We Are Living In An Increasingly Imperfect-world

We Live In An Increasingly IMPERFECT-World My thoughts on Nov 16 2009 by Paul Chang

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Our United Nations seem to be a paper-tiger or tools for powerful nations! Our Government policies seem to be too selfish to cater to weaker nations’ needs! And some dictators are allowed to rule for too long even when own citizens are unable to have any freedom! Our business models seem to be too vulnerable to speculations and manipulations! State-subsidies are killing poorer countries’ farmers! Non-productive wealth-creators are getting rich at the expense of productive workers! The poor becomes weaker and helpless while the rich get richer and become predators! Corrupt leaders get off too easily with the help of rich and powerful financial systems! Religions become tools to divide and rule, promote self-interests rather than multi-faith, world-interests.

Here are some conclusions that I have formed. What I write is not a confession of what I practice by faith but what I have perceived to be possibly true at time of writing. What I leave to blind faith, I cannot prove otherwise, so I quest & probe & explore with an open mind! I do not mean to condemn or challenge anyone but attempt to explore what might later become obvious.

Important: Please do not prejudge me or my beliefs, even when statements do not meet with your approval or agreement! By your Free-will, you may choose to believe anyway you wish as long as you keep it to yourself without imposing it on others. By the same token, my views are meant to be shared as far as they begin to affect your Free-will to change. When change does occur, it is by your own Free-will! No attempt is made to condemn or belittle anyone or any belief-system or any organization. You are kindly requested to refrain from continuing reading my thoughts if you think you cannot impartially put Freedom of Expression into practice! Thank you!

It is my belief, not amounting to statement of fact: •

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That human beings are born complete with hidden information from the past, locked and waiting to be opened and to be applied with and by the inborn mechanism comprising all the senses and organs and Neuro-physical matters, both known and still unknown! Each human being is made up of the physical body plus the invisible CONSCIOUSNESS or INTELIGENCE some call it Body-intelligence while others call it the human Spirit or the Soul or God-spot! That our human knowledge is both limited and stifled by our physical body’s ability to fully explore the real potentials via our conscious-mind! Our being is like a computer: Spirit the software, Brain the Memory medium and Mind & Body the Operating System & Hardware. That the WORD THAT BECOMES FLESH, to me, means FROM NOTHING TO BECOME SOMETHING – such as there is energy attached to our thoughts and intentions, and prayers do come true! That all human-SPIRITS are connected in the same universe! Few people are able to tap into the Human-spirit realm for info and healing or tap into the Divine-Realm for unlimited source of knowledge and power to cause changes or healings, medical intuitiveness, miracle-healing or protective-shield from harm! That FAITH is a mystery to be lived but not a problem to be solved! To convert a blind-faith into an infallible-truth, to me, is by itself, a serious mistake, because PERCEPTIONS can be wrong! That I would love my church to be without any punitive or stifling rule but simply & positively promote Peace, Joy and LOVE as Jesus wills it to be! Actively change to become more INCLUSIVE & HUMBLE towards Ecumenism and expand on existing strength in universal love-giving! That Moses, Jesus and Prophet Mohammed were used by God! They had pure LOVE and GENUINE & GOOD intentions from God! Unfortunately, human beings can never fully understand their REAL-messages from God. Hence, the most powerful but not necessarily the most knowledgeable HUMAN-followers or believers had their ways in putting ideas into writings, probably with much distortions or misinterpretations!

