religion

A Conscious Awareness of Consciousness

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Personally, I believe that the world is constantly riding spiritual waves of awareness. And when I say this I don’t mean it as a religious wave like say the Great Awakenings which swept this country in (and others possibly) the 1700s and 1800s. It is not mysticism either. I think philosphers, sociologist and psychologist beat around the concept of collective (universal) consciousness; and its role in our personal consciousness and in our collective life. Right now we are in the trough of spiritual consciousness. 

Two man-made institutions play heavily into creating our collective consciousness and awareness–and our material reality: governments and churches. (I would add a third entity to this: multinational corporations. But we know they are for-profit, godless heathen organizations.) Too often we Americans think of separation of church and state effecting just this country. God may have made man in His image and likeness; but man has made religion in his image and likeness, governments too. And all of this seeps into our awareness and our concsiouness.

Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? –Pema Chodron

Collective consciousness knows no international boundaries nor time. Most of us do not realize the influence it has on our own consciousness and reality. It exists at levels we are not totally cognizant of. The latest flare up between the U.S. and Iran is a perfect example of where governments and churches come into conflict. This conflict is much like a strike-slip fault in the Earth’s Crust. The sliding plates of the Earth’s crust, like governments and churches pass each other creating tension, transforming human consciousness. (For the most part Americans had no real concept of Iran. To us the Persian Empire was something the Greek city-states fought way back in 499 BC to 449 BC. It wasn’t until the late 1970s AD did Iran’s chants of “Death to America” enter our national awareness and then into our consciousness.)

It happens all the time and it doesn’t have to be a war where empires clash. Henry the VIII transformed English religion and government without nocking an arrow when he broke with the Catholic Church. It all started in 1517 when Martin Luther rattled religuious awareness when he posted his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Within 20 years Henry broke ties with the Catholic Church. In 1534 he set up his own church. Naturally, he was the head of this church. He also felt it was his job to seize church property in England, thus adding the church’s wealth to the royal coffers–religion for fun and profit. His strike-strip actions transformed England–and transformed the country’s collective consciousness, and ours. It spawned Separatists, Pilgrims and Puritans who ended up in what would become, collectively, the United States.

Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.–Charles Lindbergh

Man may not always act in spiritual ways. But that does not stop religion from determining ethical and moral codes that help collectively keep society in line. Historically speaking, it is some sort of religious beliefs that influences the citizenry, the government and the institutions and hence the country collectively, The United States of America is a case in point.

Although we do not subscribe to one church, and some would preach the need to change this, we cannot deny that the spiritual beliefs of the collective consciousness of those who wrote the Constitution in 1787 still impact our nation today. To say they were not influenced by Judeo-Christian beliefs, as well as the collective beliefs of the Enlightenment, would be wrong thinking. These men combined a unique combination of beliefs to establish rule of the people–and not a monarch or some sort religious swami–or Ayetollah.

We are celebrating our 250th year of independence from a religious infused monarchy. This is something uncommon in human history. We took Henry the VIII’s concept of forming a religion in the image of a government and turned it around. We created a government based on religious and moral beliefs without the sanctimonious trappings of some sort of religious leader anonited by god in the mix. Our president has many roles as chief diplomat and commander in chief but he is not a shaman, medicine man or Levite in charge of a church. 

For 250 years we have managed without religious rules enshrined into our laws. The ancient Jews had 613 laws: 248 do’s and 365 don’ts. According to Chabad.Org only “369 mitzvot are still operative” today. But for centuries those laws have settled deeply into the Jewish collective consciousness, something we Americans may have a hard time comprehending but our awareness of these beliefs run deep in our collective consciousness.

As a nation–a nation basically a collection of immigrants from around the world–we have formed the basis for our national collective consciousness from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And although property-owning white men wrote both documents, there was enough Christian diversity and mutual distrust of European religious disputes in their collective awarness to enshrine the belief of popular sovereignty over religious rule.

According to The Journal of the American Revolution the Constitution is purposely religious neutral, as is the theory of the government it embodies. “Whereas the Declaration explained and justified a rebellion to secure God-given rights, the Constitution is a blueprint for stable and effective republican government in a free country. The Preamble to the Constitution declares that its purposes are ‘to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.’ These are wholly secular objects; religious references are extraneous in a document drafted to further them.”

