Christianity is poly-theistic

It wouldn't be so bad, it just isn't true.

I wasn't saying that the oneness people are right, I was actually pokin fun at them.

Doesn't the discourse of Christ in John 14 about the sending of the Holy Spirit show that the most literal interpretation of Paul's letter is not correct? Or that the Holy Spirit descended onto Christ during his Baptism? If Christ was the Holy Spirit, then wouldn't it already be there?

 

Isn't that two Gods then?

 

Just one, Moses was a mighty one just as Jesus is a mighty one. God gave Jesus authority in the same way he gave Moses authority. A mighty god is subordinate.

 

Jesus was given authority to become the spirit once resurrected.

 

Not to open up an old can of worms and don't take this as a debate but most new translations translate 1 John 5:7 as: "For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. "

Thank you for your kind words

 

the triple person of god implies that what is referred to as God is in fact three who agree on practically everything, at least everything mentioned in the bible. Also, each of the names of God displays a different personality, if we are to go back to the original hebrew text of the old testament. you have YHVH, Saphaoth, Elohim (which is a plural form used in both sentences of commandment #1, meaning basically "I am the lord your godS... interesting).

It seems as though the Abrahamic traditions are just as monotheistic as Hinduism.

 

The Meaning of "God"


Tree of Life by Daivd Friedman
For Kabbalists, the visible world is only the superficial skin of Reality. Because of the way our minds are constructed to interact with the world, we imagine ourselves as separate selves, going about our business, trying to be happy. In fact, we, the stars, our friends and enemies, and everything around us — all of us are dreams in the mind of God. Nothing has any separate reality — it only looks like there are separate tables, chairs, computers, and people from a certain, limited perspective. Being in itself is actually nothing but God. From God’s point of view, all of the distinctions we make — between ourselves and the world outside ourselves, among objects in the world, etc. — are completely illusory, because ultimately there is only the undifferentiated unity of the ein sof, the Infinite.
Of course, this is not how things look from our point of view. Why is this the case? And how do you know that everything is really one?
Let's pause for a moment, before answering those questions, for a “reality check.” For most of us today, the concept of God is a problematic and controversial one. I’ve taught Kabbalah to adults, adolescents, Jews, non-Jews, and I’ve noticed that the large majority of my students, when they hear the word “God,” seem to say “hold on — you’ve lost me.” So, as soon as someone mentions “God,” we go off on a tangent.
For most Kabbalists, the situation was very different. The concept and reality of God were felt and known from their earliest memories. These were, by and large, rabbis soaked in the God of Judaism, which they experienced and related to all the time; traditional Jewish practice puts one in constant relationship with God. So, that important [hold on,] that question of how we intellectually know that God exists is itself a somewhat non-Kabbalistic question. The kind of knowledge we are looking for is experiential knowledge. Not knowledge on faith or dogma, but knowledge based on first-hand experience. This is called da’at — true knowledge. The kind lovers have. Union.
For this reason, the Kabbalah is more interested in how we relate to God than how we can speculate about God. In particular, it asks how we know God through the concepts of the [sefirot], or how we unite with God through meditation, or how we can use our relationships with God for various purposes. The Kabbalah is also not a philosophical system. In fact, historically, much of the Kabbalah arose directly in response (and opposition) to rationalist philosophy. So we will not find systematic “proofs” of God’s existence in the Zohar or anywhere else. Really, if such proofs existed, wouldn’t you already know them by now anyway?
Since, for the Kabbalah, the Infinite — the ein sof — is utterly different from what most people call “God,” many contemporary teachers choose not to use the word “God” at all. This might be a good idea. After all, let’s look at two short texts from one of the most important Kabbalists, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, as translated by scholar Daniel Matt:

An impoverished person thinks that God is an old man with white hair, sitting on a wondrous throne of fire that glitters with countless sparks, as the Bible states: “The Ancient-of-Days sits, the hair on his head like clean fleece, his throne–flames of fire.” Imagining this and similar fantasies, the fool corporealizes God. He falls into one of the traps that destroy faith. His awe of God is limited by his imagination. But if you are enlightened, you know God’s oneness; you know that the divine is devoid of bodily categories — these can never be applied to God. Then you wonder, astonished: Who am I? I am a mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon, which itself is a mustard seed within the next sphere. So it is with that sphere and all it contains in relation to the next sphere. So it is with all the spheres — one inside the other — and all of them are a mustard seed within the further expanses. And all of these are a mustard seed within further expanses.
Your awe is invigorated, the love in your soul expands.
​

