Chapter 10 - Freedom, Love, Joy as a Movement

 I do not want to start a new religion or philosophy but I wanted to discuss the need for our world to find a common belief system so that we can create a world in peace.  Religions and any rigid belief system usually create separateness and division.  There are literally hundreds of different sects of religions and the problem is when they begin to think they have the answer and they know what others should do to find God.  Unfortunately, we argue and fight over this issue or that issue.  I do not want to create another separate religion to complicate matters even more.  I want to create another option for us.  I want to create a movement in which the goals of life are freedom, love, and joy.  

You don't have to give up your religion and become a convert.  You can be Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish, pantheist, agnostic, or atheist,  What we all need is something to give us purpose and direction.  We need to have common goals that we can agree on.   

I am proposing that we adopt goals for life and the goals should be freedom, love, and joy.  Our goal as a society is to ensure that each person has the right to pursue these goals.  The goals for education should reflect the goals of life, so we need to redefine the curriculum goals for education.  The new goals for education should be freedom, love, and joy.  Our children should be engaged in a learning community in which all of their needs are met.   We can create changes to our world by changing the environment in which our children are growing up and learning to be adults.  Our schools need a complete make-over.  It is long past time for us to get serious about changing our schools and the world.  

We need a new movement to pull us together and give us hope that we can change the world.  We can create a learning environment that reflects the change we want.  We can create a world that reflects the goals of freedom, love, and joy for everyone.  

I encourage you to continue to read my ideas about the freedom, love, joy movement and support this movement to change the world.   

Chapter 9 - A new religion based on freedom, love, and joy

Pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are the same thing and God's presence is in everything.  Paganism is the belief that nature is sacred and humans are part of nature and we are connected to nature in a spiritual manner.  Pagans and pantheists believe that God comes in many forms and all of life and the universe is sacred.  Most of the world were pantheist and pagan and they based their beliefs on their experiences.  Along comes monotheism and they believe that there is one and only one God.  The major religions that are monotheistic are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 

These major three religions have viewed the entire ancient world as heretics who believed in foolish magic and voodoo and they have literally been trying to exterminate anyone who believes in such nonsense.  Just think about this for a minute.  Think of all the examples throughout history in which major monotheistic religious leaders have used violence, torture, slavery, and murder on pagans who were considered godless.  

The problem is that the modern world religions did not even consider the possibility that any of the beliefs by pagans could be of value.  But there is a connection between pantheism and monotheism and when you consider their pros and cons, you can see how they compliment each other.  One is not a complete answer, but combining the concepts in world religious beliefs gives us a new religion based on a merging of the old and the new.

Pantheists are correct.  The universe is the manifestation of God and everything in the universe contains God.  God is found in the clouds and the sun.  We are all connected and we are all one with the universe and God.  Monotheists are also correct.  There is one and only one God.  That statement does not contradict pantheism, but enhances it.  There is only one consciousness and we can call that one consciousness God.  The one consciousness has created the entire physical universe in his image.  Everything is God and God is everything.  

So, the world's religious leaders need to stop and think about what they believe and try to formulate new ideology based on new discoveries and technology.  They need to reconsider that we all want pretty much the same thing and that is to find the truth.  The truth can be found somewhere in the middle path as Buddha proposed.  

I propose a new religion that recognizes pantheism and monotheism as beliefs that can be merged.  The new religion has the belief that the one God manifests as the universe and all elements of the universe are connected because they are actually one.  There is only one consciousness and that is God.  Every person and everything has God within.  God is everything and there is only one God.

Please take a minute and think about what I am saying.  Our old religions make things very complicated but things are actually much simpler than most people think.  God is consciousness that can manifest in infinite ways that appear to be separate but they are all connected as one.  Each one of us is a part of the God consciousness and our consciousnesses are connected.  Each life has the same God consciousness within and each life has certain basic rights.  The three basics of life are freedom, love, and joy.  

