The conflict between Patrick Kennedy and his Catholic bishop uncovers the underlying fail of most of the fundamental Christian groups that choose to ignore the separation of church and state policy. By playing this political game, they in essence abandon the philosophy of their founder.

The words were simple, “whoever is without sin let him cast the first stone.”

The lessons behind the words were far more complex, however.

First, they indicated the end of the Mosaic Law and ushered in the era of spiritual principles. What it meant was, people would be punished “by” their sins not “for” them. Sinning or not sinning is a personal matter, and judgment is a conscience issue based on an individual’s relationship with the principles taught.

To back this up, when the disciples were being commissioned for the ministry, it was explained clearly that if anyone rejected the “message,” the disciples were to “kick the dust from their sandals and walk away.” No judgment, no condemnation. They were just to walk away and move on.

It was the spreading of the message that was the important duty to fulfill, not the dispensation of judgment or the imposing of doctrine. The message itself was a road map, not a rule book, and it was up to the individual whether or not the road was to be taken and how accurately the map followed.

The reward or loss as the final outcome, is to be determined by the individual’s loyalty to his or her own trained conscience and how well the principles were applied throughout the person’s life.

Secondly, and more important to the failure of organized religion is the removal of authority of one over his or her fellow man. By removing governance by law and replacing it with principles, teaching was to be the primary duty of the congregations rather than enforcement.

The level of an individual’s association with the congregation then, is based on their willingness to be “like-minded” with the other members, and severance to be determined by the individual’s “straying from the flock.”

It is the teachings and strength of the group that serves as a shield of protection to keep the congregations clean. The elders’ function then is in the areas of persuasion and guidance as a shepherd. Their job is to watch for those straying and try bringing them back to the security of the message, not to impose punishment. If the member responds favorably, then the elder did his job. If the member continues to stray, then the elder simply notifies the rest of the congregation of that one’s current standing in order to protect them from influence.

And finally, the matter at hand between Kennedy and his bishop . . .

It was said, “keep doing this in remembrance of me.” It was not said, “keep doing this only if you’re following all the rules and have the approval of your elders.”

By partaking in the memorial ritual, an individual is merely acknowledging the “new covenant.” His or her level of adherence to the principles of that covenant is inconsequential to participation in the ritual itself. However, by participating, the individual’s life performance in connection to the covenant then becomes a matter of conscience and brings value or lack there of to the act of participation.

But in any event, the entire thing is about a person’s relationship and standing with the covenant and in no way should be dictated or governed by anyone else.

So then, when religion tries to influence law in order to enforce adherence to principle, they end up leaning back toward judgment and punishment revoked by the “new covenant” and ignore the teaching of the one they claim to follow.

And that’s exactly what the bishop did when trying to force Kennedy’s hand based on his position on the law rather than on his own personal adherence to spiritual principle. Kennedy’s job binds him to the secular constitution, and in good conscience must vote accordingly. Yet as a Catholic, he may never consider doing certain things allowed in that secular law for his own life or those of his family.

As a disciple once said, “all things may be lawful, but not all things are advantageous.”

This should serve as a clear separating factor between secular law and Christian principle. And so, if the elders were doing their job correctly, there would be no reason to concern themselves with whether or not the law was in step with what they’re supposedly promoting, nor whether or not their flocks were taking advantage of the lawfulness of certain acts.

It’s all a matter of principle, and they’d do well to stick to that.

Technorati Tags: christian, church and state, law, Patrick Kennedy, principles, spiritual principles

There’s no doubt the most divisive force to the human community on the planet is religion. Perhaps it’s because so many of them all claim to be the true one, and so their adherents are less willing to back off, which in turn creates fertile ground for conflict. But how could every religion exclusively hold the truth? The answer might be found in the study of Noetic Science.

Noetic Science is basically the study of mind over matter, but more specifically its the study of how the mind’s perception creates realities. Drawing its authority from Quantum Physics, it proposes the universal consciousness permeating the energy field that is the universe allows all living things, as observers, the capability of creative perception.

In other words, how we perceive things makes it real for us. Collectively, we all see the galaxy, our world in the same basic way because, through time we’ve been programmed to see it that way. So if someone mentions a pine tree, or a cloud mass, everyone gets pretty much the same picture in their mind.

But individual experiences in our world can alter perception of specifics and thus give different people various views of the same thing.

For example, a group of people may gather below a building, gazing up at an image on a glass window. To them it could be a sign of proof that the Virgin Mary is visiting with a validation of their Catholic beliefs. For others, it could be merely an appreciation of the amazing ability of how condensation can paint beautiful pictures in the strangest places. Or still others could perceive it as a ghostly image, validating their belief in the paranormal.

A poet once wrote, “Two men looked through prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw stars.” How we perceive things makes our world either wondrous or miserable, so why would it be so hard to comprehend that our perceptions could make certain things real for us?

