Paganism – the decline of spirituality

Superstition, voodoo, belief in primitive forces of nature, astrology, idol worshipping and the like, have always been a part of mankind, especially among the less enlightened and educated classes of society. But two mighty forces have helped to overcome, at least to a certain degree, such foolishness: Organized Religions and Science. For a long time it seamed that the dark times had been overcome by reason und sceptical thinking. Christianity had overcome primitive pagan’s belief in fantasy figures like Thor, Odin, Freya, and had given to the people a more advanced concept of an almighty superpower in heaven – god. A higher development of consciousness destroyed the inferior belief in nature’s power. `Do not worship the creation, do worship the one creator alone!´, became the new dogma and we all can be very grateful for this new concept. It enabled mankind to belief in laws by which the universe can be understood, to overcome the uncertainty of life. One almighty being created the universe and therefore his laws are reliable. This gave birth, after a long period of time of course, to scientific thinking. Science is not a thing, as many people consider it, but a way of approaching life and the surrounding environment.

By science we see, that there are things outside of ourselves, things which exist independently from whatever we think about them. The laws of nature are not connection with our own mental state but are independent of it. The word is as it is, whether we like it, or accept it, or not. But although science has made tremendous progress and improved life of the people on planet earth, during the 20th century a new movement began to criticize science. Science is an authority, but not an authority of birth or position, but of knowledge and of reason. Therefore it is not arrogant of science to claim to be able to explain the world. But there is a group of people, rebelling against all kinds of authority, regardless of source, who live with the childish belief, that everything is possible. They think the limits of nature are not true, there would be a spiritual realm, in which everything goes. This is an infantile and immature point of view the belief in the magic of nature) and by the way most of these people are suffering from some kind of narcissism. It is the old illusion, which has already been described by Freud, of being almighty – a definite sign of not being adult.

What I am talking about is the movement which is known as the New (Dark) Age. An immature, uncritical – we can also call it dull and retarded – way of approaching life. What would not be a bad thing, for every society can hold out a few morons, but in the course of this movement we see an enormous decline of intellect and also of spirituality which lead to primitive forms of worship as for example the pagan (religion). This is a lose group of people without strong rules, structure and organization – just have a nice time and come together at magical places (like Stonehenge) and enjoy each others primitive infancy. It is more a kind of kindergarten for adults. They believe in stupid things like ghosts, the stars, angels, witchcraft and magic in common.

A reasonable society should only have cold contempt for people who engage in superstition, magic and illusions. Belief in magic is not only bad, it is an insult of mankind, something to be despises. In Britain for example paganism is the 6th largest of all religions in the country - a disgrace for a modern, secularized country. But it is the same in many western countries (whether Europe or America). We need a call to arms of all reasonable forces against such a decline of society caused by pagan people, who refuse to be adult. Times have come, when superstition should become banned from communities and especially of young children, who are indoctrinated by belief in magic and therefore must stay immature for the rest of their life, if not lucky circumstanced liberate them later in their lifes.

You have to make your choice. Either you stay a child for your whole life long or you enter the realm of adulthood by giving up all illusions and believe in magic. If you belief in angels, goblins, and the power of nature (for example by embracing a tree) you can also belief in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy. The difference is only the one is for adults and the other one for (so called) adults.

Pornography – no more!

A plague of our society is definitely the overwhelming use of pornographic material as well in private area, as in the public space. It is one of the reasons, why human communities have never reached such a low level of culture as we face it now everywhere on the planet in this fist decade of the 21st century. It is no question that no time in human history has ever been more disgusting, more immoral, more primitive, than the one’s we are all living in. Compared to the past, what we face is an enormous decline in everything that is good, that is right. No question we are living in the end times and the whole creation is not living for long from now on. Having been sure about this fact leads us to consider the immorality of our times from a much larger perspective than ordinary human being are able to.