I have written quite a bit about the concepts of freedom, love, and joy as being the basics of life and therefore they should be the basic goals of education.  I will not elaborate much now about the importance of freedom, love, and joy because I have discussed these in much more depth in other writings.  But I wanted to introduce these concepts in terms of a new world religion that can take us into the next century and beyond.

God, the father, gave us freedom.  Jesus, the son, gave us love.  The Holy Spirit gave us joy.  

Chapter 8 - Jesus and God

 The ideas that I have presented in my writings do not represent any lessening of the teachings of Jesus.  I am concerned that people who call themselves Christians will think my ideas are not part of Christianity and should not even be considered.  I hope that Christians and everyone else will give my ideas a chance and really consider what I am suggesting.

I talked in previous chapters about us contacting a primitive man and trying to communicate our knowledge of technology and the universe.  He could not understand us when we told him about electricity, cars, planes, satellites, space rockets, Smartphones, computers, medical advancements, etc.  He would not know what we were talking about and would think we were magical or wizards or gods.  

Then think about an enlightened being who understood the reality of the universe.  He wants to explain this reality to mankind thousands of years ago.  Two thousand years ago during the time of Jesus, most people were not too intellectual.  They couldn't understand about any of the things I mentioned above and they certainly would not understand the concept of God and how God affected them.  

So how could Jesus explain the complexities of multi-dimensional universes, time and space wormholes, the Akashic records, consciousness evolution, and anti-gravity to people two thousand years ago.  Jesus had to find ways to explain complex concepts to a population who could not think abstractly.  Most people were very concrete thinkers and many people even today cannot understand abstract concepts.  So, Jesus had to put a very complex topic of God into simple, concrete terminology.  All the other enlightened souls on Earth could not explain the complexity of the universe either.  No one would understand them so they spoke in simple terms and used a lot of symbols that represent concepts and complex ideas.  

Jesus was to be the concrete example that people could understand.  Instead of trying to explain the complexities of God, Jesus simplified matters by saying that he is God and the way to salvation is through him.  He was the Way.  Jesus also said that he was Love and gave us the Golden Rule of loving one another as we love ourselves.  Christians have taken Jesus' message and turned it into a demand that the only way to heaven is to believe Jesus is one and only son of God.  Jesus taught that we should be like him in order to be saved.  Jesus was talking symbolically when he said the only way was through him.  When you act and behave like Jesus and when you love others as Jesus did, then you will find salvation as he did.  This can be done by anyone, even an atheist.  

The easy way to heaven would be to just go up during church and proclaim your faith in Jesus as your Savior.  We don't have to put out much effort in changing ourselves because we are Christians so we are going to heaven.  That's a bit too simplistic.  But we want simplicity so we accept it.  We don't have to think about becoming like Christ and loving everyone, even our enemies, like Jesus did.  Jesus literally told us to be like him and we could also be the son of God.  Think about that for a minute.  Jesus told us that we could be like him and we could also be the son of God.  Being a son of God is symbolic of choosing love and understanding for all of humanity and life.

The error of Christianity and the error of all world religions is that they think they are the only one correct and others are wrong.  They separate themselves from others.  Christians literally believe that all non-Christians are going to be punished in hell forever.  How can anyone be so self-righteous and egotistical?  But that's what Christianity and most other religions do.  They think they are the only ones who know what God is and they are the ones chosen by God.  They separate themselves from others.  

Every religion also had several sects or variations of the main religion and they have disagreed with each other.  They continue to separate themselves from people as they think they have discovered the truth.  Now we live in a world that is divided into hundreds of variations of religious groups and ideologies.  And they all think they are right and they are literally fighting and killing one another over these issues.

Mankind has really messed up.  We have made many mistakes about understanding life and God.  Our religions have done their job in providing a simple explanation of God but religions have put limits and restrictions on our full understanding of reality.  We need a new religion that does not separate us into groups in a competitive battle for supremacy.  In the next chapter, I will provide an outline for a new world religion that can bridge the gap between all other religions.     

