The Path of Reason – is Divine
You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot have what you do not give. You cannot see what you do not believe, and you cannot believe what you are unwilling to see.
There is no truth that is not totally true, and there is no truth but truth. And truth is that we are what we are seeking and we are seeking for that which we already are.
We have what we need, but do not need what we think we have. What do we ‘think’ we have? What we think we ‘have’ is a world based on cause and effect…ie; things being given to the deserving, and taken from the undeserving. Or gifts bestowed by fervent prayer without the understanding they are there for the taking ~ for those who Awaken to who they Are.
What we truly have is beyond cause and effect and is not affected by its law whatsoever, but simply Is. What Is, is what we Are, and what we Are is the only thing that really Is. And the only thing that really Is, is Love. And so, we Are Love. All else is not true.
From Love the world is changed; not in form, or even necessarily in action but in the mind of the one who has truly learned Who they Are and from What they have been Caused by…not by biological reproduction, but the extension of Love, extending forever, giving forever, never dying, eternally grateful, Love.
And from the eyes of this new state of Mind, is Christ seen in all.
Diane
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Random Truths....to me
I don’t believe in God because of anything I see in this world, but because of the Voice I hear within and the changes It evokes in me.
Forgiveness is a single moment without judgment.
God lives within you. As He created you, He can never be apart from you. Finding Him is a ‘remembering’, since you did not lose Him.
We are Love. Love is what made us and therefore what sustains us. This is what was meant by “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Your body alone needs bread. You are not your body.
Let no one think they can change the Word of God. Remember it for them, if you need to, but gently, and with empathy and tolerance for the ways of this world.
We are never alone. Each person we see was sent as a Savior to us. A chance to understand unconditional love and forgiveness.
Accept God’s Love, and you have accepted forgiveness, tolerance, honesty, empathy, kindness, joy and peace as your state of mind. From that state alone is Love extended.
Fear not. There is more.
Treasure only love’s lessons. All of life is love’s lessons. Treasure life then, as a classroom but not its many temptations to daydream. Stay on course.
Be grateful. Nothing bad ever comes of it. A sense of false humility is born in the arrogance of the ungrateful. True humility gives one a constant state of joy, which is gratefulness, expressed.
What we call death is the passage of our soul from a body to our Home, in Spirit. Our body is not our home and it never will be. We have visited it often, but leave it just as often.
Forgiveness is a single moment without judgment.
God lives within you. As He created you, He can never be apart from you. Finding Him is a ‘remembering’, since you did not lose Him.
We are Love. Love is what made us and therefore what sustains us. This is what was meant by “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Your body alone needs bread. You are not your body.
Let no one think they can change the Word of God. Remember it for them, if you need to, but gently, and with empathy and tolerance for the ways of this world.
We are never alone. Each person we see was sent as a Savior to us. A chance to understand unconditional love and forgiveness.
Accept God’s Love, and you have accepted forgiveness, tolerance, honesty, empathy, kindness, joy and peace as your state of mind. From that state alone is Love extended.
Fear not. There is more.
Treasure only love’s lessons. All of life is love’s lessons. Treasure life then, as a classroom but not its many temptations to daydream. Stay on course.
Be grateful. Nothing bad ever comes of it. A sense of false humility is born in the arrogance of the ungrateful. True humility gives one a constant state of joy, which is gratefulness, expressed.
What we call death is the passage of our soul from a body to our Home, in Spirit. Our body is not our home and it never will be. We have visited it often, but leave it just as often.
Founding Father's Religious Beliefs
Religious Freedom and America’s Greatest Minds
If not for the great minds of our founding fathers in America, we might be best described as ‘Rebels without a cause!’ Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, to name a few, had a cause, and it was indeed a worthwhile one.
Leaving the puritan English evangelical ways of Calvinism* that Christians had devolved into, people like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, beheld the convictions of the true Spirit of Christ, or at least a thirst for the truth, behind the unfortunate façade that had been growing for the past 1800 years in Christianity’s beliefs.
In his letters and articles, we find that Jefferson embraced no religion, and all religions, but his philosophy closely seemed to be affiliated with the Unitarian Church**, as did John Adams. (see footnotes for definition of the Unitarian belief system.)
In an article written about Jefferson’s political and religious philosophies, Thom Belote*** says “Jefferson found the Unitarian understanding of Jesus compatible with his own. In 1822 he predicted that "There is not a young man now living in the US who will not die a Unitarian." Jefferson requested that a Unitarian minister be dispatched to his area of Virginia.” Although his prediction has not quite yet been realized, I believe perhaps, and with great hope, he was right!
