LSP42: Gordian Knots in the Faith/Science/Religion Debate

On March 1, 2015, Scientific American blogger John Horgan posted a written reply he'd received from John Lennox on the question of whether religion and science can coexist. John Horgan (whose views are agnostic) had debated the question with John Lennox (whose views are Christian) at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Horgan posted Lennox's follow-up letter, and readers of the blog were then free to comment.

Here is my response, posted in the comment section on April 27, 2015 (with typos now fixed):

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Religion isn't just "one thing." Faith isn't just "one thing." The human brain (where both religion and faith are experienced) isn't just "one thing." Anyone who tries to reduce these incredibly complex questions to simple either-or explanations isn't paying attention to reality. Photo credit JAT 2026.

 

In my experience, the real question is not whether religion and science can coexist, but whether religion and faith can coexist.

@4 Paul Topping wrote, "In my mind, the main 'proof' that convinces me of the atheist point of view is that people have so many different religions with such different explanations. . . . The only reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong and that belief in religion is just something that some people have like blue eyes."

When I read a comment such as this (and there are many these days) I know the individual hasn't taken the time and trouble to use objective research tools to examine key questions about religion -- questions examined with tools such as historicity, source criticism, socio-rhetorical criticism, and cost-benefit analyses from political, economic, social, military, and legal perspectives in the contexts in which the doctrines arose. Most importantly, when superficial assessments of religion are offered, it's quickly clear that all questions about neurophysiology have been shelved.

Shelving questions about neurophysiology isn't reserved for those who claim to espouse the methodology of science. Shelving questions about how and why the human mind works in relationship with the rest of the universe is one of theology's least helpful contributions to humankind, in my opinion. I've read theological arguments so convoluted in their efforts to avoid the question of how and why the human mind works that they make a Gordian knot look like a simple twist tie.

Theology is increasingly understood today as some sort of withering branch of philosophical thought, a deservedly marginalized branch of human thought that has now been proudly replaced by the randomized, double-blind study method, etc.

Those who've studied the history of theological evolution, however, know that all early schools of theological thought (no matter what "religion" they're linked with today) arose from careful study of scientific principles followed by the application of scientific observations to questions of human character, morality, Law (nomos in Greek), justice, disease, healing, mental health, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's not possible from a scientific perspective to reasonably argue that human beings 5,000 years ago (when the roots of today's religions really took hold in the soil of technological advances) had DNA so vastly different from ours that they couldn't use their brains in ways virtually identical to the ways we do. It's not reasonable to argue that they couldn't see for themselves the destructive issues of psychopathy, narcissism, sadism, and machiavellianism without the benefit of today's research and today's DSM-V (which hasn't the courage to include psychopathy in its lauded pages).

Just as we continue to struggle today with these issues, our ancestors took steps to limit the destructive power of certain human choices that spring from Axis II issues. One of the tools each major culture developed was religious doctrine. But religious doctrine wasn't set apart from questions of politics, economics, healing, justice, legal codes, and scientific inquiry. To attack religion as if it has ever been a separate and unnecessary "entity" -- like a dead tree branch that can be lopped off -- is just plain sloppy and lazy from a methodological viewpoint.

Religious doctrines reflect the times and the cultural necessities from which they were born. This is why names and places change from religion to religion, but underlying concerns about destructive human choices don't. Such concerns are universal to the human condition because a psychopath by any other name is still a psychopath. (Members of the Greek pantheon, for instance, certainly seem to be archetypes for the human behaviours we find least desirable: narcissism, fickleness, lust, power-mongering, status addiction, and lack of empathy. Sound like any world leaders you know?)

Religious doctrines, however useful they may have been over the centuries from a political point of view, typically reflect a Materialist cause-and-effect understanding of science, which is quite useful and practical on a day-to-day basis. (Can't argue with classical physics when it comes to everyday usefulness.) The one thing major world religions don't do well, however, is to reflect the needs of FAITH -- a highly influential current of human experience, mostly expressed through System 1 thinking patterns in the brain. System 1 patterns have always paralleled -- and continue to parallel -- the more rigid, linear, Materialist thinking patterns of the human brain's newer System 2 processes.

The experience of faith is the experience of the presence of God in our daily lives. It may or may not be linked to membership in a formal religion.

