After writing chapters, essays and a
treatise about the world's religions, from the point of views of
people of a particular religion I discussed, I would like to set
aside some time to write about my conclusions concerning the
spiritual aspect of life that many have turned into a religion.
First, I would like to say that it has
confounded me that during a long period of history, that Christians
and Muslims cannot seem to get along for any period of time – and
too often demonstrated during that history that some Christians (groups) and
Muslims look upon Hebrews (Jews) as a scapegoat and inferior “race”.
With that concept in mind, it already begins with misinformation in
that being Jewish is not a race, but a Hebrew religion that is much
older than both Christianity and Islam. In regards to history, Islam
is the newcomer on the scene. Literally, a "Jew" can be of any race believing in Judaism.
I am a realist and put it upon myself
to be as logical in any concept I believe and write about. Indeed, I
was raised as a Christian, my mother being of Baptist denomination.
I have covered a broad scope through my
writings within the chapters of the book, Phenomenology of World Religions, but have only uncovered the surface for throughout the
history of humanity there have been byproducts of major religions
generally called “cults”.
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| Geneva Bible |
If you read the Gospels of the New
Testament in the Holy Bible, comprised of two sections:
Old and New, the “Old” Testament being what was written by the
original monotheistic people, the Children of Israel, Judah, and
Palestine. Monotheism, as you have read in my chapter on Egyptology
or the religion of ancient Egypt, was not the only religious movement
moving toward monotheism. In the case of ancient Egypt, monotheism
did not last long because the priests were a powerful and organized
institution that liked the old ways of paganism.
If you read the quoted words of Jesus of Nazareth, nothing in those words, parables and phrases does it
imply that he considered himself divine. Yet, when followers of
Christ instituted organized Christianity and built churches, they did
not honor Jesus of Nazareth just as a messenger, a prophet and a
religious mentor; but insisted that he would be provided with
divinity. The story of the miracle birth of Jesus is one factor, and
I am not going to dispel that belief; however, I have not come across
any proof that he intended to found a separate religion from that of
his and his parents' Hebrew faith. Jesus of Nazareth, like his
parents, kept the traditional feasts and religious rites and
holidays, one of which was Passover, as described in the scene of the
Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples that included Mary Magdalene.
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| Mary of Bethlehem |
More than 600 years after the
crucifixion of Jesus, and after Christianity spread throughout North
Africa and other places in the western known world, Muhammed surfaced as a prophet for the tribal desert people who were, like the
Hebrews, descendants of the ancient peoples, like Abraham. Which
means that when Muslims persecute and kill Jews, they are literally
killing their cousins.
Muhammed saw that the paganism that was
dominate in Medina and elsewhere was a falling out from the original
monotheistic religion that was established by the Hebrews; and he
would write in what has become the Holy Qur'an, that the
Hebrews (Jews) had fallen by the way, just as the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, renamed the Christ.
Thus, both Jesus and Muhammed were
reformers.
In the case of Jesus the Christ,
he did not promote the traditional animal sacrifice, as Jews had
practiced in the day. He conveyed that belief in the one God, the
Father, was needed, not the sacrifice of a lamb as prescribed by the
Patriarchs. Jesus approached the explanation of how to live one's
life with his parables and emphasized that the spiritual world is
more important than the material plane. He live in a violent world
that was dominated by Roman rule across the known world, excluding
East Asia; but he taught pacifism and told anyone who would listen
that people must be concerned with their own souls before condemning
another person's soul. Material elements of the living world were
insignificant compared to the rewards of the spiritual world by those
who acknowledge God and obey his commandments. Nothing in the texts
of the New Testament does it say or allude to any violence against
“nonbelievers”. I do not venerate Jesus of Nazareth because I
believe in the First Commandment. Unfortunately, Christians have
become too blind that they cannot see that God is the Father of all,
not just Jesus. This is overlooked by people who do not read the
scriptures for its content instead of the mysticism sprinkled
throughout. It is why Thomas Jefferson created his own copy of the
Bible with the cut-and-paste method that highlighted the
philosophical wisdom of Jesus of Nazareth, excluding the mysticism.
That customized Bible is in the Library of Congress and has been
published for modern readers to examine, entitled, “Jefferson's Bible”.
Muhammed left written texts, while
Jesus did not – relying upon his disciples to record events and his
words. It is not known if that was because Jesus was illiterate or
just depended upon his “fishers of men” to record words and
events accurately.
Muhammed knew the tales of Virgin Mary and about Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the ancient
history of the Hebrews; as mentioned in his texts. Nothing in his
writings indicated that he meant to be looked upon as a divine
individual – and in that, Muhammed and Jesus have something in
common. Indeed, in one text, he insists to his followers that he is
merely a man of God [Allah] and he will die as any other
would.
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Muhammed referred to Christians and
Hebrews [Jews] as “People of the Book” meaning the texts found in
the Old Testament that coincides with the Tanakh,
which includes the Torah.
