The Devils Dance of Death

I will begin with two quotations:

The Book of Genesis

You will be like the gods; knowing both good and evil.

You will have dominion over the earth.

The Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi, Egypt 1945

(7)  Jesus said; Blessed is the lion which when consumed by man becomes man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes….

Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin

My book is about a deception. It is about a dance of death, with the deceiver whispering into our ears the soothing words; do not fear, do not be afraid, you will be like the Gods knowing both good and evil. It begins by showing how in recent years the thoughts and actions of both Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian orthodoxy and the Islam world have been leading us in this dance. It then takes the reader back to the Gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945 in Egypt where Jesus spelled out the fearful implications of this fateful deception.   

How serious are the implications; very serious. Our planet is facing an ecological implosion. Population growth is exceeding planetary sustainability. We are consuming the earth’s resources at a ravenous rate. Yet, most of the seven billion of us living on the planet are unmoved by what is happening. For those who matter, that is the power elite; the deceiver’s whispering words into their ears has made life too comfortable to care. 

I will begin by first taking you back to the lost Gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 where Jesus spelled out the fearful implications of this deception. Then I will go to the source; The Book of Genesis and its definition of what we believe to be our God. In the Thomas Gospel; as quoted above, Jesus by way of metaphor spoke to our inner self destructive urges. Over the last two centuries psychologists like Freud and Jung have written about them. In recent years Rollo May when he wrote about the daimonic also wrote about them. They are those animalistic (using the Lion as metaphor) inner drives that have the power to take over the whole person—sex, eros, anger, rage, craving for power, achievement. Rollo May said that these drives can either be channeled into healthy creativity or they can be destructive. It is this destructiveness to which Jesus referred two millennia before when he said; cursed is the man whom the lion consumes.

For more on Rollo May, see:

http://facultyfp.salisbury.edu/iewhite/Rollo%20May.htm

This dance of death, for those who allow themselves to be consumed by the lion, can be described as a diamonic dance, or a dance with the devil, a flirtation with evil. It is a dance that always will, when the music stops playing, lead to the end of those who submit to it. The same holds true for any society that enters the dance. There is ample evidence historically of this outcome on both a personal and societal level.  

Both Rollo May and Jesus however give us a thread of hope; the possibility that we can control those destructive urges that threaten our   survival. Both said we have the power to control the Lion within. By internalizing these urges, we can master them. From this can come enormous strength and creativity. Jesus refers to this internalization when he says; Blessed is the lion which when consumed by man becomes man. So the implication in the message of both Rollo May and Jesus is that we can gain power from the internalization of the animal in us.  

How does one internalize the power of the Lion without the Lion destroying? How can we turn these animalistic urges into the creative force that Rollo May and Jesus describe? There is only one way. Again, we must return the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus says that we must look deeply within and go through struggle. Only then will we be able to conquer the daimonic.

(2) Jesus said: Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over all.

As noted above, this internalization of the power of the Lion applies individually as well as societally. The question becomes; how can individual Nations such as the American nation, or even all of world society, achieve this? Where do we all begin? The answer is that first we must change the way we think about ourselves and our relationship to this planet and to the cosmos. And to do this; we must break through the barriers that are presently holding us back.  

Before proceeding, I will return to Rollo May. In his books he makes the observation that throughout human history, the persona of the God or Gods worshiped generally has been a reflection of our inner selves. Our God or Gods become like us. He also points out that this is how we make sense of our inner diabolic. The God or Gods we worship give meaning to who we are. Is not this what Osama bin laden was doing as he planned 9/11, attempting to find meaning for his life by mimicking his God, (confirming/being like) Allah? Also, was not George Bush doing the same after 9/11? (His daily briefing books had biblical verses printed on the covers) Doesn’t this explain the many horrific events of Christian history; one of note being the Inquisition?

