Re-abolish slavery by a show of hands

Why was Jesus crucified?

My friend James gave me an explanation for why Jesus was crucified that overcomes one of my primary stumbling blocks for acceptance of Jesus' life-story being all-important.

I have been "blocked" by this set of components:

Since God is omnipotent, why would it be necessary for God to sacrifice his son, if that is all so painful. I mean, if God can do pretty much anything, He can get the result, forgiveness of man's sins, without any prerequisite.

Preachers at the mission have explained things in these terms: A sacrifice had been necessary as atonement for sins. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, relieving mankind of the necessity of sacrificing animals for sin in the future, and it gains man an opportunity to return to an edenic heaven. By accepting Jesus into our heart, we are saved from sin and may see God and praise Him forever.

THAT explanation seems wildly strange to me. There is simply no logic I can find in the set of conditions and what transpires.

James, though, explains the crucifixion in this way [paraphrasing]:

Jesus should be seen as an example for us. His goodness and humility are qualities we should emulate and make authentic for our self. We should strive to be courageous, willing to pay the ultimate price in our love of God and in our love of our neighbors (which are everybody, including those who see us as as their enemy).

SoHo Gallery tribute to Michael of One foot in front of the other

Be aware, any New York area readers, that, through July 4, photographs taken by Michael [blogger of One foot in front of the other] will be on display in a show at Soho Photo Gallery (map).

Our beloved Michael died on January 15, 2008.

You can read the notice of the gallery showing in a post put up by Michael's relatives in One foot in front of the other.

Spread the word, kind Buddhist bloggers who read this post, or, others who have a twitter account, or somesuch!

Here, just one of many excellent month's-worth of Michael's blogposts. Look at the pictures! Read Michael's powerful words!

[Ofifoto Blogisattva awards.]

Heart of Stone

At the end of his sermon Friday night, the guest pastor from Hillsdale Blvd Baptist Church, asked the rescue mission congregants to close their eyes and submit to his inquiries.

I don't remember exactly what was said, but this is the gist of it:

He asked those who had fallen away from Christ but wanted to renew their faith to raise a hand. He said, I see you sir; you in the back; you on the left aisle. He then said he would pray for them.

Then he asked those who had never been Chistians but were open to more information to raise a hand. As before, he identified a few hands he saw in the audience and said he would pray for them.

He did the same for another couple of categories of imperfect, but seeking possible-Christians.

Finally, he then asked for a show of hands from those who had no expectation of finding Christ. I raised my hand. He thanked me for my courage and said he would pray for me.

The pastor then publically issued a prayer for each category of people he identified. For the last group, in which I think I was the only member, he identified me as the man with the heart of stone, and began a prayer of admonishment.

I yelled out, though chapel rules preclude doing so, "I don't have a heart of stone," but the pastor went forward with his admonishing prayer.

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As it happened, where the pastor stepped down from the dais is right where shelter guys line up who are doing "kitchen duty" that night. Since I was slated for kitchen duty, I was immediately very near the pastor, and I couldn't withhold from having a word to say to him – though my friend, Elgin, in line with me, had tight grip of my shoulder as a way of conveying to me his hope that I would pull back.

I wasn't angry, but I wasn't self-censuring, either. I told the pastor that I thought his words where unfortunate, that his words represented hate talk and were not in accord with the emergent church.

The pastor told me he wasn't a part of the emergent church, and I told him I apprehended that.

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I'm not writing this post because I am so sure I did the right – or even, a good – thing. I don't know that I did. I'm getting A LOT of services and benefit from Union Gospel Mission without being a likely convert to Christianity. [Indeed, I'm a professed, happy Buddhist.] Still, I do wish a small minority of the preachers wouldn't talk up the curious idea that secular America, or all non-Christians, are, somehow, 'out to get' Christianity in this country. Or, that non-Christians are, necessarily, Satan followers.