If Christianity started out as an offshoot of Judaism then Judaic thought is a part of the Christian consciousness. Beliefs like: the love all humans, do not to stand by idly while another’s life is in danger, do not to cherish hatred in our hearts, or to bear a grudge and seek revenge are just a few Jewish beliefs that have effected our collective consciousness. And although these beliefs are not codified in our Constitution we do expect these sorts of beliefs to be reflected in our society; to guide our government and our leaders–to guide them and us in our collective consciousness.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.–Romans 2:15 New International Version

The news today is full of stories on how our democracy, the Constitution is being shredded up before our very eyes. There may be some truth to that but it is not our Constitution that is failing us. It is how quickly virtue has been sapped from our collective consciousness and put us in a trough of spiritual (un)awareness. Each day we look up at the growing wave that surrounds us and see nothing but a gray wall of water fermenting discord and hostility within–not insuring any sort of domestic tranquility; or civility.

It is not that we are losing our democracy, that is only a side effect of losing our collective awareness and consciousness. We now debate what is morally and ethically right. We have collectively begun to abandon or Christian “values” that are ingrained in our consciousness whether you believe in God or not. We are being guided more by expedient pseudo-political/religious values that satiates the moment.

The current administration and its sycophants realize that collectively most Americans don’t hold the same zealous motivations that are being used to justify their actions. The current administration realizes that it could lose dramatically in the midterms if Americans recognize the fact that there is nothing wrong with our government. It is the lack of spiritual awareness, virtue and integrity of our leaders running government that has put us in this trough.

What America needs now is not an attitude adjustment but a retuning to its wave of awareness.

JD, You are No Dick Nixon–at least not yet

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The other day Vice President JD Vance compared himself to President Richard Nixon. I think it is strange that he would compare himself to Nixon. In the very least Nixon is someone like Charles Dickens’ Fagin character in Oliver Twist. The leader of criminal gang. I am not sure if JD has risen to that level of malevolence.

To be clear, Nixon was a burglar. And a burglar, like Bilbo Baggins, no matter how honorable or lovable, is someone who breaks into a building with the intent to commit a crime. Is JD telling us that he intends to commit a crime; or maybe he already has.

With that said, Nixon himself did not break into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate Building. He had Bill Sikes and Fagin do it for him.–E Howard Hunt and James W McCord, ex CIA operatives, to plan and take care of that. These guys along with G Gordon Liddy, an ex FBI agent, led a group that was known as White House “plumbers”. The original Mario and Luigi plumbing brothers leading a bunch of bungling burglars. I am not sure who was Mario and who would be Luigi in that group. Their original intent was to find out who was leaking info from the White House. I guess their investigation led them to the Democrats. From there it morphed into stupidity. Or as ex White House Attorney, John Dean, testified at the time: “a cancer on the presidency.”

Staying with Vance comparing himself to Nixon, I take it Vance could be comparing himself to a more gentler kind of criminal, a thief, maybe. A thief unlawfully takes another person’s property without consent. Maybe he should be comparing himself more to Dickens’ Jack Dawkins, “the Artful Dodger” than Nixon. After all, Nixon was breaking and entering. The Dodger was a pickpocket.

Politicians can easily fall into the pickpocket/thief category. The big difference is that politicians can legislate their thievery; as Trump is trying do to with the 2026 mid-term elections. Although I would not put Trump in the pickpocket class of thief, more like grand theft auto.

What is happening in our government now is a premeditate heist, an Ocean’s Eleven, one we are watching live right before our eyes. JD should be comparing himself to Rusty Ryan while Trump could be Danny Ocean. But stealth has never been one of Trump’s strong suits. What Nixon and the plumbers were trying to do through covert operations Trump and his merry band of Trumpsters are trying to do legislatively and judicially–or legalizing the actual breaking and entering.

I have never been one to try and figure out the various Generations used to describe the demographics of our country. And I am not sure if JD is a true representative of the Millennials in this country. It is obvious that this 42 year-old Vice President has a different take on Nixon’s clandestine- criminal organization that was run out of the basement of the White House. I think conservative revisionist history has mesmerized him. I think like the 18 minute gap in the Nixon Tapes, Vance has a historical gap in his understanding of American history.

To some current GOPers, Nixon is the subject, object and the predicate nominative of a deep state witch hunt. I think maybe they have watched too many X-File reruns. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were not real FBI agents being tailed by the Cigarette Smoking Man, The mysterious operative who worked for a “Syndicate” that according to Fandom allowed him “top level access to both the FBI and the Pentagon.” All this to thwart our heroes and conceal the truth from the American public.

Nixon’s use of former CIA operatives and various government agencies to help cover up his criminal missteps was a big breach of faith in our government at the time; and a step way out of bounds. It seems we take that for granted now because we have blown right through that X-File phase of our history and living in Jackass Forever.