Chapter 7 - Defining God

 I do not think of God as a person or a single entity.  The idea of God as the king or ruler of the universe came from a human mentality of a male dominated world in which each country had a king or ruler with ultimate power.  So it is no wonder that when man was wrestling with understanding the universe that we would assume the whole universe operated as our countries did.  We also feel safer if we think there is a single supreme being who is our father and protector.  A father takes care of his children and it makes us feel good to believe a father is ruling the universe, keeping evil away with his supreme powers.

In the U.S. today, we do not accept the idea of one supreme leader of our country because we don't want to give anyone too much power over the rest of us.  We want to have some say in things.  We want our freedom.  We have fought enemies who want to enslave us and we continue to fight terrorists and dictators who want to control other nations.  So why would we want to hang on to the idea of a God who is a dictator and we are completely at his mercy?

Some people think God is the creator of the entire universe, has ultimate control of all of creation, makes all the rules for mankind, and passes judgment on every one of us.  God decides who will get rewards in Heaven for all of eternity or who will be punished in Hell forever.  They believe that we live one very short life and God makes the decision for us as to how we spend eternity.  Wow!  What power this one man has over us.  No wonder that many people fear God.  You certainly would not want to get on this man's bad side.  If you believe God has so much power over us, I can see that you would do anything he says for you to do to avoid going to Hell.

But do you really want there to be one person with this kind of power over you and everyone else?  Does it even make sense that one person should or could have ultimate power over us?  Wouldn't we be God's slave and we wouldn't he be like a dictator?  Some people have accepted the idea of a king who we were to obey and we had to be submissive or we would be imprisoned or killed.  So they accept a God who we have to obey and he will punish us if we don't.  

So, over the centuries we have been conditioned to be submissive to a ruler, then it makes sense that we would transfer this belief system to the order of the universe.  A king can reward us for being obedient or he can kill us for breaking any of his laws.  So a God who can offer use reward or punishment fit into our paradigm.

As I said earlier, I cannot accept the idea that God is a single entity with dictatorial power over our destiny, but I do believe in God.  My concept of God is not new and it has been around for centuries, so I am not claiming to have an understanding of God that no one else has.  So I will make statements about God as if they are facts although they are my opinions and I do not have verifiable evidence.  But these ideas are based on what many others throughout history have believed and they are based on the evidence I have presented so far in these writings and evidence I will present later.

God is an infinite, loving consciousness that permeates and resides in everything.  This all pervasive consciousness is an energy force of which everything is made.  

Energy cannot be created or destroyed.  But energy can be converted to physical matter.  God is the energy of the universe and this energy is conscious.  Centuries ago, the Hindus taught that everything, including matter such as rocks, were made up of consciousness, even if the consciousness was mostly dormant.

Every single physical and non-physical element in the universe is made of this universal consciousness, which is an energy and it is God.  Every piece of matter, no matter how small, has a God particle in it that represents and contains the entire universe.  Some people call this God particle a hologram.  A hologram contains the whole in the smallest piece.  We are living in a holographic universe, in a sense.  So God is literally in everything and everything is connected to God and to everything else.  We are one and we are not separate.  

So God, in a sense, did create the universe and God does have ultimate power over creation because God is the one and only conscious energy that exists.  God is everything.  God is all that is.  God is love.  God gives us freedom to follow our dreams.  We need to discover how we can tap into the loving energy of God and transform ourselves so that we can create a Heaven on Earth.  This will be when we manifest the will and love of God in humanity, and we will transform the world for the next stage of our evolution.  

If you consider yourself a Christian and think this idea of God is blasphemy, don't quit reading.  I would like to explain why this concept of God does not contradict the teachings of Christ, but it enhances Christianity.    

Chapter 6 - Who or What is God?