When we believe something, that which we believe in begins to solidify in our mind. We reason how it fits with our present reality, and thus accept it as true. Once this happens, all events or other occurrences will tend to validate what we believe, and thus make it more solid to us. Then, the more we participate in life with these beliefs solidly fixed in our perceptions, the truer they become until we’re willing to stake our.

Couple that with the sense of community when several million believe similarly, and you have a remarkably solid set of perceptions that aren’t easily questioned, let alone quickly abandoned when faced with oppositions.

But in the end its all based on perceiving our world based on personal experience and occurrence. Any belief can become true if it fits, and if enough people share the same perceptions.

So which religion has exclusive rights to claiming its the true one? In light of Noetic Science, it would have to be all of them, because like beauty, truth is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, believing IS seeing and as long as there are observers with their own life experiences, every observation would therefore be true to those who see it that way.

If humanity could only understand beliefs are personal, and thus truth is also an individual reality, perhaps then we could live in peace without fear of our realities being threatened.

Technorati Tags: belief, beliefs, noetic science, realities, reality, Religion, truth

When Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, his most important discovery was that the people he met were, in his words “in dios,” or like God. They had no tenets or moral codes to follow, but rather were naturally inclined to living a peaceful, hospitable life. When explorers go into the Amazon region, they too meet up with indigenous people who have no inclinations towards hostility or savagery in any way. So we need to ask ourselves, have indoctrinated morals replaced the natural inclination of humans, and is this a good thing?

It may be interesting to note, while Columbus and his crew came from a society with a strict moral code imposed by the Church, they had no problem taking advantage of these so called savages. These peaceful people were almost immediately subjected to brutal treatment like slavery, rape, murder, their homes were claimed for the crown, their resources exhausted, and were left for dead when Columbus finally decided to leave.

It seems then, the concept of living by a moral code, imposed and enforced, becomes an inclusive entity that demands comparison to other moral codes, or a lack of one. The level of authority that set a moral code in place also tends to imply class distinction and a greater abhorrence to anything “other” a different group may be governed by.

Columbus noted the indigenous people had no moral code when it came to nudity, thus they were “lesser” in his eyes. They had no army, and thus were weaker. Had no currency, and so were poverty-stricken, helpless creatures.
All of this, observed through his own moral code gave him the impression of “sub-human” when he viewed the habits of these people. His perception of superiority was a direct result of his having a code of morality instilled in him from the society he lived in. It gave him the authority and justification to act harshly.

On the other hand, the indigenous people certainly must have seen these visitors as strange and very uptight people. Hostility was a foreign concept to them, and history shows that it took quite some time before they even realized they should be protecting themselves from it. Their natural inclination was to share, claiming no ownership to anything. So in their eyes, Columbus and his crew must have had a great need, otherwise why else would they be taking everything?

So while it would be a natural thing to have two people, separated by an enormous ocean, find themselves with totally different lifestyles, an established moral code proved to be the most divisive element between them. And we can clearly see how different moral standards among the people of the Earth remains an extremely divisive force. More than 95% of all wars fought throughout history have been caused for religious and moral reasons.

But could we as a society live without imposed morals now? Would we be better off to just let our natural inclinations take over? Or would that, as some suggest, create chaos and anarchy?

Perhaps we’re all too far gone to go back. Or perhaps the world is slowly beginning to see the artificial aspects of a morality written down in a book, yet rarely lived.

Technorati Tags: morality, morals, morals vs. natural inclination, natural inclination, Religion, Society

Robert Wright over at the Dish has a great conversation going about the “God Gene,” and how religion fits into society.

He writes:

The trouble is that the context of the biological evolution of human nature seems to have been hunter-gatherer societies. And certainly all the anthropological evidence suggests that religion had emerged in hunter-gatherer times, before the invention of agriculture. So I attribute the moral character of agrarian religion to cultural evolution, not biological evolution.

My take in all of this is, (and in many ways I agree with Robert’s take), the argument is omitting the real base of religion, namely the sense of the spiritual. If you add spirituality into the mix, then it can clearly be seen that in hunter-gatherer societies, a religious or spiritual occurrence would be more of a personal thing.

Now “spiritual” doesn’t necessarily mean something paranormal or supernatural. I mean it more in the way of the hormone-induced emotions one would feel when awed or inspired. In those times it wouldn’t take much to awe somebody, i.e. the poor fool who happened to be in the right place at the right time to see lightening strike a tree and produce fire.

Over time, these personal spiritual experiences may have been added to a collective and drawn upon by the community as a whole. This spiritual power then would come in handy as they moved more toward the agricultural, and thus needed something to protect their fields from both animal and human marauders.

In today’s societies, a sense of spiritual can still be felt in just about any experience from belonging to something with a clear path to success (religionism), to coming to the realization that we are basically alone and have the right to choose our own path (atheism).

But no matter what position we take, or where we draw our spiritual power from, its still a personal thing. Our leanings create our realities, and what awes us personally gives us the hormone-induced sense of the spiritual.

Who we choose to share this power with becomes our community and validation.

Technorati Tags: god gene, hunter-gatherer societies, Religion, spirit gene, spirituality