Today, we can thank people like Jefferson for declaring independence not only from England but from this sort of degeneration of thought in regards to Christian thought, to the man Jesus, and to his legacy. Here, our third President is quoted on this subject; “To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other’, from Thomas Belote’s article on Jefferson.
In his many writings, some from himself to his friend, and sometimes foe, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson was a rebel and many church figures and Christian Evangelicals attempted to use his radical (at that time) beliefs against him politically, as author Thom Belote is quoted here in his research on Thomas Jefferson…. “Certain evangelicals, who were also his political opponents, tried very hard to make Jefferson's religion a factor in elections. They filled the press with scurrilous attacks on his "Deistical"**** beliefs. He made it his steadfast policy never to respond to any of these attacks or, indeed, to make any public statement at all concerning his faith.”
He also embraced in high moral regard, the importance of Reason in our search for finding God which is the Deist philosophy. “In a letter to his nephew Peter Carr in 1787, Jefferson advised, "Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god." (capitalization of Reason is mine)
He did believe in God, and was more than a little passionate about finding the truth, despite what Christianity, in his eyes, had tried to obscure. Naturally, he wanted, like all of our forefathers to keep such Christianity OUT of government policy, but strong in the minds and hearts of its people. Perhaps this is most poignantly portrayed in his book “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” completed in 1820. It is important to note that the version Congress published is called “Life and Morals” and argues no theology. It is often also referred to as Jefferson’s Bible.
This book is really a compilation of pieces cut out of the New Testament that Jefferson ‘resonated’ with, and found what he considered to be the most important aspects of the truth about Jesus, the man.
According to Belote, “{This book}is simply his edited version of the Gospels. He literally cut out the virgin birth, miracle stories, claims to Jesus' divinity and the resurrection. Some scholars believe he first assembled his collage of Jesus' teachings for his own devotional use. A late reference to the "Indians" who could benefit from reading it, was likely directed at those public figures, often Christian ministers, who had viciously attacked his religious beliefs without in the least understanding them or—as Jefferson believed—Jesus.”
When studying Jefferson’s contribution to society, what stood out to me the most was this devotion to truth, and his love of the philosophy of Jesus, and the meaning behind his life. Today, as back in Jefferson’s day, and probably for all the centuries since Jesus’ birth, the very people claiming to be so Christian are the ones who want to use it to divide what Christ came to unite!
Today’s popular proclamation of a ‘War on Christmas’ during the Christmas season in our country, coupled with the Conservative Christian belief that the Church’s idea of Christianity should be acknowledged by our government and in our schools, are nothing less than outright divisive attempts of man against man…or man against the true Christ Spirit. Such a war, man cannot win because its foundation is false. And such a war would a Christian such as the likes of Jesus himself, would not bother to proclaim as real.
This validity of the idea that the secularists are trying to squelch Christ’s true message is actually reversed in truth! It can well be argued that Conservative Christian thought is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers’ wanted for our country, and yet, many Conservative Christians use the argument that our forefathers’ religious beliefs were an integral part of the making of our government and so it should be displayed or promoted as our nations’ religion. As Belote says here “Today religious conservatives portray Jefferson as a sympathetic figure, unaware of his religious beliefs, his understanding of religious freedom or his criticisms of evangelical religiosity.” In reality, we as a people, fled from the very idea of a particular creed being stated by our nation as our official religion, and instead, gave respect to all religious creeds, equally. And being free to choose, our founding father’s choose theirs. It is evident that their choice was one of no particular creed, and yet of faith in all free people to seek the highest in regards to behavior, regardless of their ‘creed.’
Benjamin Franklin, a loveable and very quotable man, not to mention, a genius, spoke openly of his admiration toward his father for his “Convictions as a religious dissenter, who in coming to America, sought freedom from persecution” according to Paul Lauter, Editor of “The Heath Anthology of American Literature.” And like Jefferson, he was accused by the traditional Christians of being a Deist.*** Today, the conservative Christian would accuse him of the same thing. In speaking of Franklin’s unfinished biography, Lauter says “The metaphor reflects Franklin’s position as a Deist, distancing himself from his Calvinist predecessors and their belief in a sovereign God, who elected whom he would.”
This religious freedom was obviously paramount to Jefferson, Adams and Benjamin Franklin just to name a few of the most famous minds of our time and of our country. Unitarians, Deists, rebels with a cause, all of them, but most importantly they believed that the man Jesus was no different than you or me in Spirit, but a man who knew the Truth about Spirit, and had much to say and do about spreading it. And not necessarily by means of a church’s dogma or a creed at all. And only the Truth, as Jesus said, does indeed ‘set us free.’ From ignorance.