This is a remarkable teaching. Of course, Cordovero uses his scientific framework — the idea that the universe is comprised of concentric spheres — instead of ours. But the principle is the same. God is not some old man in the sky who makes sure that only good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad. The universe doesn’t work that way. In fact, the universe is inconceivably vast, and every subatomic particle of it is filled with God. Here’s another important Cordovero text about the God idea:

The essence of divinity is found in every single thing — nothing but it exists.... Do not attribute duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that Ein Sof emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on is outside of it, you have dualized. God forbid! Realize, rather, that Ein Sof exists in each existent. Do not say, “This is a stone and not God.” God forbid! Rather, all existence is God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.​

Think about it. “Ein Sof” means infinite — really infinite. If this computer screen is not the Ein Sof, we’ve made a mistake, because we’ve given the Ein Sof a sof — an end. Kabbalists take the idea of infinity very seriously. God is that which Is — YHVH, one of the main Hebrew terms for this Reality, might even be translated “Is.” God is not an old man; God is What Is. The Infinite is everything. It is the only thing.
“God” is an imprecise name for the only thing in the universe that actually exists.


http://www.learnkabbalah.com/the_meaning_of_god/

 

If Jesus is a subordinate god and not God then why did he allow people to worship him?

 

Because God is giving him the throne for a time being, after the thousand years he'll give it back to his Father. Jesus replaces the temple (holy of holies).

"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,"
"But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ."
"'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."
"When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all."

 

This is a very good question RooRshack, because the Western world has defined all other cultures and beliefs by Christian terms, but in a derogatory fashion. By derogatory I am referring to the insinuation that anything that is not Christian is pagan, heathen, and often times, primitive.

I can easily imagine that if India had been the center of imperialistic ambitions and empirical rationality in the last 300 - 400 years, the dominant concept would go something like this: "Those Christians are so polytheistic---I don't know how they can believe in 3 Gods---a father, a son, and a holy ghost? And I think Mary is a Goddess of some sort. How could you comprehend a universe like that? The way we believe is so much better. Monotheism where there is only one atman, and all the universe, and even the incarnations of the various divas and even people, are all composed of that one atman, makes so much more sense!"

The real issue is not so much that Christianity is monotheistic or polytheistic, but rather, as I said earlier, that the west defines all other philosophies in Christian terms. What we refer to as a God in Hinduism, is not the same ontological experience of God to a Hindu. We look at Buddhism and call it a polytheistic faith, by applying a Christian perspective to it that distorts the Buddhist view of the Buddha. Often times belief systems that appear as polytheistic are in fact monotheistic. Scholars to this day, for example, argue over whether the Egyptians were monotheistic or polytheistic. Even where you have polytheistic beliefs, there is still a basic animating force that is present in all of the universe. Sometimes it is blatantly expressed, other times it is inherent---but it is always there. That animating force is ultimately the absolute divine reality of the universe. In this regard, it is hard to say that any religious or spiritual philosophy at its deepest level is polytheistic. The experience of what we often call a God of a different religion, is more like the Christian experience of an angel or a saint in their experience of their beliefs.

In many polytheistic indigenous spiritualities, and some non-Christian organized religions, that supreme being which Christians refer to as God, is deemed as something that should not be defined, because it is a great mystery. The idea of defining it, is to limit it into our own human comprehension---and then we have arguments like this.

Speaking of Mother Mary, you barely touched upon her. She was clearly a surrogate Goddess that gave the European pagan Goddess worshippers something to relate to, easing their conversion. Hence the part of the rosary prayer: "Mother Mary, Mother of God..." That phrase alone harkens back to a time when the goddess was immortal and the mortality of the God followed the vegetation cycle.

That was part of the modus operandi of the church to create conversions. A good example is, Our Mother of Guadalupe, who was the Aztec Corn Maiden adopted into the Catholic Church.