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Saying that someone has a "heart of stone" is a particularly scathing term in Christian circles. A "stony heart" is mentioned a couple times in the book of Ezekiel; but from what I'm learning online, Jeremiah 17:9 gives us the most deft understanding, even as stone isn't part of any mainline translation of the verse. The verse is this [King James]: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

But the immediate next verse is this: "I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." And if you look at the whole chapter it is God who is searching people's hearts and making judgments, not something that is left to man.

Two verses in the book of Ezekiel, in chapters 11 and 36 are near identical. They both speak of a stony heart. They read thus:

Ezekiel 11:19: And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

In context, both verses are about the new heart given the people of Israel as they become God's chosen people. The idea, then, in the Bible re stoniness of heart is with respect to God's tasks, and judgments, not man's or arrogant preachers.

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But the bigger issue goes to hate-mongering by Christian preachers, something that comes from a minority of those who visit Union Gospel Mission.

One speaker, associated with Trinity Bible College [and not the congregation favorite, the beloved and UGM-alumnus Ron Smith], spend a bit of time talking to the guys in the chapel about "God haters," some months back. "God haters" is the term he used for those who hadn't confessed their allegiance to Jesus Christ or idolotrate worldly things above or instead of God.

Words/terms mean something, and "God haters" is powerful, specific and accusatory. And with its intensity, it more than implies that that these worldly folk are actively thinking about and denouncing God.

Of course, this isn't so. The thing about 'worldly folk' is that they are oblivious to Christianity, not attacking it. They are barbecuing burgers on Sundays and watching sports on TV, not thinking hateful things about God. In America, Christianity simply isn't being threatened. Next to nobody at all wants Christianity to go away, and there isn't even a whit of discussion anywhere about taking away any of the religion's exclusion from being subject to taxation.

These aren't Roman times! No one's rounding up the Christians. A few prominent atheist writers may on very rare occassions cross the line, but for practical purposes – for ALL purposes – there are no God haters. The country is washed nearly as white as snow on that one. Get off your hate-mongering, Christian preachers. Knock it off!! It is YOU who are way, way out of line.

Lincoln was a buddha

Writing in 1880, John Caird, looking back at the man's life, wrote these eloquent summarizing words

…[My overall impression] is that of a man who combined with intellectual originality other and not less essential elements of greatness, such as magnanimity and moral elevation of nature, superiority to vulgar passions, and absorption of mind with larger objects, such as rendered him absolutely insensible to personal ambition, also self-reliance and strength of will – the confidence that comes from consciousness of power and resource – the quiet, patient, unflinching resolution which wavers not from its purpose in the face of dangers and difficulties that baffle or wear out men of meaner mould. Along with these, we must ascribe to him other qualities not always or often combined with them, such as sweetness, gentleness, quickness and width of sympathy.

Caird's words are about Gautama Buddha, but can very much be said of Abraham Lincoln, as well – a person no less extraordinary and no less different from the people all about him such that his impact was astonishing. Events, time and place all had overwhelming influence in making Buddha Gautama and Abraham Lincoln immortal persons. But both had buddhaseeds sprouting when they were children. And both acted in ways that baffle ordinary men.

Buddha Gautama is a whole other story. He decided to try to let others in on what propelled him. Abraham Lincoln's strange life's journey led him to center stage during America's most trying time, just at that pivotal moment when the baton of the presidency needed to be passed … to that rare diamond, a buddha.

Caird's assessment is interesting in that he didn't apprehend Gautama Buddha as being a buddha. His opinion was what he came to know of Guatama as a man, from what documents he read, compared to ordinary men. Likewise, persons who knew Abraham Lincoln, most all of whom appraised him as an astonishing human being, did not have the wherewithal to assess his high spiritual attainment directly.

Young Mr. Lincoln

The shorthand for Lincoln's boyhood days are that his mother died when he was quite young, but, happily, a wonderful, loving stepmother took her place in his life; he lived in a log cabin; he was naturally athletic, but he was inclined to turn his head toward the pages of a book; and in all ways, even as a youngster, he was honest and wholesome.

