Those who claim to know "truth" about God and human nature, simply because they read the Bible, are like a man who claims to have traveled the world because he once read a map.They do not see the "living word," which only exists in the world around them, but the dead letter, which is as bloodless a thing as dry ink on a page.
Those who cling as much to their Bibles as their religion only ever worship the law over mankind, even though it was Jesus himself who denounced as "snakes" and "vipers" those proud figures who everywhere exalted themselves through their conspicuous devotion to the former, while sacrificing his own life to defend the meekest of the latter.
The "snakes" and "vipers" have always been those who pretend to "be like God, knowing right from wrong," as that most famous of snakes promised Adam & Eve they would. But the stories of the Bible, when simply read and even worshiped, are as morally dead as those who read those stories are spiritually stunted.
In truth, the Bible is a story written more vividly in the world around us. If one wants to see the story of how Adam and Eve lost Eden by eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, look no further than the throngs of men and women around the world who bury their noses in their Apple iPhones, to distract themselves from the world they are unwittingly helping to destroy.
If one wants to see the story of Cain and Able, look no further than the ethos of capitalism that pits every man agaisnt his brother, for an economic religion that proclaims everywhere the gospel of survival of the fittest; or to battlefields across the globe, where every war is a global stage that plays out that story by the millions.
If one wants to see the story of Noah, look no further than all those who dare to stand up and proclaim there is a problem with the world and how we are treating every other living thing on it; those who dare to say we are polluting the one and killing off the other at a rate not seen since a meteor hit the earth some 6 million years ago.
If one wishes to see Sodom and Gomorrah, look no further than Las Vegas, where reality could not be more fictitious than an oasis built in the middle of a desert, where excess is the ethos of the day, and through a process of transubstantiation "the profit motive" transforms every religious vice into an economic virtue.
If one wishes to see Caiaphas, look no further than prosperity gospel pastors and televangelists, who buy personal jets and live in mansions by selling God to their congregations like the devil selling the sky to a blind man.
If one wishes to see "original sin," look no further than America's Indian Reservations, where addiction, suicide, crime, unemployment, and general hopelessness, has been the ongoing reward of all those who trusted the "white man," who stole their Eden with his lies, and submitted to the white man's religions: economic, theistic, and political.
If one wishes to see Christ in the world today, look no further than those who, like Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed saying mass in El Salvador, dare to protect the "meek of the earth" agaisnt the rapacious appetite of capitalism, wealth, privilege and power.
And if one wishes to know the truth about "God," the human condition, or virtually anything else, they must first have the courage to put down their "bible," which was only written by "snakes" and "vipers" to prevent us from ever understanding anything, least of all ourselves, and look at the world around them, through the eyes of a child.
Those who cling as much to their Bibles as their religion only ever worship the law over mankind, even though it was Jesus himself who denounced as "snakes" and "vipers" those proud figures who everywhere exalted themselves through their conspicuous devotion to the former, while sacrificing his own life to defend the meekest of the latter.
The "snakes" and "vipers" have always been those who pretend to "be like God, knowing right from wrong," as that most famous of snakes promised Adam & Eve they would. But the stories of the Bible, when simply read and even worshiped, are as morally dead as those who read those stories are spiritually stunted.
In truth, the Bible is a story written more vividly in the world around us. If one wants to see the story of how Adam and Eve lost Eden by eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, look no further than the throngs of men and women around the world who bury their noses in their Apple iPhones, to distract themselves from the world they are unwittingly helping to destroy.
If one wants to see the story of Cain and Able, look no further than the ethos of capitalism that pits every man agaisnt his brother, for an economic religion that proclaims everywhere the gospel of survival of the fittest; or to battlefields across the globe, where every war is a global stage that plays out that story by the millions.
If one wants to see the story of Noah, look no further than all those who dare to stand up and proclaim there is a problem with the world and how we are treating every other living thing on it; those who dare to say we are polluting the one and killing off the other at a rate not seen since a meteor hit the earth some 6 million years ago.
If one wishes to see Sodom and Gomorrah, look no further than Las Vegas, where reality could not be more fictitious than an oasis built in the middle of a desert, where excess is the ethos of the day, and through a process of transubstantiation "the profit motive" transforms every religious vice into an economic virtue.
If one wishes to see Caiaphas, look no further than prosperity gospel pastors and televangelists, who buy personal jets and live in mansions by selling God to their congregations like the devil selling the sky to a blind man.
If one wishes to see "original sin," look no further than America's Indian Reservations, where addiction, suicide, crime, unemployment, and general hopelessness, has been the ongoing reward of all those who trusted the "white man," who stole their Eden with his lies, and submitted to the white man's religions: economic, theistic, and political.
If one wishes to see Christ in the world today, look no further than those who, like Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed saying mass in El Salvador, dare to protect the "meek of the earth" agaisnt the rapacious appetite of capitalism, wealth, privilege and power.
And if one wishes to know the truth about "God," the human condition, or virtually anything else, they must first have the courage to put down their "bible," which was only written by "snakes" and "vipers" to prevent us from ever understanding anything, least of all ourselves, and look at the world around them, through the eyes of a child.
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