Pantheistic-Monotheism or the End of the World as We Know IT

That's great it starts with an Earthquake
birds and snakes and aeroplanes
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.

Revelations 12 v 18:19

Most at this time of year contemplate Peace and Goodwill on Men, but with the wars and hodgepodge around the world some of the more religious may consider we are in the end times. Many traditions have a recurring theme of an end time and a savior that would rescue them from the tribulations of said end time.

As the above verse from Revelations illustrates, great tribulations were prophesied for those that did not believe. The irony is there are many other faiths that speak of unbelievers being struck down, such as the original Passover night in Egypt. Another rather cryptic, but foreboding scripture comes from Ezekiel 48:38, "The other night I tripped a nice continental drift drive. Mountains sit in a line. Leonard Bernstein". Is this Lion of Bernstein another savior?

These interesting recurrences of the mystic savior that comes forth to save the "chosen" people is much older than 2,000 to 3,000 years. The Aryans that pushed into the Indian subcontinent had a God (or demi-god if you prefer) named Krishna who was crucified on a tree 3000 BC. This sacrifice was to forgive the transgressions of his people. There are even some parallels to the "Chrystos Mythos" in the incensuous story of Isis, Osiris and Horus. Long story short, Horus is relieved of his deitific "schvauntz", by a rival god which Isis searches for and discovers and impregnates herself with the phallic member of Horus. The result is Osiris, the Golden One, son of the father and technically first born of a quasi-virgin mother.

Here is my point; God is perfect right? So back when he made the perfect universe, V1.0, his perfection may have been similar to an Intel 486. This was the best there was and damn if it was the last chip that would ever be needed. But then God woke up one night and scratched something on a pad and the next morning may have some ideas for a new more Perfect Universe in which his many facets of Godness would not be emulated by animals and the sub-gods needed to explain facets the animal personifications did not explain. He would have one chosen people that would be blessed by worshipping just one god.

Shortly after God helped the Israelites with their exit policy from Egypt they were given 10 simple rules to follow to maintain their status as the "Chosen Ones". Clearly, the perfection in God's plan was the simplicity: 1 god; 10 commandments and everything is copacetic.

Well after 2000 years of obeying, not obeying, mixing cultures the 10 simple rules became clouded. And then Pharisees and Sadducee's got into their legalistic translations of what God's "simple" religion and rules were and that is when the gold, frankincense and myrrh hit the fan.

So God decided to cut the crap and send his son to a virgin to be sacrificed and forgiven for all mans sins. OK, that should cut complexity, the legalistic translations, the Pantheons of gods to be worshipped to glorify the one God and all the other unneeded trappings to pay respect to the Architect of the Universe and transcriber of perfection. God would simply have his son sacrificed and every human being would be forgiven for their sins.

This was a perfect plan and the first 100 years it was masterful, but then the "church fathers" congregated and decided which holy writings should be included in the canon of Christianity. The Gnostics were to mystic, so their writings must not be included. There were other writings that clearly named Mary Magdalene as his favorite apostle--this simply would not do for the church of Peter. So former Pagan, Constantine, finally had a Holy Bible compiled for all to worship--what God meant to be a simple statement of love, "Hey I love you, I have sacrificed my son, now do good and get your shit together." Turned into a mish-mash of sects political struggles, ornate ceremonies and even some down home, ass kicking torture.

Then the prophet Mohammad came along and tweaked the whole Judeo-Christian thing with some legalism, fervent prayer and not just a little ass-kicking. But on the whole it was in the same vein as the original Egyptian, Judaic, Christian perfect religion that always got screwed up by man trying to improve on God's perfection. Sects emerged, Shiites, Sunnis and Wahhabism and now, once again God's perfection is meddled, muddled and mightily stomped by the unruly rain boots of mankind.

Well we see where we are now Christians fighting Christians; Christians fighting Muslims, Muslims fighting Muslims, Muslims fighting Jews, and even some Jews fighting each other. This does not even dip a fang into the Goths, Vampires, Wiccans, Witches, Satanists, Satanic Nihilists, True Golden Dawn, Esoteric Golden Dawn, and the various and changing Crowleyana sects of the month who lay claim to the one and only true path to enlightenment.