So, being “troubled” must begin with our search for what God is and what God is not. For most it is not an easy search. This is why Jesus uses the word “troubled.” He is calling on us to force ourselves to find out whether we have been worshiping the real God or simply a fiction of what we believe to be the real God. For example; Christians, once recognizing that the “Inquisition” God was not in reality God, had to force themselves over the following centuries to reinvent their God. This “Inquisition” example applies to all the Abrahamic religions. It is a ongoing process. All have to face the far-reaching question: Who is this God of we Jews, Christians and Muslims?

Why was Jesus constantly correcting the Hebraic definition saying; the scriptures say that, but I say this? Why did the Hebraic definition so confound the Roman Bishops in the fourth century, finally bringing them to the conclusion that GOD was dual; a consolidation of two forms of God, the Jesus God the son and a Jewish God the father?   

Where and when did the Hebraic definition itself begin? I decided to embark on an examination of these questions. I found the beginning of an answer sitting in a Hebrew Bible studies class taught by a professor from Yeshiva University—I was the lone gentile.

Here is what happened in that class:

We had spent several classes discussing the very beginning of the Book of Genesis where Eve is tempted by the deceiver. The deceiver tells her that if she eats the pomegranate from the tree of knowledge she and Adam will be like the God(s) knowing good and evil.

 A question arose in my mind. I said to the professor:

Genesis has the deceiver define for the very first time your Hebrew God. This sets the biblical stage for His nature. The deceiver tells Eve that if she eats from the tree of knowledge, she (we) will be like the god(s), knowing good and evil. 

Rabbi, with due respect let me ask you a question:

But first, a statement of fact:

From this you have concluded that your God, the God of the Nation of Israel, is a God knowing both good and evil. The definition is specific. The deceiver does not say that He is a God who knows only good. He says that this God of yours is a God who knows both good and evil.

But it does not stop there. Your Hebrew Bible then goes on to build on His persona from this original definition. This God of yours is like the metaphorical lion in the Thomas Gospel. He can at times act as one consumed by the lion and at times as one who consumes the lion. He is subject to the same diabolic urges that you and I are subject to. He is an anthropomorphic God.    

So, here we have for the first time in your history the first definition of your Hebraic God. This God is like us. He is a God driven by His own inner lion. And His actions prove this to be true. Out of anger He would destroy all of human civilization except for Noah and his family. Years later when the Christians pick up on this definition, He is a God who would have His son tortured and crucified. One hundred years after that, again for Christians, He would have John in his Book of Revelation outline in gruesome detail how He will destroy all of humanity for a second time, allowing only the select few to join Him. Then, in the seventh century it gets worse. The prophet Muhammad discovers this Hebraic god in the Jewish settlements around Mecca and Medina and in the Christian settlements along the Mediterranean coast (The Trinitarian God Head) and incorporates Him into the verses of the Koran. His name is changed to Allah. It is this Allah who would destroy the Infidels on 9/11.

Now, Rabbi to my question: I ask you; what authority did this deceiver have to define the nature of GOD? If the deceiver is by definition a deceiver, how can we be assured his definition of God was not a deception? Why should you Jews trust the words of a deceiver to define the nature of your God? Why should Christians and Muslims? What if God is not a good/evil God but a God who only knows “Good,” and it is only we humans who can know evil?

The professor stood in silence. He believed in the sacredness of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, there was an enormous contradiction here. First this

 G-d as identified by the deceiver, then the Moses I AM THAT I AM G-d and then back throughout the Hebrew Bible the anthropomorphic G-d leading The Nation of Israel under the "don't mess with me" Covenant. He had no answer. 

Now, in the 21st century, with the first signs of our possible extinction at hand, we are called to ask; how valid is the deceiver’s definition of this God of the Jews, a God since shared by the other two religions of Abraham? And if we are to assume it is in fact valid, as many Jews, Christians and Muslims believe it is, is this Hebraic God, according to His Biblical intentions, about to destroy us again?

It was this retributive God of Abraham who told an American president to invade Iraq. This same God is encouraging Islamic terrorism today. This same God is now telling evangelical Christians in the United States to defy governmental and organizational environmental initiatives. Their God is saying to them: have no worry about the Planet; you are living in the end of times. When it no longer serves My purpose, you will all be with Me in paradise.

