you (both at the same time!). They tell you there's no such thing as free will (i.e. a conscience through which you can apply your empathy and courage and other System 1 traits). They tell you that because people have no conscience and no free will, chaos will ensue and everyone will become traitorous and cannibalistic zombies who will attack you on the street and rape you and murder you if you don't obey your new leaders. (Of course, these things won't happen if you and your neighbours have a conscience and know how to use it, but what the heck, who needs the truth about conscience when they're shovelling out their Big Fat Lies?)

Once you start to believe these lies, your brain will start to rewire itself to reflect your new beliefs. (This is the principle of neuroplasticity at work, and it's the scientific reality that explains how ideologies can reshape your brain if you're not careful and if you're not paying attention to what you're putting in your brain.) Your brain will try to do what you've told it to do -- it will start to demolish network connections that deal with System 1 emotional and spiritual priorities, and it will try to strengthen connections in the cortical layers that deal with logic, rules, competitiveness, agreeableness, neuroticism, schadenfreude, status, and happiness (which is not the same thing as meaning or purpose). You'll turn yourself into a virtue-signalling member of a hive mind, or, as Star Trek writers describe it, a member of the Borg Collective, or, as Battlestar Galactica writers would say, a Cylon who's going backward instead forward in his or her relationship with Creation and God.

This doorway originally served the narthex of a 19th century Ontario church. Eventually the staircase that led to the door was entirely removed. You can still see the doorway, but you can no longer reach it. This is what can happen to your conscience if you allow System 2 ideologies to dominate your brain. You can still see the words that describe your conscience, but you can no longer access the feelings that accompany a fully functioning interior doorway to wisdom. The part of you that's supposed to express independent free will and conscience becomes all show without actual function. Feelings of depression and anxiety often soon follow. Photo credit JAT 2014.

After you've turned yourself into a member of the hive mind comes the worst part. Your ideological leaders, who with one hand have stripped your brain of its ability to "know where to draw the line," mercifully offer you with the other hand the blueprint you need in order to become a happy and productive member of society. It will be a pure System 2 blueprint, of course, with eradication of anything resembling free will, conscience, empathy, openness to change, plus all the rest of the amazing human traits you're truly capable of. The System 2 blueprint will be presented to you as a salvific act of self-transcendence intended to create more justice and more righteousness for the victims in your society. But really the blueprint is just about the need for certain System 2-dominant brains to compete, to gain power and status, and to take pleasure from the suffering of others who have lost their own ability to tell right from wrong. Tyrants thrive where human hearts suffer.

It's a form of spiritual rape. To enter somebody else's brain and intentionally try to strip away their core sense of self and their access to their own free will and conscience is an unspeakable act of violence.

If we really want to have a society that understands "the spirit of free speech" and the meaning of mutual obligations, we must do everything in our power to raise our children so their brains can process and balance both System 1 and System 2 priorities -- and be able to tell the difference between the two. Only when individuals grow, maintain, and cherish their personal sense of conscience can we act together to recognize tyranny in all its insidious forms.

Conscience is our true protection against tyranny.

LSP49: Humanity's Search for Meaning in the 2016 U.S. Election

This post has gone through a lot of changes since I first wrote it just after the 2016 U.S. elections. But instead of deleting the entry, I've decided to use the changes as an example of this maxim: "How you do anything is how you do everything."

 

In 2021, after I moved into a new home, I discovered this plaster plaque had snapped in half during the moving process. I reminds me of what happens inside the biological brain of someone who has abandoned his or her own conscience. Angels stop gathering with you. Angels still love you and forgive you, but angels aren't obliged to help you if you're voting for the world leaders who know only Hate. Angels have Free Will, too. Photo credit JAT 2021.

 

Addendum March 1, 2025:  I wrote this short piece for an online forum. It expresses how I'm feeling about the current U.S. political swamp, so I'm adding it here. For context, I'm writing about the disastrous Oval Office meeting that took place between Trump 2.0, Vice-President Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28, 2025.

So yesterday afternoon, I decided it would be nice to lie down on my sofa and have a bit of a rest after lunch. The sun was peeking out after a long, heavy, winter rain, and I thought, "Yes, it can't hurt to have a nap."

And while I was sleeping, Trump and Vance decided it was a good time to try to wreck the whole world.

I'm tired of hearing Trump say he wants the war in Ukraine to end because "millions of people of dying." If he cared at all about the lives of regular people, he wouldn't have chosen the dogs of hellfire to be his closest advisors.

The lies, the hypocrisy, the projection onto others of all his own venom -- these are the traits of a human being who has given up any semblance of decency, compassion, courage, and self-awareness.

Some commentators have suggested it would have been better if the conversation between Zelenskyy, Trump, and Vance had taken place behind closed doors. I disagree. Bullies, narcissists, and psychopaths adore secrecy, because secrecy allows them to deny they ever violated anyone.

Because it was all caught on film, individuals can now decide for themselves what they saw, what they learned, and what side of the debate they resonate with. Regardless of what one believed the day before yesterday about these three men, there's no unseeing the real intents that emerged in the Oval Office yesterday.

It's better that we know and keep remembering what we all saw (even though it's triggering for far too many people).

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Addendum posted November 2, 2024: Today, I'm doing something I've never done before. I've decided to delete the entire post I originally wrote on November 11, 2016. I'm deleting it because the election campaign of 2024 has taught me that vehement supporters of Donald Trump are willing to embrace any lies he tells them. These supporters have abandoned their own conscience and their own inner voice. They've decided they shouldn't have to take personal responsibility for their own choices. Many seem happy to follow any conspiracy theory rather than do the hard work of finding meaning through the Soul's courage.

If I leave the original post intact, it will be misused. And those who want to misuse it will get away with it because far-right Trump supporters aren't interested in the moral code taught by Jesus. They're trying to grow a very different kind of religious tree, one rooted in purity, piety, and perfection. They believe the glorification of Trump will bring about some sort of utopian restoration. They believe all their lies and all their violent, misogynistic rhetoric are justified because their goal is so worthy.

They are wrong.

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Addendum posted January 3, 2024: Because of recent changes in how individuals tend to read online posts and use -- or rather, misuse -- posts (by taking bits and pieces out of context and using catchy phrases to support their personal crusades), I want to say right up front, before you get to the paragraphs I wrote in November 2016, that I do not support former President Donald Trump in any way on any topic. Nor am I likely to ever change my mind. He is a coward -- a bullying, narcissistic, selfish coward.