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That Buddha had figured out about life, without putting God into the equation! Buddhism, established basing on his enlightenment, has been most practical, peaceful, unimposing, non-divisive and non-aggressive! What a down-to-earth way of life for peace and happiness, when human beings put on their best efforts to observe the precepts!? The followers are to save themselves by acting within their adopted PRECEPTS, not to hurt others! Peace is achieved through the first 5-precepts of Buddhism! That Joy & Love are added to peace, when Jesus commands followers to not only not hurt but also positively act with LOVE towards others! (Example: A hungry person may have peace but without joy because hunger will not go away unless someone acts with LOVE by giving food! The same is true with the lonely, the clothes less, the thirsty, the sick, etc.) That purification by Reincarnation has been substituted by Jesus’ showing of his way to eternal peace (Nirvana for Buddhist). Those who still fail to achieve eternal peace may choose self-imposed punishments or seek help from other spirits or divine beings. This way, whether you are religious or not, your conscience will be your guide & your Judge to eternal peace. The following are influenced by my quest into NDE (Near Death Experiences) when we die (since I do not have a NDE, it is my best-guess that): 1. Those who choose to go to the light will be granted a life-review and thence on to next realm or destination! 2. Those who do not choose to go to (or unable to go to) the light will remain in darkness or in limbo until a change of conscience-mind or when unfinished business gets done! 3. Punishments and sufferings need not be imposed by others but self-imposed, because the conscience cannot be corrupted or compromised. During your lifereview, you will suffer the same as what you have caused others to suffer! You feel joy as what you have caused others to enjoy! (Cause & effect) 4. Who you worship is who that will meet you and assist you towards the light. Jesus will be there to welcome Christians during their life-reviews! You either cross over to eternal peace or choose to remain in limbo, as your conscience wills it as purification or punishment. 5. Those who choose to be incarnated or reincarnated will also be possible, not by punishment but by choice influenced by your own uncompromising conscience, to return to serve or to purify! 6. Your Day of Judgment is when you face your God as you choose to go to the light for your life-review! Your uncompromising conscience does the judging! God, the Divine being, just facilitates and does not care whose follower you were, as long as you have led a good life! That followers of Moses need to be more like Jesus Christ, whom they still hate! That followers of Jesus need to be more like Jesus and do away with DIVISIVE, manmade laws in the name of God! If exclusiveness and punitive Laws were removed, one UNIVERSAL-body of Christ’s followers would have been possible & enough and would not have to keep dividing, now into 30,000 entities! Christian bodies need to be more humble, forgiving and inclusive in everything they say or do! They create unnecessary enemies and drive potential followers away when they forget Jesus’ commands but condemn others as if only they can go straight to heaven! That followers of Prophet Mohammed need to be centered on the spirit of LOVE & PEACE! That religions can be DIVISIVE, so we should stop identifying human beings by color, race or religion! It should be made illegal for any entity or organization to ask for a person’s race, color or religion! That too much damage has been done to inter-human relationship basing on religion or race, so much so that RESPECT for each human being as an individual & respected citizen of the world has been lost! That Free-will should end when it hurts another human being! Free-market speculation and manipulation should end when it hurts other Free-market participants! Hence, legislations or regulations should help BALANCE free-will and freemarket forces! That the UN should play a more ACTIVE-role in ensuring PEACE, JUSTICE, HUMANRIGHTS, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, FREEDOM OF MOVEMENTS, FREEDOM OF INFORMATION for every citizen in any country in the planet Earth! Perhaps a PLANETcouncil should be established, with power to intercede into any country!!

To think that we have answers to all questions or unknowns is in itself an imperfect CONCLUSION! Naive, may be.

Are there solutions? Yes: •

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Form a Universal-Initiative Council to rope in all religious organizations to abandon negative & non-inclusive human-injected rules and dogma and start de-grouping to allow merging to begin, not by force but by Free-will! Use only UI-2+5 (Universal Initiatives) – Love God and love your fellow human beings as yourself (2-pronged Love) + 5-steps on how to accomplish them! Leave punitive rules to Laws of the land to deal with such necessities! Empower this UI-council to have power over every country! Replace UN. Be humble and believe we need to rely on God’s grace but be disciplined to act as if everything depends on us! Build loving & caring communities like true-Christians and true-Muslims do for others while acting with self-discipline, like true-Buddhists do, not to hurt others!

Changes are only possible when our minds are open to new ideas and suggestions, however absurd they may seem, from time to time, and respect but not stifle diverse views! • • •

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We once thought the Earth was flat – but we have proven it to be wrong! We once thought the SUN revolved around the Earth – but we have proven it to be wrong! Can dogma or doctrines be infallible? Do truths need to be declared as infallible to be believed? Can faith be infallible? How to prove something from outside the physicalrealm? Religions are divisive – do away with religion but promote UNIVERSAL-Initiatives! When doctrines are NON-inclusive, DIVISION continues – make UI non-divisive and non-stifling!