And Jefferson, like many of our founding fathers, sought that very freedom. It is the freedom and the passion to seek God on our own. To obliterate falsity in religious creed by our own determination and devotion to finding this truth, in our own way, in our home, in our heart and in our Mind, in our church, and in our relationships as well as our personal observation of things beyond the ordinary, in our lives. All of these places and in all of our hearts, lies this Truth.
It is a founding reason for America’s democracy and one of the prime motivators uplifting the Minds of our rebellious and very dear Founding Fathers.
Diane L. Perretto
Footnotes:
*Calvinism, from the website called Wikipedia, defines it as such: “A belief which emphasizes that man is incapable of adding anything from himself to obtain salvation, and that God alone is the initiator at every stage of salvation, including the formation of faith and every decision to follow Christ.”
If not for the great minds of our founding fathers in America, we might be best described as ‘Rebels without a cause!’ Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, to name a few, had a cause, and it was indeed a worthwhile one.
Leaving the puritan English evangelical ways of Calvinism* that Christians had devolved into, people like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, beheld the convictions of the true Spirit of Christ, or at least a thirst for the truth, behind the unfortunate façade that had been growing for the past 1800 years in Christianity’s beliefs.
In his letters and articles, we find that Jefferson embraced no religion, and all religions, but his philosophy closely seemed to be affiliated with the Unitarian Church**, as did John Adams. (see footnotes for definition of the Unitarian belief system.)
In an article written about Jefferson’s political and religious philosophies, Thom Belote*** says “Jefferson found the Unitarian understanding of Jesus compatible with his own. In 1822 he predicted that "There is not a young man now living in the US who will not die a Unitarian." Jefferson requested that a Unitarian minister be dispatched to his area of Virginia.” Although his prediction has not quite yet been realized, I believe perhaps, and with great hope, he was right!
Today, we can thank people like Jefferson for declaring independence not only from England but from this sort of degeneration of thought in regards to Christian thought, to the man Jesus, and to his legacy. Here, our third President is quoted on this subject; “To the corruptions of Christianity, I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other’, from Thomas Belote’s article on Jefferson.
In his many writings, some from himself to his friend, and sometimes foe, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson was a rebel and many church figures and Christian Evangelicals attempted to use his radical (at that time) beliefs against him politically, as author Thom Belote is quoted here in his research on Thomas Jefferson…. “Certain evangelicals, who were also his political opponents, tried very hard to make Jefferson's religion a factor in elections. They filled the press with scurrilous attacks on his "Deistical"**** beliefs. He made it his steadfast policy never to respond to any of these attacks or, indeed, to make any public statement at all concerning his faith.”
He also embraced in high moral regard, the importance of Reason in our search for finding God which is the Deist philosophy. “In a letter to his nephew Peter Carr in 1787, Jefferson advised, "Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god." (capitalization of Reason is mine)
He did believe in God, and was more than a little passionate about finding the truth, despite what Christianity, in his eyes, had tried to obscure. Naturally, he wanted, like all of our forefathers to keep such Christianity OUT of government policy, but strong in the minds and hearts of its people. Perhaps this is most poignantly portrayed in his book “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” completed in 1820. It is important to note that the version Congress published is called “Life and Morals” and argues no theology. It is often also referred to as Jefferson’s Bible.
This book is really a compilation of pieces cut out of the New Testament that Jefferson ‘resonated’ with, and found what he considered to be the most important aspects of the truth about Jesus, the man.
According to Belote, “{This book}is simply his edited version of the Gospels. He literally cut out the virgin birth, miracle stories, claims to Jesus' divinity and the resurrection. Some scholars believe he first assembled his collage of Jesus' teachings for his own devotional use. A late reference to the "Indians" who could benefit from reading it, was likely directed at those public figures, often Christian ministers, who had viciously attacked his religious beliefs without in the least understanding them or—as Jefferson believed—Jesus.”
When studying Jefferson’s contribution to society, what stood out to me the most was this devotion to truth, and his love of the philosophy of Jesus, and the meaning behind his life. Today, as back in Jefferson’s day, and probably for all the centuries since Jesus’ birth, the very people claiming to be so Christian are the ones who want to use it to divide what Christ came to unite!
Today’s popular proclamation of a ‘War on Christmas’ during the Christmas season in our country, coupled with the Conservative Christian belief that the Church’s idea of Christianity should be acknowledged by our government and in our schools, are nothing less than outright divisive attempts of man against man…or man against the true Christ Spirit. Such a war, man cannot win because its foundation is false. And such a war would a Christian such as the likes of Jesus himself, would not bother to proclaim as real.
