We’ve nothing at all against religious folks, of course… just some qualms, shall we say, about the fallacious interpretation of ancient texts, the supernatural aspects of their belief systems, the global devastation and warmongering continually wrought in the name of their so-called deities, and so many related matters which serve to so effectively divide rather than unite mankind.

If you, dear reader, still cling to religious fundamentalism & continue to believe that your own religious views are in reality the only correct, right, or true religious beliefs to hold — and if you hold to that worldview regardless of what anyone else says or does in their attempts to demonstrate otherwise — then we say, welcome to the psychological, ego-based trap of extreme closed-mindedness that only religious fundamentalism and its hideous sister fideism[1] can offer.

We only hope you don’t stay there too long.

Some readers may now be thinking:

I KNOW my religion is right; the special feelings I get — which can only be divine communication — when I meditate, pray, or worship God at church PROVE this. God speaks to me personally… and this proves beyond a doubt that my own personal faith is correct and that my organized religion of choice is invested in something real — not some type of superstition as you crudely suggest in your evil Search for Truth blog.

Such objections are quite common and only serve to demonstrate the probable religious isolation of those holding such views. We will risk making a couple of educated guesses about readers who agree with the argument above as representing evidence that the technical details of their religious beliefs are actually correct:

1. You have never really known any other worldview nor have you seriously practiced other spiritual traditions apart from your current religion. There is probably an element of fear here (e.g., I am afraid God will send me hell for questioning the Bible) as well as a liberal dose of contempt prior to investigation. You decided on an “answer” before applying any objective and challenging critical thought to the tough questions[2] that will always plague your religious belief system. That is, you believed you already had all the necessary answers… thus negating any & all need to continue learning challenging material.
2. You do not have (m)any close friends of opposing or incompatible religious faiths (e.g., Christian vs. Muslim, Taoist, Buddhist, Jew, etc.) with whom you discuss religious and/or spiritual matters in a serious, respectful, or substantial manner. Doing so would certainly go a long way in helping to open the mind… guaranteed.

In fact, the very same kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings are experienced by most people who hold sufficient intent & regularly practice connecting spiritually with God, the Tao, the Self, Allah, one’s ancestors, the universe, Universal Intelligence, a/the “god” of one’s own understanding, or whatever else one might prefer to call that unknown, unknowable mystery that resides behind the curtain of reality.

Such divine communication often occurs during contemplative practice and group worship for those of any and all faiths, not just yours. And since a given set of religious teachings is so often highly incompatible with the other ones, they cannot ALL be right, can they?

Well, yes and no… for the most part, all major religious and spiritual traditions agree on the true parts of their teachings; this universal truth is represented by the practical aspects of spiritual living (e.g., love your neighbor, practice the Golden Rule, practice unity and not division, avoid attachments, do not be given to material things like money and savings, et al). On the other end of the spectrum lurk the division and discrimination created when poetic or fictional sections of a given religious text are mistakenly interpreted in a literal (or near-literal) manner… including the poetic supernatural stories (e.g., talking animals, a human created from a rib, a despotic, genocidal, egotistical judge of a God, virgin birth, global flood, Noah’s ark, the Tower of Babel causing God to be afraid of mankind, people rising from the dead, virgins awaiting the martyr for sex in heaven, and this goes on ad infinitum…).

The “religious ecstasy” we feel as the result of certain religious or spiritual practices is certainly more of a physio-psychological phenomenon than a religious one, but this is a fairly moot point due to the strength such divine experiences often have on us personally.

Other readers may posit the following in support of their organized religion(s):

No matter what your godless blog might say, I happen to KNOW that both my CHURCH and my ORGANIZED RELIGION serve to make the world a better place. We love everyone and we contribute substantial portions of funding and manpower to charity and other worthwhile causes — and this would not happen if we, as you so callously suggest, “dumped church.”

This type of argument can come only from those who’ve never really bothered with deep, honest, loving, reasonably objective contemplation. After all, the Taliban, organized crime, the Islamic Brotherhood, and countless other “Christian-incompatible” institutions also contribute substantial portions of funding and manpower to charity and other worthwhile causes. Does this mean you accept their views and actions as being as moral, right, or true as your own? Does this mean the net effect of their actions makes the world a better place? Of course not; the whole benevolence objection is simply more logical fallacy heaped on all the other logical fallacies employed every single day in the wholly indefensible apologetic defense of religious fundamentalism.

The folly of fideistic fundamentalism is quite simple to see — unless, of course, you happen to be trapped inside of it.

Until one is willing and able to see, contemplate, and understand the disastrous global effects of divisive supernatural/superstitious religious belief systems, the status quo will indefinitely rule mankind and nothing will really change — regardless of whatever level of esteem in which one holds organized religion.

