Salvation. The word and the concept has been used by organized religion for thousands of years like a “snake oil” merchant to profit off of the fear of the masses. It has been used to exploit their guilt in the interest of getting them to give money to the church in return for “absolution”, etc.

A close friend of mine actually received a letter from the Vatican advising him that since the Catholic church had dissolved his mother and father’s marriage, so that his father could remarry in the Catholic church, that he was now a “bastard” child. The Vatican actually went out of their way to send him such a letter. My friend’s father had to pay handsomely for the whole “privilege” and “dissolving” of the prior marriage by the church. The “holy privilege” didn’t cost my friend a dime, just a lifetime of emotional trauma.

Another friend of mine recently made the astute observation that the Vatican was choosing to make a “saint” out of Pope John Paul, the very Pope that masterminded most of the “looking the other way” of child molesting priests, ordering them to just be moved to different parishes, specifically seeking to protect them and their monstrous acts from becoming public, and from any subsequent prosecution.

These kinds of obscenities are not new in Christianity and the church. Yet, countless millions of people (sheep is a better word) do their own “looking the other way” and continue to remain associated with such hypocrisy, largely because they are in fear that their “salvation” depends on it.

What would cause such hypocrisy or irrational fear? Mainly a lack of understanding true Spiritual Truth, that being that “salvation” is your ENTITLEMENT, not a “conditional possibility” depending on whether you pay your penance, say the “Lord’s Prayer”, do your confessions and “Hail Mary’s, or “believe” the right religious “belief”.

Did you know it is a fact that such “snake oil” brainwashing has led to the cause of more wars in mankind’s history than any other reason! Yet, a majority are still living in fear with their religious beliefs, not yet having learned this important Spiritual Truth. This truth is so powerful and important, it effortlessly destroys all man-made religious teachings of “condemnation” by God, and creates unbelievable miracles in your life as you realize you ARE a part of what God is. That, and ONLY that, is where true spiritual healing power comes from.

Salvation is simply “realization”…the realization that you are, have been and always will be actually a part of what God is.You are actually a part of what is “Divine”. You are not some separate entity at the mercy of some separate whimsical, vengeful God (as often described in the Bible) waiting to condemn you to burn in a lake of fire forever if you don’t worship and praise “him” correctly, etc.

I put “him” in quotes because this is another example of man falsely crafting the lies in the Bible. They of course chose to make this separate “God” a male figure. The truth is, if we are created in the image of God, God would be both male and female, as is all of creation. It was just the sexism of the male “writers” who wanted to describe God as being THEIR gender. This is just more man made “snake oil” writing, masquerading as “holy scripture”.

Another exciting realization of Spiritual Truth, is that there is in fact “intelligent design” and “creationism” – just not the ridiculous version taught to Christians in the Bible . You know, the one you were taught in Sunday School as a child, that has God vengefully kicking his children Adam and Eve out of their home in the Garden of Eden, after allowing them to be tempted by the first “MUPPET SHOW”, a charismatic “talking snake” who assured them it was OK to eat the apple.

What parent, after warning their kids not to go into the cookie jar, would treat their children so vengefully and horribly if “The Cookie Monster” tempted them from the TV during Sesame Street – this after the parent turned on the TV show in the first place – and then their children naturally can’t stand the temptation and decide to listen to the Cookie Monster and go eat out of the cookie jar?

First of all, if God is “omnipotent”, then “he” wold have known about the “Devil” doing his Sesame Street routine as the talking snake. Yet, God knowing this, just allows this in order to eternally blame his recently created children Adam and Eve for making a mistake anyone would make. I have to say, that’s a very sick image of God to teach to children in Sunday School. Shame on those who do so.

The truth, on the other hand, is that salvation is your entitlement, and this means that you are entitled to make “mistakes”. The truth is, you are not “evil by nature”. Adam and Eve were not “evil by nature”. This is one of the hypocrisies of the Bible. If God is “perfection” and “without sin”, “he” would not make something that was “evil by nature”. Again, take a moment to let that sink in. (Also, let it sink in that honestly…seriously… it is pretty mentally unstable for a grown adult to believe in a “talking snake” outside of the Muppet Show.)

Christians love to say that man is “evil by nature”, and this is one of the biggest “snake oil” lies in the Bible. Man  does make mistakes, which Christians love to refer to as “sin”. The word “sin” implies guilt and “premeditation”. Some of our mistakes are premeditated, but they do not mean we are “evil by nature”. We make mistakes by nature, and many of those mistakes are NOT premeditated. I would venture to say that MOST of our mistakes we make are not premeditated.

But whether they are or whether they aren’t, they are still just mistakes to be LEARNED from. Some of us take longer to learn from our mistakes than others, it is true! But in the long run, learn they will, if not in this life, then in the next. But they, as a part of what God is, will not be eternally condemned forever and ever and ever, as Christians love to believe happens just to someone who simply is gay, or chooses to believe a different religion than them.