The contents of the canonical Torah are: Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. The
Hebrew Bible has been translated from the original Hebrew in its
history in Aramaic,
Greek, Latin, Arabic, and English. The Tanakh also includes the
Pentateuch, the source of the books: Joshua,
Judges, Samuel,
Jeremiah, and Kings.
During the course of its compilation books like Daniel and Ezra were
added, originally written in Aramaic, a language adopted after the
Babylonian exile.
The
New Testament was compiled largely by the original disciples of
Christ, a collection of the biography of Jesus of Nazareth and
letters/speeches created to spread the wisdom of Jesus – as they
had promised.
Muslims,
like Christians, have venerated their founder. In today's world it is
blasphemous and constitutes a death sentence for anyone depicting
Muhammad, even if not in an insulting way. It comes from the
tradition passed from Muhammad that the likeness of anyone is a sign
of vanity and prevents veneration of an individual in history –
thus their art and architecture reflects this doctrine across the
Islamic world.
Christianity
became divided over such a subject. While Rome took on the art
culture of the pagans and replaced pagan statuary with icons of
Mother Mary, Jesus on the Cross, and the Saints – the eastern
Coptic Church, forbid such
idolatry. When Constantinople fell, so did Christian power in the
east, along with the Byzantine Empire; with only the Coptic Church
remaining, the largest Coptic Church in Alexandria.
Today,
history repeats itself as Christians are raped, tortured, and
murdered and their churches desecrated, burned, and destroyed. These
acts of crimes against humanity are committed by the same Islamic
Jihadists who are determined to finish what Nazi Germany began in the
1940s. They are determined to spread their religion by the “sword”
and create theocracies beyond their original homelands. They demand
tolerance but offer intolerance in return. They are indiscriminate in
who they violate and murder – women, children, Christians, Muslims,
and Jews. The Buddha and Hindu are also in danger.
Christianity
in Europe has a dark period in its history, it is true. But unlike
the Islamic Jihad movement that lives in the ideologies and theocracy
of the 7th
century – Christianity has reformed itself. What little negative
news about Christians comes from minor and inconsequential Christian
cults that have surfaced in a very small scale; unlike the large
scale we read about in the news almost daily concerning Islamic
Jihadists.
The
Founders of the United States and the creators of the articles of the
Constitution and its amendments saw the importance of tolerance in
the First Amendment that includes the freedom of speech clause.
However, that tolerance cannot be adhered to when a group or religion
has a doctrine/dogma that promotes violence against other religions
and a policy of intolerance.
As far
as my personal conviction (which I have tried to objectively leave
out when writing about the religions of our planet), there is a
Creator within the vast universe; and like the Gnostics
believe there is more than just one dimension. The universe, life
itself, is too astounding and miraculous to have been created by
“accident”; yet, I believe in the basic concept of evolution and
that in order to survive, species must evolve or die and the rule of
evolution is that the original specie dies out leaving an evolved
specie. This rules out the man-evolved-from- ape theory because they
still exist as a specie.
I also
believe that prayer should be reserved to the Creator – no
intermediate is necessary; whether it be a messenger of God or a
priest.
And,
as far as the soul, there is more evidence of its existence than
evidence that it does not exist; and that it resides in the energy
source of the body, the brain. Thus, if one has a “near-death”
experience and the heart just stops, the “door” to the alternate
plane where the soul travels is not seen because death is not final
until the brain is dead. It has been alluded from scientific analysis
that the soul actually has weight because after the brain dies out,
the body loses 21 grams (¾ ounce) in weight. That ounce does not
include the air expelled from the lungs and release of bodily fluids.
This experiment was conducted in Massachusetts (1901) by Dr. Duncan McDougal. It also
shows that the release of the soul is not instantaneous; but the
statement that only humans have souls is discounted from eye-witness
accounts and scientific examination has proved that if animals, such
as the domesticated dog, becomes an afterlife spirit, than indeed
they may have a soul. Whether it is because they have become
domesticated and loved as part of the family all their lives, I do
not know – but tend to believe they do from an experience after the
death of the family dog when I was young. An interesting video on
YouTube covers the
astounding discovery of Dr. McDougal.
It
seems when studying and researching religion, there can be no
absolute whether what we believe is true or false or partially true.
Some believe in an afterlife, some believe in an intermediary between
human and God, the Creator; while others believe they must
reincarnate until their soul is purified enough to travel to the next
or other dimension – or travel from dimension to dimension until
reaching the final goal after the cycle of Nirvana.
Whatever
be the case, I firmly believe that no religion should have a doctrine
or dogma that promotes violence against “unbelievers”, and no
Creator, certainly not the true God, can possibly condone such acts
against each other over religion and political superiority.
It is
time for Islam to join the 21st
century with Christians and leave the 7th
century theocracy to the files of history; and those who do not
believe in Islamic Jihadism, rise up with others and defeat such
people that live in hypocrisy, intolerance, and violence.
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