Socrates, as presented to us by Plato, may indeed be the wisest man who ever lived as far as Western culture is concerned. His insistence that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing is echoed in my own experience. As I get older and more experienced in life I realize that my own ignorance is the only certainty (besides death) and it would ( Read more... )

The adherents of religion are incorrect. The world doesn’t need more Jesus or Muhammad or even more adherence to religious laws such as the Koran or the Torah. What the world needs now is more humanity - engaged and empathetic - here and now. Religion and its bastard son, Politics, are the reason there is so much suffering. Suffering is not ( Read more... )

The god of the ego would have you believe that he sacrificed his only son so that humanity could merit eternal life. But, does this sound like something that a loving god would really do? Would a loving god forbid human sacrifice and then turn around and allow it to be committed in his name? The answer to both questions is no.

When the Israelites ( Read more... )

Theologically Christianity makes sense when you view it in the light of mythmaking. The problem for most Christians is they accept tradition as the faithful transmission of historical fact and in so doing miss the real value of their tradition. This has been the orthodoxy’s biggest failure. A failure to recognize the hero saga within the inner ( Read more... )

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.
Aleister Crowley

I suppose some would call me a humanist. But, I am not a very good one. Human nature causes me to be rather pessimistic about our future. I am, however, a humanist in the sense that I believe that when it comes to the human condition all things begin and end with us ( Read more... )

C.S. Lewis, the great 20th century Christian apologist, ironically while trying to firmly convince the world of Jesus’ divine godhood gave a succinct reason for rejecting Jesus on all counts. In his collection of World War II radio addresses compiled in his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis had this to say about the moral character of the man Jesus:

I ( Read more... )

Part Two: The Secret Life of Religion: Understanding the Inner Torah and the Inner Gospel

Religion has two faces; a public face and a private face. The public face is the outward observances, practices and behavior of those who practice it. The public face is what can be seen overtly by those who share the practice and by those on the outside. It ( Read more... )

 
The discrepancies of the Bible have never been a problem for me. My faith is not predicated on the need of biblical inerrancy. People who look at the Jewish and Christian scriptures needing them to be an unbroken line of historical accuracy are setting themselves up for heartbreak. One group seems to find the inaccuracies to be so credulous as to ( Read more... )

Mary Magdalene, Myth & Archetype: Part One ~ Concerning Joseph of Arimathea & Politics as the Driving Force Behind A Religion's Success

The traditions surrounding Mary Magdalene are apocryphal and have no basis in fact. The belief that she traveled to Gaul in the years following Jesus’ death, carrying his unborn child in her womb are nonsensical ( Read more... )

 
It has been said that Jesus of Nazareth’s mission was not to create a new religion - Christianity - but to reform what was already in place. Jesus criticized the religiosity of the establishment and called all who would hear his message to a humanism that was far superior to any religion that humanity had come up with so far.

At least that is my ( Read more... )