\u201cYes, but as a practical political matter, how would \u2018Oneness\u2019 work?\u201d, a questioner in my audience in Hamburg pointedly asked me last week. I had only to look to Myanmar to find an example.
\nI had just finished telling a crowd of over 300 that the single biggest mistake humanity has ever made has been its acceptance, as part of its Cultural Story, of the idea of Separation.
\nAccording to this story, human beings are separate from each other.
\nThis way of holding the human experience is soundly based in \u201cSeparation Theology.\u201d And what is that? Well, let me ask you a question. Do you think about God? If you do, what thoughts do you think? Do you think that there is a God? If you do, what do you think that God is? A Being in the sky? A loving but stern parent? Someone to fear? Someone to love? Both?
\nWhatever you think, if you think that there is a God at all, I\u2019m going to wager that there is one thought you hold in common with billions of other people. I could be wrong, you could be one of the few exceptions that prove the rule, but if you are not, if you embrace the view of the vast majority, the thought that you hold in common with billions of others is this…<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but as a practical political matter, how would \u2018Oneness\u2019 work?\u201d, a questioner in my audience in Hamburg pointedly asked me last week. I had only to look to Myanmar to find an example. I had just finished telling a crowd of over 300 that the single biggest mistake humanity has ever made has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-news-and-the-new-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n…God is separate from us.
\nMost of the world\u2019s people adhere to what I have come to call Separation Theology. The God of this theology is named Iohayot. That sounds a bit like a Native American word, but it is not. It\u2019s my personal acronym for I\u2019m Over Here And You\u2019re Over There.
\nThis is as valid a name as any of the others that humanity has come up with, including Allah, Brahmin, God, Jehovah, Krishna, or Yahweh, and it\u2019s far more descriptive of the actual concept of God held by most humans. Religion is not noted for producing widespread agreement among people, yet whatever the fervently religious may disagree on, most concur that God says: \u201cI\u2019m Over Here And You\u2019re Over There.\u201d
\nGod then adds, \u201cYou may come over here if you wish, but there are certain things that you have to do.\u201d God then gives us the list of those things. That list has been read by many people in many different ways, and those different ways are sometimes called religions.
\nThere is only One List, each of our religions assert, and we must not be confused into thinking that there are many, nor so perplexed by the False Lists put out by others that we pick the Wrong One.
\nThis description of human theologies is simplistic in the extreme, yet it is not that far from being an accurate, if very basic, summary of our beliefs. And these beliefs are killing us.
\nSeparation Theology\u2014worship of the God Iohayot\u2014will, if it continues much longer on our planet, bring an end to life as we know it on the earth. It has already begun to do so.
\nMany people believe that this is because, while God is, indeed, \u201cover there\u201d and we are \u201cover here,\u201d God has to sometimes come \u201cover here\u201d to teach us a lesson. And so God comes down to punish us for our sins, make us pay for our offenses, or do whatever else is necessary to reestablish the natural order of things and bring Right into proper balance with that which is Not Right.
\nUnder this philosophy the AIDS epidemic, the increasing violence on the earth, the degradation of our environment, the dismantling of our social systems, the erosion and destruction of our collective morals, the poverty and pestilence afflicting millions, are all signs of God\u2019s anger — punishments from On High brought on by humanity\u2019s increasingly evil behavior.
\n(This is the first of a three-part series. The second installment will be found here tomorrow. NOTE: 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 and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"