So, what do I mean with this? I bring it all down to the issue of sexuality. Nothing is more a sign of immorality than this one. Sex without purpose, just enjoyed for the feeling of itself, is the most disgusting thing ever done by perverted people, not even the criminal inhabitants of Sodoma and Gommorra (read the first book of Moses) where that immoral as human beings are today, and nobody deserves to face a better fate than to be destroy by fire from heaven, brimstone (which are probably nuclear bombs nowadays). There are ignorant people who think porn is ok, they think porn is consenting adults doing consenting things for consenting adults to watch. Nothing could be more bullshit! Fact is, porn has no positive effect, destroys human dignity, destroys relationships and human existences. I therefore call for abolishing porn and sexual images in all areas of life. For example, seeing a women in a bikini advertising for a new car. That is more of a reason not to buy that car than buying it. A company which is going down to the level of using sexy women to promote their product (a technical one) to make people buy it, is not worth to be considered good. So whatever company is using sex to make people buy their products ought not to be bought than to be bought. We need a complete new kind of thinking. Sex is bad in any other way they practised by a loving married couple and it is a disgrace to use it to sell things and whoever uses sex as a stimulation to sell should be pushed out of business, should be pushed out of the whole industry!

But now to the negative and disgusting effects of sex an pornography on the human mind. Porn creates an illusion, it makes people not live in reality but in a fantasy world. Men and women expect their partner to be like a porn star, what will never happen. Millions of marriages have been broken of that reason. In the US porn is becoming one of the main reasons for divorce. It destroys the healthy development of human sexuality in children. Do you really think a 14 year old will develop a healthy sexual relationship after seeing a naked women being penetrated by two men? – Of course not! Sex is one of the big problems of our society and we have much too much of it. The prude behaviour of former times is over but the pendulum has swung to far into the other direction – we need more regulations, we need more discipline! Human beings are not capable to regulate sex on their own, therefore we need strong regulations, for humans always tend to be immoral and perverted, because of their sinful nature. Sex always needs to be restricted for the happiness and prosperity of society. Since old times, every society knew that the less sex you have, the more pure you are, the higher the standing in society is. Do you want to have a president who is having sex every week? Of course not. Superiority has always been linked to control of sex and sexual feelings and thoughts. We have to go back to the roots of reason in sexual behaviour. Less is more! Even in the culture of the South Sea only the primitive low class women had a lot of sex all the time, but the nobility has always lived a chastise lifestyle. As the apostle Paul mentioned the role model of humans is to live a life without sex, but if you cannot control your sexual drive and have to reproduce, the second choice is to marry and than have sex for the purpose of having children.

But there is no doubt, that the most noble, the most spiritual, beings do not have any sex at all. Even the misguided Indian guru Osho said that no human being should have sex after the age of 42. I would go much further and said that human beings should not have any sex at all. No question, that any sexual act is shameful, even within marriage, especially masturbation is a sin and it is a deathly sin! Self-pollution is one of the most disgusting things imaginable, even worse than theft, if not murder. There has never been a generation which has been bombarded by porn as the one between 15 and 25 nowadays. The biggest group of porn consumers is between 12 and 17 and the pornographers know very well, these are the consumers of tomorrow. It leads to desensitization and inhumanity, human beings are considered as objects not as subjects as they are. Approximately 14000 Porn-movies are produced every year in San Fernando Valley every year (the porn-capital of the world). It cannot be controlled by human beings on their own, that is an illusion, most people, even women, who are a third of all consumers!, cannot control the urges and fall into the trap.

You must see the bigger pictures behind the whole thing. Porn is bad (100%), it is completely destructive, and enslaves people. Behind the whole industry there is the power of evil which is running earth since there earliest days, human nature is not good, and therefore we need the help of an outside power, on our own we are lost – lost completely. Therefore god in his almighty grace has granted us his help to overcome the world and not live from it anymore. Stop looking at naked human flesh, do not fall in love with the world, for there is nothing good here, and come to the real salvation! Stop being sexual, live chastise, do not practise sex any more and become holy and a good person! I wish you all to be well!