And the status quo is simply unacceptable to those who are willing and able to see the bigger picture of the human condition — those who actually care about the well-being of planet Earth, which happens to be our only home (for now, at least)! We are not separate from each other and we are not separate from our environment. As Wayne Dyer once put it, we are environ-organisms.

Wake up! Do something different…(open lyrics; separate tab/window)

Shake things up. Rock the boat. Ask the hard questions — and actually seek the answers. Was your Jesus, your Buddha, your Mohammad a materialistic, conformist, corporate tool?

Hell, no.

Awaken to reality; clear your eyes so you can see the dire need for global healing — something divisive religious views and supernatural superstitions never have and never will accomplish. After 2,000 years of abject failure, fantasy, division, and war, exactly how much more time should we give your religion to even BEGIN to cure what ails our planet?

We say, no more resting on the laurels of fantasy and superstition; it is time to grow out of childish geocentric belief systems and get real… pragmatic… practical… useful.

Only with the adoption of basic universal spiritual principles and encouragement of their widespread practice on a unifying secular level — that is, with an emphasis upon the practical as opposed to the supernatural — can the planet begin real healing.

Superficial, nonexistent, fairy-story Wonderland (XTC, Mummer)

[ XTC's Wonderland (lyrics) ] In any case, we genuinely hope the material found here on the Search for Truth blog (and other spiritually friendly resources) helps to encourage even only a handful of fundamentalists and fideists to eventually become willing to apply serious, honest, objective critical thought to their beliefs. Presently, many religious adherents will read only those books supportive of current viewpoints & continue to be afraid of any potentially challenging literature that might demonstrate the wisdom of some "opposing" ideas.

It is absolutely key to remain pliable like clay, to remain teachable like children… a principle which was and continues to be taught by many great spiritual teachers from the Buddha and Lao-Tsu, 500 years later by Jesus, and even today by the greats like Wayne Dyer, Miguel Ruiz, and so many others.

What will religious people tell their kids, their grandkids?

[ This World Over (XTC) lyrics ]

Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land
And how a child to the virgin came?
Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered
Everything upon the surface of the world
So we can stand right up and say we did it in his name?

That’s this world over
Or so it seems
That’s this world over
The end of dreams

That’s this world over, over, over and out.

(Source: Lyrics to XTC’s This World Over from SongMeanings)

Christianity & other monotheistic religions

All organized monotheistic religions with which we are familiar preach and/or practice an exclusivist doctrine, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any organized monotheistic religions which preach and practice oneness, unity, and tolerance in the vein of something like, say, Taoism or Buddhism.

It’s just that we don’t know of any such monotheistic religions.

It’s certainly not that religion as a whole is necessarily wrong; indeed, the only wrong religions are those which:

• View their own religious group as being superior to other religious groups
• View their own beliefs as superior to alternative beliefs
• Push their own particular beliefs upon other groups, especially upon the disadvantaged, needy, gullible, uneducated, etc.
• Continue their ambivalence toward nature in general, including tacit acceptance or failure to address problems like harm to living beings, damage to the environment, etc.
• Continue to promote the unfortunate status quo
• Oppress others, infringe upon the rights of others
• Attempt to inject their supernatural religious views into our national politics, public schools, etc.
• Practice or promote lifestyles that are not fully sustainable and environmentally responsible (much more on this one later; if interested in the environmental & sustainability aspects of right living, please see Greenism)

Religious exclusivity — the horrifyingly ignorant idea that "only our religion is right", a longtime fundamentalist standard — is rooted in the human ego, which can, in a sense, be seen as the source of all "evil" (such that evil is).

The basis of virtually all global problems is spiritual.

Some of the best evidence that certain organized religions are wrong (e.g., do not yet teach the whole truth) is the fact that their specific religious beliefs continually change and evolve towards more tolerance and acceptance and usually less literal interpretations of their “revealed” scripture.

For instance, take the religion of my own upbringing: Church of Christ-flavored Christian fundamentalism, as taught at Lipscomb University and so many local (Nashville, TN) congregations.

I was recently treated to lunch by a dear younger cousin of mine (who has thankfully switched his career goals from ministry to computer science.) During our lunch, I lamented the conservative religious views promoted by Lipscomb University (way) back the 70s and 80s — the years I personally attended David Lipscomb Elementary, David Lipscomb Middle, and David Lipscomb High Schools. At this point, my cousin enthusiastically pointed out that things have really changed, and continue to change — progressive change towards less literalism and more tolerance — at Lipscomb… that Lipscomb’s present ideology is not nearly as conservative or as religiously, rigidly “fundamentalist” as David Lipscomb school doctrine used to be.