All of the above is true. What is not understood is that it is true to an outrageous extreme. Furthermore, it is not understood, except by scholars, that Lincoln was very much not the pastoral, ah-shucks Huckleberry of legend and as portrayed in old movies, but was instead an outlandish alien freakazoid! If he had had a single eye in the middle of his forehead, pointy ears and the ability to fly he would have been a more natural citizen of placid rural Indiana & Illinois than the gawky, two-eyed, big-eared, non-flying Abe Lincoln reality who was born in 1809 and died from an assassin's bullet.

Rural Indiana and Illinois of the 1810s and 20s was the edge of the wild, uncivilized West. The land was rustic and primal as were the isolated homesteading inhabitants. Boys were supposed to be especially ornery and mean and scarred up and smelly. They would torture animals and torture each other and had distain for learning much more than how to shoe a horse or slaughter a pig. Constant hard physical labor was required of all members of a family to stave off death in the boggy, cold, isolated areas where Lincoln grew up. Poisoned milk killed Lincoln's mother, his maternal grandparents and others. A harsh winter killed scores of neighbors – some found only after the spring thaw.

One thing remembered by many who knew him as a small child was his love of animals. One schoolmate remembered that he quite seriously lectured others about ants' right to life; another, that he broke up a gang of 'mates that were torturing terrapin turtles for entertainment and that he composed essays against cruelty toward animals on multiple occasions.

Though hunting was one of the few pleasures for men and boys of the rural Midwest, Lincoln would not hunt. And though his farming background could have been of great advantage to him politically, he didn't speak of it – most probably since memories of it were admixed with the pain of having been hired out by his father to help slaughter pigs.

William Lee Miller, author of the book “Lincoln's Virtues” wrote “Throughout the life of that extraordinary hired hand whose name was Abraham Lincoln, there would be a recurrent pattern: an initial impression of the boy or the lad or the man, derived from externals and superficialities, would then be overthrown by the shock of recognition of this intellectual power.” Miller, it seems to me, has it mostly right, but from (my interpretation of) the words of others in his book and other books [and of these, most-especially William Herndon's “The Hidden Lincoln”] it is not “intellectual power” that throws people for a loop – rather it's Lincoln's emptiness of guile and ineffable Buddha glow that might find expression through his intellect, but might also shine from his compassion, humanity or just the way he held an ax.

A Religious Man

Mary Todd Lincoln said, after her husband's death, “He never joined a church; but still, as I believe, he was a religious man by nature.”

As a young man Lincoln would engage in discussions advocating a “doctrine of necessity,” that opposed unfettered free will. I think this is very much a young person's insight into the interconnectedness of all things and beings and the chain of causes that seem to determine all events. A less magnificent person than Lincoln is likely to develop from this beginning, a religious sensibility grounded in scientism. Compassion toward others then becomes just a wildly romantic indulgence. But Lincoln, above everything was vividly compassionate and it was through this lens that he increasingly sought wisdom.

The beauty of his character was its entire simplicity. … True to nature, true to himself, he was true to everybody and everything about and around him. When he was ignorant on any subject, no matter how simple it might make him appear he was always willing to acknowledge it. His whole aim in life was to be true to himself and being true to himself he would be false to no one. – Joshua Speed, one of Lincoln's closest friends.

Speed's statement is as clarion a depiction of authenticity as you might find. Authenticity is a requirement for spiritual advancement.

In his mid-20s, Lincoln wrote a manuscript showing that the Bible was false. He did not believe that Jesus was God and could not believe that a true God would bring punishment to his 'children' when the laws of cause and effect that he saw in the world were pre-eminent forces. His friends were shocked by his beliefs that his law partner, William Herndon, contends he maintained throughout his life. Fearing for his political future, one friend burned the manuscript to keep it from being published. Still, Lincoln – who continued to be forthright and outspoken on the subject – was dogged by a reputation thereafter for being an infidel which was politically damaging.

