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Coaching Client Study Pages

Spiritual Awareness

A Look at How Humans Relate to "God" 

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Spiritual beliefs provide the context, within which we each hold our beliefs about what life is, about God and religion, about government and social behavior, about sex and marriage, about personal and business relationships, etc.

And of course, you and I both know that our religion is the one and only true religion.   But wait a minute!    We hold different religious beliefs.   We can't both be completely right.   How do we account for and how do we deal with our differences?   The text below offers one possible answer to those questions.

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Q:   What kind of possibilities?

R:   Perhaps human beliefs about reality don’t accurately represent all of reality.   Is it possible that there are still some vital pieces missing?   

There was a time when people believed the Earth was flat, like a three-layered cake with heaven above the clouds and hell beneath the Earth’s surface;  a time when the paranoid clerics burned their fellow humans as witches;  a time when humans considered themselves to be victims of an unknown reality that was completely controlled by God or the Devil.

Given the overwhelming evidence that there are vast areas of reality that we know little or nothing about, is it possible that there are things humans still don't know about the nature and purpose of human life?   With pieces missing, is it possible that humans have come to some erroneous conclusions? 

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Q:   It's not only possible, is almost certain that we don't know everything.

R:   Then let me ask you this:  Have you ever been wrong?

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Q:   Of course!

R:   While you were being wrong, did you know you were wrong?

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Q:  Of course not!   That's the essence of being wrong.

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Q:  That's certainly possible.

R:   Then the next time you think you have THE ONE AND ONLY correct answer about anything, stop for a minute and consider the possibility that you just might be wrong. 

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Q:  Obviously there are some missing pieces and humans have drawn some
        false conclusions.   What do you think is missing or erroneous? 

These three beliefs are mutually exclusive, so two of them must contain serious misrepresentation of reality. **    This means that billions of humans are living their lives based on a belief in something that's simply not true.   And as a result, some incredibly destructive decisions are being made -- decisions that are creating  irreversible, long-term, disastrous consequences. ** 

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Q:  Most people are kind and loving and would not intentionally harm anyone, so who is making these destructive decisions? 

R:   The people who run the world.   They're making decisions that will affect humanity for decades, for centuries, and, in all-too-many cases, for the entire remainder of Earth's existence.   When you make a decision with consequences of that magnitude, you'd best be basing that decision on something more than a fairytale belief about what "God" is or isn't.

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Q:  Can you offer some examples? 

R:  Of course.   Who but a religious fanatic or the criminally insane would promote, support, and/or stand by and allow mass murder such as that which occurred in New York on September 11, 2001?   How could those making big bucks from the sale of heroin and cocaine be anything but atheists?   Politicians and corporate leaders regularly take actions that produce personal, short-term profits for themselves and, at the same time,  leave the rest of humanity with a legacy of irreversible, long-term, environmental destruction.

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Q:  What kind of destruction? 

R.   Every day, the nuclear industry is producing additional tons of radioactive, toxic waste --  waste that will still be dangerous and deadly 50,000 years for today.   Whaling ships are right now roaming the oceans, killing the last remaining whales, and, with less than three percent of America's virgin forests left, the chain saws are still running.

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Q:  Are you saying religious/spiritual beliefs dictate behavior? 

R:   Yes!   Spiritual beliefs or the lack of them definitely do dictate human behavior.   Spiritual belief are the fundamental human context,°  the foundation upon which ALL behavior is based.   The problem is that decisions based on false beliefs about the nature of life often take us down dangerous, destructive, and/or dead-end pathways.

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Q:  OK, what do we know for sure about God? 

R:   The only thing humans can know for certain about whatever it is or isn’t that they refer to as God is that the thought, the belief, the very idea of God has a profound effect on human life.   The transcendent unknown that we refer to with words such as "God" is the ultimate and most profound mystery of life.  It is possible to approached that transcendent unknown only by way of what is commonly referred to as "A leap of faith."

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Q:  What's a leap of faith? 

R:   A leap of faith means that you believe something with no proof at all.   If you are talking about “God,” that’s all there is.   Take it or leave it.   There’s nothing else.

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Q:  My Christian friends say, "I know because the Bible tells me so."  
        How would you respond to that statement?

R:   These people have simply moved their leap of faith onto a sacred book.   There are two questions I would ask them.   

First, how do you know your religion has exclusive access to God?   And second, with all the different interpretations of a book that was written many years after Jesus walked the Earth and a book that was significantly edited in its early years, and considering the vast amount of unethical and criminal behavior that historians are uncovering about the early church leaders who determined the content of that book, how do you know the Bible, as presented today, is complete and perfectly accurate, and how do you know that your literal interpretation is of it is the one and only correct interpretation?

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Q:  That sounds like Christian bashing. 

R:   It certainly is not.   One needs to distinguish between the religious writings themselves and those who attempt to tell you what those words means.   Christianity, in its pure form, is a great religion, the Bible is a wonderful book and, like anything else in life, what that book means°  has more to do with the person stating the meaning than it has to do with the book itself.   One needs to step outside of the social structures that attempt to tell you what the Bible, the Koran, or any other sacred text means, and THINK FOR YOURSELF!

You could also look at the Christian Bible as a historical document and focus on the teaching of Jesus.   In that context the Bible comes alive and offers numerous wonderful and inspiring guidelines for living your life.   For example, remember these lines,  "Know the truth and the truth shall set you free."   "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." 

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Q:  So we're back to the leap of faith.   Are you suggesting I believe with
        no proof at all. 

R:   If you are talking about “God,” that’s all there is.   Take it or leave it.

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Q:   There’ nothing else?

R:   Well, actually, there’s another possibility to consider.   Circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory that humans are far more than physical bodies living temporarily on Earth.   Since the beginning of recorded history, every culture that has  ever existed has consistently believed two things — that the source of life is in the invisible and that each and every human being is intimately connected to that source.

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Q:   Is that proof?  

R:   In and of itself, certainly not.   It’s simply one more piece in a vast sea of circumstantial evidence.  Please also consider the fact that since the beginning of recorded history, the master spiritual teachers have consistently spoken the same message.

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Q:  And what’s the message?

R:   That each person is part of God, a part of “The Creation Process” — and that within the context of their own, personal, human lives, each person is, for him or herself, a great creator.   If that is actually true, it leads us to two profound conclusions:   1)  A human being  is something far more than just a lump of intelligent dust.   2)  We are eternal beings who co-create with Divine Source°    and, in so doing,  produce our own, personal, earthly experiences. 

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Q:  Amen.

R:   Not quite.  Here's three more things to consider:

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