Well, that’s certainly a step in the right direction, and given the ardent resistance to change in those closed-minded circles of superstition and supernatural belief, I admire it and strongly support it; however, truth doesn’t change.

If any reader requires additional evidence to demonstrate the continued error of organized religious belief systems and teachings, let us broach the subject of discrimination.

In centuries past, discrimination was practiced against the fairer sex. (Women — or bitches, more accurately, given those pathetic, prevailing religious views — do what your man tells you do to… and for Chrissakes, be silent in the church!)

After discrimination against women was finally and properly seen as completely ignorant bunk — that they were not merely the subservient objects or bitches as they are framed in the Bible and other ancient poetry, but rather fully empowered women — discrimination moved to target minorities. Think slavery — which, BTW, is discussed as an implicitly acceptable activity in the Bible. Of course, discrimination against minorities continues in some circles, even in these supposedly enlightened times — and even though whites will soon no longer represent a majority. Think Hard Right conservative politics; think Obama-haters. Sadly, discrimination has not ended with race.

Are you a fundamentalist? Take the short quiz

Even now, the publicly trumpeted, en vogue discrimination — especially in places like the Bible belt and other preferred Hard Right stomping grounds — targets gays… despite the fact that anyone who’s ever had a couple of honest gay friends knows, they did not necessarily choose that lifestyle as so many old-school religious fundamentalists want you to believe.

Each new century tends to reveal at least some of ignorance from the previous century. In the next century, discrimination against gays will be seen as ignorant by Christianity at large… I guarantee it (although I have no vested interest in this, should the reader be wondering)!

Lipscomb schools and virtually every other religious organization will continue to change and evolve until they finally meet the truth of basic universal spiritual principles… which at some admittedly ideal point would be devoid of any and all supernatural fantasies and superstitions. Sadly, I expect mankind will probably destroy itself before many religious folks finally overcome the ego and come around to truth.

Religions in current forms are for the most part a sham. Religions as commonly viewed and practiced actually comprise a large portion of the so-called “evil” that continues to plague mankind (as opposed to the yester-century belief in any actual evil entities, such as Satan).

You won’t hear of such “evils” as war being perpetrated by those who hold basic, universal spiritual principles in the same esteem that religious groups continue to mistakenly hold supernatural entities and stories.

Tithing was created by church power to sustain itself – church power – indefinitely. With only a dash of objectivity, anyone can see this, as there seems to be no other reasonable scenario.

Try to understand…
Sowing the seeds of peace is a must, and this doesn’t really coincide with spreading religious beliefs; they’ve have had around 2,000 years to work. Yet modern religious war is as prevalent & common as it ever has been, with even more incidents of war and killing on the basis of religious fundamentalism likely to occur in the near future (as usual).

If you really think about it, firm religious beliefs are so incredibly odd! How could any person or group claim not only to know something that’s fundamentally unknowable, but to ridicule and rail against those who beg to differ – that is, those with only slightly differing claims of the unknowable? It really is bizarre. But it’s far, far more unfortunate, portentious, and sad for mankind than it is bizarre.

BELIEVE, interesting live performance by electronica group Gus Gus

I bought myself a liarbird
He came with free drinks just to blur
The lies falling out like rain
On an average English summer’s afternoon

Methinks world is for you
Made of what you believe
If it’s false or if it’s true
You can read it in your bible
Or on the back of this record sleeve

I bought myself a liarbird
Things got more and more absurd
It changed to a cuckoo
And expanded filling up with all I gave

I bought myself a big mistake
He grew too greedy, bough will break
And then we will find that liarbirds
Are really flightless on their own

I gave away a liarbird
A couple less drinks and now I’ve heard
The truth shining out like sun
On an average English winter’s afternoon…

(Source: Lyrics to XTC’s I Bought Myself a Liarbird from SongMeanings)

(Please help spread this message… not by giving money, unless you’d like to support this blog, but FAR more importantly, by being objective and honest in your dealings with others… by passing along the link to this Search for Truth blog to anyone you think would be willing to read it…)

Notes

[1] Fideism

Fideism can be described metaphorically as the hardening of one’s beliefs from the pliability of clay — the condition of “remaining teachable” — into immovable positions, like fire-hardened, easily breakable pottery; to be sure, fideism is a very tough nut to crack.

Fideism is essentially the worldview that generally recognized truth-telling or reality-indicating tools such as science, reason, logic, experience, philosophy, etc. are enemies of genuine religious faith. Fideism is often the undesirable, negative, closed-minded position which can result from longtime exposure to fundamentalist, “only WE are right” teachings and attitudes.

Therefore, fideism serves as a strongly divisive global force; it should be avoided at all costs. Fideism perhaps represents the worst feature of those things that serve to divide mankind: religious fundamentalism and political hyper-partisanship.