With Malice toward none …

Leonard Swett, a close friend of Lincoln's, said in an interview, a year after the assassination, “He was certainly a very poor hater. He never judged men by his like, or dislike for them. If any given act was to be performed, he could understand that his enemy could do it just as well as any one. If a man had maligned him, or been guilty of personal ill-treatment and abuse, and was the fittest man for the place, he would put him in his Cabinet just as soon as he would his friend. I do not think he ever removed a man because he was his enemy, or because he disliked him.”

Indeed, Swett's words are a gross understatement; Lincoln was incapable of hate. Lincoln included on his initial Cabinet men who were his rivals for the Republican nomination in 1860 -- and he was especially gracious to guarantee the acceptance of his chief rival, William Seward, to the post of Secretary of State.

Edwin M. Stanton, who was Lincoln's second Secretary of War, is a particularly curious case. Stanton (of whom Fredrick Douglass would observe, “Politeness was not one of his weaknesses”) had ignored Lincoln, utterly, when – many years before he became president -- they were two of three lawyers chosen to represent a company for a particularly important civil suit. Lincoln was not a well-educated East Coast attorney, like the others. Judged from the fact that Lincoln was a rural Illinois lawyer, gangly and not well dressed, he was kept silent at the lawyers' table and the closing argument which he had prepared went unheard and was curtly ignored: The text, that Lincoln had passed on to his colleagues in a sealed letter, was returned to him unopened.

In the first years of the Lincoln administration, there are public records of Stanton referring to Lincoln as an imbecile (twice) and a baboon, yet Lincoln was undeterred in his selection of Stanton as his Secretary of War. He selected the best person for the position and ignored all else.
Observes William Lee Miller, “[Lincoln's] 'ego,' as we call it now, did not distort his good mind's working. His considerable self-confidence notwithstanding, he would achieve a detached and proportionate sense of himself in relation to an unflinching measure of the scope and meaning of the enormous human drama that confronted him. His self did not get in the way.”

Ambition

The biggest character flaw that William Lee Miller tags Lincoln with is ambition. It would also be an overwhelming obstacle to the thesis that Lincoln is a Buddha, if one agrees with Miller that at times Lincoln pushed himself forward, instead of doing the right thing that might have been politically disadvantageous.

For Miller, Ambition first comes up when looking at Lincoln's vocational choices. Instead of remaining in his rural community, either as a farmer or businessman, Lincoln chose to become a lawyer and move to the city of Springfield.

Despite his wide-ranging, superlative skills, Lincoln may have had fewer options than Miller supposes. Saddled with deep compassion for the suffering of animals, he was not suited for farm work. Much as a Buddhist is indisposed to take up the profession of being a butcher, Lincoln was indisposed to make his life's work one that included the slaughtering of farm animals.

Entrepreneurs need to be of a character such that they are eager to profit, overgreatly at times, at the expense of unwitting customers in order to make their businesses thrive. Lincoln did not have the disposition required for him to be a successful businessman. Indeed, young Lincoln's business ventures failed, putting him in a deep debt that took years for him to extricate himself from.

Becoming a lawyer, and tossing himself into the political maelstrom of his time and place, seems to have been the vocational path (and spiritual challenge) that was left to him after crossing off others. His wasn't a fulsome, consuming ambition; rather, it was that last path available that was suitable to his blend of talents and weaknesses.