For me, faith is a relationship with God that endures in the absence of sacred texts. It's an experience that can't be placed within the restrictive boxes of religious doctrinal traditions or texts -- or, for that matter, the restrictive boxes of Materialist cause-and-effect scientific traditions or theories. (Same thing, really.) Faith, far from being just a fanciful belief, is rooted 100% in the most objective scientific realities of the biological brain.

I won't bore you with my own experiences, but if you're interested in opening your heart and mind to what this faith experience might be, I'd recommend the awe-inspiring book Man's Search by Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. Any scientific questions we have about the experience of faith, love, forgiveness, and the human search for meaning must take into account the data collected by Dr. Frankl under some of the most searing and horrendous conditions humankind has ever known: the European Holocaust.

Dr. Frankl, as both participant and scientific observer of the "best" and "worst" in human behaviour, introduced data into the faith/science/religion debate that must, at the very least, be considered from a falsifiability perspective.

It's not enough for any sort of "ism" promoter (whether scientism or religious fundamentalism -- same thing, really) to make lofty claims about the origins of evil and suffering. (Did you know, for instance, that Tertullian's late 2nd century CE doctrine of original sin -- a theory now called Traducianism -- tried to account for human evil on biological grounds?) Ideologues must also account for the data of innate goodness collected by less lofty and less voluble speakers such as the late Dr. Frankl.

Therein lies the really juicy stuff.

LSP37: The Coat of Many Colours: What Scientology Teaches Us About Gnosticism

There's only thing I like about L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology, and that's the way it serves as a teaching tool about the brutal efficiency of prophetic "revelation."

This morning, on the BBC site, I found a wonderful article by Owen Gleiberman about the new Alex Gibney documentary on Scientology. The documentary, called "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" has been attracting a lot of attention since its release earlier this year. The film is in turned based on the 2013 book by Lawrence Wright called "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief."

Gleiberman ends his article by saying this:

The twisted genius of L Ron Hubbard is that he figured out a way to define and exploit contemporary soul sickness. He was right about the disease. But Going Clear makes a powerful case that he came up with a cure that only made it worse.

Yes, L. Ron Hubbard was a twisted genius. As Gleiberman notes, the film "captures how Hubbard fused reality, fantasy and the pursuit of enlightenment in a way that, according to the film's witnesses, expressed his own highly unstable and even violent nature."

This is what prophets do.

(Please note that I draw clear distinctions between the terms "prophet" and "mystic." For me, the term "prophet" is reserved for an individual of dubious mental health who uses claims of "divine revelation" to establish his or her primacy of authority over others. By contrast, I use the term "mystic" to refer to individuals who are on the extreme end of the "intuition" spectrum, most of whom go through life as writers and philosophers without becoming consciously aware of their vocation as "mystics.")

Prophets who claim divine religious authority for themselves aren't new. Shown here is a red granite statue from Egypt's 18th Dynasty (Temple of Khonspakhered) on display at the British Museum, London UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

A prophet isn't interested in teaching people how to heal their relationship with God. A prophet is instead interested in crafting an entire "philosophy of science" (a cosmogony, if you will) for the purpose of explaining to you in ruthlessly logical ways why you should hand over to the prophet your integrity; your money; your free will; your core self of worthiness and wisdom; and your relationship with God.

The coat of many colours you were born with is stripped away from you, and in its place you're given a "new and improved" garment of ash.

You're told when you put it on that you're donning the pure white garb of enlightenment. You're told that you're abandoning the burden of emotion, replacing the heaviness of emotion with the weightlessness of pure reason. You're told that all the proof you need lies around you in the Materialist laws of Cause and Effect. You're told that when you see past of the illusions you've created for yourself, you'll suddenly recognize that you can transcend your lowly humanness and reclaim your rightful place in the universe as God. Or Buddha. Or Thetan (as Scientologists describe it).

The garment you've been given reeks of pure narcissism. It reeks of the prophet's absolute refusal to accept that he's a mere child of God. It reeks of his conviction that he himself is so omniscient and so omnipotent that he surely MUST be a god who has lost his memory of his own godhood and fallen to Earth, where he's obliged to dig his way out of Earth's heavy muck so he can stop being reincarnated here.