Today, there is no need for a “deep state.” Now you just buy an entire political party, brow beat GOP legislators, let billionairs lose in the bowels of government and try and pack courts with sycophants like, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to throw downfield legal blocks. Now you simply bypass the covert ex CIA and FBI agents; because, who needs them when the agencies are now being run by a never drained pool of boot-lickers and cronies. No more stealthy midnight raids busted by a minimum wage security guard. Just send the FBI in to raid whomever you choose in broad daylight. Oh, and get the Supreme Court to rule that presidents have broad range of immunity from prosecution that places the office above the law. We should check the US Geological Survey for strong earth tremors emanating from the Nixon gravesite in Yorba Linda when that decision was handed down.

Sorry Dick. You were 50 years too early for that one to save you. But your spirit lives on in JD Vance.

A Bridge to Far

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We know that our current President is a builder. His most recent project involved knocking down of the East Wing of the White House to make way for 90,000 square foot ballroom. He is also proposing a colossal 250 foot Arc de Trump. In his first term the MAGA chant was “Build the wall.” Now, his commission for Religious Liberty is proposing to build a bridge, maybe a skyway between the hedges, over the conceptual wall that separates Church and State.

According to The Washington Post that “The Trump administration took aim at the separation of church and state Friday, issuing a draft report from the president’s Religious Liberty Commission that says the separation concept is a legal error and that Americans should view religion as an “’essential support” and always remember it is “the Creator who made us and bestows our rights.’”

I am not sure what “essential support means.” I have heard of essential oils as the chemicals from plants that can support health. And I can see where religious beliefs can be supportive in life. But I think, that despite some of our “founding documents” invoking God, the men who collaborated on those documents were not thinking about churches as part of the state. (Case in point: Iran.) But that is me. I don’t know what the committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence was thinking–other than stating the causes to break away from Great Britain.

I am not a religious philosopher or Biblical Scholar but if God is the bestower of our rights, and if God is all knowing, I just even wonder if God cares one way or another about some of man’s doings. God may not be a Micro-Manager. And I am not sure what God’s opinion is on, say, posting the Ten Commandments on a public building or classroom. Isn’t that what churches are for?

I am also befuddled a bit with the idea that the separation of church and state is a “legal error.” It is a unique concept that has been around for 200 plus years. A concept that has been fundamentally important to stability in the United States–and in our churches. And now we find that we have been believing in a fallible “assumption.” Sticking with the Ten Commandments; and using my illogic reasoning, if we can post the Ten Commandments in public places the reverse reasoning should hold true, too. What is keeping somebody from demanding that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense be placed in every church pew next to the hymnal?

It is important to note that the words, God, Jesus and Christianity are not mentioned in the Constitution as evidence that the writers of this basic governing document wanted to put up a strong wall of separation.–Bridgewater State University

GovFacts says “the phrase (separation of church and state) itself appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution;” but instead comes “from a metaphor used by President Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter.” The Supreme Court since then has adopted that metaphor “as the definitive interpretation of the First Amendment’s religious clause.”

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he woes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declare that their legislature should make “no laws respecting and establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”thus building a wall of separation between church and State.–Thomas Jefferson in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut

And yes, the Declaration of Independence references God the origin of our “unalienable rights.” And yes, we can see, if we look hard enough–maybe–we will see the hands of providence in the destruction of slavery, the women’s suffrage movement and Martin Luther King’s civil rights efforts for racial equality. (Which seems to be a retrograding belief with this ideological crew in charge now.)

Some people have managed to look over the separation of church and state wall to see religious liberty as the “proper allocation of authority between religious–both individual beliefs and communal religious practices–and government power,” this according to the Presidential Religious Commission’s draft report.

I don’t know but when I hear the word “communal” I think of Hippies growing their own vegetables and naked toddlers running freely on the grass. According to the commission, like those hippie kids, “for us to have liberty, we have to allow religion to be utterly free.”

I am utterly confused because I never thought there was any problem with religious freedom. But I guess I am wrong. For instance, according to the report the public schools are rife with religious prejudices. But I am not going to go into that because it really is old hash that just attracts flies.

What I want to look at is the time is right after the publication of the Declaration of Independence. In Emily Sneff’s book When the Declaration of Independence was News she follows the trail of the Declaration from its first printings and its travels to the Thirteen states, the Continental Army, to churches, towns to be read to soldiers, citizens and church goers; and then across the Atlantic to Europe. In fact one copy of the Declaration indented for Silas Deane in France, ended up being thrown overboard to keep it out of British hands. Ironically, British ministers knew about the colonial independence before our representative in France did.