After all said and done, Catholicism seems to have remained as ONE for two-thousand years, despite the fact that there were times innocents were killed, jailed or persecuted unjustly. It must have been the existence and approval of the Holy Spirit that saved it from destruction and it must be the same Holy Spirit that is sending 30,000 messages to the Catholic Church to make the necessary changes to become more INCLUSIVE so that ecumenical unification can occur and the world will be at peace and the promised PROSPERITY, for all followers, will be fulfilled! Because Christianity is represented by perhaps 30,000 different entities, it means Christianity is in need of changes! (While Buddhism has found the way to human-effort leaving failures to be helped by Reincarnation) Catholic-Christian route to human-effort is still a work-in-progress probably due to added, flawed dogma or doctrines. The moment flawed, stifling dogma are removed and interpretations left to individual Free-Will, unification and world peace will begin!

The REAL-Jesus – is the historical Jesus, the real one that was rejected, killed. (Without St. Paul, Jesus might have been forgotten!) • •

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26 of his 33 years on Earth was unknown; What we think we know of his 7-years was selectively presented with and via 4-of the many Gospels written after his death (& resurrection). Some other Gospels were suppressed or destroyed, until they somehow surfaced again as late as 1945 with the Dead-sea Scroll. Whether he carried God’s DNA is a mystery; How he was resurrected and where his physical body is, is a mystery!

The ADVERTISED-Jesus – is the Jesus that 1.2billion Catholics + 1-billion Christians in 30,000 denominations want him to be! • • • •

Some believe he should still be remembered as being nailed to the cross; Others believe he should not be remembered too often and too much to be still nailed to the cross but has risen, resurrected; Some think that they have better and exclusive understanding of Jesus’ ‘real’ intentions, bold enough to declare others either wrong or need to be condemned; Some pick & choose texts (out of context) to justify their interpretations, among others, believing that Jesus is the only path to salvation when he means LOVE is the way!

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Some believe just by accepting Jesus as the savior is enough while some add more burdens to followers to carry, even with fear, to complicate Jesus’ simple and straight forward WAY to salvation (without reincarnation)! When we remove the stifling, condemning and non-inclusive negativities and then measure each interpretation with Jesus’ way (which is LOVE), perhaps 30,000 is a good number to unify into one gathering of people who now subscribe to UNIVERSAL-INITIATIVES, based on LOVE for God and LOVE for others (slightly different from NOT to hurt others by Buddhists) .

Some people, like Deepak Chopra, are looking forward to The Third-Jesus – when, I think, religions should get out of the way, no one puts up borders or boundaries to make him exclusive BUT inclusively encompassing ALL those who live by his way – which is based on LOVE, Forgiveness, Joy and Peace! • • •

Universal-Initiatives – non-denominational & non-divisive way of life! My 2+5 UI way to world peace, joy and love (My Thoughts in 2003)! If rituals (which exclude others) were removed, everyone who thinks and acts with LOVE can be made to fit into the descriptions for either a Muslim or a Christian, if inclusively interpreting either Islam or Christianity!

One of the religions that has its origin from Moses will be on selfdiminishing mode WHEN The Third Jesus appears and is adopted by more people! • •

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Christianity was supposed to improve on the Jewish religion. It did not succeed to convince the Jews! Christianity did not convince Prophet Mohammed because Christians were not inline with Jesus’ ways, so he (Prophet Mohammed) was inspired to found Islam, especially to cater to the needs of widows and orphans in a Christian-dominated world at the time. If Christianity were to be able to encompass all the needs and aspirations of human needs, inclusively and diversely, why would we need separate religions? If there is only one religion in the world, why is there a need to call it a religion instead of simply a common belief or a common way (the UI-way)? When that takes place, religions become irrelevant but LOVE of God & of man will prevail! No one loses BUT everyone benefits from the LOVE of fellow-men shared across the whole planet Earth!

Why are we still living in an increasingly imperfect world? •

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If we take the Laws of Moses, Christianity and Islam and interpret them with the right SPIRIT, no one should condemn or fight. This is because the TRUE-spirit of each Holy Book is LOVE & PEACE. When we forget to apply the TRUE-spirit to the texts, we begin to judge, condemn, conquer or kill in the name of God! Human imperfection has adulterated divine-values and intentions, leaving some human beings to go hungry while others have become filthy-rich! Holy texts were recorded or written or modified or decreed by imperfect human hearts and minds; Selfish interests, such as power, greed and self-righteousness got in the way of perfect teaching and inclusive intentions of God’s will; Imperfect people tend to add imperfect-laws into each religion. As such, there should be as little words or definitions as possible to guide followers BUT let the Holy Spirit to guide in each case and circumstance! When disputes need to be settled, let LOVE & PEACE lead the way! Anything else is simply wrong!