So have I conflated several different religious beliefs here? On the surface, it would seem so. But no.  What I've done here is describe a single religious paradigm that manifests again and again in humanity's many diverse cultures, not because it's right but because it so beautifully suits the psychological needs of bullies, tyrants, narcissists, and psychopaths.

What I've described here is Gnosticism.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Scientology's underlying cosmogony:

Scientology beliefs revolve around the thetan, the individualized expression of the cosmic source, or life force, named after the Greek letter theta (θ). The thetan is the true identity of a person – an intrinsically good, omniscient, non-material core capable of unlimited creativity. 

In the primordial past, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe has no independent reality, but derives its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity.  Eventually they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

Thetans are reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption" which is analogous to reincarnation. Like Hinduism, Scientology posits a causal relationship between the experiences of earlier incarnations and one's present life, and with each rebirth, the effects of the MEST universe (MEST here stands for matter, energy, space, and time) on the thetan become stronger.

It's easy to see the narcissism that underlies the teachings of Scientology. This particular body of teachings is so new that most of us haven't yet overlaid the raw narcissism of it with layers and layers of "divine authority" derived from "ancient tradition." Scientology would like you to pretend that L. Ron Hubbard successfully transcended his own flawed humanity, but, as Going Clear shows, this isn't true. The legacy of a revelatory prophet is most vulnerable in the decades soon after his life, when there are still witnesses with long memories and solid documentation who can attest to the true character of the prophet.

Scientology, like other forms of Gnosticism, is really an attempt to rupture the relationship between individuals and God.

It's just so damned inconvenient, from the narcissist's point of view, to have a God who's already here and already acting for our benefit. The narcissist can't tolerate the idea that he -- a human being -- isn't the smartest, fastest, strongest being in Creation. So, to assuage his intolerably monstrous ego, he invents an entire cosmogony where he is God and he is on a brave and bold quest to reclaim his rightful power as God. Or Buddha. Or Thetan.

By looking at the origins of Scientology -- and specifically at the psychological issues that have driven the founders and chief promoters of this new cult -- we can see the pattern of narcissistic behaviours for ourselves. We can then use our observations to help us decide which aspects of our own spiritual journeys are holding us back as we try to heal our relationship with God.

In order to progress on the Spiral Path of faith, science, wonder, and relationship with God, you must start with the assumption that it's good enough for you to be a child of God instead of trying to become Mother Father God themselves.

Being a child of God entitles you to all the benefits of wearing the coat of many colours God gives to all God's children. It entitles you to be fully yourself, without judgment, abuse, or psychological violence. It entitles you to live passionately according to the needs of both the Heart and the Mind. It entitles you to view your human lifetime as a richly rewarding, positive experience instead of a punitive, degrading, sin-filled, mud-wrestling match. It entitles you to blend both Materialist laws and non-Materialist laws in your daily life. It entitles you to be honest with yourself about how much you really want and need to be in relationship with God.

Gardens are one way to experience the coat of many colours while you're here on Planet Earth. God invites you to help with planting and watering and weeding a garden to create a place of peace, beauty, and healing for others to enjoy (including creatures great and small). But God doesn't expect you to be in charge of the design of every living organism in the vast universe we live in. That's God's job!  Enjoy the gardens of Earth while you're here and rejoice in the ways you can help create and sustain such beauty. It may not be a much of a contribution as far as a spiritual narcissist is concerned, but it's important as far as God and your angels and your own soul are concerned.  Great blessings come in small packages!

It's no fun at all believing you're required to be responsible for everything in Creation. Fortunately, God doesn't expect you to be God.

If you can manage to embrace the first stanza of the Serenity Prayer and live in basic accordance with the tenets of the Twelve Step Program, you'll be doing very well as far as your angels -- and your God -- are concerned.

Best of luck to you!

LSP36: Do You Agree with the Statement that "You Are God"?

Click here to find out everything he revealed!!!!! Yes, you too can know you are God!!!!!

So went the text of a recent promo sent to me via OMTimesMedia. I've retyped some of the relevant passages here:

In a recent message from Dr. Baskaran Pillai, who Dr. Wayne Dyer has called ‘one of the most Enlightened people on the planet’, he reiterated that you (yes you) are in fact God.