Belief versus unbelief

Looking at the two pictures I posted at the beginning of this article, you recognize a special kind of advertising. It is not selling you illusions, but truth, as we can observe it. You may find your sense of life or be happy if you are a believer, but there is no guarantee. The same is true for atheism.

Nearly all people in the western world nowadays accept evolution and science, only few small groups of society deny it. Some religious groups try to use god as the power or person who planned and guides the process of evolution. But fortunately we have come to a point where religion and science exist side by side and respect each other. For a long time it seemed, they both can exist next to each other without major contradictions. But the more science evolves, and especially when it comes to the question of truth, more and more people doubt it’s attitude. Many philosophers have come to the conclusion of atheism, many scientist do the same. It seemed that what was going on in the mind of a believer was a myth, something science could no explain.

But modern psychology can explain how religion arises, what makes people belief (Of course it is can only partially explain what can be observed. Using the scientific method of verification and falsification onto the supernatural, the only solid conclusion is, that cannot be proofed that it exists. “So, but why should we use the scientific method?”, one may ask. Isn’t it arrogant to say this is the only method to find truth (as far as human beings can come to “truth” of course)? All the success of society, from medicine, to engineering, aircraft, computer, car, internet etc. and the better understanding of the universe, have come from using the scientific method. There was no other, we owe our advanced life 100percently to science. Since the beginning of enlightenment and successively declining influence of religion on society, life has become better and better. This method is working and it is the only one which is working properly. All other attempts to see reality base on evidence-less accepting, because of laziness of thinking, tradition or authority. The scientific method does not care for tradition or authorities, it gives science the power to self-correct itself, which is what religions never does – it sticks to the same ideas over centuries, whether they are right or not. The dogma is more important than truth, power is more seductive than knowledge. Right and wrong can be found by human reason, not by old scriptures of which authors and origins are very doubtful (not to say considering the political and social reasons, why they exist). So why does the observation of the world lead to other results than the scriptures describe?

Religious ideas are to some degree by-products of cognitive processes, of thinking. It comes from our ability to imagine worlds and people, which is an important ability for planning our lives. We can build up whole universes in our mind, but that does not make them real. The world does absolutely not care, for what we think is true or not. Looking at little children you see many of them have imaginative friends. God becomes such an imaginative friend (often a father-figure) for adults. Humans make compromises between, what they expect and what is interesting. Wishing for god very easily leads to believing in god, especially when you get social support. In some way whole societies stay children in there mind and they criticize the ones who become adults, what means being mature in mind, and think it is abnormal. Humans, as mammals, have a strong attachment-system, they sick to other group-members, not only when they are in trouble. And being part of a group is more important than truth. Therefore it is so hard to leave a group, you feel lonely and quickly start doubting your decisions. But there is good news nowadays. Society is fragmented that much, that everybody can leave majority and find his or her group. It may be as small group, but you do not have to be lonely. The majority of people is not thinking rationally, but to find people who think outside of the box is possible, everywhere.

But what about moral? Isn’t atheism immoral? The killer argument of the religious is that Hitler and Stalin, Mao and other dictator where atheist. Stalin and Mao where Atheist, Hitler a modern pagan, but there is no connection between Atheism and there deeds. They would have done there genocides, violations of human rights, crimes and inhumanity even if they had been religious people. Crime is a result of character, not of religion or unbelief. It is very often religion which deforms the (natural) moral feelings of people into obedience to a dogma or authority. Moral feelings are natural to humans, apart from religion and very often they are far better than religious dogma. Human beings are mature enough to know what is right and wrong, they do not need an “instruction manual”.

But this is where we come to another assumption of the religious. They think moral comes from religion. Without religion, they say, the result will be anarchy. So even if god does not exist and even if there is no supernatural, we could still use religion as a moral and ethical code. This argument is nonsense (and by the way a weak point of view, if you give up the claim for the supernatural and leave it to a simple code of behaviour). Moral means doing what is right, no matter what dogma says. Religions means to do what the dogma says no matter it is right or not.