See also Religious fundamentalism, fideism, and critical thought (Search for Truth)

Ultimately, whatever works for you is what you will probably stick with… but please refrain from framing supernatural beliefs as facts to children, the uneducated, the ignorant and gullible, etc. Religious beliefs are just that: beliefs… not facts. Let’s be honest about this.

[2] Tough questions that will always plague your religious belief system

NOTE: The following list — More serious problems with literal Bible interpretation — has been expanded and converted into its own post which can be found here. (25 Dec 2012, samana)

Off the top of my head, here are a few paradoxical, unanswerable examples demonstrative of the pervasive unbelievabililty of literal Bible interpretation.

1. A “loving” entity which is perfectly willing to play Nazi with the souls of all who fail to feed its ego in some prescribed manner (FAIL)
2. An omnicient (all-powerful) entity which lost control of its creation so quickly and badly so to have effectively created another virtually omniscient power (known to fundamentalists as Satan) after just a little while in the Garden of Eden (that is, if one believes the talking snake was actually Satan; Genesis doesn’t say)(FAIL)
3. If supposedly omnipresent (everywhere at once) Satan is so crafty and clever, then perhaps he would eventually wise up and opt to repent… right? This would be wonderful, right, as it would fix everything instantly?!
4. A “loving” God who also happens to be a genocidal despot and baby-killer (FAIL)
5. An all-powerful entity guilty of chronic absenteeism, perpetual invisibility, and total inability to demonstrate itself powerfully enough to build any consensus whatsoever… even among those calling themselves Christians (FAIL)
6. Believers in Jesus will perform miracles “even greater” than his own (FAIL)
7. With the proper type of faith, we can “move mountains” (FAIL)
8. Bible expresses rampant discrimination as implicitly and explicitly acceptable: Slavery, subservience of women, et al (FAIL)
9. As if an all-powerful deity would even possess — and thus be crippled by — a human-like ego, causing the entity to crave worship (or ELSE!), or have ANY anthropomorphic qualities whatsoever (FAIL)
10. Even if ancient religious poetry were meant to be interpreted literally (it wasn’t), we humans have clearly demonstrated time and time again a complete inability to apply it in a positive, uniform manner. Christians slaughtered & mistreated the American natives and all manner of religious fundamentalists (e.g., Christians, Muslims, Jews) continue to commit atrocity after atrocity in the name of God, even today… (FAIL)
11. In the beginning, God created “two great lights”… pure fantasy. The sun is a more or less average star, one of countless hundreds of billions of massive lights lumped into galaxies across our universe. The moon isn’t even a light at all but merely reflects it. Assuming divine inspiration were real and trustworthy, shouldn’t the writer(s) have known such basic facts? (FAIL)

This list goes on and on… there are already plenty of such lists on the web.

Amazing lyrics: Human Alchemy, an XTC song condemning slavery …

Music video on YouTube: Human Alchemy by XTC

This post was started on Monday, November 19, 2012

Removed content
Spiritual activism is no longer an option in my life; it is a requirement. “God” (life, actually) itself demands it.

Apart from those holding such a view having gotten the words know and believe confused,…

The five (5) steps to peace

Religious fundamentalists would have us believe that the way forward is the way backward.

The spiritual root of all man’s problems may remind some readers of the partly-spiritual (but sadly, not wholly spiritual, as honest and knowledgable 12-step practitioners must admit) teachings of 12-step groups. It’s true that life-affirming spiritual principles can be learned in 12-step programs (and even yours truly will readily list at least two wonderful, eye-opening examples of such principles); however, most AA/12-step groups eventually taint or even ruin their own basic messsage by insisting/instructing that participants get religious in some way… such as praying to an external deity and similar stuff which obviously flies in the face of all possible alternatives to theism.

Out of depth
Out of class
Phase of your life
Will come to pass
Caught in this tragical wonderland
All of the riches that shine will turn sour
Each moment you slip you will bring near the hour

One day you will break out of your spell
And some day you will want me for your own
And I’ll say welcome to reality

Wrapped in your mysterious wonderland

Caught in your superficial,
Nonexistent,
Fairy-story,
Wonderland
(Source: Lyrics to XTC’s Wonderland from SongMeanings)

What modern U.S. Christian fundamentalists lack in real answers and true spiritual practice, they make up for in comaraderie. It is definitely true that church offers one of the best intra-caring social networks available, but this of course is no excuse for teaching ancient poetry as literal truth.

Sadly, herds of followers continue to be taken for their precious time, their hard-earned money, and their very lives… it’s a sad epidemic of superstition with naggingly deep roots (which will eventually wither — if mankind doesn’t wipe itself out first, that is).