 Notice that I didn't just say who is God, but also what is God.  Most people assume that God is a person and is like us.  Most of the early religions said that there were many gods, not just one.  As I said earlier, the Hindus believed there were many gods, not just Krishna.  And there were all of the Greek and Roman gods plus the Egyptian gods.

The idea that there is only one God of the universe came later with the three major world religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  These religions depict God as a man who looks and acts like us.  But God is all powerful in such a way that he personally created the entire universe and all of life  in the universe and judges us all to such a degree that he could sentence us to an eternity of punishment in a place called Hell or he could reward us with eternal peace and happiness. This judgment is supposedly done in a very short time frame - you get one lifetime no matter how long or short.  You could die at age  20 or 100.  God will judge you and pass sentence on you that will last forever.

Just think about how old the universe is and then how short a time we live.  In universal time, our short few years of our lives are but a blink of the eye, but in this blink, God judges us and determines our destiny for billions of years to come.  

Personally, I cannot believe that such a God exists.  Just think how cruel and unjust such a God would be.  Would any parent tell a child he had one day to prove himself and after that one day the parent would let the child live with them or the kid would be kicked out of the house and could never come back?

I also have trouble with the concept of one super-powerful person who controls the entire universe.  Does this make the rest of us his slaves?  How could one person be so powerful and the rest of us have hardly any power or say in the matter.  This seems like the ultimate dictator.  Wouldn't it be great to be the ruler of the universe?  

So, I can't believe such a dictator exists no matter how loving this one person is.  He couldn't be too loving if he casts millions of people into Hell for eternity.  I would never sentence anyone to such horrible punishment for such a long time, so why would a loving God do this?

All of this does not tell us who or what God is.  I said that God does exist but do we understand what the term God means?  With all the religions of the world trying to put their own spin on God, we could debate this term forever and not agree.  So, in the next chapter I will discuss options for the definition of God and you might not agree but it might make you think. 

Chapter 5 - If aliens were our gods, does God exist?

 Aliens might have been considered to be gods but that does not explain all the mysteries of the universe and all the things that have happened throughout our history.  There has been a lot of alien interactions that were attributed to gods but there have been many more unexplained things that were not related to aliens.

Where did aliens come from initially?  I don't mean what planet or solar system but how did they come to exist?  The bigger question is "did life in the universe arise from matter or from a spiritual non-physical element" and this leads to the other big question, "is there nothing after our physical deaths or do we continue to exist after physical death" and yet another big question "is there a God"?  

After reading hundreds of books and a life of experiences and contemplation, I think there is no doubt that the universe is not only full of alien physical life forms but there are many spiritual life forms as well.  The spiritual world is where all physical matter comes from.  This means humankind and aliens.  It is not logical that such a fascinating and complex universe full of life could possibly be an accident.  With all of our scientific knowledge to date, we know enough to know that there are many, many aspects of the universe and life that we cannot explain.

So I would say that the universe is not simply physical matter, and life did not just appear from matter alone, but a spiritual element of the universe is responsible for life.  As far as life after physical death, there is a ton of evidence to say that yes life does continue after death.

This issue is similar to the issue about the existence of aliens.  Many people are reluctant to think there is really life after death because they don't think there is proof of it.  But actually there is more proof of life after death than about anything else.  

There are thousands of books and writings about people throughout history who have had spiritual experiences, who have seen ghosts or spiritual beings, who had had mystical experiences, who had had out-of-body travels, and who have had communication with the spirit world.  If the spiritual world did not exist, science would easily show that there was no evidence.  But science and real-world experiences continue to give us overwhelming evidence. 

Personally, I have seen a spirit and I have had two out-of-body experiences in which my spirit left my physical body and I looked down upon myself.  I have no doubt that when this physical body dies, our spiritual body or consciousness continues to exist.

Another set of evidence for life existing after death is reincarnation.  This is another phenomenon that is supported by thousands of writing and millions of people who have had experiences and memories of past lives.  You can read dozens of books or view videos that describe accounts of evidence for reincarnation so I will not repeat all of this information here.  Some of the most interesting accounts of reincarnation are from writings by the psychic, Edgar Cayce.