This validity of the idea that the secularists are trying to squelch Christ’s true message is actually reversed in truth! It can well be argued that Conservative Christian thought is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers’ wanted for our country, and yet, many Conservative Christians use the argument that our forefathers’ religious beliefs were an integral part of the making of our government and so it should be displayed or promoted as our nations’ religion. As Belote says here “Today religious conservatives portray Jefferson as a sympathetic figure, unaware of his religious beliefs, his understanding of religious freedom or his criticisms of evangelical religiosity.” In reality, we as a people, fled from the very idea of a particular creed being stated by our nation as our official religion, and instead, gave respect to all religious creeds, equally. And being free to choose, our founding father’s choose theirs. It is evident that their choice was one of no particular creed, and yet of faith in all free people to seek the highest in regards to behavior, regardless of their ‘creed.’
Benjamin Franklin, a loveable and very quotable man, not to mention, a genius, spoke openly of his admiration toward his father for his “Convictions as a religious dissenter, who in coming to America, sought freedom from persecution” according to Paul Lauter, Editor of “The Heath Anthology of American Literature.” And like Jefferson, he was accused by the traditional Christians of being a Deist.*** Today, the conservative Christian would accuse him of the same thing. In speaking of Franklin’s unfinished biography, Lauter says “The metaphor reflects Franklin’s position as a Deist, distancing himself from his Calvinist predecessors and their belief in a sovereign God, who elected whom he would.”
This religious freedom was obviously paramount to Jefferson, Adams and Benjamin Franklin just to name a few of the most famous minds of our time and of our country. Unitarians, Deists, rebels with a cause, all of them, but most importantly they believed that the man Jesus was no different than you or me in Spirit, but a man who knew the Truth about Spirit, and had much to say and do about spreading it. And not necessarily by means of a church’s dogma or a creed at all. And only the Truth, as Jesus said, does indeed ‘set us free.’ From ignorance.
And Jefferson, like many of our founding fathers, sought that very freedom. It is the freedom and the passion to seek God on our own. To obliterate falsity in religious creed by our own determination and devotion to finding this truth, in our own way, in our home, in our heart and in our Mind, in our church, and in our relationships as well as our personal observation of things beyond the ordinary, in our lives. All of these places and in all of our hearts, lies this Truth.
It is a founding reason for America’s democracy and one of the prime motivators uplifting the Minds of our rebellious and very dear Founding Fathers.
Diane L. Perretto
Footnotes:
*Calvinism, from the website called Wikipedia, defines it as such: “A belief which emphasizes that man is incapable of adding anything from himself to obtain salvation, and that God alone is the initiator at every stage of salvation, including the formation of faith and every decision to follow Christ.”
Also from this website, “It teaches that people are utterly unable to follow God or escape their condemnation before him and that only by drastic divine intervention in which God must overrule their unwilling hearts” and “This doctrine was definitively formulated and codified during the Synod of Dordrecht (1618-1619), which rejected the alternate system known as Arminianism.
**If you are curious about Unitarian beliefs as they have evolved today, below is a brief synopsis of what they affirm and promote. Check any search engine on the internet, and you will find an abundance of information.
Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of Reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the Mind and Spirit.
Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Also, taken from a website tied to Universal Unitarian’s they are quoted as saying their beliefs:
“We believe that personal experience, conscience and reason should be the final authorities in religion, and that in the end religious authority lies not in a book or person or institution, but in ourselves. We are a "non-creedal" religion: we do not ask anyone to subscribe to a creed.”
(My note on Unitary affiliation) Anyone affiliated with Unitarian ideas as were our founding fathers, was one who respected equally all religions, and even promoting the learning of other’s religions as well, including Muslim, Buddhist, American Indian, and Hinduism to name a few. The key point however in our founding father’s writings, was a belief and passion for an individual’s ability to find the truth without religious denomination or creed stated. Church can bring unity and love into our lives, and surely does for many, but from reading this article, hopefully it is clearer that it is certainly not necessary for all of us, and perhaps even not good for some of us and it is wise to question this new Conservative movement in our country that runs counter to the founding father’s ideas of Christian thought.
***Thom Belote is the author of an article called “Thomas Jefferson” at www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles website. This section of the website I quoted Belote from is found in the section titled, ‘Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography.’
****And if you are curious about Deist philosophy, from their website, I found this at http://www.deism.org/.
“Deism is a free-thought philosophy, much like Agnosticism, Atheism or Pantheism in that it rejects the dogmas and superstitions of religion in favor of individual reason and empirical observation of the universe. Deism differs from these other free-thought philosophies in that it sees an order and architecture to the universe that indicates a Creator. The word "God" is used to describe this creator, not to be confused with the "Biblegod." Deism notes that we as humans are endowed with the power of reason and an indomitable spirit. It follows that we are intended to exercise them. Therefore, skepticism and doubt are not "sins" but rather natural expressions of God's gift of reason.”
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