Posted by
Republiservative on Monday, April 27, 2009 1:58:10 PM
The other day, based upon the way it seems nobody following any peaceful faith of any kind seems to get much for their efforts and sincerity, not even daily necessities or signal graces or such, including "miracle cures" in any number corresponding to global prayers for healings, I interposed that either God has placed us all at Satan's disposal and mockery of hope from the get-go, or perhaps, just perhaps, the promises and prayer regimens of even peaceful religions are mere window dressing re a God who just equips us, then sits back, watching for who uses what for the spreading of dignity and progress.
Most clergy, and their hardcore lay followers, represent to me as or in nature that Scriptures allow anything a cleric says to be taken as speaking in the Holy Spirit (intoned and defined only from man-made Scripture) and unchallenged, even if in great tension with other Scriptural utterances; e.g., we are to believe that God would become so vexed over same-sex activity in Sodom he would send two angels to lay waste to it, or get uppity due to some Pharoah not being nice enough to Hebrew slaves, but absolutely nothing since that time has resulted in the slightest whiff of Divine personal or angelic visitation...that's a lot of really bad genocides,frauds, and such, yet we're told that same-sex unions WILL honk God off, probably. Then, there's the Calvinist predestination interfaith malarkey, intoning that God prospers even pirates (apparently), as anyone with money is cool, anyone losing a job/home de facto eternally accursed and shunned...doesn't matter how one gets money or power, doesn't matter if you "shirted off your back" into poverty. Bet you might know some instances yourselves.
You can see how one might come to believe that where governments affirm, control, or both re religions, which then find anything the "boss" says/does "holy", maybe we're just souls sent here as the first level of Dante's perdition...sort of getting that first taste re abandoning all hope. Especially where some major Christian groups actually now are mailing to me/others, moaning they've had to cut prayer center funds from $32 million to $24 million, maybe more; so to put legs under their prayers, they're using more cash to beg more money...period. THAT'S all they urge? Pray simple, give us your cash, wait for God to change you if He chooses to (Calvinism reinforcement)? So on the other hand, I see why some MIGHT need to be regulated as practicioners of psychology rather than roam free as metaphysicians or speculators in eternity; they're the antithetical counterparts to Laden-like predestination theories, some handling immigration/public housing/welfare for large areas, and thus need governments looking over their shoulders.
Here's how I, as one minister, will henceforth concentrate upon God minus anyone's in particular sacred texts "the way some guys remembered or traditionally paraphrased it":
Acceptance that it is impossible for our universe to have created itself ab initio from a vacuum, per our laws of physics and spontaneous generation, and belief that God as complete and final "intervention" gives us order, resources, and minds to do the right things to live as humans in progressive community with one another, with boundless creative energies, no one being naturally higher or lower in value to God than the next person.
Examination of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), the most prominent global faiths claimed to arise directly from Divine personalities, with belief same support most other metaphysical if less Divinely-issued belief analogues, toward support that all peaceful religions and metaphysics are but ways of reminding us to do the sane, logical, right things for ourselves and others, with boundless creativity as long as harm, abuse, or mind control come to no one...the only religion God builds into us all.
Thus, true proclamation of the Universal Life Church credo: Eternal Progression, A Fuller Life For Everyone, and To Live And Help Live...and to do the right things.