Some ideas we have seen in the Next Reformation

1. Original sin is simply Man’s lower, base nature.  Salvation then, becomes a matter of raising one's consciousness.

2. The next reformation begins with an awareness of Christian Mythology!  Accept the Old Testament as a combination of Middle Eastern mythology and Jewish history just as we accept Roman mythology and history. Let us be free to question these things and understand them on other levels, as metaphors, as Psyche was transformed.

3. The Next Reformation must reject the violence and genocide allegedly commanded by God in the Old Testament.  

4. We value the Old Testament for its stories of reformation, and purification and law, much as we value the Roman civilization for its law and language and engineering and the Greek civilization for philosophy, logic and geometry.  The prevented sacrifice of Issac was one of the first great reformations of human religion. The angel of God was Abraham's own inner conscious that prevented human sacrifice.

5. God is known by many names. Baal and Yahweh were both storm gods.  Hercules was the son Zeus and Jesus was the son of God the Father. As man’s ideas evolve, man’s names and images for God change. It is man that changes God as man’s understanding and attitudes change or develop. It is our view of God that changes.

6. Creation was the Diests' Bible. As our view of Creation changes, so does our view of God change.  Man once was at the center of the universe, a unique and Divinely favored being.  The astronauts have shown that earth is part of the heavens.  And Jesus has taught us that the Kingdom of Heaven is within our own consciousness. 

7. Matter, on the microcosmic level appears very much like spirit - a bundle of vibrating energy.  And again, our view must change even more! The Next Reformation will discover that Spiritual Energy must follow its own laws of cause and effect, and never be arbitrary, even though it may appear so to us.  Spiritual energy is natural, not supernatural.  We just have not discovered all there is to it.

8. A hypothesis for the Next Reformation:  View of Creation One With God will lead to a healthier world.  Envision God before anything was created. There was only God in the begining. Creation was then made by and of God. Creation is made of God. If we act like it, we will be saved.

9. The Trinity is that part of God the Father that Man can interact with, think about and is personal and is part of our own inner consciousness. And when we pray, this where and to who our prays go. The Son of God is our consciousness- the Logos - the Word. The Holy Spirit is God the Mother and the Life Force. 

10. The Nicene Creed (Apostle’s Creed) was written in 325 AD at the Council of Nicea. The bishops voted and declared Jesus the Son of God. And this Creed is the longest and greatest conspiracy in history.

11. Mysticism studies the mysteries of exoteric and esoteric experiences, that is the worldly and the transcendental, the mundane and the arcane, or the public and the secret.   Mysticism is a bridge between science and religion. 

12. We should not be afraid of the suffering or to feel the empathy and pathos of Christ for humanity.   The Next Reformation considers the Mystical Nature of Christ. 

13. The Next Reformation will rediscover Wisdom and the Divine Feminine - and to know divine order, harmony, truth and justice.  She was shut out of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Next Reformation will recognize Wisdom, Sophia, the Goddess, the Life Force and God the Mother as the Holy Spirit,

14. The Next Reformation needs to know about the Easter legend and lost Rebirth religions.  What were they like, and how the Church appropriated their ideas and customs, and then elimitated those "pagan" religions?

15. The mystical Christianity of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Catholic Jesuit Priest and scientist, is expressed by his use of the terms "Cosmic Christ" - "Universal Christ" - "Christ Consciousness" and the Omega Point. And that life will evolve in this direction. For the Chardin, “Love is the most universal, most tremendous and most mysterious of the cosmic forces.  Love is the primal and universal psychic energy.  Love is an attractive force, a higher form of human energy.” 

16.The teachings of Jesus can save the world.  All major religions have teachings similar to the "Golden Rule" - "Do unto others..". Salvation in the Next Reformation depends on loving God and loving neighbor, and is available to all men and women of Goodwill. The cross shows us a path, a way.  It is not so much a gift given to us from the sacrifice by Jesus, as showing us how to bear our own crosses. 

17. The next reformation will deliberate on Capital Punishment, and the meaning of all life.

18. What can the next reformation offer those in the "Dark Night of the Soul".  Here and now, only hope and knowing that changing how we think about something, changes our neural connections and our thoughts and actions. And we can expect initiation and baptism to be part of the process of bearing our cross.  In the afterlife, there is always the possibility of reincarnation.