In 2016, I didn't have the evidence to support or condone a flat out, across the board denunciation of the personality and policies of Donald Trump. But since the January 6, 2021 violence on Capitol Hill, Trump has, through his own words and actions, provided abundant proof about the kind of man he really is. Today, I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last person in Christendom.

Following this addendum is the post I originally wrote over seven years ago. You can decide for yourself whether Trump believes he's been elevated to the status of God.

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Addendum posted January 13. 2021: It's been a bit over 4 years since I wrote this post, and, during this time, a lot has changed. The entire world has been dealing with the unexpected travails of the novel coronavirus we call COVID-19. And the United States has again struggled with an election where a man named Donald Trump has forced a debate about the soul.

I'm writing this addendum on the day the U.S. House of Representatives is going to vote on a motion to impeach Trump for inciting insurrection. I hope the vote succeeds.

Over the past four years, Trump has shown with increasing clarity that he has no courage. He doesn't have the courage to listen to his own soul, let alone the souls of millions of Americans who needed a courageous leader during the 2020 pandemic, but instead found themselves saddled with someone who could only think about his own loss of Happiness when he lost the fall election.

On the plus side, people from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been appalled by the barrage of lies spewed by Trump and his closest supporters, lies that directly incited violence on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. America has been forced to see the ugly side of rhetoric, personality cults, and dualistic political mongering -- all negative aspects of System 2 when left unchecked by System 1.

It's a lesson we all should have learned from 20th century history, but apparently we needed a refresher. 

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LSP46: Don't Know God from Adam

Adam: So God, I was thinking. I've decided I should become a more spiritual person, so I thought maybe you could give me some tips. Nothing biblical, of course. I'm thinking of something more modern. I'm thinking . . . oh . . . maybe something with a bit of a Jesus feel to it. Jesus seems to fly well with just about everybody. You know, all that love and forgiveness stuff. How about it?  Any suggestions for how I can be more like Jesus? I'd really love everybody to love me. The way they love Jesus.

God:  Hmmm. Interesting choice, son.

Adam, shrugging:  Hey, it's, like, just a little something I dreamed up.

God:  Well . . . it's certainly doable, son. How would you like to start?

Adam:  I'm very big on the idea of respect, so we should start with that.

God:  Oh. You'd like to know how to respect me?

Photo JAT 2015

Adam, chuckling:  Of course not. You have such a sense of humour, God. No, I was thinking it's important for me to state what I need. That way, the boundaries will be clear, and there'll be no misunderstandings between us.

God:  I see. That's not the way Jesus started his conversation with me, but go on. Let's see where this takes us.

Adam:  Great. Just so we're clear . . . you and I are equal partners in this, okay? I mean, I don't even have to be doing this. I could just carry on with the life I've been living. I'm pretty impressed with the choices I've been making so far, and other people have told me how great I'm doing, so this spiritual stuff -- it's an add-on. If I don't like something, I'm gonna say so and I'm gonna stop right then and there. That's my bottom line.

God:  You have free will, son. I give that to everybody.

Adam:  Another thing. You're going to guarantee me the results I want, right? You're going to make sure I'm even more popular and successful, right?

God:  You know Jesus was hated by the people he loved, don't you, son? You know he pushed all their buttons?

Adam:  Yeah, yeah, the crucifixion thing. But that was before we got smarter and more accepting of others in our culture. That wouldn't happen today. We wouldn't let it. Today we know the difference between love and hate.

God:  You know the difference between status and lack of status. I'm not sure it's the same thing, son.

Adam:  So back to the Jesus plan. How do I start being more like Jesus?

God:  Well, I need a lot of help getting practical things from people who have them to people who need them. Do you think you might be able to help with that?

Adam:  You mean I should write a cheque to a charity? I might be able to squeeze out a few bucks for you.

God:  Actually, I was thinking about a young man who lives in your community and needs a kind word, an encouraging smile, and a fair chance at getting a job. You're going to cross paths with him on Monday at 5:00 p.m. Think you can help me with that?

Adam, checking schedule on phone:  Uh, well, sorry, but Monday isn't good for me. I have to be at the gym by then. Another day would be better for me. What's Friday like for you? I can squeeze in some time at 7:30 p.m..

God:  Shouldn't you be home with your children at 7:30 p.m.? I'm just wondering, since Jesus placed an extremely high priority on the emotional needs of children, and if you were to spend time in the evenings with your children, it would be a great first step.

Adam:  No problem. I always give them a kiss when I get home, and during the day I sometimes text them.

God:  You know, Jesus was pretty keen on the idea of visiting people in person. He did his teaching and healing in person, even though he could have written long sermons and sent them out by messenger the way other teachers did. Think you could be more of a hands-on guy?

Adam:  Interesting thought, God. Interesting thought. I don't think it's really my style. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

God:  Your children have free will, too, Adam.

Adam:  Hey, don't tell me how to raise my children, God. Next you'll be telling me I should say out loud I believe in God. Nope. I draw the line at saying -- or even thinking -- I believe in you. It ain't gonna happen, God. That's one of my ground rules.

God:  So . . . . to be clear . . . you want to be like Jesus, who believed in me with every shred of his being  . . . but you don't think you should have to believe in anything beyond yourself?

Adam:  You got that straight. I know my rights.

God:  Okay, son. Well, I think I'll be on my way now.

Adam:  Wait! I'm not finished! If this is going to work between us, I expect you to listen! You're supposed to help me when I ask for help!

God:   . . . (offstage whisper) Where's my copy of Horton Hears a Who? Anyone see my copy? Jesus, you borrow it again? Never a copy around when I need one. The kids love it  . . . (smiling) . . .

Adam:  See? Just what I thought! All talk, no commitment. Where are you, God? What kind of God are you, anyway?

LSP45: Atheism: You Think You've Escaped the Perils of Religion . . . So Why Isn't Your Life Getting Better?

If the militant atheists are right, and the world's greatest ills can be blamed on religion, then I'm wondering why, at the close of 2015, when more people than ever are rejecting faith and religion and relationship with God for the simple logic of atheism, the world is looking less loving, not more loving?

Could it be that militant atheism, in its religiosity, pure ideology, anger, lack of empathy, and anthropocentric hubris, is simply a new manifestation of the same neurophysiological patterning that leads to fundamentalism of all stripes?

Could it be that militant atheism is a fundamentalist philosophy with characteristics no different, say, than the Middle East movement known as ISIL, which purports to be a religious movement, but is really just a haven for human beings who have damaged their brains and have turned themselves into the Four Horsemen of the Dark Psychological Tetrad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Sadism, and Machiavellianism)?