It does not end here. In all three of the religions of Abraham we have centuries upon centuries of ongoing interpretations of how God would respond to this or to that. A Christian example today is the Roman Catholic Churches’ stance on the use of condoms under the Vatican rule that GOD considers them an “intrinsic evil.” Go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/europe/24pope.html?scp=6&sq=pope%20benedict&st=cse

This discussion about God is more than just academic. Wrong thinking by religious groups can have huge consequences politically, socially and ecologically. The most important at this moment revolves around the possibility of those of the Hebraic faiths through Judeo-Christian and Islamic collective intentionality destroying our species on this planet.  

Unfortunately world society remains largely comatose as to the future of our planet, with most nations simply accepting the status quo. There are rumblings among the scientific community, but those rumblings find limited or only cosmetic political action. Also we see occasional media exposure; however, by-an-large the world remains in a state of slumber. 

David Brooks, stepping well out of bounds at the New York Times a year ago, made reference to the need to challenge religious orthodoxy in one of his op-eds when he wrote; referring to our 21st century world:

“Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings….”

9/11 showed the world that these "particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings" can have a dark and dangerous power. They are in fact the dark side of the daimonic to which both Rollo May and Jesus refer.

In recent history, the American (coalition) invasion of Iraq, we saw that "particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings" could exert a dark and dangerous power not only on a radical Muslim like Osama bin laden but also on an evangelical west Texas “born again” evangelical Christian president. 

When I was taking that class, almost all Christian authors writing on biblical subjects were either serious academic religious scholars or Christian evangelicals. None were physicists or behavioral psychologists who had opened their minds to think metaphysically about “intentionality” and other bizarre quantum behaviors such as the possible superposition between intentionality and determinant influence. These Christian authors could only think in terms of the planetary intervention by their God, identified in traditional religious terms as the miraculous. And, the end of times was a matter of blind faith in an all knowing God.

It soon became apparent to me that not only these authors but also the religious publishing industry in general were missing the larger picture. Barriers were erected. Religious discussion had to fit into pre defined niches. And what was placed in these niches had to be religiously correct! 

Also, throughout academia there was a certain religious correctness. In the classroom, tenure was at risk if religion were explored too deeply.

I was, nevertheless, encouraged to see the beginning of a change in religious writing. Popular books like the Da Vinci Code had taken hold. Additionally, serious books were coming from other authors who had begun to break the mold. Suddenly, anti Catholicism and atheism came into vogue; also, books critical of Islam. With the likes of Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong, Don Culpit, Llloy Geering and Shelby Spong, all Jesus Seminar authors, serious Christian religious inquiry entered the popular scene. But the work of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt critical of American Jewry and Jimmy Carter's book critical of Israel showed its limitations. Their books were off limits. Anti Semitism was still too raw a nerve. The response of many American Jews was understandable. Arab anti Zionism and Holocaust memories run deep.

This is not just an American Jewish phenomenon. Among American Christians, underlying feelings about the country's religious manifest destiny run to the depths of the soul of protestant and catholic America. Certain kinds of criticism are off limits. These feelings arise out of ancient biblical imagery. It is an imagery that shaped the American experience. To understand it, all one has to do is read the Gettysburg address or listen to the word choices over eight years of an American evangelical Christian president or the word choices in the candidates' speeches during the last presidential election period. John McCain's reference to "a cause greater than himself" and his certainty in defining "evil" ring true to the religious battle cry heard time and again over the last three thousand years of religious history.

Religious forces deeply influence what Americans hear on TV, read in newspapers and read in the form of books. In the selling of books, editors and literary agents set the tone for what is and what is not published. Unwritten codes of religious acceptability determine their choices more than they will admit. Why else was the John Mearsheimer/Stephen Walt piece critical of American Jews refused US publication?

