In days of old, most if not all cultures worshiped some spirit or entity. Today, especially here in America, we worship self and money. Has anything really changed?
A few posts back , when pointing out to Frederick here that there is no "Hell" , and in truth no Evil as well , I gave in to the temptation to say if there was a Hell , then it might have been on one of those White Slave ships crossing the Atlantic a few Centuries ago to America .
It's true that early Christian princes were not allowed to
indulge in usury , but some of the early Christian Princes
of America seemed to allow themselves the right to indulge in human slavery .
Well the formula was simple . As many a good God fearing Christian then managed to see , slavery meant cheap labor of the human kind , fertile soil and harvests brought in from the sweat of slaves that afforded them a competitive edge for their goods on the European markets , especially cotton and tobacco , which were in high demand,
and the money/capital that was desperately needed and generated by a new fledgling country . A country still very much caught up in the rivalries , intrigues and wars of Europe ...that needed to also compete and was expanding.
Then there is the matter of the Indian indigenous peoples that were already here ...but that is a story that has been repeated throughout history ...man's migrations and the displaced and disposessed . A trail of tears too long to go into here but every bit of it completely relevent.
And Slavery flourished for how long here till the Civil War ? And don't forget there were other forms of slavery just as real that were practiced in the north both during , before and after the Civil War , leading up well into the twentieth Century ...I can think of Coal and metal mines , railroad building or the textile mills that were grueling and completely dehumanizing and even used children by the thousands.
It so often amazes me here , when people talk of God and God's lovely messages thru the Bible or the Koran , that they so often ignore the realities of the way things have gone century after century . But God is a personal matter always , and religion is most often a facade for politics,
and an excuse for men to fill each other's eyes.
But I would say that some things have changed , yes ...very much so. I can name a few very incredible examples of change in this last Century . Mahatma Ghandi , who in my opinion easily surpasses Jesus Christ in deed and works , liberating India from the British using non-violence , or
Nelson Mandela of South Africa who's story I am particularly fond of .
Or Martin Luther King , another , who went to India to study non-violence at the invitation of Nehru .
In days of old, most if not all cultures worshiped some spirit or entity.
Yes , all in all it is a pretty magical place , this space-ship Earth ....this bright blue ball spinning thru space , and man's time as a species upon it , some 3 million years
all told has been pretty eventful ...especially the last
5000yrs since language and writing have managed to record it .
Some very interesting running threads of thought definelty began to develope in man's thinking and deepest intuititive
mind that happens especially around the millinea before Christian era in Greece , India , Persia and in China.
Fortunately for all of us , those records, stories , myths and legends have been allowed to to be re~discovered explored and revealed through research and archaeology , or
preserved through several Religions and Philosophies that
the Christians could not entirely wipe out or destroy such
as Buddhism and Hinduism , the latter being the Eldest and
Mother of all religions of the earth today still.
In a post to Frederick , I was pointing out that the Golden Rule was not spoken first by Jesus , but much earlier by a Saint in India called Mahavira and there were 25 or 26 great sages , swamis and saints before him in only that one lineage . And that was 600BCE .
Later , the same words were spoken by Buddha , and also the the thread of thought of loving your enemies , turning the other cheek etc etc , that Christians believe only was spoken by Jesus . Well that was never the case , and some of the richest and most lucid examples of self-renunciation, living spiritually , and understanding how to live simply so others might simply live, and reverence for all life came out of the East ...as well as the great science of self , Yoga.
Islam is a remake of Christianity and Judaism , just dressed up and decorated a little differently . But for some religion is just frozen in time ...the Last Prophet or last Messiah etc , which is utter nonsense . It just doesn't work that way .
If things have not changed, is there any chance that there truly is a spiritual realm, and the great deception is believing that there is nothing more to life than meets the eye?
You mean something greater than Walmart , the largest company on earth ?
For me there is . |