As I mentioned above, we are in a universe that is eternal, and we are a part of the “intelligent design” of all that is. The entire universe is “alive”, not just us here on this planet. There is a universe that is alive inside of our own bodies, with tiny microscopic “beings” you can’t even conceive of, living in their own tiny worlds and communities. They are most likely unaware of the fact that they live inside a larger being, which is YOU. As they look out from the cell, atom or electron which is their “zip code” inside you, they see their own version of “outer space” within which they may wonder whether there is any “life”.

 

Just the same, we live on planet Earth, but we are like those tiny beings inside us…we are just a tiny part of the eternal “life” that is the universe. Evolution does not take away from “intelligent design”. On the contrary, it absolutely reinforces it. It does of course blow away the lies of the Bible’s version of “Creation”. (Maybe it would help if the story of evolution could somehow include a muppet or two, like in the story of the Garden of Eden, I don’t know, just thinking out loud, trying to be helpful.)

Recently I saw a bumper sticker that read, “JUST LOVE EVERYBODY”. Let me ask you a question: Do you think that concept is stupid? If you do, you are the problem we face in this often ugly world today. But that being said, you are also the one who needs to be loved all the more. You see, someone who thinks such a bumper sticker is stupid…once they really experience this and feel loved by a stranger, something begins transforming quickly within them. That is the spiritual power of unconditional love.

That is because unconditional love, with no threat of condemnation for any reason, that  IS “salvation”. That is to say, we being a part of what God is, we SAVE EACH OTHER. Not with the Bible or the Koran or the Book of Mormon, etc. Organized religions are the lie that keeps us from “saving each other”. We save each other when we finally learn that “each other” are all a part of us, and we are all a part of the Divine. So, when I LOVE you, I am loving myself. When I FORGIVE you, I am FORGIVING myself.

However, the opposite is also true. If I hate another, or have beliefs of condemnation based on my religious beliefs toward another, I hate myself and I condemn myself. No healing comes from that. No miracles come from that.  Love by definition CANNOT CONDEMN. Forgiveness by definition CANNOT CONDEMN. If your religion teaches otherwise, that is proof that it is a “snake oil” lie written by men.

In some of my editorials entitled “Bible Lies” on my blog (www.conniebryan.com), I detail many proven lies found in the Bible. For example, most of the books in the Bible are lies just by the names that are on them. Most of them, especially all four gospels, were not written by the disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. They were “crafted” by very violent early church factions who fought over what they wanted them to say in the early creation of the new Roman church as Christianity was being fabricated as a spin off from Judaism.

And then the disciples names were attached to them as though they had authored them, when in absolute fact their names were just being fraudulently attached to them. This process occurred long after the disciples’ deaths. Many Christians bury their head in the sand when it comes to learning about the “fraudulent historicity” of the Bible, and the New Testament specifically.

They simply want to believe in the Bible’s condemnation of all others who aren’t Christians. That is a fundamental element of the teachings of the New Testament. Make no mistake, this is not Spiritual Truth. This is no less bigotry than many other similarly bigoted religions and myths that came thousands of years before Christianity, written by men trying to control the masses with religious fear and “conditions of salvation”.

 

No religion corners the market on salvation and love. Salvation, love and forgiveness are your spiritual ENTITLEMENT. We all have a spiritual obligation to give salvation to each other, irrespective of religious belief. We do so with the very same love and forgiveness that we want and crave from others. This is the path to world peace and heaven on earth, not Christianity…not Judaism…not Sharia Law and Islam…not Mormonism, etc. All those beliefs have just led to more and more WAR, masquerading as a “holy” teaching from “God”, when in fact on their face they are hateful man-made lies.

It’s amazing to me, when people resist this truth by saying that to believe all are “saved” means there is no accountability for those who sin. How hypocritical, because Christians’ entire belief system is based on their simply being allowed to just ask forgiveness for any and all “sin” they engage in for their entire lives. As long as you can do that, you can have PEDOPHILE PRIESTS given a pass by the Pope who then can be deemed a “Saint” by the church, etc. TALK ABOUT NO ACCOUNTABILITY!

Yet, with the true realization that you are a holy part of what God is, one changes and begins to ACT HOLY. With the understanding of Spiritual Truth I have described here, you realize it is not up to some imagined “Savior” riding a white unicorn or horse on a cloud in the sky to come and “save” us all.

On the contrary, when you realize we are all a part of what “God” is, and that we are “Co-Creators” in the eternal “intelligent design” of all that is, then you realize SALVATION is YOUR responsibility…It is your responsibility to live a responsible, healthy and Holy life…It is your responsibility, you being a part of what God is for eternity, to work together to SAVE EACH OTHER and create peace and Heaven on earth.

Connie Bryan

(Connie Bryan is an editorial writer and host of “The Connie Bryan Show” on Access Sacramento. Check out her many other editorials on her blog at www.conniebryan.com)