What have I learned since leaving the world of 'born again evangelical fundamentalist' christianity?
1. Dont build a belief based on mere hearsay.
2. Cliams made by Church leaders i.e divine healings, miracles etc. Should be tested on the grounds of Reason, evidence and observation to question to see are such cliams based on reality.
3. Not to be afraid to employ criticial thinking and free equiry to even the bible itself or even the existence of God.
4. Seek not to build ones life based on dogma as this leds to bigotry, sectarianism and intolerance.
5. Seek to devolop in ones self intregity, honestly, openess and respect this potential for character devolopment lies within you and always has.
6. Learn to devolop your own confidence, value your own dignity and worth in connection to fellow human beings.
7. Always seek to be inclusive, open minded to listen to other ideas other than your own so I can be thoughtful and humble to value other insights so I can draw inspiration to devolop as a human being so be tolerant of diversity.
8. Always seek ways to serve and not satisfy ego, be loving and patient with others, be considerate show compassion care and concern. Dont be a 'mere talker' but do something about it. Seek to make the world a better place for this world is our home. So learn to live in reality based on reason, experience and observation.
While some attribute the statement Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way to Thomas Paine, what is important is it meaning as personified in my below reply to the above:
Quoting from http://ThomasPaineRedux.com : Thomas Paine was an enlightened visionary who saw and understood what Paul warned the Christian converts with respect to the limitations of their "natural" organic mind and thinking (see What Difference Does It Make @ http://AnInconvenientTruth.org#animal ). And in his positions found in his writings, Thomas Paine understood the nature of the problem that anchored the Christian world to a condition of profound ignorance. In that article entitled Of The Religion Of Deism Compared With The Christian Religion, Paine hit the nail on the head when he writes:
But the Church of Rome having set up its new religion, which it called Christianity, invented the creed which it named the Apostle's Creed... It then manufactured the allegories in the book of Genesis into fact, and the allegorical tree of life and the tree of knowledge into real trees, contrary to the belief of the first Christians, and for which there is not the least authority in any of the books of the New Testament; for in none of them is there any mention made of such place as the Garden of Eden, nor of anything that is said to have happened there. But the Church of Rome could not erect the person called Jesus into a Savior of the world without making the allegories in the book of Genesis into fact, though the New Testament, as before observed, gives no authority for it. All at once the allegorical tree of knowledge became, according to the Church, a real tree, the fruit of it real fruit, and the eating of it sinful. As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priest-craft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin......Reason is the forbidden tree of priest-craft, and may serve to explain the allegory of the forbidden tree of knowledge, for we may reasonably suppose the allegory had some meaning and application at the time it was invented. It was the practice of the Eastern nations to convey their meaning by allegory, and relate it in the manner of fact. Jesus followed the same method, yet nobody ever supposed the allegory or parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Prodigal Son, the ten Virgins, etc., were facts. Why then should the tree of knowledge, which is far more romantic in idea than the parables in the New Testament are, be supposed to be a real tree? The answer to this is, because the Church could not make its new-fangled system, which it called Christianity, hold together without it. To have made Christ to die on account of an allegorical tree would have been too barefaced a fable.
