A lot of people think we are here on earth to learn personal lessons. It does seem like that sometimes but, even if so, perhaps we are also here to do other things - like, among other things, to serve as a lesson of some kind to others on occasion, or to discover something that helps us, our families, or our world.
You don't have to follow any religion to understand that there is something after this life. Too many credible people have had NDE's
and visited that next life, for it not to be. Eben Alexander, MD wrote the book Proof of Heaven,
to describe his own experience.
Some people who've had an NDE have described getting what they deemed to be a life review
with a panoramic reel of their life from birth to death. But that interpretation may not be accurate as to what it is. Some have written that the only judge of you, is you. And that makes more sense.
If we are here to learn anything in a broad sense, it has to do with the balance of being both fair to ourselves and fair to others. It's easy to lean too far in one direction or the other, and that's an understatement - because we have many influences on us, pressing on our emotions all the time.
It is probably because people are generally insecure, that they are so quick to judge others. Look at what miniscule differences can cause people to judge another entire group of people as inferior to themselves - things like skin color or gender. Physical things like that, which do not matter.
Then there are the bigger things such as politics and religion - which also don't matter much - about which people automatically become ethnocentric. This manifests as an us against them
mentality, because people feel more secure in their own identities when they belong to a group moving in lock-step and this feels like validation of their own ideas. Most of the time, the group tyranically dictates the ideas held by the group, and none of the members even notice that they have abandoned their own critical thinking for the dogma of whatever group(s) they are in.
It isn't automatically bad to be part of a group, but it's sad that people most often do not have the courage to admit that they have a mind of their own, or to go against any edict of their group. They need the group to back them up in their beliefs because, in reality, they are very insecure about their identities. Therefore they can't go against the group. And there is also the feeling of the potential condemnation for going against one's group - because people viciously protect the dogma.
Also because people are so insecure, they frequently can waste a lot of time railing against other people who are different from themselves in some way. The other person's choice to do something in a way that is different from theirs, causes an internal challenge in their psyche which is a bit like Do they think my way is wrong? If they aren’t doing what I'm doing right now, they must think I'm wrong.
So they mount an offense preemptively, condemning the other person or group of persons. I've seen it over and over.
Even if you don't believe you're doing that, when you hate a person for some aspect of themselves which has nothing to do with you, you are probably doing that. And you're not a Christian.
A so-called Christian who feels the need to rail against gay people, for example, is wasting time condemning a group that has nothing to do with them. Even if you believe that being gay is a choice and is wrong, you should consider the concept which has been put forth of hating the sin, not the sinner.
While not entirely unoffensive, that idea is at least generous enough to allow for the holding of a belief (whether correctly or not) without condemning another person's right to exist. Sadly, many relatives of gay people (and many unrelated strangers) cannot bring themselves to even act lovingly towards them, much less fully accept them without condemnation of their humanity.
That's mostly because of a guy named “Paul” in the bible. Paul claimed that being gay was an abomination
in a few different verses, and it is mentioned in the book of Timothy, but not much elsewhere. Jesus certainly is not quoted about it.
It doesn't make any sense that God
would care about such a thing as the bodily features of whomever one chooses as a life partner. But Paul claimed that he does (Paul claimed a lot of things). In real life, there are babies who are born with ambiguous DNA and/or hermaphrodites. What would someone like Paul claim God
requires of those people, regarding a life partner?
Joel Osteen was once asked (by Oprah) about his position on homosexuality. His response was basically that he was required to condemn it because of it being in the bible, and like it's not up to him.
This method of forming one's opinions, means one cannot use their own critical thinking to decide what is fair or logical or good, because they must defer to a statement made by a particular man quoted in the bible. This makes them Paulians,
if anything, not Christians.
Christ in the bible, was accepting and loving and was always telling people to stop judging each other. For example, when they come to him asking if they can stone (murder) someone, he tells them he who is without sin
can cast the first stone. He essentially calls them hypocrites. And there are many more examples like this. Christ in the bible did not behave the way that many of the so-called Christians currently behave while using his name. Now, some Christians do seem to have a better grasp on the meaning of that word, and I've known a couple of them. They are the sweet, kind and peaceful ones.
You do not cause your own calamity, as has been claimed by promoters of The Secret.
They are referring to a phenomenon of the mind which very much does exist. But they got it wrong when they claimed it was absolute.
It most definitely is not absolute. Did Jesus put out bad energy, causing him to get back
the energy which caused his own murder? Of course not. No one would adhere to such a concept when speaking of Jesus. But they will try to put it onto you. Those people are incorrect.
The TV app Gaia
has a show called Bliss Up - Exploring Energy The Ultimate Healer.
The proponents describe that trauma can sometimes be passed down generationally in DNA. That would mean it is not really yours; and if that's the case, then how could you have caused it yourself? You couldn't. Nor is there any evidence that you have to have drawn
it to yourself.
King Solomon in the bible, says ...time and chance happen to them all
and Jesus said Those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no...
So while you could definitely experience consequences from your own actions, you could also experience chance.
Both are real.
Whatever a person does or doesn't do, is based on what they know or have experienced, and what their physical brain is capable of. In that sense, we are all doing the best we can, all the time. Virtually no one says What is the right thing to do here? I’m going to do the opposite.
And if they did think something like that, it would be because of something inside their human brain, making them want to do that. Probably something they don't have much control over. This doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't feel mad at them. It doesn't condone bad behavior, but it could explain it. It doesn't mean that the act of bullying others should not be condemned. It should.
If you've made mistakes (and we all have), you were probably doing the best you could with your level of knowledge or understanding, or emotional capacity at the time. So just keep asking yourself if you're doing the right things, and doing better and better.
Sometimes people even go to extremes like murder. And our society is quick to punish them, even before it's proven. If it's actually proven (not just a lynch mob, which it sometimes is) and the person is likely very dangerous, then those people need to be kept away from the rest of society for our protection. Not just specifically for punishment of the perpetrators. We should have a system that seeks to dig deep into the reasons that things happen, figure out if they can be prevented in the future, and protect us from dangerous people, more than seeking only to dole out punishment. But instead, we have a prison industrial complex - because fear leads to greed. And greed leads to industrial complexes which can generate more and more money to feed the egos of the fearful.
Many times there are reasons that someone has turned to the dark side, if that's the case. Some of those people could be helped instead of hardened. Not at the expense of everyone else's safety. But actual rehabilitation whenever possible, could make us all safer in the end.
This would be an objective and useful view of this issue, more than a fearful one.
That's all for today.
-Anonymous