Thursday, March 24, 2005

Science and fundamentalism

Now I could certainly elaborate beyond this basic claim that I am here by choice, and therefore cannot in principle be a victim. So far I haven't even introduced any ideas beyond the basic necessities to support the perception. I could elaborate with ideas regarding re-incarnation as taught for centuries in the early christian community, though almost purged from the canonical scriptures. But it is not necessary. After all, lots of people who believe in re-incarnation are steeped in the victim consciousness, so it's not necessary to go there to point out the baseness of the consciousness of the victim and all that it entails, or to counterargue my point. For now, if you'll accept that our existence is willed by the source of all, then none of us are victims, since in our "becoming" we were united with that divine will, and so participated in our choice to be here.

For those who are committed to the notion that our existence amounts to an anonymous accident of lightning and primordial soup, the trippingly ridiculous endpoint of some bizzarre counterentropic stumblings and survival of the fittest, well, I've got news for you! That is a mathmatically indefensible and utterly irrational pile of denial, which in itself amounts to little more than an atheistic version of the "gospel of victimhood!" Modern "evolutionary theory," (think Darwin and his successors) have succeeded only in formulating a set of pseudo-scientific justifications for the basest concept of the moral life, "might makes right, and continued physical existence is paramount," and the embedding of the victim consciousness into its very reading of the DNA transcript, so much so that folks perceive themselves victims of their own genetic endowment. Well, I'm here to tell you that, without falling for the mind-suspending foolishness of christian fundamentalist "creation theory" and it's demand that we believe the world to be 5xxx years old, there is another alternative to the atheistic victim consciousness and moral vacuity of the equally foolish religion of modern science. The alternative is the path of self mastery and service, a path cultivated in the heart of all spiritual traditions. Heck, I don't make this stuff up. I'm just trying to follow scripts for living the truth and cultivating consciousness laid out all over this planet by ages of sages.

Both this "science" and this "fundamentalism" owe their popularity to the deferal of responsibility outside of oneself, and their collusion with the victim consciousness. Fundamentalist christianity offers in its interpretation of the story of Jesus a savior who, for the price of a simple confession of faith, will include you too in the ultimate life insurance policy paid with the premium of "the blood of the lamb." It doesn't matter what you've done, just confess Jesus as your lord and savior and you'll get into heaven on his dime. At face value, this looks like a get out of jail free card, and a suspension of the basic law of cause and effect structured by the creator into the universe in the first place. If you recognize your guilt, and that you can't pay your debt, well, you've got a friend in Jesus! He's posted bail for you, and spoken with the judge to boot! While I'm the last one to hold a person in the bondage of guilt, and while I'm all for finding a friend in Jesus, I don't much see why a real friend, rather than help you cultivate mastery over your free will through his example and teaching, would instead suspend the structure of the univese he created for you so that you couldn't learn from the impact of your action. The "fires of hell" are nothing more than the purifying effects of experience based upon our prior actions. There's no teacher like the present moment. Gosh, I'm actually feeling a bit flush here :-)

In the victim consciousness of christian fundamentalism, your guilt/responsibility (remember, in this model, guilt/blame/and responsibility are identical) is borne by another, who can handle it better, we are told. You in fact never have to experience the consequences of your action, the effects which you caused. For those who see responsibility as a negative concept and an impossible demand, it certainly must come as a relief to believe you are "washed clean by the blood of the lamb" and all that. However, there isn't much of a premium on learning from your mistakes. Heck, the Emporer Constantine, sponsor of the "political conversion," strategized based on this kind of logic to time his "conversion" to his death bed to maximize his opportunity to unleash hell upon the planet without consequence, squeezing in evil to the last minute with the certainty of forgiveness in the bank. So much for responsibility. I'm not in the least suggesting that all fundamentalist christians strategize in the manner of a Constantine. Actually, quite the opposite, they are more generally in constant suffering from the incongrous internal misery of being told they are forgiven all the time, yet still feeling guilty. They suffer from the strain of believing they should feel happy and grateful for the prize of their salvation, when in fact they don't feel all that happy, actually, and remain in the mire of their personality distortions, which represent the still outstanding tasks on the path of self-mastery. However, there is not a huge impetus to get to the bottom of one's defense strategies, egoism, etc., if one is already "saved." Basically, all you need to do in that case is cling fast to that initial confession, invite others to make the same in a sort of multi-level marketing dragnet for souls, and everything is going to be all right. However, the persistent guilt feelings are the inevitable consequence of placing responsibility for one's life experience outside of oneself, so that every mistake one makes is another weight tossed upon the cross of the beloved Christ, who gets stuck in this formula bearing it all. No wonder most christians feel guilty. How could you not feel guilty when you are basically not allowed to be responsible for your action, and your every mistake is another lash of the whip borne by the silent suffering victim savior Jesus? I encourage all those who are suffering under this torment of guilt to recognize the false belief of victim consciousness embedded in the formulas of this kind of "faith," and to take courage in the fact that Christ can indeed lead you out of your bondage, not by shouldering your responsibility, but by handing it to you, so that you can be truly free from guilt, and placed on the path of mastery with Christ as your example: follow me, he said, for my burden is easy and my cross is light.

As for those who abide by the tenets of establishment atheistic scientism and it's version of the victim consciousness, there is hope for you as well! As surely as one need not read the story of Christ in scripture as the story of a victim, one need not read in the genetic transcripts the story of a victim either. I can transcend my initial embryonic protein signatures. My every expression of will at an emotive, intellectual and spiritual level which occurs while I am in form places a demand upon my genetic material to unfold and generate the complementary signatures. The free will leads the unfolding. While there is definite containment of expression within a particular form (I am unlikely to will myself to be a foot taller or to change my features from african to anglo, or vice versa, exceptions to M. Jackson), the room for play relative to a given endowment is considerable. The question of "nature or nurture" is really one of victim or responsible self. The responsible self takes hi/r natural endowment by the reins, and leads it where s/he wants to go! We not only need not, but we must not act according to the implied moral formulas of Darwin (might makes right, and spreading one's genes as the ultimate value) if we are to truly evolve on this planet. True evolution is a movement towards spiritual union effected by the free will trained up by a model of consciousness which advances the species through mutual service, rather than survivalism. We need not indulge our basest fears and desires to evolve. Quite the opposite. We must transcend our basest fears and desires to evolve.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home