I also like what Soapofthelotus has posted. I like to ask Christians, ‘Where is God?’ I have a lot of rational issues with the concept of a God sitting on a throne somewhere in the sky---but the most common answer is that, ‘he is everywhere.’ To which I respond, ‘Then let me get this straight---you are an animist.’

This gets back to the same issue---Christianity is not that different from animistic spiritualities, yet such non-Christian paganism is considered not only pagan, but primitive. Where is God, and why do Christians know that he is everywhere any better than a group of indigenous people living in nature, surrounded by what they consider to be sacred (the whole universe) which is composed of that same animating force that represents the supreme being. Christians have a black book that tells what God said going back about 2000 and more years. Indigenous people speak to God every day, and if something is very critical, they have ceremony that connects them directly with God in a way that is very powerful.

To touch on a point that RooRshack made earlier—missionaries do a huge amount of damage when they go in and convert indigenous tribes. Christians think they have to destroy cultures and that afterwards those people will be just like them, because they have accepted Jesus Christ into their lives. I have seen first hand the realities this creates. The serious problems of our nation’s Indian reservations is an easy example. I have spent years in the Philippines and have traced that countries highly dysfunctional aspects back to the cultural genocide perpetrated by the Spanish, who didn’t want a repeat of the Mayan areas of Mexico, where through the process of adopting local beliefs to ease conversion (as I stated above), the Mayan priests gained too much power within the church. There was very little adopting of local deities in the Philippines, Mother Mary of course was incorporated from a local Goddess, and the Rice God became the Baby Jesus. But the Spanish did everything they could to wipe out every other concept of spirituality.

People criticize Christianity for the things it did during the inquisitions and the Salem Witch Trials. Few people realize the terrible pain and even loss of life Christians inflicted here in the US and in Australia right up into the 1940’s officially (and unofficially into the 1960’s at least), in order to convert indigenous people. I am talking about boarding schools and forced adoption. If it was up to me, I would make it illegal for missionaries to ever step foot into an indigenous village for purposes of proselytizing.

 

I don't mean to sound so anti-Christian---I am merely trying to show that we have to consider this question in terms outside of the dominant Western perspective. There is a bigger world out there than merely that of Christianity. I believe that there is truth in all religions, but to define one religion from the perspective of another is not going to do it justice. But this is the way that the West has defined the non-western world, and this has resulted in such misguided policies as Manifest Destiny.

Though I still stand by not allowing missionaries to try to convert in indigenous villages.

 

If we have personalities, make decisions, are capable of thinking abstractly and are finite. Wouldn't you think God who is infinite would atleast have theses capabilities instead of being simply a force?

 

Yes I do. In fact, the use of the word force, which is a rational way of trying to understand this aspect of the universe in a cartesian-objectivistic-empirical way, is no more advanced than say the Lakota (Sioux) term 'taku škaŋ škaŋ,' which means literally 'something moving moving.' In fact I would say the Lakota term makes more sense since it is less defined.

This mysterious force is life itself, and reflects how everything in the universe is in fact alive. (There is a book written by a quantum phsicist, I believe, that shows how everything in the universe, down to its smallest particles, has all the elements of life, such as memory---I forget the details and the title and author----it is buried in my office somewhere. His point is that the universe is alive. It is not Fred Alan Wolfe, though he is a great author and quantum physicist to read on the same subject).

My own understanding of this came to me in a lucid dream as I struggled with the mind-body paradox (i.e. if mind is spirit, then how does it stay with the physical body?). My own perception may not be accurate, but I think it does provide a rational model for people who are having problems resolving religion vs rational science. It isn't really anything radically new--basically that mind is of a higher dimension.

We can only understand reality as 3-dimensional (4th dimensional when you add in time), because of our ego. I use ego in a Jungian sense--a filter that filters out all nonessential stimulus, perceptions, and including any nonessential input from the subconscious. The purpose is to maintain a consistency of the personality. But it is only the personality as defined by the ego, which limits us considerably in our potential as humans. The ego also limits our perception of reality---for example, if one believes the theory of a holographic universe, it would be our ego that creates the 3-dimensional reality we perceive. The ego shapes our reality within this physical universe.

