What is my hammer?
Don't get me wrong, I am a very spiritual person and do my best to live an honest and ethical life.  I just have a problem with most any organized religion of any substantial size group. I realize that most people are too lazy to think for themselves, and so there hoards of slick talkers who cater to this need of the many who would rather be spoon fed their religion like mindless sheep, and told what is right and wrong, or just what to believe. You can see my Business Integrity Awards from the Better Business Bureau, and read our web pages on Ethical Responsibility and Our Path to get a better feel for who I am and where I am coming from with all this. In most cases it is very important to first understand the author's motivations, to see what their 'hammer' is and read through the lines and hopefully weed out that sort of garbage, in order to find the unbiased value in what they have written.

Case in point: It is no secret that our history was primarily written by the winners. You can bet that if we were to hear the other side's slant on what happened, it would sound completely different. The only thing in the end that is relevant is the truth, but when the facts cannot be ascertained, historians need to focus their study on the psychology of what the motivations were on both sides of any conflict to determine what really happened back then and why. Without the 'why' there is little relevance to what the outcome may have been. By their own recent admissions, those in control of the Bible were not held to strict ethical standards through the ages, and if you factor in the greed and hunger for world domination, it puts a whole different slant to what has become our history. Which is the only reason we are in many of the predicaments we are in now.

I would have thought my personal ideals of ethical responsibilities had come largely from my strict Mormon up-bringing in Utah, but I have sadly found that few Mormons can compare to my sense of ethical responsibilities.  I was jaded to Mormon Doctrine in my later teens and have fought to eradicate their blatant misogynistic teachings. A recent book titled: 'Journey of Souls'  written by Michael Newton Ph.D. clearly shows how most organized religions are far from the mark of the universal truths of life and the spirit realm. That book also helps give us an unbiased better understanding to the purpose of life. It does not give the impression that there is a need for organized religion in our lives.  About the only thing that matters in life is the personal contract we made for ourselves with our higher wisdom, for the things we want to do and learn in this life, with the help of our spirit guides who are here to gently keep us on track.

To be blunt, I feel that enough people have been abused, robbed, tortured, and killed in the name of 'God' to last an eternity.  This last Millennia has been an atrocity of carnage in the name of God and continues to this day.  I think it is time for a new era. I am hopeful for us, entering the new Aquarian Age for this new millennia.

What is Your Guide for Life?
We all know how the Christian Bible is a guide for many people through out the world. We should keep in mind that it is just a set of words written by mere mortal men that was selectively compiled by a different group of politicians over a hundred years after JC was killed. I can only hope there are not many naive enough to believe it was actually written by 'God'. Even if the original authors had some inspiration and the best of intentions, those words have been translated, altered, and reorganized in such a way over the centuries to be intentionally manipulated to serve a different purpose that the original text. Another case in point is how the term 'Satan' means human adversary or enemy and the term 'Devil' means the temporal desires of man. Has this not been perverted by religious scholars to inspire fear in us of a supernatural being? This web site goes into a more concise detailed explanation of these statements:

http://christadelphianals.org/do_you_believe_in_a_devil.htm

I am not claiming to be a Bible Scholar, but this is quite clear in the simple fact that there are several different versions of the bible out there. Some versions tell of Adam's first wife Lilith. The whole book of Enoch was removed from most versions. I could go on and on, but I would rather not. How could a person find the parts that had not been altered? If so, would those parts have much relevance; hence the reason it was not altered over the millennia?

As to a map metaphor; would you follow a map that we all knew was intentionally designed to mislead us? At least when I read a sci/fi book, there is no delusion that this is a work of fiction. At best it is just displaying some good psychology for us to decide if those philosophies have any value we want to try to implement into the real world over time.

When I use a map, I expect the creator to have made it as accurate and true as possible. Without some hidden agenda of course. Any large corporation could write an advice book for life in general, but we would not expect it to be written unbiased. If a certain pharmaceutical company wrote this guide for life, you can bet it would lead people to a dependency on their products. No matter how well and clever it was written, that is their only true motivation. Without a tight set of accuracy and ethics a map would be useless.