There is, however, a catch…

You must realize it. That is to say ‘real-ize’ or ‘actual-ize’ it.

However for most of us, and maybe you can relate, most of our time and energy goes into our human identity, not our spiritual one.

This is the root cause of so many of our frustrations, disappointments, and problems in life.
Dr. Pillai has shared 2 things from his recent meditations that he wants you to know:

1. You MUST defeat your image to real-ize your inherent God potential.
2. A set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy.

“This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days. I barely slept. I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching. ‘Defeat the Image.’ Why? Then only you can put a new image in.” – Dr. Pillai

 
Dr. Pillai isn't the only one peddling this spiritual snake oil. It's been around for millennia. This is one of the reasons I laughed out loud when I read his self-important statement above: "This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days. I barely slept. I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching."

Well, you know, when you abuse your biological brain in this way, you're bound to start having biological consequences such as hallucinations.

Self-induced hallucinations, combined with personality issues such as narcissism, status addiction, and schadenfreude frequently generate what is known in theological circles as "revelation" -- in other words, a "New Teaching" given to a specially chosen prophet along with "a set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy."

Ah yes, the "easy fix" promised by "Enlightened Masters" today and in days long past. Oh wait  . . . you're not supposed to bring up the topic of days long past. You're only supposed to focus on today's message, today's very special, one-of-a-kind, never-heard-before message from today's specially chosen divine messenger, because this time it's different! This time, after all God's failed efforts to make himself heard and understood, God has finally -- at long last and at great peril! -- managed to push his way through the terrible obstacles of the Unseen Realms and speak to one specially chosen messenger!

When you take the time to study the history of religious claims about God, you start to see the same claims popping up over and over across different religions, cultures, time spans, and geographical places. Some claims are positive and helpful, like the good fruits from God's garden that keep your body, mind, and inner heart healthy. Other claims, such as the revelation that you're actually God, are a waste of your time and money -- sort of like buying a big bag of juicy autumn pears and discovering when you get home that all of the pears are rotten in the middle. Photo credit JAT 2022.

O, lucky us, that we, at this unique time and place, should somehow manage to be the only ones ever in history to whom God has managed to speak the One Truth! How did we survive before this special time of ascension?! How did we cope without realizing we're actually God?! I mean, really, if we'd known this before, we could have had smartphones and movie streaming centuries ago without wasting our time on all that stupid stuff like insight, forgiveness, morality of happiness (as opposed to morality of obligation), and what it means to use our free will (and our humanity) as children of God! We could have just jumped straight to the good stuff without all the bother and hard work of trusting God and trusting each other and trusting the science of Creation! Who needs trust and love and respect when you can claim God potential instead?

I refuse to supply a link for the above "spiritual infomercial." You're welcome to search for it if you insist. But I have free will and I don't believe that all religious teachings are equally healing and equally helpful in our lives as human beings. I tend to believe the evidence of my own eyes, which suggests that some religious teachings -- far from showing people how to be loving and respectful -- actually turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats incapable of making moral decisions.

The "You Are God" teachings turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats.

Use them at your own risk.

But if you use them, ask this question: Why isn't it enough for you to be you -- a child of God who is fully cherished and respected as an equal member of God's wondrous family precisely BECAUSE you aren't God?

Why would you want to be somebody you're not? 

LSP30: Spirituality: Don't Let It Become Your Personal Addiction Playground

I wrote the following paragraphs in response to a question posted recently in an online spirituality forum.  The question was, "Why must those who claim to be Spiritual be so afraid of honest debate?"

Honest debate is a good antidote for the problems created by top-down philosophical authority (a.k.a. Revelation).  But first it's helpful to understand the obstacles that get in the way of honest debate.

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It's easier to see the effects of status addiction in spheres of life such as politics or business, as a recent article in The Atlantic by Jerry Useem highlighted: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/. But the same thing happens in spiritual and religious circles because, like it or not, we only have so many brain networks. The biological networks you use to build knowledge, authority, relationships, and organizational planning in the business world are the same networks you use to build knowledge, etc., in the religious or spiritual world. You can't separate the networks (though many unethical spiritual teachers will tell you you can). So if you're vulnerable to the problems of addiction -- especially status addiction -- you're not immune to the problems caused by too much power or too much infallibility in the spiritual world. Like everybody else, you have to deal with the biology God has given you -- not the biology you'd like to think you have. Photo credit JAT 2017.