Black Beauty T. Rex at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta. Sure, it's unrealistic and unscientific for Creationists to deny the evidence of the fossil record and claim that Planet Earth is only a few thousand years old. No argument there. But it's also unrealistic and unscientific for militant atheists to deny the evidence of the quantum record, which speaks of weird phenomena such as non-locality, the conscious observer, bosons, fermions, and magnetism, not to mention all the dark matter and dark energy we know almost nothing about. From my perspective, the atheist belief that "dumb luck" led to the evolution of the universe requires a much higher degree of sanctimonious denial than the Creationist position could ever muster. Are we humans really so incredibly amazing that the entire universe evolved just so we could have consciousness with all the rights and privileges of the conscious observer effect? Really? We can't even manage our own bank accounts, let alone act as wise custodians of Planet Earth, so why would the universe evolve to give humankind the unique right to mess with the laws of physics? Photo credit JAT 2015.

The militant atheists I've known (and I've known quite a few) strut and preen in exactly the same harsh way as the spiritual and theological narcissists I've known. They're certain of their rightness, certain of their objective intellect, certain they have all the facts. They're quick to judge and even quicker to punish. They have no empathy (though they rush to claim they live by the laws of empathy's hobbled cousins "compassion" and "mercy"). They rely almost exclusively on the brain's System 2 thinking processes (linear thinking) and pour contempt on the brain's much older and more adaptive System 1 thinking processes (creative and intuitive thinking). They're slow to learn from their mistakes and even slower to admit they made any mistakes in the first place.

Here's something else I've noticed about militant atheists and other fundamentalist philosophers: they're really, really poor at constructing a whole and complete argument. In fact, most of them couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag. But don't say this to their face, because they'll explode in vengeful anger -- maybe even treat you to a narcissistic rage reaction -- and they'll make you pay BIG for pointing out they're not really as smart as they think they are.

I take issue with militant atheist philosophies on the following fronts:

• They use restricted data sets and then claim they're using a complete data set. One example is an extreme reliance on Materialist cause-and-effect "Law" without regard or deference to the non-Materialist laws that govern most of the universe. Why is it "wrong" for religious leaders to ignore the actual laws of physics but "right" for atheists to do it when it suits them?
• Another example, taken from the field of religious studies, is a tendency for atheists to conflate many different topics into a single "bugaboo" called religion. Sure, religious fundamentalists conflate stuff all the time -- but why is it okay for atheists to fall back on conflation, over-simplification, literalism, and myth-making of their own?  
• Atheists, in my experience, rely heavily on "revelation" to an extent that rivals the worst abuses of "religious revelation" from major world religions. Under the category of "revelation" you find "proofs" such as "Because I said so," "Because I'm smarter than you," "Because I cherry-picked one small fact from an entire body of knowledge and used it out of context to show how smart I am," and "I just know it's true."
• Atheism has its own set of gods, though it likes to pretend otherwise. Top on the list of atheism's idols are "The Perfect Human Mind," followed closely by scientism; algorithmic solutions; and variations on the "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my genes made me do it" argument (which is really no different than the ancient religious argument that says "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my demons made me do it").
• Atheism is marked by a petulant, narcissistic refusal to examine the enormous and interconnected questions of scale, time, peripheral vision, alternating current, bonding, probability wave currents, and other non-linear, non-Materialist questions related to God and consciousness and Creation. They use their own personal human limits as proof that God can't actually exist! (as if God has ever understood questions of scale, time, etc. in the way a human brain does!) 

How are these philosophical approaches any different, characterologically speaking, from those used by religious fundamentalists?

How can you expect to become a happier, healthier person who understands patience and love and forgiveness and calmness and flexibility and healing and scale and time and bonding and breadth of knowledge and self-directed morality when you've made the choice to turn yourself into an "iceberg thinker" who refuses to look at anything except the small percentage of data floating above the surface of your System 2 thinking?

And why do you think it's wrong for religious teachers to do this but okay for you to do exactly the same thing?

In my view, militant atheism is hypocrisy in as pure a form as one can get.

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March 2, 2016 addendum: A recent piece by Brian Bethune in Macleans highlights some interesting research by social scientists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog into the unusual percentage of Islamist terrorists who have engineering degrees: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-do-so-many-jihadis-have-engineering-degrees/. Bethune says: "That takes Hertog and Gambetta to the thorny question of “mindsets for extremists.” Different types of people are attracted to different kinds of extremism—engineers mostly on one side, social scientists and humanities grads on the other—and the authors went in search of traits found in both secular and jihadi extremists as well as among engineers. Three stand out among conservatives in general in recent psychological research: disgust (or the felt need to keep one’s environment pure, which can underpin everything from homophobia to xenophobia); the “need for cognitive closure” (a preference for order and certainty that can support authoritarianism); a very high in-group/out-group distinction."

LSP31: Some Thoughts on Stealth Buddhism

In response to a recent Psychology Today blog by Religious Studies professor Candy Gunther Brown, a member of an online discussion group posed this question: "Is Secular Mindfulness Meditation Really Stealth Buddhism?"

There were only two posted comments when I checked into the discussion, and one of the two posted comments started out by saying this:

"Buddhism's most basic precepts do not constitute a 'religion' per se. The aim is to reduce suffering."

A lot of people seem to believe this.  I wrote this in reply:

_________________________________________

It's interesting that you say Buddhism's most basic precepts don't constitute a religion. I've seen this said many times of Buddhism (using as my definition of Buddhism the core teachings of the Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, cosmogony of co-dependent origination, and related teachings). I feel it's always important to look at the whole picture of Buddhism's philosophy and way of life when deciding how to incorporate its core teachings into our daily lives (if at all).

It's often said that the aim of Buddhism is to reduce suffering. While this is certainly true, Buddhism in the form taught by the Buddha (if it's even possible to accurately reconstruct his original teachings) is a self-contained cosmogonical and cosmological philosophy founded on apophatic mysticism with a salvific goal. Its focus on salvation (what Buddhists refer to as liberation) definitely pushes it in the direction of a religion. As well, the Buddha's refusal to answer the question of whether there actually is a God makes Buddhism a non-theistic philosophy. It isn't, strictly speaking, an atheistic way of life. There's no room within Buddhism for a personal God, but there's plenty of room in it for assorted supernatural beings and saints (especially within Mahayana Buddhism).

Apophatic mystics, regardless of their original religious training, see the universe in a particular way. This way is filled with negation, lack of imagery, eradication of personal boundaries, and the elevation of the human mind to a cosmic power that can merge with (or even transcend) Source.
 

