{"id":7,"date":"2007-07-11T02:05:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/07\/punishment-forgiveness-us-and.html"},"modified":"2007-07-11T02:05:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-11T02:05:00","slug":"punishment-forgiveness-us-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/07\/punishment-forgiveness-us-and.html","title":{"rendered":"Punishment, forgiveness, the Pope, and God"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of <\/em>Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The \u201cNew Spirituality\u201d is defined by the author as \u201ca new way to experience our natural impulse toward the Divine, which does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
\n* One more take on the Libby thing<\/em>
\n* Is prison the answer for society’s ‘offenders’?<\/strong>
\n* What would God do if God were in the White House?
\n* What would God do if God were in the Vatican?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there you have it. The President has commuted the sentence of I. Lewis \u201cScooter\u201d Libby. In the fast-paced world of What\u2019s New NOW I know that this is already ancient information. Still, it is one piece of news that is not going to go away between now and Election Day 2008. In that context it seems topical to ask you: What do you think of all this?
\nI mean, from the standpoint of the New Spirituality<\/em> what do you think of all this?
\nI asked this question in the Forum on my personal website the other day, and I received one very fascinating answer. A woman named Tricia wrote\u2026<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI am torn by the issue. I think that our system of justice is obviously skewed toward people with money, power, and connection to power. So my first impulse was to want him to serve the time as anyone else would have.
\n\u201cOn the other hand, I don’t think that jails and prisons teach people very much. They simply punish. And so unless I buy into the punishment paradigm, and wish revenge for this person, how could I want him to serve time?
\n\u201cMy \u2018little me\u2019 wants him and this administration to answer for their corruption. But what would the \u2018Big Me\u2019 want? Him to be away from his children? Do I think that he would \u2018learn his lesson\u2019 in prison?
\n\u201cI loved what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did in South Africa after the revolution there. They asked people to come and state their crimes, they explored them and sometimes wept over them, and then they granted the perpetrators pardon and mercy. They set them free. I think this would be such a great model if we could truly follow it.\u201d<\/strong>
\nAll I can say to that response is…”Wow, wow, and double wow.” That is exactly what Conversations with God<\/em> would say on this subject, and it is exciting to me to see the deeper messages of CwG so clearly understood and articulated by those who have embraced these ideas and made them part of their lives.
\nOf course, Tricia’s thoughts on this subject create a wide open field for further discussion. If there is to never be any punishment for anything, if everyone is simply to be talked to and then pardoned, how can a civilized society exist? What of retribution? What of justice? And what of deterrence?
\nWhat do you think God would do, if God were sitting in the White House?
\nI shall comment more on Libby Liberty tomorrow.
\nRight now, I want to make a simple comment on Pope Benedict’s astonishing re-statement yesterday of ancient Roman Catholic belief. As you must surely know, the Pope has declared that the Catholic Church is the one and only True Church, and that all other religions — including other Christian denominations — are lacking. One cannot experience “salvation” through any of them, is how I believe the Pontiff put it.
\nMy simple comment: The Pope is wrong. Of course. As we all know. As all<\/em> thinking people know. Yet there is something here that we should all notice. It is the trend.
\nWe are seeing a trend here, a return by nearly every religion that I know of to fundamentalism. The Pope has based his declaration on the doctine of what he claims is Divine succession or Divine lineage. That is, the Pope is the direct successor to Peter, who was the direct successor to Jesus, appointed by Jesus to run his church. Since no other Christian church recognizes the Divine ordination and lineage of the Pope (and, therefore, his Divine authority), no other church can be legitimate. This create an immediate (and unnecessary) conflict with ever other Christian denomination in the world.
\nDoes anyone see the obvious and immediate resemblance to this exact same conflict now raging between the Sunnis and the Shiites within the community of Islam? The argument, in case you don’t know it, has to do with succession<\/em>. It has to do with Divine lineage<\/em>. And this argument that has raged for centuries is not a small one. Millions have died in its service.
\nAnd now, here we go again.
\nI will have more to say on this subject in the days and weeks ahead. But I am telling you know that unless we reject this Claim to Exclusivity that rigid religions insist on making (other Christian faiths declare flatly that belief in Jesus as a personal Savior is the only way to heaven, which automatically eliminates Jews, Hindus, Muslims, even, by their lights, Mormons — who themselves claim to be Christians — from all possibility of entering the Kingdom of God.)
\nHow can we do<\/em> this to ourselves? How can we continue to perpetrate this Separation Theology in the name of the One God? More on this in upcoming entries.
\nBut right now…I want to introduce what is going to be a regular Wednesday Feature<\/strong> of the CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD<\/em> blog. Wednesday is Question and Answer Day <\/strong>on the blog…a time for you to ask any question that you may have about the nine Conversations with God <\/em>books, or the New Spirituality. Here’s this week’s entry…
\nTopic: <\/strong>The Illusions
\nQuestion asked by:<\/strong> Dr Redman Crosby
\nQuestion:<\/strong> Dear Neale, your book Communion with God<\/em> jumped out at me from my local bookstore the other day. I had asked that moring in my day prayer, for all that I must be, all that I must do, and all that I must know,as I do every morning.
\nMy Question is this, the illusion of NEED of course is the real Illusion and every other is built on that, as stated in the book…. Do you yourself personally become fascinated with the shear antithesis of NEED? which is what of course it is there for. Do you sometimes pinch yourself at times, at your own ability to see through the huge media contingent and press that follow you and quote you now in your life?.
\nI have watched the movie CWG five times at least now…
\nNamaste ………. Red
\nNeale’s Response: <\/strong>Dear Red…
\nThanks for your question.
\nYes, I do become fascinated with this whole subject of “need” and its antithesis. I find that most people I know feel a deep “need” for certain experiences in their life — the highest of which is love.
\nBut what if we did not need anything? Not even “love”? What if we actually were everything we think we need? I mean, what if everything inside of us corresponded to everything outside of us that we think we need, in terms of feelings and emotional content?
\nI am learning more and more these days to step away from my feelings of “need” when they arise (and, of course, they do.) But the real challenge is not stepping away from those feelings…it is stepping away from those feelings and then not feeling someone “un-human”. I mean, feeling a “need” for stuff feels very human. And NOT feeling a need for ANYthing (or most things) sometimes feels like I am a robot.
\nDo you know what I mean?
\nSo I am working now on trying to retain my humanity and my compassion and my ability to empathize with others, while still releasing my sense of personal “need” for anything or anyone.
\nIt’s a tough challenge. I write about this in my new book, I Never Said It Was Going to be Easy.
\nThe folks in the media do a very good job, in general, of getting my message out, and I am grateful to all the reporters and their publications and TV and radio outlets who have covered me and my message as a “story.”
\nIt is really God’s message, of course, and I am so happy and so humbled and so grateful to have been given a role in helping it get out to the people in our world.
\nFascinating that you were right here in my part of the world when I was writing CwG!
\nBlessed be….neale.
\n(Ask Neale<\/em> may be accessed on a daily basis in the Messenger’s Circle at Neale’s personal website: www.nealedonaldwalsch.com. Each week, on Wednesday, Neale selects a question from those posted there and publishes it in this blog.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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