Freedom from Religious Addiction

Brom The Herald


All these things we call "religions" are just ideologies of one sort or another. Human beings want other people to make up their world views for them. It is a kind of laziness. It is a bit understandable though.

We are moved in this direction the moment we begin to understand our parents, then teachers, preachers, politicians, scientists, employers... on and on... and we paddle from island to island, through out life this way. It is something that none of us escape. Because, to escape this thing that EVERYONE else does, you have to separate yourself from all other people. And who wants to do that? Then you live in a cave up on the mountain and have to run away every time some hiker runs across you in the woods gathering firewood.

But, it seems to me, at the very least, what we can do is gather the ideas around us that make sense and don't seem to contradict too badly with each other, no matter what their sources are, and build our own individual island, connected by relationship-bridges to all the other folks around us doing the same thing. If enough of us did this, an archipelago of freethinking would arise in the world. I'm NOT talking about a bunch of "freethinkers." I'm talking about a world of free thinking. We could then be a TRUE "religious group," as in the following (my bold)...

103:5.12 When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become freethinkers. There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.

At this point, there is no church on earth that dares such a thing. Why? Because it could not sustain itself as a "group" as we understand such a term. There is only ONE valid "group" that will EVER be a church with such high ideals: The Church of Humanity as a Whole. But this will require a lot of other unifications and federations first--mostly in the geopolitical realm.

People throwing themselves at curtains, whether iron or silk, need to have those barriers removed before they can know that other folks are even out there and want to be their brothers and sisters. Trying to say that a church will bring political peace is a noble fantasy, but it is just that, a fantasy, because of these political and social - all ideological - barriers. There will be a Planetary Government long BEFORE there is a planetary religious group. However by adhering to the principle of thinking for yourself, you become an example of lucidity to the folks around you. Your righteousness is no longer born of slogans and catch-phrases, cults and party lines, relics and crying statues... You are cognitively liberated and thence able to become spiritually fragrant.

It took me so long to realize how silly it is that people sit around scratching their heads wondering which prescribed set of ideas they are going to follow all their lives. Which guru, reshi, imam, minister, saint, monk has THE answer? And social systems (at least in the West) are set up to scorn the people who leave their ideological group and over-flatter those who join it--not for the sake of the individual member, but for the sake of the GROUP.

We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves, to feel like part of a community. In my opinion this is the deep-rooted soul-need to be part of all humanity together. Unfortunately we live at a time in history where, to fulfill this need incompletely but the best we can, we join ideological interest groups, including institutionalized religions. People can addict to the Urantia Book too.

When I first joined UBRON, there were folks here (now a little more silent) who didn't read ANYTHING but the UB. I would talk about a scientific discovery and the response would be UB quotes. I'd ask if they would read the science article and they would refuse, saying "Why? The UB gives me all I need to know." Well, this is just the signature of an immature and complacent mind. Go to a Bible forum, same thing. Although - and let's be very clear about this: the UB is NOT a religious text or sacred text and its concepts are not given for building a church around. Part IV, could come dangerously close, but for cryin out loud, if you're dogmatizing the fact that at first Andon thought only bird's nests could tinder fires - that that should be preached and codified for all ages as a religious lesson of some sort - you better check your medicine labels.

And humans are especially bad at poking their heads outside the "box" (or "boxes") once they been shoe-horned into it, because we addict to so many other things too. Other animals addict to some substances, but besides substances, humans addict to relationships, to schedules and routines even thrill, itself. There is little difference between the broken heart of unrequited love and heroin withdrawal (both lead to stomach aches, sleeplessness, vomiting, obsessive ideas, inability to do everyday activities, thoughts of suicide, etc). For some people, the abandonment of their childhood "faith group" can be just as terrible--sometimes worse.

Each bumper sticker-ideology that we paste on ourselves, precludes the discoveries found in any, so-called, "opposing" ideology. That is, unless you are willing to rip that sticker off, which always leaves a bit of itself behind, and find other ones to cover up those unresolved residues, you only get 50% of the info out there. I don't know about you all, but that is not good enough for me. I want to know it ALL (or as much as possible). My greatest handicap as a human on this planet - I mean ALL of us - is completely set in place, screwed into the concrete floor, by ideological decisions. Each one is a link in the chains that enslave and limit me, DISTRACT ME toward the mind and ideas (addiction, habituation and habits) of MAN.

All the while, I actually want and need to be looking for the mind of GOD: Lordee, I'm so confused!, am I a Buddhist, Islamist, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, Liberal, Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Jungian, Freudian, Emersonian, Jeffersonian, Jesusonian, Green Peace Activist, Red Army Communist, Orange Shirt Rebel, Leftist, Fascist, Socialist, Capitalist, Anarchist, Meat Lover, Vegetarian, Vegan, Thrill-seeker, Intellectual, Pacifist, Hawk, Realist, Cubist, Technologist, Naturalist... no, No, NO! I've taken something from each of these. But I consciously try not to put: ic, ist, ian, ive, at, al on myself. And only now halfway through a typical earth lifetime, do I realize that *I* AM my own ideology and my own church. I'd spent so long searching for what everyone else was, that I didn't get to know myself.

I still get railroaded into circumstances where I have to pull out the tattered
portfolio, the socially acceptable resume, the piece of paper, set of terms, that tells the conventional world of strangers what I am (WAS)...as if these labels still stand for me as a person. I simply don't have the energy to put new acquaintances to sleep with all the things I've said to you above - to my family, so I'm just "Alex, the writer," or "Alex, the musician" etc... If the world were a little more evolved, and if I were more transparent about who I am as a person in my everyday life, I could simply say: "I AM Alex." And the person would nod in complete understanding, then introduce themself in that same way.

But there will come a day when we will be seen by our souls; when we will wear them on the "outside" and be unashamed. A clothing made out of morontia-soul can resist the adhering to bumper-sticker conventionality. It can deflect the lesser lights of ideology and absorb from the "inside" the intense Light of the Will of God, and then focus and project out that Luminosity into the world around it. That is the purpose of the soul. We are told by the UB that the soul is embryonic. Well, that may be true now in our primitive state. But, the people of the future will not learn FROM each other, they will learn WITH each other, by each other. They will be walking-souls, long before their bodies pass away. We simply CAN NOT imagine such a world, even though the earth, Urantia, will someday BE such a world.

These baby steps; these tiny shards of light now breaking through the egg-shell
perceptions of our current world-views and assumptions; the words you are reading right this second; the feeling of understanding for what I'm saying, within your own hearts, IS the proof that we are about to take the next step. I am optimistic. I think even the most buried sticks in the mud, the most chained-to-convention, the most backward-looking, "everything is just fine the way it is," "don't rock the boat," "grow slow," "be safe," "you can't change it any way right now," "transformation is a nice ideal, but things are too complicated," and worst of ALL OTHERS: "Don't try"...folks WILL see this light. We are never really good at getting asses off our couches, turning of the TV, walking outside, peering INSIDE and saying: "It IS time to change" until our backs are up against the wall. It is a primate trait.

It has been said (I paraphrase) that "Man is not a machine, but given every opportunity, he will ACT like a machine." Admitting it to one's self is the first step. And once that goal has been achieved, no preacher, teacher, apostle, disciple, barker or bard will ever feel the need to tell others about the potential of this kind of freedom for the soul, like YOU a person who has liberated their ghost from the machine. Smashing the static, ruinous addiction to worldly habits, barrier-building religions that make people hate themselves and stultifying conventions, represents the very meaning of HUMAN RIGHTS.

So, remember to try to wear your soul on the outside. And I will do the same.