In the book A History of God—the 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, author Karen Armstrong explains that as soon as man and woman “became recognizably human,” they sought ways in which to understand their presence on earth and the mysteries that surrounded them: They began creating and worshipping gods.
When the early ideas of god did not work for those who developed them, the concepts were grafted onto other ideas or “unceremoniously dropped” and other new ideas adopted.
This caused me to think about whether we are on the cusp right now of another episodic need for new ideas about God. There is an already violent struggle between two powerful evangelical groups, Christianity and Islam. These two religious factions are locked in an all-too-familiar historical battle seeking to be the One True Religion of humanity.
Being a practical person, I wondered just what kind of new ideas could possibly emerge to improve the situation. The ideas of fear, anger and hatred that fuel intolerance do not work for me. I’m also fairly certain that these ideas are not working for a number of others, including the many that have already been annihilated because of these ideas—or are yet to be.
Those less than desirable ideas are diametrically opposed to the love, order, harmony and balance that should and could be embraced, modeled and lived to uplift humanity. Like many others, I have known for a long time that religion, despite its positive aspects, divides us.
It is spirituality, not religion, which holds the key to the world’s problems. Yet, therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare would say.
Because of the many eons of conflicting religious ideas, we have forgotten that we are inherently spiritual beings. We removed spirituality from the earth and our bodies. We came up with all sorts of beliefs and rituals to remove us from our daily experience thinking this would make us spiritual. Then we made the spiritual so unworldly and unreal that it was totally out of reach. We seek to rise above our ordinary human lives and opt for something we believe is better that is beyond this life. So far we have distanced ourselves from nature and each other, and adopted so many unnatural ideas that we have chosen separateness and lost touch with our innate spirituality.
I offer the following: The eternal and sublime energy-life-love-intelligence that is within us and everything in the universe is timeless and changeless. Yet as humanity evolves to higher levels of consciousness, our perception of this energy-intelligence expands.
What we think we know about this energy-intelligence is based on what the conscious awareness of humanity was in the past. The mystery is still wide open. It is not static or closed. In the past, people felt frightened and out-of-control in the face of this uncertainty.
It is time to accept that humanity is evolving and as such must be open to new ideas of God, Life and the Cosmos. The rush backward to embrace fundamentalism is a knee-jerk reaction to fear. This course is fraught with danger and denies the ongoing flow of life. We can heal our fear by choosing joy and gratitude for the gift of life and the miracle of being the only life form, thus far, that has the awareness to contemplate this experience.
We need all the truly spiritual beings there are to help us understand the mysteries of life, to protect the planet and our desire to continue living and evolving as conscious, aware human beings. We are meant to embrace being fully human, and in the process once again experience our oneness, our connectedness with each other, the Earth and everything that is.
Finally, I don’t believe there is anything “better” than Life. There is only a continuation of life in the next dimension. Our inner selves know Truth, how to live fully and in harmony with each other, the Earth and God, no matter by what name it is called.
Religion that is closed and static denies and limits our understanding of this incredible life force. Spirituality is the solution. We need to remember to open to this inner knowing.
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Copyright 2007 by Fern Stewart Welch
The author’s book THE HEART KNOWS THE WAY—How to Follow Your Heart to a Conscious Connection with the Divine Spirit Within is available from Amazon.com, other online booksellers, and through major bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders.
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