Isa 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
In my previous post I spoke about how knowing the truth about God will break a person free from the illusion of the religious control system. At the end of the post, I provided you with eight descriptors about the truth of God that you can begin to use to strip off the mask of illusion. In this post I am going to take you one step further in bringing you to the true light of God. Regrettably, this is going to be a difficult step for many of you even if you have moved out of the illusion the system has inflicted upon the world.
Imagine
John Lennon wrote a song called “Image” where he conveyed his thoughts on what it would be like to live in a world with peace. It became a huge success during an era when there was great strife and wars being waged across the globe. The words to the song are as follows:
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Religious Backlash
When this song was released, there was nothing but blistering hatred from the religious authorities of the day simply because of the opening line, “Imagine there’s no Heaven.” Many saw this as a direct attack by an atheistic mind bent on propagandizing the youth of the time. There was also the strong sentiment about how this was simply propaganda to move the world into a classless, one-world communist-socialist society. (Notice how this is not a claim being solely made by the political class but was being lifted by the religious class too. Herein we see the blending of politics and religion to oppress the masses.)
But it was possibly the line in the second stanza which caused the blood vessels in every religious person to burst when Lennon associated the end of religion with the acts of living and dying for a cause. This is the sacred ground which no person can ever publicly bring to light throughout human history because it sacrifices the holy ground of causation for every imperial campaign past, present, and future.
When you consider the social upheaval which was occurring during the time this song was produced, the detractors were simply securing their foothold to agendas they had committed their lives, and the innocent lives of millions more, to uphold. Even the inspiration of Marin Luther King’s speech “I Have a Dream,” given almost a decade earlier, could be seen as a model within the lyrics.
Today, however, this song has secured a place within the religious establishment as an anthem for peace. If I was to claim how this came about it would only be speculation on my part. I see it as an evolution of consciousness in mankind. I believe it demonstrates the power in words which this post is actually about. It may have taken me a while to get here, but the backdrop is set to look at our thoughts and the concepts they have created behind what we think about “God.”
The Word became Flesh
One of the very first commandments gave to Moses on the mount was how the children of Israel shall have no graven images and idols. We typically associate this restriction maybe first with the golden calf which Moses’s brother, Aaron, is crafting back in the camp, or maybe all the multitude of idols Egypt had erected to honor their gods throughout the land. Rarely will anyone consider the one idol which overshadows all of these: A word.
Every word is the lowest common denominator of thought. Thoughts create ideas which must be expressed by words. Imagination is constrained by words and thoughts. When we claim how, “… words fail me,” we are experiencing the limitation of words to properly capture the fullness of a thought. When we attempt to describe the fullness of any entity, we use a multitude of words to try to capture what this entity is eliciting within us. Never will we be able to fully express ourselves no matter how many times we come back to the subject and offer a completely new set of words. Intuitively we recognize this limitation about our words.
In religious circles this is amplified through the multitude of biblical translation available today. If you’ve been in any church sermon there has had to be a time when the speaker said, “…and in the original Hebrew this word is…” or “…in the Greek this means…” Consider how what produced this claim was from the reading of word in the bible and then referring to what the origin of the word(s) were as they were originally produced. Yes, this demonstrates the limitation of let’s say the English language, but it also applies to every other language on the planet, including the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
What is an idol? According to Dictionary.com the definition is what we most commonly associate with the term: An image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed. However, there are additional definitions found here under this term such as: Any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion; a mere image or semblance of something, visible but without substance, as a phantom; a figment of the mind, fantasy; a false conception or notion, fallacy.
Words, even acronyms, are idols which we often fail to recognize. Consider Grace, COVID-19, Antifa, BLM, FBI, Russia, Taiwan, United States, George Floyd, J6, 2A, Google, Apple, Facebook, Nike, American Express, Climate Change; Capitalism, Socialism, Republican, Democrat, and on and on it goes. You can call an exception to any of these if you like but consider the primary function towards every idol is worship. Each of these has a devote following who are faithfully worshiping the god-like qualities they have projected onto it.
Is your god a meme or your idol?
In 1976 the book, “The Selfish Gene,” written by Richard Dawkins, he coined the term “meme” which he defined as “a noun that “conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.” Dawkins’s premise was that ideas in a society have a shelf life which causes them to either evolve or die off. This is a far cry from what today we know memes to be as viral social media postings meant to inject sarcasm at any individual we disagree with.
When you consider Dawkins’s definition of a meme it becomes obvious that a “god” within a culture is an idea which is transmitted and imitated across many differing viewpoints. Just to deliberate on the many denominations in the western church alone is an exercise of parsing through the evolving imitations of a god. This naturally brings us to what is the “god” you are paying attention to.
“Paying” is a term we all understand. It is the reward for the work we have put in; the cost for a good or service we have incurred; to be punished or suffering for an action. People view God the same way: A rewarder, or a debt collector, or a punisher. Some have rolled all these characteristics into one!
Regrettably, these, plus the multitude of other misrepresentations, are not the true living God. They are at best merely idols. Yes, this even includes the god you worship. This is because we all, having never seen God, or just experiencing a fraction of the divine nature, have come to rely on our imagination as to the extent of who, and or what, God is. Once we reach that limit to our imagination, we add the “superman elixir” just so our view of God doesn’t look like us. Now we’re set to worship this “Frankenstein” god who we declare is “Alive.”
The Franken-god heals if that is what you need and have enough faith he can, even the smallest amount of faith will allow him to heal; Franken-god provides food, money, shelter, even a parking space, when you need it; Franken-god is a protector of your property, family, congregation, nation, but clearly not the world since your enemies inhabit part of it and it is those who you need Franken-god to destroy; Franken-god is who you pray to because you know he is a good listener who never interrupts your monologue or is disappointed when finish and haven’t given him time to speak; Franken-god is also who loves to hear songs about the wonders he has created for himself, the heaven he resides in away from you, and how much he enjoys the bloodlust to the innocent lives given for his realm they hope someday to see if they have said the true magic prayer. Imagine if…
Chances are quite high that if your prayers are not being answered or your worship is not taking you to higher spheres of spiritual enlightenment, the idol you’re pointing these efforts to is blocking an encounter with the true Creator of All. You are allowing your imagination to craft a divine which is purely a fabrication of limiting words devoid of Spirit.
Sure, you can claim that God knows your intentions, however, do you know His? There is a reason that He doesn’t want you to use your imagination to create an idol, even if it is just words. There is only one Word in the kingdom of God. It was in the beginning, and we are all from it and still in it.
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