As a result of all this, there are no books speaking to the underlying religious beliefs that are now tearing at the fabric of world society. There are no books linking evangelical Christianity to America’s recent social and economic decline. There are no books dealing with the amorality of Christian social conservatism. In a publishing industry that prides itself on being ahead of the times, subtle distinctions between the good and bad in Judaism and Christianity—there are no books critical of Judaism—are assiduously avoided. Constructive religious criticism is muted.

America is paying a price. For Christians there is an unresolved tension that has arisen from the positivistic nature of much of their Christian belief and the increasingly negative outcomes. They see Ronald Reagan’s vision of the city on the hill fading before their eyes. The failures in Iraq reinforced this. The pictures from Abu Ghraib were a stark reminder of the duplicity of American Judeo-Christian values. In one broad stroke Abu Ghraib erased the memory throughout the entire world of a vision etched by the years of American post World War II “Christian” patrimony.

What was it the Christian evangelical American president had missed when he decided to invade a Muslim country? Was he fighting with bombs when he should have been fighting with sophisticated theological and philosophical argument? If Jesus could put the Pharisees in their place, why was George Bush unable to do the same theologically with bin Laden? Was he blinded by his own religious experience? Had his faith in Jesus as his personal savior clouded his mind? Was this the reason he had responded to the threat from Islam after 9/11 through the cold war good versus evil prism?

Americans are beginning to view their country as a great nation diminishing in world power and influence. It is becoming clear that eight years of evangelical “faith based” government held the country back from assuming the global leadership role it should have assumed. Rather; there was an abdication of that role to other nations. This has left a deep scar on the American psyche. Even with the entry of the Obama administration on to the scene, again we once again see the evangelical Christian right holding back progress.

Salman Rushdie discussed this problem in a New York Times op-ed several years ago when he wrote: 

"Yet, one has the sense of things shutting down, of barriers being erected, of … dialogue being stifled…."

These barriers have prevented Americans from seeing with clarity the problems before them. Issues vital to American survival resting on an understanding of religious belief  lay clearly in front of them; however, because of the “barriers being erected”, to which Salman Rushdie referred, Americans are blinded. They simply assume that Judeo-Christianity in its many forms is all knowing and therefore mostly good for their country. They remain unaware of the inherently destructive power of much of Judeo-Christian religious thought. This is the reason that among so many there is such confusion over why many of the government’s decisions made during the Bush period turned out to be so wrong. Politically correct rules governing religious debate have stifled any form of inquiry into the culpability of Judaism and Christianity for errors made.  Any real criticism of Christianity and Judaism is off limits.

Islamic criticism too is handled with care. All focus is placed on Islamic terrorism with almost no attention paid to its religious roots. The raw and unvarnished fact is that Jews and Christians in America can not come forward with an argument against Islam without looking into the still waters of the origins of their own religious beliefs. Like it or not, Islam was built upon the same biblical exclusive injunctions found in Judaism and Christianity. Many of these injunctions remain very much alive. They have no place in our 21st century world.

This “dumbing” of America has come at a time when an intellectual sophistication on religious matters has never been more important, and for the following reason:

We have before us a strong possibility of human species extinction, and an underlying reason is human behavior arising out of religious belief. Or, stated another way; an absence of corrective human behavior is the result of adherence to many of the God images that arose out of Hebraic religious belief.

David Brooks was right to imply that solutions must begin with the theological. Ethical/civilizational change can only come by first attacking the theological.

The three religions of Abraham are being called on to separate themselves from their “devils dance”, a dance that is leading to the end of the human species. They are being called on to reconnect with the Cosmic “IT” by reformulating their theologies, recognizing that GOD is only a God of love and that they themselves—as well as parts of their scriptures, are the source of evil.

This God of these religionists is waiting for a redefinition of itself by way of a reinvention of the Abrahamic idea of the sacred. The Universe itself is waiting for these religionists to come forth with a new civilizational social/political/economic paradigm, one that will enable future generations to live in a biologically consonant relationship with Planet Earth and the cosmos.