Few people in the West take the time to understand that the Buddha's claim of awakening under the Bodhi tree is a classic example of an apophatic mystical experience. Those in the West who turn to Buddhism as a way to escape the "nonsense" of Christian mysticism and miracles should be more honest with themselves about the mystical roots of Buddhism. Photo credit JAT 2018.

The goal of all apophatic mystics -- whether Buddhist, Christian, or any other faith tradition -- is to permanently escape the problems and suffering of the imperfect world we live in through the path of the perfect mind. There's no need within any apophatic philosophy to promote the ideals of the human heart or the reduction of suffering through alternate means or practices (one example of an alternate practice being forgiveness).

Having said this, I think there's great value in the practice of mindfulness if mindfulness is defined as something more akin to healthy awareness of self (interoception); healthy maintenance of boundaries (parieto-temporal lobe enhancement); triggering of the "placebo effect" through self-kindness, gratitude, humbleness (lack of status addiction), forgiveness, empathy, music, and community fellowship; and full use of the CNS's capacity to begin to heal itself (and the whole body) if we use our free will in healthy ways.

I'm a practising mystic, but I follow the cataphatic path. I don't engage in meditation because the kind of meditation endorsed within strict Buddhist circles will trigger (with sustained practice) neuroplastic effects that I have no interest in. I have no interest in changing my brain structure to suit the ideals of an apophatic belief system. I'm content to see the world as a positive place. I'm not trying to escape this world. And I don't believe I'm clever enough to use the power of my human mind to understand the entire universe and everything in it.

Plato also endorsed a version of the cloud of Oneness (similar to Buddhism's co-dependent origination) but Plato was an apophatic mystic. I'm not keen on Plato's Philosopher-Kings, either.

Monism always leads in the end to Dualism. Dualism creates a hell of a lot of suffering in the world. Tackling dualistic belief systems is a great way to help people reduce their suffering.

Jen 

LSP25: What About Karma? Does It Fit With Divine Love?

Is it okay for a person on the Spiral Path of wonder, science, and faith to believe in Karma? Is it okay for a person who believes in Divine Love to also believe in Karma?

Unfortunately, it's not okay. It's not okay because Divine Love and Karma are mutually exclusive theories about Creation. If you believe in Divine Love, there's no room for Karma. Meanwhile, if you believe in Karma, there's no room for Divine Love. This may sound a bit harsh -- maybe even a bit extreme -- but if you want to let go of the crippling fear that your soul is somehow defective or unworthy of hope and healing, then only one of these two theories has the power to free you from the fear.

October maples. Photo credit JAT 2014.

Simply put, you have to choose. You have to choose what kind of spiritual tree you want to grow in your garden of life.* You can start with roots founded in Divine Love, or you can start with roots founded in Karma. The choice is yours, because you have free will. But you need to know that the tree you grow from Divine Love will look very different in 20 years from the tree grown from Karma. Both start from small, vulnerable seeds, which don't look much different from each other in the beginning (as both uphold the importance of moral precepts). But tend them and feed them year after year and you'll eventually see the differences. 

Where will you see the differences? You'll see them in the thoughts, feelings, actions, and health issues of your very own brain. This is because the biological brain is designed to alter its wiring based on the major filters you place on your decisions. If you make a decision to grow the Karma tree in your life, your brain will gradually rewire itself to reflect your belief that cause and effect are always predictable, that human rewards and punishments should always be immediate, obvious, and logical to the human mind. Such beliefs inevitably result in justifications for revenge; social hierarchies; resistance to healing and change; and rejection of the human need for forgiveness and redemption.

There are several factors that make the Karma tree seem very appealing, especially in the early stages of a spiritual journey:

1.  The Karma tree is based on the theory that the entire universe is moral, and that moral choices can't be separated from other kinds of choices.

2.  The moral laws of Karma are believed to be absolute. These laws state that absolute rights and absolute wrongs exist, both of which have logical, predictable consequences for each soul. Therefore, although human beings always have free will, there's really no chance or accident in the world because universal laws of cause and effect will eventually catch up with you (if not now, then in your next life).

3.  Karma is a highly logical, law-based philosophical system that makes perfect sense to logical, law-based human minds. It demands that each person be 100% responsible for all his or her choices. 

4.  Karma teaches that Justice is absolute, totally fair, and inevitable.

5.  Karma places great power in the hands of human beings. It's the power to fully comprehend cosmic laws and use those laws to create one's own future. The universe must bend to human will power once we humans grasp its laws.

6.  Karma teaches that the world we live in here (i.e. 3D Planet Earth) can't ever be perfected because its mix of good and evil is an intentional "training ground" for souls. This can never change because the planet's purpose is to be a "middle world" between the heavens above and the hells below. Social progress is therefore a delusion.

7.  Karma starts with a cyclical understanding of Time.

These seven factors are the key philosophical roots that together create the theory of Karma. Although these roots sound very logical and fair to most human minds, the big problem is this: these factors, when blended together, create the perfect excuse to avoid the hard work of opening your heart to Divine Love.

Opening your heart to Divine Love takes courage, humbleness, and forgiveness. This is what Jesus' Kingdom teachings were all about -- opening your heart to Divine Love by finding and using your own courage, humbleness, and ability to forgive. Courage, humbleness, and forgiveness aren't based in the logical, 3D mind; they're based in the emotional centres of the brain and soul -- the inner place we call the Heart.

The Heart has its own set of rules, but it's not the same set of rules the Mind uses (nor even, for that matter, the same set of rules the body uses). The Heart sees many colours, tints, and tones where the Mind sees only black and white.

There's nothing in Jesus' understanding of God, Divine Love, or the soul that resembles the roots of the Karma tree. Jesus was trying to show people how to grow something very different from the Karma tree, something that's built on the needs of the heart AND the mind AND the body AND the soul -- not just the needs of the mind. (Not that you'd know it after 2,000 years of Church teachings based on Paul's thorny, ugly, spiky version of the spiritual tree . . .)

Divine Love isn't a set of transpersonal laws based on pure Mind. Divine Love is an emotional choice. It's a choice made by God the Mother and God the Father together. Because it's a choice -- because it's their choice -- you have absolutely no control over it. You can't force God to mete out justice the way you see fit. You can't force God to agree that your neighbour got what he deserved. You can't force God to say it's okay for you to stop working toward social progress. You can't force God to agree with the religious choices you make in your life. You can't force God to agree with your personal assessment of your own cleverness.