Anyone who has read anything on the our Revolutionary War has to realize that not everybody agreed with breaking ties to Great Britain. In Chapter 7: Embarrassment Clergymen Close Churches and Change Prayers Sneff describes the dilemma of Anglican clergymen who did not necessarily agree with breaking from the King and with their spiritual vows.

Sneff recounts how “The Declaration of Independence caused a moment of reckoning for…clergymen in the United State.” The reckoning had to do with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Then, as it is today “His Majesty the King is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” He gets to appoint bishops. (Today he does so with the advice of the Prime Minister–maybe not so much in 1776.)

Herein lies the dilemma. Sneff writes, clergymen, “whether they were born in the colonies or in Europe and to be ordained by a bishop in England, because there were no bishops in North America.” In addition, ministers “had to swear an oath to the king’s sovereignty over every earthly power and promise to adhere strictly to the Book of Common Prayer.”

The Book of Common Prayer guides Anglican services to “include prayers for the king to defeat his enemies.” And as Sneff says as the Revolutionary War “raged on the king’s enemies filled the church pews.” Leaving ministers to choose between three uncomfortable paths as newly formed states and parishioners demanded that prayers for the King be omitted.

The first dilemma was ministers “could change the liturgy to eliminate prayers for King George III and the royal family.” Doing this would put them at risk of “betraying their ordination oath and being excommunicated.”

Secondly, they could close their churches for the safety of themselves, their families and their parishioners.” It seemed some hardcore patriots found it counter productive to be fighting the King and then praying for his well-being in defeating his enemies. Many Anglican ministers were forced to change the liturgy to keep their churches open and for their own personal safety.

And finally, they could abandon their congregations, homes and take the first boat out to Nova Scotia.

Often time when it comes to looking at our history we miss the subtle nuances of little Jeffersonian “metaphors” like “separation of church and state.” Or the “rule of law and nobody “is above the law.” By placing a king above the law he can command anything from how people pray to the color of a reflecting pool.

When James Madison cobbled together the First Amendment words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” I don’t think he did it because his cousin, James Madison was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and president of William and Mary College, where according to Wikipedia “he occupied an influential position in the (Virginia) commonwealth, which he used to agitate for an ideology that blended radical Republicanism, Christianity, and the ideals of the Enlightenment.” Little Jemmie was probably more aware of the difficulties of keeping the pulpit out of politics and politics out of prayer.

Spanning the wall between church and state with bridge is one best left unbuilt.

https://www.justice.gov/religious-liberty-commission/media/1449896/dl?inline


A Christian Covenant of not having to vote anymore? Is the Fix in?

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Recently Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, spoke to a group of Christians in West Palm Beach telling them that if they voted for him that they will not have again. “We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” I am not sure where he was going with all of that and I will not speculate what he meant by fixing “it.” “It” most often can be ambiguous and vague, as in this case.

There is nothing new about a politician seeking votes from various groups, or making promises to groups of voters. In Colonial times getting voters plastered on election day was a common practice. According to Smithsonian Magazine, “When twenty-four-year-old George Washington first ran for a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he attributed his defeat to his failure to provide enough alcohol for the voters. When he tried again two years later, Washington floated into office partly on the 144 gallons of rum, punch, hard cider and beer his election agent handed out—roughly half a gallon for every vote he received.” In 1777 James Madison lost his first election because he ran a dry campaign.

Christian groups are the choir in Trump’s congregation. So, there is no surprise when he asks them to turn out in November and sing his praises. But the promise of “Christians, get out and vote, just this time…You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” There is something ominous about “you won’t have to vote anymore.” Is this like a Monopoly “Go Directly to Jail Do not Pass Go, Do not Collect $200 Card; or is it the Get out of Jail Free Card.

There is no more important guarantee in a constitutional democracy than free, fair, and functional elections. The current Constitution is at once too vague and too specific about the electoral process. It does not explicitly guarantee the right to vote and under specifies the conditions under which elections should be conducted, but also provides for presidential election through a misguided Electoral College. National Constitution Center

When we consider voting is a fundamental right in America, how does one not vote–and still influence an election. It is interesting, however, that the Constitution does not mention the right to vote until the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 while religion pops up from the beginning in the First Amendment. It took almost a one-hundred years after the Constitution was approved for the federal government to address voting rights. Voting was always left up to the individual colony. Later, voting, like so many other nebulus government functions, or “powers not delegated to the United States…nor prohibited” by the Constitution were “reserved to the States respectively or to the people” in the Tenth Amendment. I would assume since the Constitution does not address it, not voting is a right left up to the states, too.