Lincoln's Face

“At first glance, some thought him grotesque, even ugly, and almost all considered him homely. When preoccupied or in repose he certainly was far from handsome. At times he looked unutterably sad, as if every sorrow were his own, or he looked merely dull, with a vacant gaze,” one observer wrote. Still, as even the caustic Englishman Dicey observed, there was for all his grotesqueness, "an air of strength, physical as well as moral, and a strange look of dignity" about him. And when he spoke a miracle occurred. "The dull, listless features dropped like a mask." according to Horace White, an editor of the "Chicago Tribune". "The eyes began to sparkle, the mouth to smile, the whole countenance was wreathed in animation, so that a stranger would have to say, "Why this face, so angular and somber a moment ago, is really handsome!" He was the homeliest man I ever saw." said Donn Piatt, and yet there was something about the face that Piatt never forgot. "It brightened, like a lit lantern, when animated."

The poet Walt Whitman commented after getting a close-up view: "None of the artists or pictures have caught the subtle and indirect expression of this man's face." And again, some years after Lincoln's death: "Though hundreds of portraits have been made, by painters and photographers (many to pass on, by copies, to future times), I have never seen one yet that in my opinion deserved to be called a perfectly good likeness: nor do I believe there is really such a one in existence."

"Beyond a certain point Lincoln's appearance not only defied description; it also baffled interpretation. "There is something in the face which I cannot understand." said Congressman Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. And the leader of the German-Americans in Illinois, Gustave Koerner, remarked: "Something about the man, the face is unfathomable. In his looks there were hints of mysteries within."

Buddha as a Man; Lincoln as a Man

In the middle of the 19th Century, when Lincoln was being assessed as a heroic and tragic figure, Buddha was being introduced and examined by Victorian England. Since others' assessments of Lincoln are colored by culture, time and place, I think it is interesting to see how similarly Buddha Gautama was viewed.

From the book “The British Discovery of Buddhism,” comes this quote:

Of all the qualities praised, it is the Buddha's compassion and sympathy that was most often remarked upon. Millions were won by his intense sympathy for suffering, observed Joseph Edkins [quoted in Remarks on Budhism (sic)]. According to The Westminster Review in 1878, his was 'the example of a life in which the loftiest morality was softened and beautified by unbounded charity and devotion to the good of his fellow-men'; and The Church Quarterly Review for 1882 viewed him as one 'who, born a prince, sympathized with the sorrows and the moral struggles of the meanest; who … opened his arms to receive as a brother every one who pursued goodness, truth, unselfishness, and his ideal …' George Grant remarked in 1895 that, after making all allowances for accretions, the picture remains of an extraordinary man 'the memory of whose unselfish life, thirst for truth, and love for humanity ought to be honoured to the latest generations.'

Fittingly, the last year of the century, William Rattigan drew together the Victorian assessment of the Buddha:

Having regard to the intellectual and religious darkness of the period, it is impossible not to accord a high degree of admiration to Gautama for the lofty percepts he enunciated, for the gentleness and sereneness which pervade his utterances, for the deeply sympathetic and profoundly humanitarian spirit which underlie his doctrines, and for the manly endeavour he made to arouse a true feeling of self-reliance amoungst a people prone to lean for support upon others.

Conclusion

Yes, we exhaust ourselves on the legend of Lincoln in the third grade, and for us he becomes a tired relic, like Mickey Mouse and Brittany Spears and Star Wars sabers. His face – unanimated and serene – stares out at us from pennies and five-dollar bills. His wise words are just etchings on bronze somewhere -- the life that once was in his words has been expelled. “Fourscore and seven years …” sounds like a tiresome history lesson to us today, not the beginning of a speech, rich and eloquence, that brought chills and tears to Americans for decades after the speech was spoken.

If you pull together all the assessments of Lincoln, it is a remarkable record. He was greatly beloved by all in the communities he lived in. He was the dazzling, pre-eminent person – giving, loving and vividly authentic. Absolutely honest. Absolutely dependable. Fully in touch with the pain of others'. He held no grudges and condemned no one. He believed there was clarion truth in the notion that created America – that all had equal rights to live and equivalent right to live in liberty and pursue happiness. No one could be a master since no one should be a slave. And no one could be a slave since no one should be a master.