In Edgar Cayce's book, "The Story of Jesus," he described some of his own past lives in the continents of Lemuria and Atlantis.  He also talked about the many past lives of Jesus and how Jesus was also on these two ancient continents in past lives.  Cayce said that Jesus had many lives on Earth beginning as Adam, Moses, Abraham, and others until Jesus he became fully enlightened.  He then was born as Jesus to fulfill the purpose of bringing the Way to God through love.  Jesus said that we should do as he did and we could be god as he became god.  I think that too many people misinterpreted Jesus'message.

Jesus wanted us to live in his example of being a kind and loving person and with unconditional love, and then we could become enlightened as well.  And we could be god, like him.  We don't need to believe Jesus is the Way.  We need to be like Jesus.  We need to be the Way.  What would Jesus do?  That's what we should do to find the Way.  

There have been several enlightened beings throughout history and they all have provided very similar messages and several religions have been created around these enlightened people and their teachings.

Christians want to convince us that Jesus is the One and only God, while Muslims want us to believe their version of Mohammad.  But Mohammad was supposed to be a prophet in support of the lineage of Jesus.  Jews believe in basically the same thing with their lineage going through the same leaders.  Buddhist think that we should listen to Buddha.  Buddhists believe in a path of enlightenment requiring suffering to learn compassion and understanding.  Hindus believe there are many spiritual leaders or gods throughout history and we can learn from each of them.  

If one or more of these enlightened people of our past are God or prophet, it does not matter.  We do not need to argue about who is specifically right?  We are all one.  We don't need to argue about God.  Every time we argue for our side, we separate ourselves from others.  If you think the path to Heaven requires complete acceptance to one religion, then you put yourself superior to others and separate from them.

So, the question, does God exist can be answered as yes, but who and/or what is God?  What can we believe about God if there are so many different religions, all claiming to know who God is but none of them agree. 

Chapter 4 - Aliens and religion

 It seems to me that there is no question that the universe is populated by many intelligent, physical life forms who I will refer to as aliens because they are alien to this planet.  But how alien are they really?

I propose that aliens came to Earth tens of thousands of years ago and they had a huge hand in human growth and development.  Aliens intermingled with humans and the story of Adam and Eve is a story about aliens mating with Earth humans to help create a new, more advanced human.  Humans made an enormous leap in evolution thanks to the aliens and they have continued to visit Earth to monitor what happens in human development. 

Some of our religious stories have been an account of the alien involvement on our planet.  Early man could not understand the concept of an alien race who has a vastly superior intelligence.  To primitive man, aliens seemed to have powers and abilities that were magic so the aliens were considered to be gods. 

Just think about humans today going back in time to visit early man.  We would be able to fly around in airplanes.  We would have gadgets, such as phones, computers, flashlights, cameras, radios, etc.  They would not be able to explain all these things so they would think we were gods.  There are many books about theories and evidence of alien contact and influence on our cultures and religions so I will not repeat this information here.  

It is not very clear as to how long aliens have been involved on Earth.  Most people have heard of the possibility of an ancient civilization on Earth known as Atlantis.  If so, aliens would have been involved with helping the Atlantis civilization with their technology.  Some people think that the story of Noah could have been connected with Atlantis going underwater and maybe the aliens helped humanity with a major Earth change.

Another lesser known civilization that existed before Atlantis is called Lemuria. This advanced civilization was also influenced by aliens.  Again, there are many books and writings about these two ancient civilizations that seemed to have disappeared.  We also do not know if there were civilizations living on our planet before any of these.  We have not fully explored all the Earth's surface and we have only begun to explore what is hidden in our oceans.  

So aliens are really not so alien because they mated with humans and have intermingled with us over thousands of years to the point that we are as much Earth humans as we are aliens ourselves.