Another point to consider is the neuroscientific perspective, since a person who's on a spiritual path is still a human being who's dealing with all the realities of biology, chemistry, and physics. 

The human brain is vulnerable to addiction issues. (Actually, many other species are vulnerable to addiction issues, too, but this isn't the place for that discussion.) Addiction issues can really get in the way within spiritual circles, especially when the addiction is to status.

Status addiction is a physiological addiction -- a biological addiction -- that's no different (as far as the brain is concerned) than better known addictions such as alcohol or substance abuse. It hasn't been examined much in scientific studies. I hope this lack of scientific interest will soon change.

Status addiction often expresses itself as the "Right to Be Right" -- a psychological need to present a belief or an opinion as a "universal truth" that can't be challenged. This status-driven "Right to Be Right" is often seen in both scientific and theological circles, where the payoff for being "right" can be quite large. (Note that acquiring money isn't the key issue here; acquiring status points is the goal, so an ascetic who's given up all money and belongings can still be suffering from a self-devouring status addiction.)

When a status addict's "Right to Be Right" is challenged, he or she will respond as all addicts do (until they begin to confront their personal addictions): they'll do whatever they have to do to protect their daily "fix."

I've had personal encounters with a number of status addicts who've chosen the spiritual world as their personal addiction playground, and let me tell you -- it ain't pretty when you confront them.

As with any form of addiction, a Twelve Step Program could prove very helpful for dealing with the intense cravings of status addiction and the unloving behaviour that often results.

Hope this helps.

Blessings,
Jen

LSP21: Please Don't Put Mysticism on a Pedestal

Yesterday I got an e-mail from someone who'd seen the SPECT scans I'd posted on my blog and website. She wanted to ask me a couple of questions for an article she's writing. She mentioned she's on a tight deadline, so I decided to phone her. We had a great chat. (I'll call her Susan.)

Along the way, Susan mentioned a Dr. Oz episode from last year that featured Theresa Caputo (the Long Island Medium) and Dr. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist who is either loved or hated for the brain-scan database he has built using SPECT technology (single photon emission computed tomography).*  Apparently, Dr. Amen had shown the SPECT scan of an unnamed Canadian channeller as part of his discussion on psychic ability. Susan thought I might be the channeller whose brain scan was featured.  (This was a logical assumption, since it was Dr. Amen's clinic who included me in their Normal Brain Study in 2004, rather than in one of their anomalous groups, despite the fact that I'd told the clinic at the very beginning of the intake process about my channelling.)

Anyway, this TV episode was news to me. I don't usually watch Dr. Oz, so I was taken by surprise.

As soon as I got off the phone with Susan, I googled the show. Yup, there it was -- a Dr. Oz show where Dr. Amen was collecting data from Theresa Caputo's brain during a live TV demonstration of mediumship. (On the show, he wasn't using SPECT technology, which requires a massive scanning machine, but was instead measuring Theresa's brainwave frequencies.)

Hoo boy. 

The good news is that Dr. Amen was not using my brain scans on the Dr. Oz show. The bad news is that Dr. Oz and Dr. Amen, despite their good intentions, are really not helping.

I love the fact that these doctors, along with Dr. Eben Alexander and others, are open to the idea that we live in a non-Materialist quantum universe. I love the questions they're asking. I'm grateful for their input and ideas. I'm grateful to Dr. Amen's group for taking a chance on my brain and showing me what my brain looks like while I'm thinking "normal thoughts" and while I'm thinking "mystical thoughts."

But gosh, guys, I wish you'd all slow down a bit!

I know people are eager and interested in the topic of "extranormal communications" (if I may use that umbrella term for experiences of connection with the Divine), but this is a vast and basically unexplored area of scientific research, so let's not jump the gun. Let's proceed slowly, carefully, and ethically as we try to put scientific labels on the mystical experiences that people have been having for thousands of years.

The thing that fills me with exasperation -- that makes me want to pull my hair out -- is the way solid researchers seem to use different rules as soon as they start to study mysticism. (And neuroscientists aren't the only ones doing this; theologians are doing it, too.)