You're not nearly as smart as the theory of Karma tells you. And God isn't nearly as stupid.


* Please see "It's the Roots, Not the Fruits, That Matter" from January 29, 2014.


For Further Reflection: 

There's no point planting seeds for the Tree of Life if you're going to salt the ground around it with toxic beliefs that constantly kill off the tender shoots of new relationship. So if you want to build a strong, healthy, mature relationship with God, you need to sift and sort through the doctrines you hold, then set aside the beliefs that are blocking your relationship skills.  A small number of religious and philosophical doctrines are so poisonous to your relationship with God that if you insist on hanging onto them, you'll find yourself struck, frustrated, never making progress. One of the most pernicious of these anti-relationship doctrines is the theory of Karma.

Since the late 1800's, Christianity has gradually been exposed to, and influenced by, various Eastern teachings that view Karma as the quintessential philosophical underpinning for morality, justice, personal enlightenment, and piety. Many Christians have been understandably eager to explore the goals and practices of these Eastern traditions in the hope of enriching their own experience of God's presence. It's somewhat difficult, however, to achieve this enrichment if you naively embrace the Materialist cause-and-effect laws of Karma. Karma is, after all, a set of doctrines which, at its very core, shows nothing but contempt for God.

It's no accident that Buddhism is technically a non-theistic religion. The whole point of the Buddha's original teachings was to demonstrate that an efficient system of algorithms could take human beings steadily closer to the Laws of Creation without any need whatsoever for a personal God. It's a brilliant system of logic, to be sure. But, as with any system that relies completely on algorithms, there's no room for the mystery of the Tree of Life. This may explain why many forms of Buddhism have evolved over the centuries to reintroduce the creativity, stories, family traditions, and art that were of necessity snuffed out by the Four Noble Truths.

In the core teachings of Buddhism, algorithms rule. In the teachings of Jesus, differential calculus is the key.

Algorithms have an unfortunate tendency to spawn cultural norms that are rigid, hierarchical, patriarchal, and dependent on Materialist cause-and-effect to explain why some people should be considered superior to others. Christianity, while demonstrating these same harsh aspects many times during its history (not to its credit), has repeatedly been subject to countervailing "eruptions" of horizontal inclusiveness and respect for women and children. These periodic "eruptions" of Divine Love have been made possible because Christianity has built-in doctrines that deal with flow rates; that is, doctrines that encourage change and learning and healing and experiences of redemption over time -- time that's understood as linear, not cyclical (which makes a huge difference as far as the biological brain is concerned).

Not every Christian has accepted that humbleness is a necessary aspect of relationship with God, but some have. Many Jews have seen the calculus of faith, as well. It's the willingness to be flexible in all our relationships (including our relationship with God) that lets us bend and grow with the wonders of the Tree of Life.

As I said above, if you're sure the Tree of Karma is right for you, than by all means stick with it. But don't expect it to bear the same fruit as the Tree of Life. And don't pretend the Tree of Karma is a viable path to feeling God's presence in your life when Karma's very purpose is to justify your personal quest to become a self-contained god yourself.

You can either have a path that leads you to Mother Father God or a path that leads you to self-sanctification/self-divination. But you can't have both.

Full disclosure: you have the right to choose whatever you like; but your angels have the right to have an opinion on your choices. So if you keep insisting you're a long lost spark of the Divine who's desperately trying to reclaim your rightful godhood (Gnosticism), or you keep proclaiming you're trying to escape from suffering through self-transcendence/no-self (Buddhism), you can expect to get some feedback from your guardian angels about your arrogance and narcissism and lack of respect for God's wisdom. Sometimes this feedback feels a lot like Karma, but an angel is always looking for ways to help you expand your emotional choices, not shut them down based on human beliefs in the supremacy of purity, piety, and perfection.

Your angels will still love you and forgive you, though, as they help you let go of your fear and remember what your Heart and Soul feel like.

LSP24: Fox & Sheldrake's "Angels in the New Millennium": A Response

At the end of Fox and Sheldrake's book about angels -- The Physics of Angels:Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet -- the two authors provide a neat and tidy summary of "some of the lessons we have learned." These "lessons" are based on Fox and Sheldrake's modern reinterpretation of the mystical writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, Hildegard of Bingen, and St. Thomas Aquinas.  (Please see my last LSP post: Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . Pseudo-Dionysius!)

One thing that's true about angels is that human beings generally see them as beautiful beings with wings. Photo credit Hemera Technologies 2001-2003.

Here is the summary list from pages 193-194 of their book.  Fox and Sheldrake's points about angels are shown in blue.  My responses are shown in black. 

"Angels are very numerous; they exist in astronomical numbers. There are many other kinds of consciousness in the cosmos besides human consciousness." Well, yes, angels are very numerous, and angels do exist in all places in the universe, but the way Fox and Sheldrake discuss consciousness is a red herring. To be an independent being is to have consciousness. All beings in the universe have consciousness. All beings in the universe (except for God the Mother and God the Father themselves) are children of God the Mother and God the Father. All beings in the universe are souls. All beings in the universe are angels. In other words, "having consciousness" has the same meaning as "being a child of God" which has the same meaning as "being a soul" which has the same meaning as "being an angel." These four phrases are synonyms for the same thing. So there is only one "kind of consciousness" in the universe. Having said that, I'd like to emphasize the fact that although there's only one kind of consciousness, there are countless different ways of expressing that consciousness. Angels are all equally important to God, but angels are all quite different from each other in the way they express their unique consciousness.

"Angels have been present from the origin of the universe." No. Angels have not been present from the origin of the universe. This is a very old idea that stems from theological claims for the timelessness and immutability (i.e. permanent lack of change) of God. Certain human beings at certain times in history have claimed that God is immutable and unchangeable and outside time and space because this claim has suited certain human agendas and political motives (especially human agendas involving claims for the divine status and authority of assorted human political and religious leaders). The reality is that God the Mother and God the Father are changing all the time, as are we, their children. Part of this reality is the reality that new angels (or souls) are being born all the time. As we speak, new angels are being born somewhere within God the Mother and God the Father's immense heart. Some of these newborn angels may one day choose to incarnate on one of the planets in our universe where some angels (though not all angels) choose to incarnate for purposes of learning, growth, and change. All angels who are currently incarnated on Planet Earth as "animals" (defined here as multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa)) are fairly young angels in the grand scheme of things. Being a young angel doesn't mean you're an inferior angel. It means you're an impatient angel who learns better by "doing" than by "hearing."

