HeavenHellPicWe have to save this world OURSELVES…There is NO SAVIOR coming on a white horse in the sky, like Christians believe from the book of Revelations. Islam and Judaism also share the belief that a “savior” is coming to solve all the world’s problems and destroy evil (evil defined by them as including simply those people who adhere to different faiths) Christians and Muslims share the belief that their “savior” is going to wipe out all “non-believers” in the final world-wide genocide they are actually praying for and looking forward to, that will make the Holocaust look like a school yard playground argument.

If you call yourself a Christian and you didn’t know that, you need to get familiar with the sick book you claim is the “Gospel”. Christianity and Islam share the Bible and Koran teachings specifically that ALL Jews will be wiped out in the name of “salvation” by their “savior”.

Christians at least leave room for 144,000 Jews who will be allowed special dispensation of salvation, but the rest they see as condemned to burn in Hell when Jesus comes back in the sky on his white horse. Make no mistake, this is absolutely a ‘learned mental illness’, and it is not harmless.

The first step we have to focus on right now in the process of ‘saving’ this world ourselves, is to stop this kind of sick religious thinking once and for all. This will be akin to how hard we worked with the “Civil Rights Movement” to stop that kind of bigoted thinking that ironically was also quite often rationalized by “scriptures” throughout the Bible where God ordained slavery. The Ku Klux Klan was founded by Christian Southern Baptists who used many Bible verses to justify their racism and pro-slavery, pro-segregationist bigotry.

The next step we need will be similar, but instead of a “Civil Rights Movement”, it is time for a sort of “Spiritual Rights Movement” that teaches we are ALL brothers and sisters equally in spirit, and no one is ever separate from “God’s Love and Forgiveness” for ANY reason or differing belief, etc.

The “Spiritual Rights Movement” would not be the perfect term for it as we already have the right to believe what we want to believe, but the concept of a spiritual awareness movement is what is needed, to bring us into a new spiritually enlightened era for mankind, where the majority begin to understand the way the Big Three religions have approached spirituality has not only been wrong with their condemnation of other “non-believers”, but it has been a dishonest, bigoted and man-made fraud that has caused more wars and violence than any other reason.

“DO NO HARM”…This is the Hippocratic oath of doctors, but ironically such an oath is ABSENT in the history, beliefs, teachings and doctrine of the Big Three religions. This is ironic since the Big Three religions have always wanted to claim that they are all about love. But the truth is, organized religion is nothing if not organized DIVISION. It divides its believers off from all others, instead of teaching them the unity of diversity…the spiritual truth that we are not divided, but spiritual brothers and sisters, all equally a part of what is holy and Divine. Yes, Islam needs to learn this truth, but so does Christianity and Judaism.

Historically and even presently, religion has been all about doing harm to “non-believers”. Historically, Christians and Jews engaged in the same kinds of violence and genocide in the name of God that we see radical Islam still actively doing today. The only explanation of what Muslim extremists are doing today using their religious beliefs to recruit terrorists and cutting off people’s heads in the name of “Allah”…the only explanation for this is mental illness…a kind of “learned brainwashed mental illness.

By the way, is it just me, or is it strange that we rarely hear Muslims going on the news, looking for widespread press coverage, seeking any opportunity they can find to condemn the behavior of Al Qaeda or ISIS (Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) in Iraq and abroad?

A recent “Vox Magazine” poll (http://www.vox.com/2014/8/26/6067123/isis-poll) showed that an amazing 25% of young Muslim men in France (ages 18-24) were “sympathetic” to ISIS. Believe it or not, this same poll showed overall, ONE in SIX people polled in France said they were sympathetic or held a “favorable view” of ISIS.

Keep in mind, as crazy as this sounds, France and Europe as a whole have a much larger concentration of a Muslim population than we do in the U.S. But still, for one in 6 people to express out loud that they are sympathetic with such a sick, violent religious terrorist group is unimaginable. The reason this could happen is largely rooted in the fact that MANY MUSLIMS DO NOT ENTIRELY DISAGREE with the violent religious beliefs that ISIS is acting on.

Specifically, those beliefs are that war and violence are not only acceptable in the eyes of “Allah”, but that they are the only tools that will finally accomplish creating a worldwide Islamic caliphate. And a worldwide Islamic caliphate, meaning a world under Sharia law (Law dictated by the Koran) for everyone, is what is repeatedly called for in the Koran for Muslims to create.

Don’t let anyone, especially a Muslim, try to convince you that the Koran doesn’t contain these kinds of teachings that advocate religious “jihad” in its scriptures. This is why we hardly ever hear Muslims railing out loud in disgust about what Al Qaeda or ISIS/ISIL has done over recent years. It goes without saying that this is unacceptable.

Now, lest anyone think I am only picking on Muslims here…Christians love to think that their religion is somehow “above the fray” of all this bigoted hate in the name of God. They love to say that their religion is truly only about love, while they point their fingers at the sick behavior of Muslim extremists.

But Christianity is not about “unconditional love” or “unconditional forgiveness”. It is fundamentally rooted in the same kind of condemnation of all others, even if Christians aren’t currently engaging in religious violence like they did in the Catholic Inquisition or when European Catholics came to America and committed unbelievable acts of genocide of Native Americans who would not convert.

Christianity is only about CONDITIONAL love and CONDITIONAL forgiveness. The condition is you have to believe like them or love and forgiveness is not afforded to you as a “non-believer”. (Coming up in this oped I will provide the perfect example with a Bible verse supposedly quoting Jesus making this point crystal clear…but of course the truth is such verses were concocted by men creating a fraudulent religion to control the masses.)