Meaningful freedom requires the ability to make a decisive choice. A person does not have real religious liberty, for instance, if he has a one-in-60-million chance of being able to determine which religion to practice. Similarly, a one-in-60-million chance of deciding which views one is allowed to express in public is not meaningful freedom of speech. Even a one-in-100,000 chance (the odds of casting a decisive vote in some smaller elections) is not enough to provide anything like genuine choice. Ilya Somin Voting with Our Feet

According to Ilya Somin, writing Voting with Our Feet in nationalaffairs.com: “Most people believe ballot-box voting is the ultimate expression of political freedom. It is how we exercise the power to decide what government policies we will live under.” So why would Trump tell Christians they would not have to vote anymore. Will the rapture occur on January 20, 2025. Or, have Christians already ascended to higher plane of voting rights. And does this higher plane of voting rights require some sort of Christian ID card or special Ap not to vote? Thus, leaving non-Christians to be condemned with some sort of heretic mark, banished to a refurbished Devil’s Island as some sort of card-carrying infidel. I am just asking because this could be ripe for some sort of voting fraud and serious misunderstandings on many fronts.

But just maybe we are moving backwards in time. A time in American history when Christian governments did rule. The notion that the United States was founded as a Christian nation has some basis. Not trying to sound sacrilegious, but the big reason we believe this is because a bunch of malcontent European religious dissenters from various sects decided to establish religious colonies in the New World. In some cases, they were colonies of exclusion when religious freedom seeking, like-minded believers congregated together while excluding and forcing other nonconforming believers out. It gave new meaning to Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three gather in my name…”

Without a doubt the first Europeans who came to this shore came to get away from religious persecution, and prosecution, in Europe. Europeans knew how to torture god out of or into somebody. European history is rife with some poor unfortunate soul losing his (or her) head, being hung and then disemboweled (we hate you so much we will kill you twice) or burnt at the stake for their “misplaced” religious conviction. Voting back then was not even an issue.

Maybe what Trump is doing is sort of reverse Toleration Act of 1689 passed by the English Parliament. According to Oxford University Press the Toleration Act granted “freedom of worship to dissenters (excluding Roman Catholics and Unitarians–and no doubt Jews) on certain conditions. Its real purpose was to unite all Protestants under William III against the deposed Roman Catholic James II.” I wonder if Parliament actually defined “certain conditions.” That sounds as foggy as Trump’s “it will be fixed, it will be fine.”

It was in this atmosphere of dissent that various religious groups started voting with their feet to the New World. According to the Library of Congress: Religions and the Founding of the American Republic, “The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society.” This belief resulted in some colonies establishing governments to save and protect their souls from the myriad of outside beliefs they were escaping from in Europe.

Early colonial laws had no problem defining what religion ruled the pulpit. It goes beyond a partisan divide. In many cases you either were or you weren’t. Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were banished from Massachusetts for who they were (or weren’t) when they started voicing their dissenting religious opinions. Hanging, pillorying and banishing nonconforming heretics from their colonies was not unheard of. Especially when the civil government, composed of “spiritually” like-minded, elected officials who were empowered to enforce religious laws. We will have no Golden Calves in our colony.

“In newly independent America, there was a crazy quilt of state laws regarding religion. In Massachusetts, only Christians were allowed to hold public office, and Catholics were allowed to do so only after renouncing papal authority. In 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics from public office (and would do so until 1806). In Maryland, Catholics had full civil rights, but Jews did not. Delaware required an oath affirming belief in the Trinity. Several states, including Massachusetts and South Carolina, had official, state-supported churches.”–America’s True History of Religious Tolerance, Smithsonian Magazine

Additionally, blasphemers and heroticts “were also considered traitors to their country because they did not belong to the official state religion.” These religious freedom seekers may have been fleeing persecution but they still brought Old World ideas with them. According to thehistoricpresent.com, “This was true throughout Europe in the century following the Protestant Reformation: whatever religion the king chose became the official state religion of his country, and all other religions or sects were made illegal.” In the New World it may have been more democratic but the results could be the same.

It seems the Constitution is following the same sort of downward glide path of 15th and 16th Century religion when a king or queen not only controlled the crown but the state religion, too. Trump’s claim of fixing “it” will involve fixing the Constitution. This is not hard to fathom with the recent Supreme Court ruling making the president immune and above the law. Thus, giving us a monarch much like King George III, whom colonist called a tyrant. It makes Ben Franklin’s response when asked when leaving the Constitutional Convention what they came up with: “A Republic if you can keep.” Today that seems very prophetic.

What does Project 2025 say about religious liberty and the separation of church and state?