Please stop doing this, guys. Please stop putting mystics and mysticism on a pedestal. Please stop assuming you should apply a different set of rules to the study of mysticism because you think mysticism is somehow different from "normal life."

It's not.

Many of history's self-proclaimed mystics have actually been dangerously self-deluded narcissists and psychopaths who want to ruin your relationship with God so they can have the satisfaction of watching you grovel as you beg them for help. This doesn't mean there haven't been genuine mystics along the way. It just means there has to be methodical scientific and historical research to sort the chaff from the wheat. This photo shows a Royal Ontario Museum reconstruction of the Athena Parthenos, who was said to have sprung fully grown from the head of her father Zeus. Doesn't she look nice up there on her pedestal where everybody can worship her? Photo credit JAT 2017.

Almost no one realizes there are multiple types of mysticism.  You cannot lump the brain scans of all self-proclaimed mystics into one single category.

Before you can understand what the brain scans are saying, you first need to know which "language" the mystic is speaking. Is it apophatic? Anagogic? A mix of the two? Or is it cataphatic, with its numerous variants? Is there a history of major mental illness (because that skews the picture as well)? Is there a history of psychotropic drug use? Is there a history of head injury (including concussion)? Is there a history of religious indoctrination in any mainstream or popular religion? Does the mystic dream, and if so, what are the characteristics of these dreams? Does the mystic regularly fast or follow other ascetic practices? Most importantly, is the mystical experience voluntary? If it's not voluntary, there's something seriously wrong inside the brain and this should be investigated.

And that's just the start of my list . . .

The mystical experience is a wonderful doorway into the world of consciousness research because everything inside a mystic's head is somewhat intensified and therefore easier to see in both psychological testing and in neuroscanning. The brain of a brain-healthy mystic is a researcher's dream. But first you have to ask the right questions!

*Addendum August 11, 2023: the hyperlink that used to lead to the 2013 Dr. Oz video no longer works. A recent search turned up two recent back-to-back videos featuring Dr. Amen and Theresa Caputo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WewBXmJl2Lk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8qj0EPLwnQ.

For Further Reflection:

If you were to ask me to describe the single most important thing I've learned about the universe during thousands of hours of conscious mystical communication with God and my angels, I'd have to say, hands-down, it's the truth that God isn't One -- God is Two. God is both God the Mother and God the Father, who together shape the universe and guide the growth of all their angelic children.

If you were to ask me for the single most important piece of advice I can give you to help you move forward on your spiritual path, it would be this: open both your heart and your mind to the reality that God is two vast beings, not one.

Accepting this reality will be a tremendous struggle for anyone raised in a monotheistic religious tradition (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Baha'i Faith, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and certain indigenous religions, to name some of the larger monotheistic theologies). All these religions are built on the doctrinal roots of a single God who may or may not be male, but is probably immutable and is definitely timeless, omnipresent, and supreme -- according to the doctrines.

The practical problem with all theories of a single God lies in the nitty gritty of Divine Love. Love is, by its very definition, a force, a field, an energy, a truth that connects two different hearts to each other and forms a bridge -- a relationship -- between them.

If there's no second person to build a bridge to, there's no Divine Love. There may be plenty of words, plenty of laws, and plenty of knowledge, but if there's no second Heart, there's no relationship and therefore no Divine Love.

Some writers, including Gnostic and New Thought teachers, have noticed this problem and have tried to get around it by positing a fracturing or splintering of God's Oneness into many little bits of light that fall into 3D places like human bodies and become trapped here until the secret knowledge of escape or ascension or enlightenment is reclaimed. These theories sound good at the beginning, but when you examine them carefully, their many internal inconsistencies always lead to more and more complicated "explanations" for why things are the way they are.

There's no need for mental gymnastics when you embrace the idea that God is really two. In this belief system, God the Mother and God the Father are the two Hearts which form the universal model for balance-seeking, boundary-respecting, talent-sharing Divine Love. After that, the concept of male and female energies (different from each other but mutually interdependent) makes 100% sense. Traits such as empathy, forgiveness, altruism, healing, generosity, conscience, and self-sacrifice make 100% sense (because all of them depend on relationship bridges). The causes of human suffering (such as narcissism, psychopathy, and status addiction) stand out for the ways in which they try to smother and suppress the relationship bridges of Divine Love. The good parts of major world religions (the parts that promote healthy relationships) can then be sorted and separated from the destructive parts. 