"They exist in a hierarchical order of nested levels within levels." No. Angels do not exist within hierarchies of spiritual ascent as described by Pseudo-Dionysius (or by Fox and Sheldrake), with some angels being closer to God than others because of their greater wisdom and purity. All such claims are damaging and hurtful. All angels in the universe -- every single one from youngest to oldest, smallest to biggest, intellectually brilliant to intellectually challenged -- are equally close to God and equally cherished by God the Mother and God the Father. GOD DON'T MAKE NO JUNK.

"They are the governing intelligences of nature." No. God the Mother and God the Father are the governing intelligences of nature, with all God's children being helpers and students in this great task. When you think you're hearing the voice of God in the wisdom of an ancient tree or an ancient rock, guess what . . . you're actually hearing the voice of God. (How cool is that?) Fox and Sheldrake, along with many others over the centuries, have tried to insert angels and nature spirits/devas into the reality of "God-as-Nature-and-God-as-Science" to separate you from God. While you may indeed have an experience of an angel while you're sitting quietly beside an ancient tree or ancient rock, the reason the angel is there is because angels -- like you -- want to hear the stories God the Mother and God the Father are telling us through the mediums of tree and water and wind and rock. Some angels, however, don't have to incarnate in order to hear these stories. They simply "visit" for short times. Sometimes humans and/or animals can see or hear or feel the presence of these "visiting angels." (Another important possibility is that you're sensing the presence of your own guardian angel while you're enjoying Nature, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

"They have a special relationship to light, fire, flames, and photons. There are astonishing parallels between Aquinas and Einstein with regard to the nature of angels and of photons: in their locomotion and mode of movement, their agelessness, and their being massless." Okay, this particular point just makes me want to throw up. First off, I want to remind everybody that Einstein was WRONG about non-locality, so to use Einstein (or the Aristotle-adoring-Aquinas) as a reliable authority to discuss the physics of angels is a stupid way to start. To follow up this form of stupidity with the idea that angels are massless -- when physicists have almost no understanding at all about the nature of dark matter, dark energy, or gravitational fields, and physicists don't know why only about 5% of the known energy of the universe takes the form of baryonic matter (what we call 3D matter) -- is just . . . just arrogant and simplistic and scientifically implausible. Massless? You really think consciousness is massless? Consciousness is full of mass -- it's just not 3D mass, so physicists don't understand it well and have no models at present to explain it. Also, it's wrong to state that angels have "a special relationship to light, fire, flames, and photons" because this denies the equality of angels who have a special relationship to water or to heliospheric energies or to gravitational fields or to the periodic table of elements or to any of the other countless and amazing and breathtaking forms of expression that angelic consciousness takes in God's great Creation. Get over the idea that light=God. Much of God's great Creation thrives within varied forms of "darkness." As far as God is concerned, if an angel is more comfortable in a quiet, private, dark environment (as on the ocean floor), that's a good thing. Divine Love is found in everything -- not just in light, fire, flames, and photons.

"They are musical in nature and work in harmonious relationship with one another." Finally, a point I can agree with! Yes, angels are musical in nature because music is one of God's important languages. But music isn't the only language angels use. Even more surprising, not all angels sing the same songs or even enjoy the same songs. Some angels love country, while others don't resonate with country at all. This is okay with God. Why should all angels like the same music? Why should they all sing the same songs? As long as you share your songs, and sing them joyfully from the heart, God is happy.

"The majority are friendly, but not all. Christ has power over the angels."  What the F@#&!  Please see point above: GOD DON'T MAKE NO JUNK. There are no "bad" or "evil" or "fallen" angels. There are no souls in creation who choose NOT to be part of God the Mother and God the Father's wondrous, loving, harmonious, kooky, surprising, courageous family. Fox and Sheldrake are repeating an ancient idea that's often been used to explain why certain people (people who think they deserve to be treated well by God) have ended up in tragic and difficult situations. This is part of the millennia-old tradition of Wisdom literature that says if you obey all of God's "divinely revealed laws," you'll be rewarded with many blessings (e.g. health, long life, wealth, many children, or whatever your particular culture believes is most desirable). Of course, God and your guardian angels don't necessarily agree with your belief in what's most desirable, and when they don't agree with you, you can be sure they'll express their opinion to you. Directly and often. You'll just have to learn to understand what they're saying to you and why.

"They have a special relationship to human consciousness. We human beings help link the earthly world with cosmic intelligences." This is another idea that's been kicking around for millennia in most major world religions. It's sometimes known by its Judaic name, Tikkun olam. (Tikkun olam   תקון עולם in Hebrew, is a phrase that means "repairing the world" or "healing the world," which suggests humanity's shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world). It's also an idea that shows up in some philosophical theories about humanity's relationship to the Dao. Basically, it's a highly anthropocentric idea that says human beings have a special role to play in the great cosmic plan to heal the universe. Of course, this assumes there is a great cosmic plan to heal the universe . . .  So is it at least true that angels have a "special relationship to human consciousness"? Well, yes. But this is only because each angel who incarnates on Planet Earth is sent along with a whole team of guardian angels to guide that one individual, and this team of angels always includes some of the angels who are closest to the incarnated angel when we're Home on the Other Side in non-3D form. So of course it feels as if we have a "special relationship" with our guardian angels!  They're some of our closest friends in the universe!

"Angels may have played a special role in the birth of language." I don't even know what to say to this one. Language is intrinsic to consciousness. Language is, in fact, one of the defining characteristics of consciousness. There are many forms of language in God's Creation (as mentioned above). Human beings don't have a monopoly on language on Planet Earth. In fact, some biologists who study animal culture are finally going on record to describe what most of the rest of us have always known: animals have their own "languages" and forms of specific communication with each other -- and also with us! The most important factor in the development of advanced language skills is relationship. Those who aren't exposed to strong relationships of love and empathy and respect in their early years won't develop strong language skills during their lives on Earth. In so far as relationships of love and empathy and respect are central to the human ability to connect with God and God's angels, I guess one could say angels played -- and CONTINUE to play -- a role in the development of our language skills.

Okay, skipping ahead here on Fox and Sheldrake's list because even I'm starting to get exhausted . . .

"Their primary role is praise" AND "They are present at holy worship." Well, crap. These two short statements show such a profound lack of understanding about who God is and what Divine Love is that if you want to know my full response to these statements, you're going to have to read all 189 posts on my first four blogs. (Doesn't that sound like fun?)

