The following debate originally took place upon my Facebook wall, after I posted artwork being shared by an acquaintance from here…
Rayn:
“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.” – Chris Hedges
Rayn: Indeed! 🙂
Raheem G.: Now? Hahaha does this guy not know history. The world has always been corrupt. Read the Prince, that book wasn’t written anytime recently, and yet the lesson that a ruler must be corrupt if necessary has always been. Man has an agenda. Some men are just less selfish than others.
Raheem G.: And religion doesn’t destroy morals. That would mean every atheist is the most moral person walking on earth. Sorta like guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Rayn: Though I understand your sentiment, Raheem, Hedges said “we now live in a nation,” not “we now live in a world.” He apparently believes that America was not always in such a terrible state as today… I shared the picture because I ALWAYS appreciate a good story of individual awakening through Truth! 🙂
Rayn: As for the religion comment, I go by the following philosophy: “Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.”
The problem with your atheist analogy is that most so-called Atheists worship the religion of government, the pagan deity, “Fortune,” or even most frequently, their own selves. Therefore, they are FAR from “religion-free.” In fact, most of them are so deceived, that they believe they are taking the “reasonable” approach in their Atheistic views, yet their viewpoint is just as faith-based and not provable as belief in the existence of a Universal Creator. The only true “reasonable” position on the issue would be the “agnostic” one, incidentally…
Rayn: And, since it is not scientifically sound to accept skepticism, nor lack of knowledge, as a final position, as they are transitional states, an agnostic should always be working towards a goal of better understanding, and not becoming intellectually lazy or complacent behind their label….
Raheem G.: Rayn since when was America the beacon for morality.. ? And I’m one of the most patriotic people u prolly know..
Rayn: Never… But, for this pale-skin, it was… At one point, at least. LOL!
Raheem G.: Religion is belief. Not doin what ur told but believing in what ur told.
Rayn: His government religion failed him, it seems…
Rayn: Religion is obedience to the traditions of man
Rayn: Even your own traditions, sometimes…
Raheem G.: True but some of the first symbols of man were religious. So man has always praised something
Rayn: As I see it, Raheem, the major religious symbols of man are purposely encoded. And, just like ancient days of Babylon, and modern cults, they are used to form the Mystery Schools, which are built upon the hierarchies of social pyramid schemes. They enable the creation of a tiny, elite, ruling caste – with students initiated into the lower ranks via blood-oath ritual, and humanity at the very bottom of the heap, serving as the serf class. In such a system, knowledge is bottle-necked, and governed from top to bottom, on a “need-to-know” basis using “trickle-down” methods, so that ignorance prevails, and exploitation is only inevitable…
On the other hand, the symbol-system of our Creator, being the very Aleph-Bet, itself, as explained in the TaNaKh, represents life, and the true evolution of our minds. It is the most perfect marriage between sound and symbol in the most basic of code – just 22 characters, and using the universal symbols of nature as a guide, for the most universal understanding by all classes of humanity, much unlike any previous written language. Also unlike the Mystery Schools, the letters of His Aleph-Bet operate through revelation, and, as we read words and sentences, we learn, develop our minds, and expand them. Over time, humanity has used His symbols to further develop our previously purely oral tradition of speech, and significantly enhance our understanding. Of course, as we have made such progress, the Mystery Schools have plotted to horde even this knowledge for themselves. They would sooner FORCE the majority into illiteracy, like they have done continuously in the past, and keep us paying them tribute for the unavoidable trickle-down effect of their greed… like, scraps for dogs… then, to allow the NATURAL course of learning…
Rayn: Think of written language as being taught to fish, versus illiteracy as being in a situation where you must daily return to the local fisherman to buy meat, because you cannot learn to fish without first making a blood-oath to the fisherman cult, and then promising to pay tribute to the fisherman ruling class for life in order to operate without interference, while also swearing not to teach your new-found trade to any non-members…
I agree, that man has always praised something. If we discover “what,” then we will know “who.” It usually only requires a few basic questions: Is it Life, or Death? Is it Revelation, or Mystery? Is it Truth, or Magic? Is it Reason, or Chance? Is it Will, or Destiny? Is it Individuality, or Self? Is it the [HE IS] or the [I AM]?
Rayn: Everything you mentioned sounds like the same thing to me, Jesus. It’s all just the age-old practice of’ Death-Worship!
Alison K.: I believe I am a reasonable atheist, I believe in being a good person because that is how we should all be to keep balance in our lives. Not because I am being threatened with eternal damnation or being told how to act by an elder. Religion is just as corrupt as government in my eyes – they are simply in competition for running our lives. Though I am not ‘absolute’ in my beliefs in the sense that I am no more certain of anything than any other human. There very well may be a god-like higher power, I just do not subscribe to the Judea-Christian description of a god – therefore consider myself atheist.
Rayn: Thank you for unabashedly sharing your beliefs, Alison. I’m glad to know that you don’t subscribe to the religion of government, nor religious attempts to control your spirituality and morality. It’s also cool that the REASON of balance has directed you towards the cause of “good,” not fear, or blind adherence to tradition. Not being absolute in your beliefs will definitely keep you moving in the right direction of growth! I’ll tell you something that might interest you: rejection of a Judeo-Christian “God” does not necessarily make you an Atheist. Also, since you appear to have an open mind to the possibility of a Universal Creator, you might just be Agnostic! 🙂
(All original portions of this work, by Rayn Kleipe, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, while all redistributed links, images, sounds, videos, and writings are protected under 17 U.S.C. § 107: Fair Use, or under Public Domain)
