This whole thing with religion is a big confused mess of which I have had enough. My original beliefs were fear-based and maintained through coercive threats of supposed curses for disobedience to church doctrines, but supposed “blessings” for faithful adherence to those same tenets. I thought that my particular brand of Christian theology guaranteed I had the whole truth and was living in the only reality, despite the fact of endorsing so many manufactured ideas having absolutely no historical or scientific basis.

After becoming aware via photos sent back by the Hubble Telescope that not only the Earth, but also the entire Milky Way Galaxy is but a grain of sand on the seashore in comparison to the vastness of the Universe, I realized that my entire belief system was based upon a false paradigm. I saw that the Earth itself, was in no way exclusive in the Universe. Yet, I have always wanted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth even if that meant that I must stand alone or let go of the most cherished beliefs in order to find it. I never cared to remain in the comfort zone of illusions and a counterfeit reality. I came to see as the result of all this the enormity of embraced arrogance held by Western society and the Christian religion.

Since the present estimation of the age of the Universe (if indeed it has an “age”) is more than 14 billions “years” old, then of course the idea that the “World” was created in six days is wholly absurd. A day as we know it can only be measured by the Earth making one complete rotation. How can time be measured before the world was not yet fully formed? The same goes for the enormous arrogance of the scientific community that pontificates just as religiously without proof or even sound logic about the "age" of the Universe itself! How even can the age of the Universe be measured by a tiny orb that came to exist long after the Universe began? It is all highly illogical and absurd!

The same people that wants the world to believe this are the same folks who in the Middle ages burnt Giordano Bruno at the stake for saying that every star in the Universe is surrounded by planets inhabited by sentient intelligent beings and that there is no such thing as a planet without life even within our own solar system. Now, interstellar science and astronomy has confirmed that there are indeed extra-solar planets surrounding other stars in the Universe.

What’s more, on the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy alone, our own Solar System according to the scientific community is estimated to be about “6 billion years old.” This means that for an indeterminately long period of time before the Earth itself came into existence, an infinite number of other galaxies, countless star systems, and innumerable planets were in active operation undoubtedly inhabited by sentient intelligent life given it would be the height of human arrogance to assume otherwise. The highly primitive and archaic idea that the Earth is somehow at the middle of the Universe and thus "God's" favorite piece of real estate is a defunct idea from Middle Age superstition that should have been long since laid to rest.

In 1609, Galileo developed the telescope in Europe, and performed observations leading him to the discovery of Jupiter's four major moons. This demonstrated for the benefit of Europe that there are other centers of orbit even within our own solar system. Given this fact, and even the fact that other intelligent life exists in the Universe, this knowledge was not unknown to other non-European peoples. The Dogon of West Africa, the ancient Nubian and Cushites of East Africa, and the Egyptians of North Africa, the Mayans, the ancient Chinese, Hindus of India, and Arab speaking peoples all held this knowledge. The Australian Aborigines and most all of the indigenous peoples of both South America, as the Mayans, and of North America, as the Hopi and Dine have knowledge of the stars and of visitors from other worlds. Nonetheless, the European Christian Church still steeped in superstition and ignorance imprisoned Galileo until he recanted on what he found about the planet Jupiter. Then the Church in conjunction with the State (Monarchy) kept him on house arrest until the day he died for attempting to enlighten those steeped in a fear based religion.

Now, since that time, the Hubble telescope, the Cassini space probe, Voyager, the IRAS down in the Antarctic, and several more instruments of stellar observations have revealed to the world an unfathomable and expanding Universe of which our own Milky Way galaxy is just one of countless trillions.

My point is that there must be a far greater Incomprehensible and Infinite Intelligence and Being of Love, Light, and Eternal Life that far, far, surpasses the exclusive Egyptian-Sumerian-Hindu-Babylonian-Judeo-Christian "gods" that came down in Africa, the Middle East, Greece, Rome, and Asia of planet Earth only thousands of years ago.

When anyone speaks of “God,” exactly to which or what god are they referring? Even in the Bible, the Genesis 1:1 word Elohim {In the beginning Elohim (gods) created the heavens and the earth} actually is a plural Hebrew noun that would more accurately translate to "those who from the heavens came down." So consequently, all over planet Earth, everyone has their own personal concept of whom or what he or she thinks God may be. Even atheists have a concept of what they imagine "God" must be for all who are believers. Further still, among the many thousands of religions all down through history, there have been numerous gods of every culture and of every imaginable temperament and kind. The “god” to whom most in the West refer obviously needs human attention, adulation and to be constantly told how great he is by his “worshippers.” Here is an anthropomorphic god made in the image of man. I have heard enough Christian folk say, "We fail to take time for God keeping him first.” Christianity’s God obviously is male, and personally, I find it difficult to conceive of a god that anyone needs to take time to "keep" in any place be it first or last.

Indeed, the apparent truth is that we are all the by-products of both our moral and cultural conditioning - namely by our well-meaning parents, the community and social environment in which we grew up, and of our educational institutions. For any Hindu born in India with a belief in Krishna, Islamic born in Saudi Arabia holding steadfast the teachings of Mohammed in the Koran, or Buddhist born in Tibet devoted to the Dalai Lama’s teachings, the certainty of the "rightness" of their religious beliefs is just as much a reality to them as any Christian’s beliefs in the West. They all believe that their religion is inherently correct and everyone else’s is wrong.