My model asserts that our mind is greater than the 4 dimensions we perceive. Which is very tricky because it is near impossible to imagine where a higher dimension fits into our 3 dimensions of physical reality. All of the known forces we perceive in our universe, are limited to our 3-dimensional perceptions of them. For example, quantum physics tells us that every particle in our universe is both simultaneously a particle and a wave, until it is measured at which time it is one or the other. But a particle has 3 dimensions, so even though it is incredibly small, it still needs a 3 dimensional universe to exist. So if there could be such a thing as a 2-dimensional universe, then the particle could never be observed---only a wave.

Our mind, while existing in a higher dimension, creates who we are in this 3-d universe. Therefore you sometimes have odd things happen like, someone who loses the neural structures in a portion of his brain can one day regain the memories that he had lost. Nonetheless our individual minds, while of a higher dimension, can still have memories, personalities, make decisions, and are capable of thinking abstractly. Upon death, which destroys the ego, we return to our higher self, a return to who we truly are.

It would make sense that God would represent a still higher dimension, for God would be the very fabric of the universe. But limited by our 3-dimensional reality, we can only perceive the 3-dimensional universe and the forces that are within it--a very minute perception of God.

An example is if there was life in a 2-D universe, how would it percieve us? We would surround the 2-D universe, as the upward-downward, front-back dimensions would fit into our 3-D universe. However without the side-side dimensions, they would only percieve us from a perspective that is infinitely thin. They would never perceive us as we do ourselves.

So yes, God being truly infinite, could have memory, intention, will. God shapes the universe, and as our own minds creates our own realities, it is done through the manifestation of God. Most of all, I would say that God represents love.

 

Your take on things Mountain Valley Wolf is an interesting read but I was wondering about what you call "the dominant Western perspective", which is valid if there is no God who cares. But if God has actually backed one religion and one religion is the Truth and not just bits and pieces that are true, as in there is (some) truth in all religions, then shouldn't that one True religion be the "dominant perspective", whether it Eastern, Western, Northern or Southern?

 

Mountain Valley Wolf, would you say that love exists within the highest dimension or did you mean this symbolically?

 

Def Zeppelin, even though I am trying to present a 'rational' model, and it is difficult, if not impossible to define or quantify love in a 'rational' sense, I would still say that love exists in, or better yet embodies, the highest dimension (or at least, whichever dimension God is centered in).

OlderWaterBrother, I understand where you are coming from. In the course of living within different cultures, and seeing things from different perspectives, this is my take on it (granted, this is what my experiences have taught me, and others may have learned differently through their life experiences)---actually I'll give you 3 answers on this:

1.) first of all I do believe that God is a loving and caring god. But the biggest difference I see between religions is those that arise from cultural differences. One example is how Eastern religions tend to seek oneness with the Godhead---which makes more sense to a culture with a much stronger group ethic, and much denser population. Therefore I do not feel that religious differences are based on what God has revealed to us as much as it is based on the cultural and historical events around the development of that particular religion. Add on to that the institutional trappings---because organized religion is an institution, and as an institution---a man made structure---it seeks to maintain and increase membership.

In addition to that, I do believe that we have free-will, and that we therefore are free to make choices. This is part of the unconditional love of God. In the course of those decisions, particularly at a social level, but also an individual level, we seek help and guidance, or there may be situations of divine will, and it is at these times that God reveals to us things that we need to know. But what one group of people need to know is not neccessarily the same as what another group in a wholly different culture with different cultural values needs to know. I therefore don't believe that the chosen ones were any more chosen than anyone else. If each religion has truth, than this is the truth that was revealed to that culture. Really though, if you dig into it, you'll see that the main message really is the same, it is only cultural perspectives that make it appear different.

2.) By 'dominant Western perspective,' I do not mean that it has spiritual dominance, only academic dominance. For example, when I first lived in Japan, the concept of Christmas was so foreign, that people frowned on me wanting to take holiday for it. Gradually the department stores and retail establishments have popularized the gift giving and party aspect of Christmas so that today it is a children's holiday, but the whole concept of celebrating the birth of Jesus is completely alien to them. Their big holiday is New Years based on Buddhist and Shinto traditions.

On the other hand, the dominant culture is Western, not because of religion, but because of Science. There was a time when the dominant culture was Middle Eastern and Indian because of the advancement of mathematics and astronomy. The Chinese were a dominant culture in the Far East for the same reasons.