Somewhere back in misty time, one of the buddhas that walked this earthy earth became president of the United States. And it made a difference.

O thy metaphorical B.I.B.L.E.

Preachers at the mission tell me that BIBLE stands for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth." Well, maybe. But not in the way those preachers intend it.

The preachers think that it is the kindly-hearted, literal instructions of a mysterious three-aspect Father/Son/Ghost who is jealous and so compassionate and unconditionally loving He intends to toss 10 billion people into a lake of fire to be tormented beyond mere waterboarding, forevermore! Yipe.

A merciless, meanspirited god, that, I say.

No, no, you whacky literalists. You have it all wrong! The Bible is metaphorical/allegorical. So, forging forward from Kyle R. Lovett's post "Could the biblical story of Adam and Eve be a metaphor for Buddhist teachings?" in Progressive Buddhism, and my own fine post, borrowing heavily from Joseph Campbell, "Tom's First Sermon at Union Gospel Mission," let us look at other things from the Bible, both of what they truly intend, and the hash that's been made of them by believing them literally, in the backward, unknowing, childish way of the ancients.

One God

First, let us look at the idea of One God. Where did that come from? According to Solomon Goldman [in his book The Book of Books],

[The Bible] had its beginnings in the tales of a bold skeptic of whom it was recounted that, having rejected the beliefs universally adhered to in his day, he set out to transform the face of the earth. How he came by his skepticism or new faith is a question easier asked than answered ... Of this much we are certain: once, in the ancient world, there lived a Jew, or one whom the Jews came to regard and claim as their own, who, repelled by idolatrous creeds and pagan practices, groped his way to a glimpse of the One God, perfect in all perfection.

Let us face it, Goldman over- and under-states things here. The idea of One God has enormous appeal and can have been thought up by many. And, indeed, there are very many One Gods.

The "obvious" One God is inscrutable and acts outlandishly. Ancient people would credit everything to this One God, certainly including tempestuous weather, terrible illnesses and great good fortune.

And having God "on your side," has to have seemed to be the best, easiest way to win in all you transactions with others. And how might you get God on your side? It would seem an impossible thing, for God is God, he doesn't need anything.

What, then, can you do for him? For a backward, childish people, as the ancients most certainly were [compared to what's possible for US, that is], all you might do is praise him, and possibly give him things by denying yourself things. Thus, praise and sacrifice was all you could do.

But by praising and sacrificing to God, surely you are demeaning him. Is God an egomaniac? He doesn't need praise. What value could he place in praise from those pitiful [as compared to Him] human creatures? And what possible purpose can God have for sacrifices, unless God is sadistic and just enjoys the misery that comes from sacrifice?

Truly, the notion of One God doesn't help in formulating an understanding of the creation, structure and meaning of the universe. Besides, if you posit One God, you have to come up with an explanation of how He came to be.

Still, One God, a being with completely-free will, and total power, has enormous appeal. Why? Because we can imagine ourselves in His place, with the ability to completely clean up our messy lives. And wouldn't it be delicious [to a child] to be able to know everything and reign over everyone with the capability of crushing any opposition? Why, he's better than Superman, Spiderman and ALL the superheroes put together!

God was created, not in man's image, but in man/child's imagination of what it would be like to be all powerful.

And what could this One God do, all by himself, before there was anything? Why, create toys – aspects of himself. And so he made microscopic life, something that moved on its own, as he did. And plants, that grew in ways that took advantage of their environment. And animals, that had the freedom to explore and exploit. And people, capable of contemplating their situation as He could.

These are the obvious lines of thinking, absent any modern information, about how the world and life came into being. And, thus, stories were created along these obvious lines.

The One God is sustained because He can so easily be utilized, both as a justification for nations [God is on our side] and as a balm for the underclass [God loves us; after our miserable lives, God will redeem us].