Suddenly, where once you thought you were a lost, unworthy soul (or a trapped spark of God), you now have permission to accept that you're a beloved child of Divine Parents.

Just as we, as human children, have relationships with our human parents, angelic children have relationships with our Divine Parents. Divine Love is all about nurturing and expanding those wondrous relationships. It's a powerful force, this knowing your own Heart as well as the Hearts of those in your sacred, eternal, Divine Family.

Few religious teachers in the history of human civilization have had the courage to understand God in this radically egalitarian way.

Jesus son of Joseph was one of them.

LSP17: "Why Didn't God Just Show Up in Front of Me?"

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a man I'll call Joe. Joe was very angry about the question of God and suffering (the theodicy question). Some of Joe's anger came from his experience as a gay man who was forced to deal with emotional and spiritual abuse from homophobic Christians who believe God rejects homosexuality. 

 

I continue to marvel at this carving of a heron feeding its chick. How did the artist envisage such beauty when he or she picked up a simple, 3-foot log and began to shape it into an image of abundant Life? Each time I've moved over the past couple of decades, I've lived in trepidation that one of the delicate wooden legs would snap. But sometimes it's the slenderest of connections that holds us up. Photo credit JAT 2021.

 

Joe asked questions that many other people are asking about God. He demanded to know where God had been while he was suffering. He asked why God hadn't just shown up in front of him to give him clear answers about his sexuality and faith. He asked why he had to figure everything out on his own without any help from anyone at all.

This is what I wrote in reply:

What I'm hearing is a lot of anger that God didn't just show up in front of you to tell you it was ok to be gay.

So I'm wondering . . . have you thought about what it would have been like at a practical, realistic level if God actually had shown up to talk to you? Have you thought about the fact that such a miraculous occurrence would have made your life much worse, not much better?

As a mystic, I live on a daily basis with phenomena that seem normal and very practical and scientific to me, but even for me some things would be too much. Too much for my very human, very 3D brain to process. The brain has limits. The brain expects a certain measure of consistency and predictability from the world around it. This is how the healthy brain copes with all the emotions and perceptions and memories and learning processes we cram into it.

Okay. So think about this for a minute. You're sitting in your bedroom and you're praying to God about the painful situation you're in vis-a-vis your family and your sexuality, and suddenly you look up to see an angel of God standing beside the door. You can see the angel's face and hands and wings and glowing robes. Next you hear the angel speak. The angel says, "Fear not, for you are gay. I have come to tell you that God loves you because you are gay. Now go into the world and preach what I have taught you."

So you go downstairs and you tell your family what you saw and heard, and they call a psychiatrist friend of theirs and have you involuntarily assessed, and the psychiatrist gives you a tentative diagnosis of schizophrenia.

So far, you're not better off.

This isn't the worst part, though. The worst part is the self-doubt generated within your own brain about your experience. You start ruminating on it. You go over and over the experience. Did you really see an angel? Who was he? Or was "he" a "she"? Why didn't the angel stay longer? Why didn't he say more? What did he mean when he said you should go out and preach what he taught you? What did he actually teach you?

Did you really just imagine it? Did you have an hallucination? A psychotic break? (Maybe you did!!! -- omigosh, you've gone crazy, and now you'll never have a life or a partner or a job ever again!!!) Can you trust yourself now? Can you trust anyone now?

The loving God who is with you always is not going to set you up for a tragedy like this -- a tragedy that would make your life much worse.

Joe, you ask, "Why did I have to figure out everything on my own?" (Though I confess I'm surprised you show no gratitude towards the on-line friends and the non-Christians and the books you referred to, who've helped you on your journey according to your own testimony).

You had to figure it out for yourself so the knowledge would be yours. So the insight would be yours. So nobody could take it away from you ever again.

This is an honest, truthful, fair path to understanding and transformation. It requires that you "raise the bar" for yourself by taking personal responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and self-knowledge rather than relying exclusively on the authority of others. It requires that you use the resources of your own 3-pound universe (that is, your brain). It requires that you look at Creation in new ways you never thought possible.