Yet too often, when someone mentions the word God, it is automatically assumed that everyone’s concept of deity should be the same as his or her own. Such individuals further insist that their personal concept of God must be truly the right one, and make it their mission in life to impose their dogma upon others. Of all the ideas ever promoted within the family of humankind, this one has caused more debates, sufferings, wars, persecutions, personal acts of inhumanity, overt acts of pure barbarism, hatred, and outright hypocrisy among people professing to know and love their God than any other reason. Just considering the Christian religion alone and the "God" which Christians believe they serve alone is a tragic historical tale all by itself.

Consider that the four major wars fought by Christian America, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II were primarily Christians fighting and killing other Christians, or Christians killing non-Christians. When all of these Christians were praying to their “God” for victory, what God was listening? Did God just flip a coin to give one side victory over the other? Many on opposing sides even belonged to the same Christian denomination and church. Pondering this, why do so many insist that this is the religion all should practice?

Taking the central doctrine of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” from Christianity’s central book, the Bible, one would have to conclude that this “God” entity is very capricious (Exodus 9:12, Exodus 14:8, 2 Samuel 6:3-7, Job 2:3), arbitrary (2 Samuel 21: 1-9, Numbers 25:4), vindictive (Exodus 17:16, Exodus 32:27, 1 Samuel 15:3), and even discriminatory and bigoted since he dislikes people with flat noses (Leviticus 21:17-24 -- or even with certain disabilities (all references are from KJV).

Notice how even self- contradictory this "God" is from the scriptures of Exodus 34:7 . . . . that visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation, while yet in the book of Ezekiel 18:19-20 says just the opposite, . . . . doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father . . . . The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Here I noticed a clear contradiction. At one time this god supposedly says that he "visits the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation," then he later recants his earlier statement and says, "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither the father bear the iniquity of the son." This is just one of hundreds of contradictions apparent in the Bible.

Please take note of the fact, as well, that according to most Christian denominational doctrine, prior to this "God" finally sending his son to die for all humanity after waiting for several millennia, an eternal hell was the fate of every man, woman, and child on every continent of the Earth. Worse still, even after that, countless millions of folks are supposedly continuing on to an ever-burning hell unless some Christian missionary comes and brings the "good news" that simply by saying certain words and invoking the name of "Jesus," they can now be saved.

So even at this very moment we have innumerable peoples in Africa, Australia, Asia, South America and all the isles of the seas that will simply die and go to an ever-burning hell because a missionary will never reach them in time or there is no access to "Christian" radio or TV. Think of the absurdity of such a notion and what an impotent god this would prove to be.

Just remembering for the moment, where and how most of us learned the religion that we did, and our concept of "God" should make us question in light of scientific discovery the validity of those beliefs. One or both of our well- meaning parents just as theirs before them handed down an outdated and superstitious paradigm based upon the ignorance of past generations before. Our grandparents learned the same from their parents, who learned the same from theirs going all the way back to European Catholicism and then to the time of Constantine who converted purely for political reasons.

Now, we know from history that Europe stole, bought, and sold African, American Indian, and Asiatic peoples with force from within their own countries. European and American Christians are guilty of breaking up families, tribes, and nations, then subjecting them to the most inhumane treatment imaginable while simultaneously engineering a forced Diaspora of a magnitude unlike none ever recorded in modern history.

Clearly, from this any rational person can recognize the travesty caused by supplanting and enslaving other races of peoples in their own country and in a foreign land where they were forced to forget their own identity, language, religion, and culture all in the name of Christianity. Yet, despite the European encroachment and dehumanization of any non-European peoples to the status of brute beast, these people are still expected to continue to accept Europe's Christian religion as inherently correct.

Initially, there was no freedom of choice involved in the conversion of indigenous peoples from Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and North and South America to the Christian religion. The Church employed and approved deadly coercion to effect a forced adaptation to a foreign religious paradigm.

Conversion was at the point of a sword, the barrel of a gun, the lash of a whip, the threat of being burnt at the stake, hanged by a rope, or being torn in two on instruments of torture. If none of these methods worked, then the Puritans and many other Christian denominations would tar and feather, drown, or use some of the most unconscionably inhumane techniques conceived of by Europe such as giving diseased blankets to native peoples to decimate populations as punishment for being "heathen". All this was both government and Church (Catholic and Protestant) sponsored, approved, and supported to supposedly save their souls from hell. Read about the "Requerimiento" of 1512 and the "Inter Caetera" doctrine of 1493.

What few are willing to acknowledge is that organized Christianity, itself was the catalyst for all the unspeakable atrocities suffered by indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and every Native tribe in North and South America (misnamed Indians). Praise God and pass the ammunition. A Bible in one hand and a whip in the other was the philosophy.

The infamous Doctrine of Discovery resulting from the fifteenth century papal bulls of Pope Alexander VI became the legal basis "to go forth and conquer all heathen lands" meaning to subjugate the peoples and to steal as necessary their land and resources. If they did not submit, then Portugal, Spain, France, and finally England had both the support and authority of the monarchy and the Church to slaughter all who would resist. That is precisely what happened; and they did it all in the name of Christianity and the "God" of the European Christian world.

Considering this given set of circumstances, why would any sane and rational person support or endorse such a false paradigm and religion as this?

Lynette D. Ellis

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