The Bible teaches over and over again the SAME EXACT condemnation that Muslim extremists are acting out on from their Koran. The Bible teaches what I wrote above about all “non-Christians” being wiped out in their “Messiah’s” final act of genocide as prophesized all throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testament (Again, these “prophecies” being fraudulently concocted by men to control the masses using fear and religious hate).

More importantly, the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments specifically and constantly reminds the reader that if you don’t believe its teachings, you will burn in Hell for eternity. And as I said above about Muslims and their beliefs in a worldwide Islamic State, the same goes for this widespread Christian belief that all others are condemned – it goes without saying that such a belief is unacceptable as well!

This is no different than what Islam teaches. The two religions are based on God or Allah authorizing “DOING HARM” to non-believers…Christians are just not PRESENTLY decapitating “infidels”. But don’t forget there were plenty of times in mankind’s history when Christians DID commit mass killing of “non-believers”, because the Bible is full of scriptures that ordain such behavior (especially in the Old Testament, and Jews engaged in this kind of “jihad genocide” frequently in the Old Testament…go read Joshua chapter 6 for one of hundreds of examples) And as I said above, Christians are counting on the “Messiah” in the end times leading the mass extinction of all “non-believers” as spelled out in the Bible. That IS a religion fundamentally built on “DOING HARM” to others not like them.

Christians love to say that Jesus only taught love, but they also love to ignore Jesus’ condemning teachings like Matthew 10:34-35(King James Version): “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword…For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daugher-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And don’t overlook one of hundreds of examples of Jesus’ condemning teachings in the verses immediately preceding those (Matthew 10:32-33) “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in Heaven.” (By the way, if it is “Holy Gospel”, shouldn’t it at least be grammatically accurate?…Is God really that bad with grammar?…It should read “my father WHO is in Heaven”, not WHICH is in Heaven…but I digress) Jesus is shown here making it clear that he will make sure all “non-believers” are rejected from Heaven and go to Hell for eternity. That isn’t unconditional love, and it certainly isn’t forgiveness.

This is what Christianity is. If you call yourself a “Christian” and don’t believe that, you are lying to yourself, and you aren’t actually practicing what your religion teaches. You need to admit that you have created your own personal “hybrid” religion that is totally different than the main teachings in the Bible.

These are very, very sick, false and dishonest teachings that do not reflect true “spirituality”. They were written by men who desired to control the masses through religious dogma for political gain. (Please check out my other editorials on my blog at www.conniebryan.com for more precise examples and details about the politically fraudulent crafting of the writings of the Bible.)

The shared belief among the Big Three religions that a “savior” is coming to eradicate all non-believers and create Heaven for them on earth is one of the MOST DESTRUCTIVE LIES in their respective “holy books”. Ironically it is what stands in the way of learning what true spirituality is. This kind of belief is self-defeating, thinking that you are helpless until your “savior” finally comes from the sky someday to finally “FIX” everything.

True spirituality is when you recognize that we are ALL collectively a part of that which we call “God”, or the “Divine”. In other words, we are all collectively a part of what you could call our “SAVIOR”…because it is up to all of us to come together in unconditional love and forgiveness and SAVE EACH OTHER with that unconditional love!

Put another way, as I have written about before in some other opeds: True spirituality understands that “religion” should be seen as nothing more than one’s “favorite color”. Just because you like green and I like red doesn’t mean you are going to Hell and I am going to Heaven when the “Savior of Red” comes back riding on a huge red crayon in the sky. True spirituality understands that red and green are only two colors that are INSEPARABLY part of a glorious diverse color spectrum.

Don’t miss that “inseparable” part in this analogy, because it is a critical element. None of the colors are separate from the color spectrum. They cannot be singled out and made something separate. In truth, they are all a part of the same beautiful and diverse color spectrum. Religion is no different. You want to be a Christian? Fine…but you can’t believe a lot of what the Bible says, because it is FULL of condemnation of all other beliefs.

You want to be a Muslim? Fine. But DITTO what I just said. Same for Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Scientologists, etc. They are all man-made teachings built on condemnation of all other “non-believers”. This is the bigoted man-made lie that runs through all of them. This is what has been the root cause of all the violence and lack of peace in mankind’s history. ENOUGH ALREADY, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!

And when the masses begin to awaken more to the man-made lies they’ve been conditioned to believe from the Big Three religions, it is then that we can begin saving each other with the teaching that everyone is a “HOLY” part of what God is. And here is the key that brings peace and Heaven on earth for us: When one realizes we are all brothers and sisters in spirit, and that we are all equally a “HOLY” part of what God is, one then begins ACTING THAT WAY. One then realizes that we all have a HOLY RESPONSIBILITY to one another to SAVE EACH OTHER. That is the ONLY WAY Heaven will be created on earth.

If your “holy book” teaches that “harm deserves to come to non-believers”…well then that should be the only clue you need to understand you are believing a lie. By their very definition, unconditional love and forgiveness CAN DO NO HARM…Love and forgiveness can have NO PARTNERSHIP with any belief in condemnation being “deserved” by anyone. Only man-made bigotry and “conditional love” can have such a partnership with condemnation. It is time for humanity to stop embracing these destructive religious lies of all the Big Three religions (and their fraudulent spinoffs like Mormonism) and once and for all begin creating peace on earth TOGETHER.

Connie Bryan

(Connie Bryan is a writer in Sacramento, CA…Check out all her material on her website and blog at www.conniebryan.com)