But religion certainly played its part in creating the West as the current dominant culture. It started with the ancient Greeks deciding that man was superior to nature. The dualistic nature and masculine focus of Hebrew thought carried over into Christianity which combined with the Greek rationalism, and evolved into the cold objectivism of empirical science. And therefore it is only natural that religion would paint the perspective that Western man would use to look at other cultures. As science advances, and the rest of the world advances with it, the Western culture diffused into a global culture, but one that is still diverse based on the local regional cultures.

Therefore when a Hindu speaks from an academic perspective, he will speak of Hinduism as a polytheistic belief system. But in terms of understanding, it is not so much his loss as it is our own---he does not understand his 'gods' the way a Christian understands God. He knows that ultimately, there is only 1 atman. The bigger misunderstanding is the Christian perspective on Hinduism. The biggest misunderstanding arises in the academic perspective, which then tries to make comparisons of apples to oranges, thinking that it is apples to apples.

3.) For the Christian, there may be a bigger part of divine will in all of this. In this case, it may not matter if Christianity is the one true religion, or Christianity is one of the religions all of which have truth. By divine will, maybe Chrisitanity was supposed to play out the way that it has---leading to rational objectivism, scientific advancement, and so forth. This path has brought us to the point we are today in terms of technology, medicine, and so forth. Today we have quantum physicists that are dealing with a whole new possiblity of perceiving spirituality.

But we have also gone through 2 world wars, are rapidly destroying the environment, continue to wage war for self-centered reasons, and are all around pretty destructive. From a Jungian perspective, our whole outlook is based on the duality between the ego (representing good) and the shadow (representing evil). What we fail to realize is that the evil we see outside that really bothers us, is the projected shadow. It is aspects of our own self (or at a social level, our own society) that we try to believe does not exist within us. I believe this is the source of the original sin. But here is the catch: the shadow is not evil, it merely is what it is. It is the repression of the shadow by the ego that makes it evil. The deeper repressed the shadow, the more evil and horrible it becomes. But it is the ego that lies to us, by denying the contents of the shadow. You can't blame it---it is how it maintains consistency of the ego persona, or how we see ourselves. But in the end, the only way to defuse the power of the shadow, is to accept its contents and reintegrate it into the self. Then the shadow is no longer evil, and we are much healthier individuals.

I believe at a social or spiritual level, this is a key to what the next lesson God has for mankind. If the Old Testmant was, eye for an eye, and the New testament was Love thy neighbor, perhaps the next gospel will be same lesson that is embodied within Lakota spirituality, and the Lakota phrase, 'Mitakuye Oyasin.' This is translated to mean, All My Relatives, but what it means is, an acknowledgement of and respect for all of creation, from every human being, to every animal, every tree, and plant, rock, stream, planet, star---all of the universe, in the sense that it is all sacred, and that we are all related and connected.

Such an understanding breaks down the duality of the ego-shadow. We lose sight of the war of good over evil as you have in the Western traditions. Nor is there the transcendence over the duality of good and evil as you have in the Eastern traditions. Instead you start to see a multiplicity, which is more befitting a healthy and wholistic psyche. Anyway---that is my take on it.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I understand what you're getting at. My thinking in what you said is if God had existed and there are dimensions, wouldn't God embody the highest dimension by default? Do you see him as the creator or as an eternal sort of being; kind of like God is a spiders web and we happen to be caught in the webs?

All IS God versus all is IN God.

 

I completely understand, and even agree with what you said, MVW, until (like another poster I highly respect) you seem to deny "evil", yet you do acknowledge that we are a choice-oriented people (we have free will)...right?
I feel that there is not only one true Creator God but I also believe there is evil. We have a choice as to which way to go, so to say. I'll give that some choices may seem gray; but I do believe that there is evil and sin and guilt.
Before I was taught "which was which" (lol - and we are taught, imo), I do remember knowing I shouldn't do a thing...that it was "bad" (tho' no adult would have told me such - I just knew it). I think even innocents have a distinct idea of the difference between "good" and "bad" - the difference is in how they react. This is not to say the innocent is "sinning" by the actions of an adult choosing "evil" actions...I am simply saying that different people react in different ways, particularly in these situations.
AND that although I think we, as humans, (and Christians) should repsect this earth and do more/something/anything(!) to maintain environmental balances, I think there is good AND bad. That doesn't make satan my god.