Unlike the modern Deist, Thomas Paine understood the allegorical nature of the scriptures -- and what he condemned was those who attempted to read the text literally as if they are historical accounts -- rather than accounts of the Mind of the seeker (see http://AnInconvenientTruth.org ). The Original Deists understood this reality, because their spiritual movement was an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment. And as such, they possessed the knowledge, wisdom and insight to lead faith-based Christians onto a higher path of spirituality. Before you can help others to find the Greater Truth, you have to first open the door to Truth within your own mind and being. Revealed Deism often uses the death of Giordanio Bruno as an example of Christian violence and ignorance (see http://ThomasPaineRedux.com#SpiritualReligion -- but unlike the modern Deist, Bruno understood the higher reality of the Soul (quoting):
Throughout man's history the counterfeit religious leaders who acted in collusion with secular authorities perpetually hunted down the adherents of Spiritual Religion -- declaring them to be heretics. In the Middle Ages they held Inquisitions where the faith and belief of the people were tested -- and those who failed the test, were tortured and put to death. One such example is the case of Giordano Bruno who was a Christian priest, openly taught the reincarnation of the soul -- (quoting) "The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body" (see 30 Quotes On Reincarnation). And his position on the soul is further presented in the words: "The divine perfection of the individual soul is the aim of all progression" (Giordano Bruno quoted in Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery; Cranston/Head, editors). Thus, on the higher reality of the soul Bruno wrote: "Within every man there is a soul-flame, kindled at the sun of thought, which lends us wings whereby we may approach the sun of knowledge." Further stating that: "This principle in man moves and governs the body, is superior to the body, and cannot be constrained by it." It is Spirit, the Real Self, "in which, from which and through which are formed the different bodies, which have to pass through different kinds of existences, names and destinies." Giordano Bruno taught that the Law of Reincarnation is indissolubly connected with its twin doctrine of Karma, or "High Justice" -- stating that "Every act performed brings its appropriate reward or punishment in another life. In proportion as the soul has conducted itself in a body, it determines for itself its transition into another body." In his Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante, which was published in 1584, Bruno described the condition of a soul who had misused its opportunities on earth, saying that such a soul would be "relegated back to another body, and should not expect to be entrusted with the government and administration of a better dwelling if it had conducted itself badly in the conduct of a previous one." Thus explaining that there are certain individuals whose "soul-flame" has burned more brightly with each succeeding incarnation, leading them by gradual stages to perfection. "These speak and act not as mere instruments of the divine, but rather as self-creative artists and heroes. The former have the divine spirit; the latter are divine spirits." With respect to the existence and reality of the Inner Teacher that exists within the self of every person, Bruno wrote that: "The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it" (quoted in Life and Teachings of Giordano Bruno : Philosopher, Martyr, Mystic 1548 - 1600 (1913) by Coulson Turnbull). Perhaps it the genuine Deists was to convey to the Christians they condemn the spiritual meaning of the allegorical scriptures they embrace, only then could mankind prevail over the abject ignorance that enslaves him.
When the Roman Emperors who ruled over the Church beginning in the fourth century outlawed and suppressed the teaching on the pre-existant Soul that evolves to perfection over the course of many lifetimes (see http://ChristianReincarnation.org ) -- creating the revealed Jesus-god of the Church -- the Key to Christianity and understanding the allegorical scriptures (see http://AnInconvenientTruth.org ) was thrown away. And as Thomas Paine states in the above, because they take as fact what was presented allegorically, they remain spiritually impotent and disenfranchised.
What was the pre-Nicene portrayal of the scriptures which Thomas Paine makes note of in the above? On the literal interpretation of the allegorical Genesis the Church Father Origen wrote: “What man of sense
will agree with the statement that the
first, second and third days in which the
evening is named and the morning, were
without sun, moon and stars, and the first
day without a heaven. What man is found such
an idiot as to suppose that God planted
trees in paradise in Eden, like a
husbandman, and planted therein the tree of
life, perceptible to the eyes and senses,
which gave life to the eater thereof; and
another tree which gave to the eater thereof
a knowledge of good and evil? I believe that
every man must hold these things for images,
under which the hidden sense lies concealed”
(Origen - Huet., Prigeniana, 167 Franck, p.
142).
When the Church Father Origen presented the difference between the spiritual meaning of the Resurrection and the literal allegorical portrayal in the Gospels, he explained that the literal interpretation was“preached in
the Churches… for the simpleminded and for
the ears of the common crowd who are led on
to live better lives by their belief”
(see Origen Contra Celsum). So why was it preached at all? Because these allegorical symbols were all that the mind of organic man could comprehend (see Organic Man Ruled Over By His Lower Animal Nature
http://SoulSelf.org#AnimalNature .