Morality

Mankind noticed that he was unlike the other animals: he was self reflective. He thought abstractly and separated those things that were good [gentle weather; the smell of flowers] from those things that were bad [thunderstorms; the smell of feces]. Note that ancient times were before the concept of evolution occured to anyone. Now, of course, we know that feces, and pretty much all other 'bad' things are 'bad,' only because they are contrary to what aids with our success as a lifeform. Feces doesn't intrinsically smell bad; it only smells bad to us because our nose has evolved as a sense that, roughly, distinguises for us what's good for us from what's bad – usually with respect to what we should & shouldn't eat.

Ancient man wondered what was ultimately Good and ultimately Bad and figured that only God would know. God would surely know because God, himself, created the division between good and bad, ancient man, understandably, believed.

Some things that seemed good in an immediate sense, had long-term bad results. [Screwing your neighbor's wife, for example.] Some things that seemed bad, had long-term good results. [Lifting weights; eating broccoli instead of cookies, for examples.] Thus, ancient humans knew, better than other animals, that it was very helpful to plan and put off or avoid some pleasures for one's long-term betterment, or for the long-term betterment of the community.

But there were problems to overcome. Some people take advantage of others, ruthlessly. Others thrive by being paragons of virtue. Quick! Go to God; He'll sort things out for us.

Thus the tall tale of Moses coming down from the mountain with the stone tablets. Hard, fast rules of conduct. Sins are IDed.

As metaphor, this is to the good. Mankind recognizes morality, if only in broad strokes of absolute black and white. And he recognizes the need for a common morality such that everyone will tend to abide by the same rules of conduct.

But the rules are binary, commandments. There's no room made for situational exceptions. And a mere ten commandments don't begin to touch upon all the harmful things that people can do to each other. Where's "Thou shalt not sneeze directly on others and thus possibly cause others to catch your germs?," for example?

But the Ten Commandments [aka, the Decalogue] was a step forward. The laws apply equally to everyone. They don't give some people privileges and subjugate others.

Also there were myriad conflicts between what individual people wanted for themselves, and what served the good of a society at large. A heavy-handed and straightforward set of laws was purposeful in taming ancient societies.

Quoting H.A. Overstreet in The Mature Mind,

Animals know no moral law. For countless ages, man himself knew no moral law. In those animal-like ages, his self-restraints were those of custom, not of understanding in the area of social cause and effect. His relations with his fellows were instinctual, not moral.

Moses's descent from Mt. Sinai represents the insight that morality applied to all of us, equally. It was not, as the Jews experienced in Egypt, the arbitrary, self-engrandizing directives of a ruler. Thus, Moses's descent with the tablets represents a recognition that principles allowing us to live in harmony exist in a broadly defined way.

Indeed, Moses's "Thou shalt nots" are radically NOT directives from a King or God – except for the first Law.

That bold skeptic, or whomever he was who thought up the Moses tale, brought a liberating insight: Truth is one because the Source of truth is one.

Now watch what happened to this great insight – again, as reported by Dr. Goldman:

The people responded readily and agreed to do and obey. It resolved never again to be like unto the nations – but could not abandon their ways. It accepted the Eternal as God – but upon every hill and under every green tree it erected altars to wood and stone. It urged that man was God's image – but it would not abandon slavery ... It longed for justice . . . but, fond of bribes, it neither judged the orphan nor did it plead the cause of the widow. It looked forward to peace but periodically became enmeshed in the web of imperialistic ambitions of Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon as the case might be. In a word, it dreamed of the ideal society and even legislated for it, but never got down to build it.

This story of a people's noble belief and ignoble backslidings; of its inspiring faith and its failure to live up to that faith; of its spiritual triumph and unspiritual self-defeats is the story of immature men incapable of grasping the fullness of the truth that had been offered to them. It is the story that has been acted out in thousandfold ways through the ages and far beyond the limits of that small tribe of Jews.

Mathfails: Transpersonal party?

Quite frankly, you're invited.