Religions present supernatural, as “truth”, but that is often, a way to delude people. Religion is a social issue. It is about human societies and groups and belonging to a religion, especially to the dominating religion in a certain country, fulfils social needs, not the need for truth, or what is really going on in the universe, how was is created an the like. More intelligent people have always known for this. Many of the religious leaders are nonbelievers, they just use the faith of people for their own power – and as history shows it has always been working and it is still working. And that is a shame!
Some people say that religion has helped them. In most cases it is not religion which helped them but the social connection with other people. If it was the dogma it is the delusion, which fulfils personal wishes, which recognizes data, which confirm an opinion and closes the eyes before contradiction and opposite data. Religion may help, as alcohol helps a depressed person to feel better, the emptiness inside gets filled with an idea. Of course that may feel better and some may even get “happy” about that, but it is a happiness far away from truth. There are better ways of getting a happy and clear mind and that is a worldview based on reason and observation, a sceptical approach towards everything and true belief (make sure whatever I say about religion is about the human institution not the true and honest belief or the supernatural!). Skepticism is nothing negative, it is not pessimism, don’t mix that up, it means you test, what your are told, what you read – even be sceptical toward your own thoughts and especially feelings. Feelings make human beings vulnerable and they are very often nothing by lies. A life based on trusting feelings is not a life of success and high worth.

But what about the sense of life and happiness? Yes there are surveys which come to the conclusion that religious people are happier and the conclusion is that religion and belief are the reasons therefore. But that may be an illusion. In fact people are happier, when they are socially more integrated and in a society where religion, or in most cases a certain religion, is predominant, most people feel more happy when they join this religion, but of social reasons, not because religions has something to do with truth or the supernatural. We humans suffer from over-interpretation about many things in the universe. We think things are there with a certain goal; as egotists we often think all things where created for us. For example the naïve belief (of children) that the stars are there to lighten up a dark night. We have problems with random processes and rather think of an intention. We will not have any future using superstition instead of reason.

Mental pressure on earth an within mankind

Only few people would deny that we are living in times of big changes. And as during all changes which happened in history people don’t know what will come out, if it is over. See for example the French Revolution and the establishment of the empire under Napoleon Bonaparte. There are many ideas; experts of all branches from economy, history to sociology are drawing their scenarios and for people who prefer less “intellectual” solutions we have an army of fanatics and “prophets” of all kinds, who know it best and with certainty. I am sure you also have heard about 2012, the year either the world will be hit by a cosmic object, which is called “Nibiru” or “the world would be advancing in spiritual development” and the rest, i.e. the unenlightened people, will be killed, for the new world will have “higher vibrations” and the people with “lower vibrations” would not be worthy to be part of this space jump. I hope that none of my readers is among such believers.

Explaining the unknown, the uncertainty of life has always been a big task for human beings. We all find ourselves confronted with a world (and with ourselves) and have to find out what is going on there. Therefore we have to use frameworks, to do that job. On specific way of approaching the word is what we call science. Science has proven to be the best system available until now to find out about the surrounding universe. Science is searching for the maximum of objectivity possible and also includes rules for self-correction. It is not delivering “truth”, at least not in the absolute sense of the word.

When we look at the world and the universe as it is lying before our eyes and our mind, we see that there are two directions into which evolution works. They could be called the inner and the outer sides of evolution. For most of history and also of science we where always looking at the outer side, which is, what can be observed in quantity. For example life is spreading over the surface of the planet very quickly. As long as there is enough space there is little, which could stop it in this process. The less space there is, plants, animals and human beings have to find another direction. Therefore I an considering the inner side of evolution, die big tree of life, of which we only see a small part, because vast parts do not exist any more in our time. By the way this has been one of the points which have always been attacked by “Creationists”. Their argument is like the following: “Show me before my eyes that one species changes into another. If you can do that, I am going to believe you, if not you have no proof for evolution”. This would be the same as if you would want a geologist to create a mountain right before your eyes, otherwise you would deny, that geology is true. This is absurd and it shows very clearly, that such people have no idea about how scientists work in the 21st. century.