My short answer to these two statements is this: an angel's job is NOT to offer praise and worship to God (although angels are always hugging Mother Father God and saying thank you to show our appreciation). While it's true that angels ARE present at human services of religious worship, it's only because guardian angels never abandon their charges and never leave their sides for a moment. This means that your guardian angel is with you 24/7 from the time you're conceived until the moment you die and are taken Home by God the Mother and God the Father. This has always been true for every incarnated being on Planet Earth, and this will always be true, because God the Mother and God the Father would never ever contemplate leaving you alone for a second. So Fox and Sheldrake's eschatological idea that "the good angels are coming, the good angels are coming" is hogwash. Our angels have never left us and never will.

Your guardian angels are always with you.This means your angels see every little choice you're making. They see you when you're not being loving; they see you when you're going to church or temple or synagogue and repeating awful things about God; they see you when you're buying into religious myths that tell you God favours human beings over all over creatures; and they see you when you're choosing Platonic and Gnostic myths over God's loving and scientific realities.

That's the bad news.  The good news is  . . . your angels forgive you!


For Further Reflection:

It's all about the big picture.

The big picture is the only thing your angels are interested in. The big picture guides the decisions made by your guardian angels. The big picture shapes the events you don't want and didn't ask for. The big picture takes precedence over your human beliefs and prayers.

For angels, the big picture is all about relationships -- knowing God the Mother and God the Father in ways we didn't think possible, and knowing ourselves in ways we didn't think possible. And relationships are the messiest, least logical experiences of our human lives, right? Relationships involve struggle. And confusion. And miscommunication. And healing. And forgiveness. And love. And pain.

Yes, it's painful to be a human being with a Heart. It's painful to know grief. It's painful to wrestle with forgiveness. It's painful to let go of denial and embrace self honesty and personal change. And it's especially painful if you spend your whole life denigrating the Heart and exalting the Mind. Pursuing the Mind's goals (purity, piety, and perfection) at the expense of the Heart's goals  (humbleness, humour, and health) is the worst feeling of all for a human being. That's the whole point as far as your guardian angels are concerned. They want you to have the chance to wrestle with your own free will. They want you to see what it feels like to make really bad choices. It's only when you're faced with the stark reality of your terrible mistakes that you have the chance to dig deep into your own courage, your own love, and your own forgiveness. In doing so, you learn important truths about yourself as a child of God. You learn an eternal lesson about the infinite power of Divine Love to fix the Mind's screw-ups.

So yes, your guardian angels will sometimes let you fall flat on your face. And other times they'll step in to stop you from messing up your whole life. It depends on the situation, though. It depends on the big picture.

If you can manage to remember that you, as a human being, are being asked by your guardian angels to take responsibility for your free will -- to fully "own" your free will and use it wisely -- then some of questions you have about your life will make more sense.

You don't have to be perfect to know God and be close to God. You just have to try each day to balance your Heart and your Mind to the best of your ability. The effort to do this is always going to be gnarly and unpredictable, so don't give yourself too hard a time.

This is where Divine Humour comes in!

LSP18: Teeth-Gnashing and Gnosticism: The Question of Evil Entities

Okay. There's simply no way of getting around these three big questions: (1) Do evil supernatural entities exist? (2) Is there an ongoing battle in Creation between good and evil? and (3) If there is such a battle, do human beings play a significant role in restoring balance to the universe?

My short answers are (1) No; (2) No; and (3) No.

Although I'm generally supportive of Dr. Alexander's first book, there's one chapter I disagree with from beginning to end. It's Chapter 15 ("The Gift of Forgetting"), in which Dr. Alexander attempts to answer the question of why God allows evil and suffering in the world (i.e. the theodicy question).  I really wish he'd given more thought to this chapter before he decided to include it in his book. It's chockablock full of the damaging, dualistic, overly simplistic Gnostic ideas that have plagued the human-Divine relationship for centuries.

From the core assumptions of Gnosticism many different religious movements have sprouted (including the Qumran sect of Second Temple Judaism; the Persian religion known as Manichaeism; and assorted Christian heresies). At its root, Gnosticism assumes there's something seriously wrong with the world we live in, but if we have the correct secret knowledge ("gnosis" in Greek) we can escape from worldly evil and return to the love that's characteristic of our true home in Heaven. Central to Gnosticism's claims is a belief in a Christ-like Saviour figure who will risk -- or who has risked -- everything to reveal this secret knowledge to human beings.

Jesus was a man, mystic, and healer who knew God so well and trusted God so much that he rejected all the ancient religious ideas about good versus evil and taught something very different. His teachings started with the idea that God gives us full latitude to explore what free will means. Some people choose to follow the path of power and abuse, but there's always the possibility they'll use their free will to choose the other path -- the path of goodness and love and trust in God. If they don't, however, God will forgive them, bring them Home, heal them, and help them understand the free will lessons they experienced. There's no room in Jesus' paradigm for the Devil or Judgment Day or Hell or salvation of the elect. So Jesus' paradigm has never been a very popular idea, even among Christians (strange as that may seem). If you want to get to know God, and feel Divine Love in "the Core," you can't go wrong by following Jesus' teachings on courage, trust, gratitude, and devotion. This figure of the crucified Christ was made in the first half of the 12th century in Germany, and is on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

Dr. Alexander reveals his sympathy for the Gnostic position throughout Chapter 15. He says, for instance (and I quote), "Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe, but the sum total of all that evil was as a grain of sand on a vast beach compared to the goodness, abundance, hope, and unconditional love in which the universe was literally awash" (page 83).

Let's stop the bus right there. "Small particles of evil were scattered throughout the universe"!!??  Really? God is so stupid that God took a watering can and sprinkled evil around the garden of Creation? God is so stupid that God couldn't figure out any way to give us free will as human beings except to introduce seeds of evil into the world we live in (Proof of Heaven, page 83-84)?

Oh, come on!

This particular species of religious tree has been nurtured wherever people have been trying to reconcile the experience of deeply felt Divine Love with the realities of suffering and abuse in the world. Gnostics are the first to loudly trumpet the preeminence of Divine Love and the first to fall back on the myth of "good versus evil" as soon as they're asked to explain why suffering exists in the world.  In my view, the Gnostic answer to the three questions posed here is sloppy, lazy, and not the least bit courageous.

It takes courage and trust to hold fast to God's hand, to look beyond the simple black and white myths of Gnosticism, to open your whole heart, mind, body, and soul to another explanation for suffering besides evil and evil entities. It takes courage to completely let go of all belief systems that preach the existence of supernatural evil as a force in opposition to God. It takes courage to let go of the idea that "we can't truly know good unless we know its polar opposite, evil, so God must allow some evil to exist." This is the old idea, the Materialist idea of cause and effect, the New Age idea that makes no room for the wonder and mystery of Divine Love.

