How you will leave Earth alive when NOBODY will

Death-is-birthMuhammad Ali is among more than 110 celebrities who have exited Earth’s stage since New Year’s Eve 2015. Each gave us a fresh opportunity not only to embrace the reality of death, but to actually understand it.

This is important. And as Ali demonstrated, if we don’t understand Death, we will not successfully navigate Life.

Ali understood both extraordinarily well, so well that he started planning his home-going services ten years ago. It was a beautiful, inclusive and meaningful production that mirrored the spirit of his time on Earth’s stage: powerful, entertaining, uplifting and unconditionally loving.

In her eloquent and poignant eulogy at Ali’s memorial service in his native Louisville on Friday afternoon, his wife Lonnie shared an insight from one of the planning sessions:

When the end came for him, he wanted us to use his life—and his death—as a teaching moment for young people, for his country, and for the world.

Throughout his time here, The Champ taught us by example…

  1. Fearlessly discard anything that no longer serves you—even if it’s your birth identity and the beliefs of your childhood.
  2. Embrace beliefs that resonate with your soul.
  3. Love unconditionally.
  4. Honor Self, honor All.
  5. Don’t let your story end with a defeat.

And with wisdom, he also taught us five additional lessons, in no particular order…

1. Do not fear Death. Plan for it.everyone-leaves-earth-alive

Most of us don’t want to discuss death. It frightens us. When a loved one is near the exit door, we pray—and we ask everyone we know—to pray for them to stay on this side. We do this because we don’t understand what God is. We do it because we don’t understand death. And we do it because we don’t understand that we are asking for God to obey our will and to disrespect the will of a soul who is ready to evolve to another experience.

Every soul who ever visited here has had an exit strategy. Though exceptional, the soul who came here to be Muhammad Ali was no exception to this truth. And he was wise enough to know that Earth is not Home. Not one immortal soul who came here has stayed. That was never any soul’s plan. So, he and his wife Lonnie, along with his closest advisors, began planning every detail of his final services a decade ago. It was two years in the making.

But the actual preparation for his last scene took more than six decades, because he focused on this dynamic Life principle…

2. Protect your soul.

[Ali] awoke every morning thinking about his own salvation. And he would often say, “I just want to get to heaven. And I’ve gotta do a lot of good deeds to get there,” Lonnie Ali

Many believe that heaven is a physical place beyond the 100-200 billion galaxies in the known physical universe, and that we must be saved from the inhumane and unending torture threatened by a wrath-filled, sadistic god who has zero tolerance for human error in those whom He created as sinful.

Why do you think the Divine would even become directly involved with such negative energy?

I ask you to think a higher thought about God. Consider the possibility that God is Love, and that this is not the way Love treats its beloved. Love is fair and just. Life is fair and just. God would not have created it any other way.

Consider the possibility that there is a mechanism in place that enables God to enjoy Life without huffing and puffing, and acting like Satan. That mechanism is karma.

when-curtain-fallsWith karma, God needs to do nothing, yet no one gets away with anything. With karma, whatever you do will be done to you. Karma is why Drama Queen Workshop Principle #1 is: Life is always fair.

With karma, we are not excessively punished for our negative, hurtful behaviors, we are equitably punished by them. We are not blessed for our good deeds, but blessed by them. With karma, the only thing we need to be saved from is the heavy, negative energy that attaches to the immortal soul, the True Self.

This gooey blob of energy attaches to us whenever we do not act with love, and every time we do things to others that we would not want done to ourselves. Its negative energies attract matching negative energies to us. We receive exactly what we’ve given—not more or less.

Ali vigilantly protected his soul. He understood, better than most, that the acts performed on Earth’s stage become the blessings or the burdens of the immortal soul, not the body costume that soul is temporarily wearing. He wanted heaven.

I imagine that he has now discovered that heaven is not a place, but a peace that results from treating others the way you want to be treated. I am thrilled that this peace is now known by the immortal soul who temporarily played the role of Muhammad Ali, a human who saw others through the deeper, wiser eyes of the soul. He urged us to call forth that ability when he said…

3. Don’t count the days; make the days count.

ALI-DAYS1

Each and every day, Muhammad Ali was consciously aware of his outcomes, the consequences of his actions. He was consistently on alert for any negative energy his temporary physical self would attract to his Immortal Self.