My ex-wife once asked why we were not given an owner's manual with our bodies. After a while, I responded with "We were. It is our conscience, amongst our set of sensors. If we only choose to listen". Some would work to suppress their conscience in order to survive with all the nasty rotten things they do to their fellow man out of selfishness or just a lack of empathy and consideration for others. If not, it would surely drive them to madness.

I would like to think we all have a conscience. While in the outer dimension, when the conscious mind and our subconscious is joined (or in other words when the heavenly veil is lifted as some would prefer to say), our conscience is no longer able to be suppressed. I feel this would be like what they describe as the fire and brimstone we will have to endure for eternity if we choose to harm others.  I suspect we are then able to see the aura of those we hurt, offended, or took advantage of. We will see how deeply our victims were wounded by our actions, or lack of action. To have complete recall in intimate detail. I feel sorry for those individuals who have chosen that path.

Then there is the Wiccan Rede: 'An it harm none, do what you will'. This is to mean that you are not to harm yourself as well.  I do not profess to have a great divine knowledge of the world's path in the coarse of our evolution, but where it comes to my personal life, I feel I am fortunate enough to be guided by a higher source. I do not desire to be a leader or a guide for others, since it was written that the “Devil” will deliver 99 truths to be able to slip in that one lie. How would we know for sure just whom we were working for. With those odds, most chances are that you would not be working for the divine being you had intended to. But since there is no such thing as Satan, we have the added responsibility to own our faults and indiscretions, and not blame it on “the devil made me do it".

As I explained to my kids, “God may be the father of your mind (Spirit, Soul, what have you) and I am the father of their body”. I figure that was about all they need to know on this subject. All the other answers are within you, just as long as one is willing to be in tune with their conscience.

There are several hundred different organized Christian Religions through out the world. They often profess to be the only "true Church".  That all the other churches are so far off from the truth that they are demonic in nature.  Assuming that there was one of these churches that really did happen to get it right, and could manage to maintain this truth for more than a few months, the chance of finding that one church with a life time devoted search is like looking for a needle in a hay-stack. I suggest that needle may not even be in that hay stack, so why waste your time searching for someone else to hand you all the answers. Wake up from that long sleep you have been walking through.

In many cases church has become little more than a social gathering, where they may talk a good deal about theology, but actually have a rather small awareness of the sprit realm, if any. For many it is nothing more than a place to gain status and business contacts, or even used as a closet swingers club. Not up-front adultery though, but more about tawdry cheating in secret. Then there is the sick and twisted dogma they spit out with the bad examples of their church leaders. All one needs to examine is the works of the people in these organizations to see the perversions within.

Alternative to Organized Religion?
I do not profess to be an authority of religious studies, but from my limited experience; they are not all that God-like. At least not the God I am willing to honor. There are different forms of pagan, or nature-based theology which were around before the time of Adam, that were systematically weeded out and suppressed throughout this last Millennia. If it were not for Lady Tia, I may not have taken Paganism seriously, as all I had seen of it was the young bitter goth sects, and from all the bad press, the media. It did not seem to fit with my spirituality and ethics, but now I feel comfortable in it's actual theologies. Yes, that would mean I am a witch, or "wise one" as that word actually means

(see Lady Tia's Wiccan web pages for more details).

One of the best aspects of Paganizm; is how there is not a set of leaders who would profit from lots of followers, and there fore motivated to promote expansion through proselytizing this faith. Paganizm will not have missionaries going door to door, since it is clearly not for the masses who need to be spoon-fed their religious doctrine. Those who look into it need to study all they can and to make their own experience. Few people it would seem have that sort of aptitude and drive. I see any spiritualism as enhancing one's psychic abilities to become more in tune and aware of our universe that is not so visible and tangible.

There is a common outcome for people who have had near-death experiences. Those who were career-driven and motivated by success and money seem to loose that drive and focus more on family and friends. That to me is more the word of God that anything ever written.  We need to try and tap into that sort mentality without the advantage of having gone through this reminder of what we are here for.

For more good books to feed your soul, I recommend anything written by
Richard Bach, Robert A. Heinlein, Star Hawk, or James Redfield.

'We are all one connected through divine energy, so to hurt others is to hurt ourselves'