I’m not too big on Doctrine, but much more focused on the practical. When a person looks outside of themselves, or up to the heavens and prays, it is God. No differentiation except in the written or oral interpretations of God’s Divinity. Native Americans believe in many ‘spirits’. Each is an embodiment of God, just as Nature is an embodiment of God. As someone in the Muslim world wisely said to me recently, ‘we all have the same father and mother’.
The ‘your God, my God’ argument is ludicrous and goes against the very concept of a ‘religion’. In the same vein, the fear or belief in a heaven or hell, or of an afterlife, is less important than your actions on a second by second basis as long as you are alive. I don’t subscribe to the traditional Christian belief that in order to achieve a Divine right after death you must ‘know’ Christ. I do believe you must ‘know’ Christ, but not necessarily as the New Testament persona.
IMO, to ‘know’ Christ is to ‘know’ love. So that even an aborigine in the outback of Australia can achieve a Divinity after death because they are good people in life and know love. I also very much believe in a ‘Living Christ’. Which means Christ never died on the cross, although his Earthly body at some point did ‘die’. But he is as alive today as he ever was. There are those that see and know him and those that don’t.
My religious and spiritual philosophic beliefs are not mainstream by any means, but I spent many years searching and talking to people all over the world and was enlightened by the quest for my own world view while I was in college. I did not really recognize the implications until I was at rock bottom. I was broke, without lights and what seemed like no direction to go in. In other words I was completely in the dark. I remember the moment of enlightenment clearly. I was told by a Rastafarian acquaintance to look inside of myself first.
It may sound simplistic, but it was at that moment I experienced both God and Christ as I never had before then. It wasn’t until decades years later, only recently, that I had another moment of deep religious philosophic clarity. My more recent religious experience was realizing the importance of Mary Magdalene in the story of Christ. What is most important in the story of Christ is not the Resurrection on the cross, nor is it the Salvation as many Christians believe. The most important teaching of Christ is ‘to teach others how to teach enlightenment’. It’s that simple. Do that every second of every day and you will achieve the Divinity of the Living Christ, and God’s love. Eternally.
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