 

Let me respond to Def Zeppelin first, but Lynnbrown you bring up a good point.

Def, the all-is-god and we are caught in the web analogy that you use, would seem to make the most rational sense in terms of a rational model that includes spirit. But this concept seems to insinuate an uncaring God, oddly enough, many irrational experiences in my life have shown me that God is a caring God, or at least it appears so from our perspective.

Maybe God is so universal that we are no more significant than a small bacterium crawling accross our own foot is significant to us---in which case God's care for us would be relegated to helping spirits (such as angels to Christians, totem spirits to indigenous people, etc).

Regardless, I have found our universe to be a very strange place indeed. I have seen things that make no rational sense, yet they are strange and real enough to go past mere synchronicities. And they have shown that there is intent to the universe, and that within that intent is love for life. (The caveat here though is that death is a natural sequence within life, as the Lakota say, merely removing the earthly robes (our physical body), so death does not carry the same implications to God that it does to us).

You are right on the dimension---I assume that God would represent the highest dimension by default (but some quantum physicists theorize that there are 65 or more dimensions to our universe---pretty hard to wrap your mind around). I would see God as a creator. Every spirituality and many theories of science includes a point of creation. Even if the big bang represents an implosion of prior dimensions and an explosion of new dimensions, there is still a point of creation somewhere. In other words, I do not see God as a mindless essence that is the universe.

Now onto Lynnbrown's comments. I do agree that evil things do happen in this world. I believe that mankind is inherently good. I think that we naturally have a concept of what is good and what is bad. Part of it is an inherited, or merely a subconscious knowledge that if we do certain things, harm will come to us, or harm will come to others, and I think by our original nature, we would naturally prefer to avoid either case. (Once again, the subconcious is our own connection to spirit).

But man as evil is a different matter, in my opinion. I believe that we are dealing with the shadow in many cases, and in other cases, a pathological mental illness (which may or may not draw on the shadow for power). The shadow, because it is also an aspect of the subconscious, appears numinous and supernatural. The shadow results from the interaction between our ego (trying to make us into good little boys and girls) and the externals consisting of our parents, teachers, classmates, friends, institutions, and so forth. So the shadow is man-made.

A projected shadow creates villains and enemies as we project aspects of our shadows onto others. A society, with its collective unconscious projects a societal shadow onto other societies. Hitler projected a shadow onto the Jewish people, which was easy to convert others too as there was already a social projected shadow in Europe in the form of racial discrimination. But America, the UK, and other Alliance countries projected a shadow onto the Nazis---watch the US war-effort movies and the other patriotic movies and posters of America trying to get us out of the depression and later to fight a World War. Watch how fascist they seem to be. If you don't see it, watch some Nazi-youth propaganda films, and Nazi propaganda alongside it. I'm sure you can find some on the internet (I saw these back in High School, and the teacher was trying to make a point in patriotism. When I pointed out how fascist they seemed, he watched them again and the next day agreed that I was right). America as a fascist country? How could that be? But that was the part of our society in the 1930's and 40's that we not only insisted we did not manifest, but that even angered us---because it was our shadow, that we vehemently denied.

Here is another example: if you study the treatment of the Indians during the early years of American settlement (not to mention subsequent years) you would be disgusted and ashamed. Here are some examples: scalping was not an indigenous practice to the original North Americans, they learned it as victims of the white settlers. You may have heard a phrase such as, “I am going to brain that kid…” Originally, ‘to brain,’ was when a white soldier would pick up a small Indian child, or infant, by the feet and swing it against a tree trunk until… Well you get the picture. The Thanksgiving story you hear in school was doctored up by some women in the late 1800’s, after President Lincoln (if I remember right) set the date for the current Thanksgiving. For example, the original intent of that first Thanksgiving feast was to ensure peace with the local tribe because the Puritan Pilgrims knew they were outnumbered and didn’t want to attack them until more Puritans had arrived. In subsequent years, a Thanksgiving feast was held after every Indian massacre which wiped out whole villages or tribes. One of the early Presidents declared that there were too many such feasts and the country should just hold one a year which would represent all the others.