But back to the topic of the pressure in the mind of mankind. The second direction by which evolution is developing to is the inside. The more the universe expands, the more it is rolling into itself, the more it becomes complex inside its inner structures. This is a conclusion to which all evolutionist come. The top of this complexity is us, human beings. A human being is not an animal. Also we have a common ancestor with primates and have 95, 97 or 98 percent of the DNA of a Chimpanzee, we are something completely different. But this difference does not lie in the DNA, not in the physical, but in the consciousness! In this sense I would define a human being as the evolution which has become conscious of itself. The more consciousness we have the more we are spontaneous and are creator instead of creations. I think we have come to a state where our further development will not be in the physical. It is quiet possible, that we human beings are the peak of the physical which is possible. From now onwards, the driving force of our evolution will guide us into the mental. To make such statements is very dangerous, if told to a new age person, who very quickly adopts such ideas, which fit very well into there worldview. But I am sure, that our problems will no become less and easier, there will not be a “saviour” coming to poor mankind. We have to become the saviour ourselves. The pressure we all feel comes naturally as the world becomes “one big village”. We influence each other with our thoughts, our actions and words and we have a bigger amount of information we get in one day, than people centuries ago got in there whole lifetime! This is pure stress for our mind. It is necessary to develop our consciousness to learn to cope with each other. It is a time of chaos. That is right. But after a successful adoption and new and higher organization of the individuals as well as the whole mind of mankind (may be a united mind of mankind), the stress will be relieved to a lower level and new equilibrium will be found. That is, what I believe. I am not going to pretend to know what everything which I have written here will mean in the world we are going to face. Therefore I stayed very abstract. But I don’t see any possibility to handle the thing without become very speculative or wore, illusionary.

At the end I want to say a little bit about religion and believe. We have become adults. In the time of the Old Testament for example mankind was in a childlike state, and needed a stern god, who punished all the time. We have developed and are rebuffing such an image of god. I am talking about images of god, not got himself, for who could god be detected? If he could be detected by human beings in his entirety, that would not be the “real” god. Image of god must develop according to the changes of the times. This is no blasphemy, but a necessity. We cannot successfully live life according to a 3000 year old image of god, not to say such an old code of morale and ethics. I personally do absolutely believe in God and Jesus Christ. And there is no problem combining my belief with modern science. If there are people talking about dying of religion and belief, they are talking about old image of deities. Yes, many of them will not be surviving, but if they cannot survive you see who week they where form the beginning onward. They had there effect during history, but the final point of existence of them hade to come necessarily. One danger for society stays: If some old images of the divine go bankrupt some people stick to superstition and worshipping of idols. We all should be very careful not letting people fall back into primitive states of worship, like polytheism or worshipping of nature (trees, stones, stars, moon, sun and the like). But there is a good chance that falling back in consciousness is not possible for mankind as a race, only for individuals. May be this is a too optimistic point of view and such a fallback could mean the end of the world? That’s a question everybody has to answer for himself.

Belief – Be pragmatic not dogmatic

One of the big advantages, which America possesses in comparison to Europe is its great common sense and developed pragmatism. While Europeans struggle with others and themselves about theoretical solutions, Americans have enough courage to take the risk of the unknown and discover new avenues. Europeans want to know everything beforehand and only want to start acting after having made up a “perfect” plan, which gives them a feeling of security, a feeling of having everything under control. America on the other hand always was more courageous and bold in doing what must be done than losing itself in fruitless discussions and philosophical considerations. And as experience shows, America is much more successful than Europe, which can blow up a question of minor importance to a question of heaven or hell, very easily. So what do I mean by the title of this post, when considering the issue of belief?

