Saturday, February 8, 2014

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT RELIGION, INDOCTRINATION - AND KILLING FOR GOD'S SAKE

 
 
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
 
Wm. Shakespeare - Hamlet to Horatio - Act 1 Scene 5
 
"Faith" implies believing what someone else tells you to believe.
 
Why do people still assume that any person or group or book or prophet or church is favoured by the Creator above anyone else? It is arrogant and self-centred. Even the Bible tells us that God does not play favourites. Romans 2:11;  Acts 10:34;  Colossians 3:25.
 
You who claim special status with God are either naive, mentally defective, a fool or a self-centred liar. 
 
In the 21st Century, with all we have learned in the past hundreds of years, no rational person should be "fearing" the God created by men, nor the men who claim to speak for God. 
 
If God spoke to Moses and Jesus and Mohammad, why would he not be speaking to anyone now? Has the Creator become mute? Has he nothing left to say? If God spoke to the prophets in the past, who is to say that he is not speaking to you or to me right now?
 
People kill each other, claiming the right to do so in God's name. In fact, they are killing for what they hope will benefit themselves, not God.
 
The Creator doesn't "need" anything. Since "He" is the Creator of everything, everything is his already. And being God, he certainly does not need us to keep telling him how wonderful he is. People "worship" because it makes themselves feel better.
 
Truth scares tyrants. Some of them will even kill to silence anyone who threatens their power. Every individual has the right to seek the truth. Every individual has a right to believe the truth he or she has found. Your freedom ends when you reach out to do harm to another.
 
If you believe in the Creator in a certain way, you may share your thoughts, opinions or ideas with others who are interested in your opinions. But no one has a just claim on the Creator or a right to use God's name as a weapon or as a device to gain or to hold power over other people, their property, their labour, their bodies, their minds or their souls.
 
The Creator of galaxies, universes, atoms and protons cannot be limited to any book or any building or any person's set of rules - except the Golden Rule -
 
"Above all, do no harm."
 
Phyllis Carter
 

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