Why were these Christians so evil in their treatment of other human beings? We can point to several reasons: The early settlers did not have the resources and manpower to down the thick Eastern foliage and plow new fields---they needed the Indian’s cultivated fields to provide enough food for the growing population. We could also argue that they were afraid of attack. Finally, the early Christians believed in manifest destiny---that the continent was given to them by God, and their reasoning was based on the fact that from the very first contact with white people, the Indians started dying from European diseases, and the subsequent plagues wiped out over 80 – 90% of the indigenous populations of North and South America.

But I believe the real reason gets back to the shadow. Indians, as heathens (an angry slur directed at them) played into the shadow of questioning and doubts of belief. (Now if you were to politely tell me that you do not have any doubts over your beliefs, I would answer back that this is good, you have found your true spiritual path, and I am sure that you would acknowledge that there are many Christians who do have doubts. However if you got angry and stormed back at me that you do not have any doubts, then you would have just showed everybody that your ego is talking, and that you do have doubts but they are deeply repressed into your shadow). Fanaticism is a sure sign of a repressed shadow of doubt. The Indians were also wild compared to the morals of the Christians at the time. They didn’t follow the Christian rules and traditions, they had no Sabbath, women were treated far more equally and even took part in the political process, and most tribes were more sexually promiscuous. In fact, during the early years of settlement, Indian women would try to seduce white men in the hopes that the baby would gain the powerful medicine that white men were assumed to have. These facts played directly against the shadows of “Thou shalt not…” that had been drilled into the white settlers. These same projected shadow elements played out during the evils perpetrated by the Christians during the Crusades, the Inquisitions and the Salem Witch Trials.

When our base cultural philosophy is based on duality, then we have a cultural affinity to focus on the ego-shadow. This starts at the beginning with the Garden of Eden in Genesis. You had two World Trees in Genesis, 1.) The Tree of Knowledge (Representing fertility, sexuality, the Goddess Cults (hence Eve committed the sin of eating the Fruit) and the Shadow. 2.) The Tree of Life, representing the Grace of God (through eternal life), but it was taken away from mankind, because it had to be ‘earned’ therefore it represented the ego-ideal. The World Tree, or Tree of Life, which the cross also represents, exists as one in all other religious or spiritual traditions that do not have the Book of Genesis.

Therefore I see evil as a predominantly human condition. I believe that an unconditionally loving God would not create a power of evil much greater than humans that we would have to watch our back over. Likewise, I feel that all life is sacred, and that not only do we not have to atone for the sins of Eve, but that women are equal to men under God’s eye.

Does this mean that there are no evil spirits? That is a tougher question. I know of people, including my wife, who have been in places where they definitely felt an evil presence. The grandson of the Medicine Man, Wallace Black Elk (and great-grandson of the famous Black Elk), told me that people with evil intent, can use spirit in an evil way, and after their death, could possibly continue to assert an evil influence. He then adds that their power and influence is limited, and is only as strong as we allow it to be. Fear is one way that we allow that. This makes sense to me.

Then there is the argument that not believing in Satan is one of the ways that he tricks us. I’ve lived in cultures where there is no belief in a devil. I spent around 14 years in Japan, for example, and their Buddhist form of the Devil is Enmao-sama, who is nothing more than a judge of character, who then hands out punishment for one’s bad deeds during life. Most adults don’t put much belief in Enmao-sama considering him more like a fairy tale figure to teach children how to behave. Yet the Japanese society is no more evil than American society. In fact, generally I feel safer in Japan than I ever did here. There are very nice and loving people in both cultures. The Japanese do have a strong sense of duality, and a strong ego-shadow focus however. This is because they have a closer tie to their planter culture heritage than do Americans, and this gives them a strong in group-out group duality.

Having said all of that, if your belief in Satan gives power to your belief in Christianity, and in turn gives meaning to your life---then more power to you. This is just my belief based on my life experiences and knowledge. Your life experience and knowledge may have taught you different, and that is good too.

 

The ability to create only temporary conditions, seems a good way to exercise or gain creative dexterity without upsetting any fundamental structure.