Europe very easily sticks to non-working systems although every rational mind must see, that it is not working. Europeans fall in love with their own ideas and concepts and try to force the world into them, no matter how much reality lets them run against a concrete wall. Best examples to mention are socialist, communist, atheistic and nihilistic thinking and the worldviews which were given birth by them. Once an American friend told me: “You Europeans never get it right! You are too afraid of the reality to act freely and accept the possibility of failure. Look, when it comes to religion and belief I have a very practical way of thinking. If I die and I did not believe in Jesus and his teachings, I got a big problem – and it cannot be solved any more. But on the other hand, if the bible is not true, I have nothing lost, for living according to the Scripture is not a bad life. So you have nothing to lose but everything to win! Who would not agree? Such a guy must be a moron!”. This kind of thinking is convincing for many atheist. But not so in Europe. Such arguments are seldomly heard here. For I think it would be an interesting approach towards the people unsaved. Most people are pragmatists deep inside their heart. But they where forced for many decades by ideologists to not consider the benefits, the advantages and the disadvantages of systems and ideas. For what ideologists hate most is to be confronted with a reality which does not confirm their mindset. As long as everything is in the mind and other people are infected by the same mindset you can feel comfortable. But facing the hard reality can make life hell for people who always want to be right, which is a typical characteristic of an ideologist.

So, what about believing, lets say believing into the bible for example? What does living a life according to the bible mean? People have a clear set of values, a tool for making decisions, a moral code in behaviour and the reassurance of a life in heaven (the last one is very important, but for a solely pragmatic person, it is of lesser importance, at least living in the here and now). The big questions of live like “Where do I come from?”, “Where do I go to?” and “What is the sense of my life?” become answered. I am sure, that living a live according to the bible burns away every neurosis, every personality disorder and every psychosis. The first question is: “What happens to a person, who is living according to the scripture?” In the beginning it is thinking, it is theory. Than you can observe the reality of living such a lifestyle in the life of other people who already live this way. But do not be too critical, for the bible leads to happiness and a good live in Christ for sure, but many people struggle and fail. God is not condemning failure, that is what the world does. The best of all ways to get insight is of course is personal experience! Once you change your life, and start living the new way, you will notice how the quality of your live is increasing. Such is true and you can see evidence in a two thousand year old history of Christianity and if you add the Hebrew culture you come up with more than three thousands years (Abraham – the first Hebrew - approximately live about 1750 – 1800 before Christ). If you asked me for an example of a man in the bible who had such a good live I would pick out king David, the great Leader of Israel. His life was blessed, he was successful in whatever he did, was rich, wise and beloved by the people. I think most people would like to have a life like king David. But, and that is the good news, David and the other great personalities of the bible where human beings, they where no super humans, angels or the like, but man and women who made mistakes, who had ups and downs, but a heart full of god. We can identify with them and we see the great love god has for all his children.

One thing I want to mention here: Belief and religion are not the same and there is a lot of confusion about the difference in some people. Belief means to honestly await things you do not see and very often your mind cannot imagine how they will happen. Religion on the other hand is a system, an institution made up by human beings. As important as a human church, a religious community is, there is always the danger to stick to traditions and convert them into a dogma of belief. We shall not worship anything or anybody but god! How do we see, what we are worshipping? That is very easy: Just look at the content of your heart. Whatever your heart is full of, that is what you are worshipping. How do you spend your time? What are you thinking most of? Where are your concerns? For example, if you are worrying and full of sorrows, that is what you are worshipping. You are worshipping your sorrows, not the Lord, not god father.

In the end do not be afraid of your own belief, if you see what you are doing and what you are thinking. Just stay in the word of god and if you fail, don’t do it again. That is all: See what you did wrong, make a clear decision, be determined and don’t repeat the wrong action. Not every question is about life or death, about heaven or hell! Live, what I would call “serious easiness in belief”. If belief is for you like a heavy load, instead of making you free, you are not in the true belief. Get rid of your load and pass it over to the Lord, for that is what he wants you to do. Be free, be happy and most of all, be fulfilled!