And the allegories set forth in the scriptures were necessary catalysts in the process of transforming and maturing the mind of organic man who could not comprehend his own higher Soul-Reality ( http://SoulSelf.org ) But it was also Augustine who understood the
absolute necessity of the scriptural
allegorical symbols, and wrote that:
“He is a
slave to a sign who uses or worships a
significant thing without knowing what it
signifies. But he who uses or venerates a
useful sign divinely instituted whose
signifying force he understands does not
venerate what he sees and what passes away
but rather that to which all such things are
to be referred. Such a man is spiritual and
free, even during that time of servitude in
which it is not yet opportune to reveal to
carnal minds those signs under whose yoke
they are to be tamed”
(De Doctrina Christiana).
In coming to terms with what Augustine is stating, it is of ultra importance to understand that Augustine portrayed the carnal interpretations of these allegorical symbols which is the folly of both the Fundamentalist believer, as well as the Fundamentalist unbeliever, as the death of the soul, as seen in the words of Augustine: “What the apostle says pertains to this problem: 'For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth', that is, when that which is said figuratively is taken as though it were literal, it is understood carnally. Nor can anything more appropriately be called the death of the soul than that condition in which the thing which distinguishes us from beasts, which is the understanding, is subjected to the flesh in the pursuit of the letter. He who follows the letter takes figurative expressions as though they were literal and does not refer the things signified to anything else” (De Doctrina Christiana). Perhaps even more important is the fact that since the allegorical language of the scriptures is in fact the same language that when properly understood, all of the physical world is written in, then this warning applies to the scientific and scholastic worlds, as much as it does to the religious world -- i.e., "...Nor can anything more appropriately be called the death of the soul than that condition in which the thing which distinguishes us from beasts, which is the understanding, is subjected to the flesh in the pursuit of the letter."
Modern Deism can best be portrayed as Revealed-Deism, because the Deists today are no longer the product of the Age of Enlightenment in the manner of Giordanio Bruno -- and therefore they no longer understand that what they see when they look out at Nature is comparable to the fundamentalist literal perception of the scriptures. And this very limited perception and understanding is explored in great depth, in that article that portrays the reality of man as the prodigal son at http://OuterDarkness.Nazirene.org . And when rightly understood, modern science has already proven the Mystics who authored the scriptures correct (see Science Proves Religion
http://OuterDarkness.Nazirene.org#ScienceProves ). But from the perspective of what can be called Revealed Deism -- i.e., those who see only the physical forms of Nature without perceiving and understanding the underlying unseen Source -- most modern Deists are merely a different variety of Fundamentalist. And -- as modern science has already confirmed and proven -- those who see only the (physical) images are little more than human beasts that walk in the form of man (see Entering
The Kingdom Of Man
http://OuterDarkness.Nazirene.org#EnteringTheKingdomOfMan ), because they have in their prevailing blind ignorance "...subjected [their Reasoning] to the flesh in the pursuit of the letter."
The Fundamentalist-Deist who tells the Fundamentalist-Christian to look only upon the images of physical nature as the source of reality, is as blind as the Fundamentalist-Christian he condemns. The scriptures are allegorical, because they are a text-book for the necessary levels of development to escape the limitations of this world which Paine correctly portrays above as an allegorical reality in which mankind is immersed, and must escape. There was an important reason why the authors of the scriptures wrote their sacred writing in an allegorical language of the Soul ( http://AnInconvenientTruth.org ), and not to understand the reasoning behind the use of allegory -- or the fact that myth is not the same as allegory -- or, in this case, what modern physicists portray as the "blemish" within the unseen Ætheric Field that is the true Source of what see is very much "...the death of the soul than that condition in which the thing which distinguishes us from beasts, which is the understanding, is subjected to the flesh in the pursuit of the letter." . When Revealed Deism portrays what modern physicists portray as the "blemish" as the whole reality of this world -- totally ignoring the Source of what is projected into the images of what we perceive with our physical senses -- then they are no different than the Fundamentalist Christians they condemn.