19. A very simple argument for Univeralism is:   Why infinite punishment for finite crimes and sins? A simple argument for Unitarianism is:  "One God is enough for me",  Thomas Paine.

20. Christ Consciousness is the Logos and the Divine Light Within. The Logos - word from God - a word is an idea - an idea is consciousness - the Logos is consciousness.

21. The actual physical resurrection of Jesus is not critical for the Next Reformation.  It may or may not have occurred as described.  That is a matter for Faith.  We can have our own experiences of rebirth here on this plane and live our lives in ways, including good karma and love, to be afforded resurrection in any afterlife.

22. John 20:17  Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’" This is quite clear, Jesus is saying He and we are of the same nature.

23. Pater Noster - Our Father - Jesus taught us this prayer.  "Our" is a plural possessive pronoun.  "Father" belongs to both Jesus and his disciples - us. Thy kingdom come is bigger than the Christian kingdom - more inclusive.

24. Man has been able to discover many Laws of Nature.  What of the Laws of the Spirit?  Plato said "God ever geometrizes."  Mathematics may be related to archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.  Is the God we think about and write about and pray to, part of ancient inborn instincts called Archetypes ? And that Archetypes projected onto the Psyche and Inner Self are responsible for much of our religious and spiritual feelings?

25. The ancient mystical law of the triangle is:  There is something and it's opposite, they come together and a new substance is formed.  Yin and Yang.  Beneath the chaos, there is order and harmony.

26. John of Patmos prophesized the destruction of the Roman Empire (the Beast and whore of Bablyon) in the book "Revelation".  John also denounced non-believers.  It came to pass that Rome was defeated. This line of attack, using Revelation, was continued by the Roman Catholic Church to persecute heretics (non-believers), instead of the Roman emperors, and continues to our time to separate the “saved from the damned”. 

27. The traditional teachings of the Buddha can promote peace in the inner self and in the world. Techniques and practices such as mediation and yoga will promote physical, mental and spiritual health in the Next Reformation. We must be in harmony with our body and with our Earth.

28. Gaia was the Roman goddess of Earth.  Gaia is also a contempory theory that Earth is a living organism, trying to maintain chemical, biological, geologic and atmospheric balance - homeostasis. Whether true or not, treating Earth with respect is absolutely necessary.

29. Evolution theory considered that life could develop by random combinations of atoms given enough time.  Now, self-assembly of large molecules through natural attractions of charges and shapes are known and the formation of building blocks of life is a natural process. The question is what comes next.

30. Rather than End of Times and the Second Coming, a more reasonable belief would be to look for the "kingdom within" that we could experience through Christ Consciousness, now. If there is such a thing as eternity, and is forever, then we are now part of eternity.  Our present state is part of this eternity.

31. Abuses of power, corruptions, sales of indulgences, the printing press and Martin Luther all contributed to the Protestant Reformation. Absolute power of the Church led to the terror of the Inquisition. Man’s inhumanity to Man can occur in any time.  Religious zeal must be balanced. A nice and helpful question to ask from our own generation is WWJD - What Would Jesus Do?

32. Does God bestow Grace on those He favors? Is unmerited Grace and Faith alone all that is necessary for Salvation? Is Grace a condition of harmonic interaction?   If Grace is real then it must work somehow.  

33. Some of the greatest inhumanities to man have occurred within the Church, and some the greatest good to man also occurs within the Church. There is a danger to the world from the arrogance and zeal of those “chosen to be the people of God”. Does the devil create in man evil and harmful desires and fears or does the Shadow, the dark side of man create the devil?

34. The essence of mysticism is the sense of contact with the Divine or Transcendent.  The “sense”  because there is always the doubt of what we are actually experiencing. 

35. Neurotheology is a new field that explores neural connections in the brain and religious or spiritual experiences.  The brain is being mapped by various imaging techiques. What are neurological bases of phenomena like spiritual awe, oneness with the universe, and altered states of consciousness? Billions of neurons - nerve cells, connected in trillions of ways.

36. Light became matter during the "Big Bang". Light became consciousness through evolution of Life and vison. Consciousness allows us to think about God.