And it doesn't ask you to learn within a framework of occult magic, as Pauline Christianity and its predecessors have long expected you to do.

So maybe you might want to consider cutting God some slack.

(I know you say you don't believe in a theistic God, but methinks thou dost protest too much.)

Love Jen

Just for the record . . . I personally believe that a person's core sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is hardwired into his/her DNA as a permanent, natural, and healthy aspect of his/her core identity. It's a non-negotiable part of who we are. To treat another person badly on the basis of DNA-based sex or core sexual orientation is about as far from loving as it's possible to get. I reject all religious teachings that claim "divine justification" for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The path of knowing yourself (including knowing and trusting your heart-based sexuality) is a commitment to opening your eyes and your heart to the many everyday clues that surround you all the time. Part of this commitment is a willingness to ask what your fellow human beings can teach you about yourself and about God. Books can teach you. Art can teach you. Scientists can teach you. Families can teach you. Your task is to be part of Creation -- to immerse yourself in all its many narratives -- so you can begin to recognize the colours and shapes and movements and sounds that resonate deep within your heart. A painting that resonates with you is important because you're responding to images your soul finds familiar and comforting. A painting that speaks to you is doing just that -- speaking to you about who you really are. And listening to a painting is a lot less stressful for you and your family than listening to an angel who suddenly pops into your room. This room at the Art Gallery of Ontario features late nineteenth and early twentieth century Canadian artwork. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 

For Further Reflection:

After you begin to master the practice of spiritual gratitude (contemplation and thanks for the positive experiences in life) comes the difficult part of your journey: learning to how to wrestle with the question of suffering and then, after a lot of mistakes, come out smelling like roses.

Nobody wants to do this part. It's just so hard. It's so darned hard that all major world religions have shied away from the question by offering you various escape mechanisms (e.g. salvation; Judgment Day and hell; nirvana; energy balancing; scientism) that sound really good -- and really easy -- by comparison. In Christianity, the apostle Paul thought Jesus' teachings on the theodicy question were so ridiculous and so impossible for regular people to invest in that he (Paul) grafted a Saviour religion onto the root of Jesus' teachings. Paul thought this was a good idea because he didn't share Jesus' faith in the power of individuals to venture into the heart of suffering to seek the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life, so different from the Tree of Moral Knowledge, is a tree that's covered in all sorts of unwieldy branches and painful sticky patches and bunches of ugly-looking fruits that ripen at puzzling times. It's unpredictable. It can't be harnessed or controlled. It leans away from you when you try to capture it; then, when you've given up in frustration and stop focusing on it, it suddenly drops sweet seeds straight into your heart. There is a paradoxical blend of beauty and terror in this experience.

Despite our unwillingness to voluntarily approach this tree, God and God's angels regularly drop us onto its branches so we'll have the chance to figure out the mystery of Divine Love and Forgiveness for ourselves. This is what happened to Dr. Alexander when God plucked him from his orderly life and showed him the Tree of Life, which is to say the family of loving angels he was introduced to during his near death experience.

The Tree of Life, like the trees we know on Planet Earth, holds within its gnarly structure rings upon rings of memory -- memories of transformation, memories of healing, and memories of love.

At the very core of the Tree of Life lie the memories from our Mother and Father's earliest times together. Here rest the memories of redemption.

It's redemption that we, as human beings, experience each time we choose to face our experiences of suffering and learn from them. We don't escape our suffering; we transform our suffering by using our whole selves -- our hearts, minds, bodies, and courage -- to take what we've learned and help others.

Redemption doesn't happen automatically. You have to want it. You have to choose it. You have to dredge up every ounce of courage you can muster to face the pain. You have to be willing to be changed by a past -- a set of memories -- you can't change. You have to learn to bend, like the Tree of Life -- to bend away from those who want you to forget who you really are. You have to learn to forgive.

None of this is easy, but regular people do it every day in every part of the world despite the lack of encouragement they get from their spiritual and religious leaders.

Redemption (unlike the promise of religious salvation) is a universal practice unbound by gender or race or sexual orientation or clan or religion or culture or history. Anyone can choose it.

Jesus knew this. It's what made him so unpopular among his religious peers.