I have chosen to convert to a pantheistic monotheism. Their will be no church or human organization. My thought is to learn what the Big Guy had in mind each time Perfection was created.That is before we screwed it up and if I learn that, things should be OK. Seems like Buddha might have said something like this," It's the end of the world as we know and I feel fine...fine"

The student was ready and the Master appeared

I had some life changes in the last two years. Many priorities changed in my life and I was looking at life differently. Surprisingly, I was drawn more to the path of mysticism rather than magic. In the past I was drawn to the Golden Dawn tradition but for some reason I wanted to rid myself of all the ceremonial trappings and meditate to enlightenment.

This introspection was also part of my mundane life. I started questioning why things were the way they were. Why did my property tax go up and why do I need to pay that amount? Why do I need to arrive at my job at eight and leave at five? Why must may taxes be taken out of each check rather than pay at the end of the year?

The result questioning these and many, many more questions was I learned we simply give control of our lives to ruling authorities with much faith and little assurance of our universal and eternal rights. The more frightening point is few these days question "why?". That is when Michael Savage, scurge of the political left and the ACLU, entered my consciousness.

I had heard Michael Savage in the past and quickly changed the radio station. As a native Texan, I had a hard time dealing with his New York City accent and his brash demeanor, I was not ready for the Master. However, I started listening to him on my drive home and more important listening to what he said and realized that Dr. Savage ( yes, he received his Doctorate from UC Berkeley) was practicing something that few did anymore. Dr. Savage was a critical thinker. Trained in the scientific method, he was applying this to his political and world views.

I was hooked. He had reasoned and thought out arguments. He did not spew the Democrat or Republican talking points. This is not to say he did not spew, he did. However, at the end of his rant he would detail why he held the view he was discussing and, amazingly, it was the most reasoned and rational view that had been publicly discussed by all, especially any politician in the last 50 years. Dr. Savage is very intelligent, but, if we all think about what we are going to do or why we do what we do, wouldn't we also have some level of rationality?

Dr. Savage gave me a valuable gift, in fact, a priceless gift, that of using the most powerful gift given by God, the gift of really using my mind, critically thinking. If anybody reads this they may write it off as another right-wing tool to promote the talk show monopoly of the Repbulicans. Interestingly though however, after listening to Dr. Savage and using my brain I quit being a lock-step Republican and now consider myself as a Libertarian/Independent awake individual in God's Universe.

Why Christians are Hated

Previously I had posted a position in support of Christians' rights to worship and celebrate in a public forum. It seems to be in vogue to Christian bash and Christian hate. I try not to hate, but two weeks ago I experienced an example of how Christians can be hated.

The weekend after the tsunami disaster I was listening to a multi-faith talk show hosted by a rabbi, a Priest, and a Minister. The topic was "Why does God Allow Disasters to Happen?" I was stunned to hear in 45 minutes several callers state that God sent the tsunami to punish the godless sinners (at least the non-Christian god sinners). These people actually believed that Christ punished the thousands of people because their form of worship. I find these types of Christians very distasteful and can see why the more militant may even hate these Christians.

It is very arrogant to believe that Christ would intervene in matters of faith in such a way. It is also very arrogant to believe that one is a member of the one true faith or church ( of course that excludes your faith or church as it really is the one true faith or church-- of course).

Their is a macrocosmic universality to all faiths. The virgin mother and sacrificed son mythos was around a good 1200 years before JC hit the ground. Krishna, Osiris, Thoth, Isis and others were involved in some form of a "Passion" mystery. To believe that only your god is the only entity that died and arose again may be a sign of faith but is very narrow minded in the grand scheme of things (of course this does not apply to your god who is the one true god unlike all the others--of course).

The Christians that believe that the tsunami was God's vengeful wrath may be right, but how many times have you been miffed or insulted by a know-it-all who is always right. This type of Christian makes it easy to be a target of hate and in fact, the vengeful wrath concept is rather hateful itself. With all the hatred that is occurring in the world we don't need more gas thrown on the proverbial ecumenical fire (of course you are allowed to hate as you believe in the one true God and his vengeful wrath is a matter of your faith--of course).