I should say, in closing, that I understand the position Dr. Alexander found himself in when he was writing his book. He was trying to find a logical explanation for suffering that would be accepted by an audience steeped in myths of good versus evil, light versus darkness. I once swallowed this logic myself (to my utter chagrin). However, if Dr. Alexander has to go through what I went through, his angels are gonna kick his ass around the block until he takes what he wrote in Chapter 15 and dumps it in the garbage can.

Good luck to you, Eben!  Call me if you need some help!

Best wishes,
Jen


For Further Reflection:

There's no question that human beings can spin webs of evil unimaginable to the heart of an angel, webs of evil so all-consuming that sometimes the shock waves last for decades, centuries, even millennia. It's natural and normal for us to wonder where such evil comes from. We all want explanations we can understand, because when we have explanations, we can begin the search for solutions.

Newton's third law states that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Most of us assume that Newton's third law applies in metaphysical physics as much as in classical physics. We believe that if we understand the cause of evil, the countervailing reactive force will become clear to us. We also assume the corollary: if pure love exists in the world, it must exist as a response -- an equal and opposite reaction -- to pure evil.

Our human minds find this Materialist approach appealing. After all, it seems eminently logical. It seems highly consistent with the laws of classical physics we've deduced through observation and experience. It suits our human preference for cause-and-effect justice.

Every major world religion is a response to our mind-based desire for explanations and solutions about evil. We turn to our religious leaders to explain the cause of evil so we can choose appropriate actions to heal and prevent evil.

While many of the healing actions appear similar from religion to religion (e.g. be kind, be merciful, be hospitable), the explanations for the causes of evil appear on the surface to differ widely. Christianity, Islam, and some branches of Judaism rely heavily on theories about evil entities. Buddhism, and the older traditions from which it sprang, preach the inescapable laws of karma. Dig deeper, though, to the tap roots of these religions, and you'll find a common link: the assumption that the true cause of evil is a vast, metaphysical force you can do battle with but never control (unless you're a bona fide saint, Bodhisattva, or Messiah).

Nobody wants to hear that the actual cause of evil lies in the scientific wiring of the human brain. Who's going to put money in the collection plate just to hear the bad news that we, as persons-of-soul, incarnated on purpose to see what it feels like to struggle with free will and seek redemption? That kind of teaching puts all the onus on us as human beings. It means we have to learn to take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. There's no supernatural force to blame when we screw up and harm our relationships, including our relationship with God. There's no get-out-of-jail free card. There's only ourselves, our families and communities, and our relationship with God.

So yes, your human brain allows you the possibility to choose some very evil, scary paths. But keep in mind that your human brain isn't supernatural. It's 100% temporary biological matter. It isn't going with you when you die. It's staying right here, with the rest of your biological body, to be recycled into the planet as organic and inorganic matter. So whatever evil your brain manages to create during your human lifetime, you can trust that God knows how fix it even if you don't.

God is much smarter about all these questions than we can ever be. Although it's okay for us to be upset and confused about evil on Planet Earth, it's not okay for us to believe that God and God's angels have been negligent in their care of us or the universe.

Don't EVER tell God or your angels that you need protection from evil entities. Asking for protection is a clear indication that you're not ready or willing to trust God.

Instead, ask God for help in understanding how you've been using your own free will to shoot yourself in the foot. Then ask for help in learning how to take control of your own free will.

It's kind of like learning to right a small boat in big waves. It's challenging, but God knows that, with help, you can do it.

LSP14: To Be God Is to Give Up the Power and the Glory

I must have watched Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy at least ten times before it dawned on me that I was watching the story of our Divine Mother and Father.

So a pop quiz for you today: in The Lord of the Rings films, who do you think represents God the Mother and who do you think represents God the Father?

How many people said Arwen and Aragorn? Or Eowyn and Aragorn? Or Galadriel and Gandalf? Or (since there are so few female characters) maybe Gandalf and Aragorn?

In our culture, we've been heavily conditioned to assume that Creation exists as a hierarchy. The lowly, unworthy people are at the bottom. The chosen people with the special powers and the special bloodlines are all at the top. We just take it for granted that if we could see Heaven as it was in the beginning, long, long ago and far, far away, it would look like a scene from a magnificent royal court. Or an ancient cathedral with shining stained glass windows. Or a magical realm like Lothlorien. Or a great city like Minas Tirith.

What if I were to tell you it's the story of two humble hobbits on a quest to destroy a ring of power that most resembles the early story of our divine Mother and Father?

All is well after the storm. Photo credit JAT 2020.

The Lord of the Rings is a story about the only two people in Middle Earth who have the willpower to overcome the ring's terrible temptations and still remain themselves when all others would fail and fall into shadow.

At its heart, it's a story about the "twoness" of the struggle. Galadriel tells Frodo that to be a ringbearer is to be alone, but, in truth, Frodo is never alone in his quest. Frodo and Sam carry the ring together. They depend on each other every step of the way. They're two very different people -- alike in some ways, very unalike in others. Like carbon and iron hammered together to make steel, they become each other's strength. And because of the enduring strength of their "twoness" -- their "two-as-one" trust in each other -- they accomplish together what no one on Middle Earth could have accomplished alone.

Frodo and Sam are humble. Deeply, deeply humble. They have no desire to be worshipped. The power and glory offered by the ring hold no allure for either of them (well, most of the time, except for a couple of rough moments). What Frodo and Sam care about is protecting their friends and doing what's right. Unlike Gollum, who is obedient to the ring, Frodo and Sam struggle up the mountain to try to undo the ring's near-absolute control over other people's minds, talents, and free will. The hobbits' choice to put humble love ahead of limitless power -- even at the cost of their own lives -- becomes the turning point for a whole world.

Our beloved Mother and Father once faced this choice long, long ago, and they chose the path of humble love. They also chose to abolish the hierarchy represented by the One Ring and replace it with a paradigm based on Courage. Because of this, the entire universe changed forever.

Our Mother and Father remain the steel that is hammered from carbon and iron. They remain the two who are one, the softness and hardness, the life force and holding force, the fire and ice, and all things in between. They have made a great place within their hearts that we can call home, and they are the greatest among us because they think of themselves as the least -- just simple hobbits, one female, one male, going about their business of making life comfortable for those they love with all their hearts.

They are our inspiration and blessing. Through their example, we, their children, know what it is to love.

They are truly beyond amazing.