Do we have to proclaim ‘The Truth’ when we can only attempt to understand ‘what we cannot prove’? • • • •

What cannot be proven should be left to OPEN-probing and Free-will to believe or not to believe! Could olden day prophets be Incarnates of wise men of the past? If there is Incarnation, why not Reincarnations? Could Jesus be an incarnated or reincarnated being from the Divine-spirit realm? Didn’t he also make us Sons & Daughters of God, by his intimate knowledge of God the

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Father? How could he have intimate knowledge of God the Father if he was not with him before? Could it be possible that Jesus (with his intimate knowledge of God the Father) has taught us how to do away with (or by-pass) the need for reincarnation by following his way with LOVE (through forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation)? Only those who could not or did not follow his way might need to go through the reincarnation process! Did Jesus say there is no such thing as reincarnation? What we do not understand does not mean there is no such thing, especially when there are overwhelming scientific evidences (albeit without the famous imprimatur)!

Do we need to stifle opinions or interpretations different from ours? Do we need to control the limits of knowledge & information that each of the followers of each religion is allowed to be exposed to? • •

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Only weak doctrines or faulty dogma cannot stand up to tests of time or scientific knowledge! Even the strongest of ‘proofs’ can be wrong in different times under additional discovery of scientific truths. Stifling of different opinions or interpretations also deprives the opportunity to let the real truth surface sooner. Interpretations of what might constitute ‘truths’ that cannot be proven in our lifetime, should simply be left to BEST-guess to be believed or not by individual Free Will. They should not be suppressed nor blindly imposed!

Isn’t a CARING & LOVING WAY of life good enough? • • • • •

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When Jesus said “Upon this rock, I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not …….’, did he ask Peter to have an organized and exclusive RELIGION? A church is a gathering of people who follow the way of the same Master. Baptism should not be made into an exclusive membership, but an acknowledgement of faith! If the gathering of people becomes EXCLUSIVE & STIFLING, the natural outcome is: DIVISION or despair. If the gathering of people practices INCLUSIVE & DIVERSE guidelines, the natural outcome is: MULTIPLICATION (go forth and multiply) or addition! Hence 30,000 separate groups of Christians claim to be true followers of Jesus, the ADVERTISED-Jesus that is Omni-present in 30,000 boxes of their choosing! The Master has been put into a box! 30,000 can be a figure both a result of DIVISION (due to flawed interpretations) and MULTIPLICATION (due to interpretations inline with God’s will)! So, some are true and LOVE-giving followers while others are deviant and stifling, LOVE-depriving followers!

Where have we been heading to? About 500BC Buddhism began – it has evolved but probably has remained undivided until now! • Whether the Torahs were received 1380BC or 500BC, Laws of Moses were interpreted and executed in a way unacceptable to Jesus – thus the need to change! • Christianity began after the death of Jesus – many versions of the Gospel were around but a Roman Emperor selected four over others (that did not totally disappear but surfaced later). Catholic churches have remained one but other Christian churches have divided or multiplied into probably 30,000 now! • About 500AD Islam began – Prophet Mohammed was inspired to make changes. Followed with probably thousands of interpretations or decrees to go with the Holy Book. • The three Religions of The Book (of Moses) have been around for more than a thousand years, but are NOW ever increasingly unfriendly among each other. The perfect formula has not been found yet! Too much emphasis on the different interpretations instead of focusing on COMMON-grounds! • When intended outcomes do not materialize, changes are needed! • Perhaps a combination of Jesus’ WAY + Buddha’s PRECEPTS should take shape and invite the Third Jesus to rule over Christians! Those more inclined to Buddhism (achieving Peace by not to hurt others) can work their way to eternalpeace into nothingness! Those more inclined towards Christianity (adding Joy & Love to Peace) can turn to the Third-Jesus to achieve eternal-rest! • The way forward is by adopting and promoting UI-2+5! (Details in www.callab.com) Draft: Nov 16~20 2009 •