According to his wife, Ali apparently wanted to leave here a more evolved version of the soul who arrived 74 human years earlier. He wanted to exit the stage door of Earth’s theater, head high, shoulders back, arms raised in victory and immensely proud of the role he’d played here.

And he wanted the audience on to its feet, screaming for more—because, after all, he was the Greatest of All Time.

 

4. Don’t take yourself seriously.

If you have all eternity to live, and a tremendous grasp on how Life works, why not seize every opportunity available to have some fun? Anyone who observed Muhammed Ali would agree that he was as quick-witted as he was light-footed. He was as much a champ of practical jokes outside of the ring as he was with the knock-out punch inside it. He was braggadocious, outrageously funny, and totally lovable because of it.

wake-up-apologize-dqw

And let’s not forget, he was “pretty.” No one captured Ali’s keen sense of humor better than comedian Billy Crystal, whose ingenious impersonations of The Champ allowed Ali to laugh, perhaps howl, at himself.

As Crystal shared in his hilarious salute at Ali’s memorial service, the first time Ali saw Crystal mimic him, Ali adopted him as his “little brother.” For 42 years, they remained family, and loved each other as brothers. It mattered not that one was Muslim and the other Jewish.

Part of Ali’s greatness was his ability to see past the physical costume to the soul that was animating that costume, the soul that breathed life into those human nostrils. How much joy would he have missed if his Jewish little brother had not been in his life?

How much joy do we miss by shutting out others due to superficialities such as race, religion, gender-orientation or even income? Ali wanted more for us, and so he advised…

5. See the presence of God and the good soul in every man.

Onto the stage at his final service, Ali summoned eight leaders from different faiths whom he loved and who loved him, as evidenced in the rousing tribute from Rabbi Michael Lerner. It dramatically symbolized Ali’s belief in the Oneness of the human family and his embrace of all God’s people.

Ali didn’t have to share the same religious beliefs as his friends; his friends didn’t have to share his. Beliefs can trip us up. They can separate us, limit our vision, prevent us from living our soul purpose, and they can stunt our evolutionary growth.

Beliefs can make us fear death, so I’d like to advance this discussion.

Your Desktop Workshop on… Death

In Drama Queen Workshops, we discuss death as an important and necessary exit strategy. Souls cannot grow if we do not leave. So why does it scare us?

If we were taught to seek our own answers, instead of pressured to blindly accepting others’, we would quickly discover the reason we’re afraid of death: ancient myths that have survived for millennia. Perhaps the best known is Greek mythology’s “Pandora’s Box.”

The mythical Pandora was the first female human on Earth, created by the gods with earth and water. In modern parlance, Pandora was your garden variety mudpie. (Don’t snicker that any ancient Greeks believed humans can be formed from dirt. We all know 21st century folks who not only believe this, but insist that God holds them responsible for what the mudpie did.)

Eve and Pandora comparisons

©2015-2016 DarthCrotalus

As the story goes, Pandora was given a container and told not to open it. Of course, you know what happens when you tell a child, especially a mudpie child, not to open something: Pandora’s curiosity won the day.

When she lifted the lid, Death and other evils burst forth into the world. When she quickly slammed it shut, Hope—which, oddly enough, had coexisted in the dark with evil—was trapped inside. One would think that hope would have pushed everyone else aside at the first chance to break free.  But no. Poor dear.

On that cheery note, we have a riff on that tale: the story of another disobedient woman’s curiosity. Eve also had mudpie DNA, since she was created by extracting a rib from a male who’d been formed with earth and water. In this fantastical story, when Eve defied the Lord God’s order not to eat the Fruit of Knowledge, Death and other evils were introduced into the world.

Aside from the obvious misogyny and the implausible claim that dirt and water are gestational components of human life, the common denominator in these stories is that:

  • God cruelly and unfairly makes the entire world suffer for the mistakes of one person.
  • Death is a punishment imposed by an angry, vengeful God.
  • Death is an evil.

But what if it is not?

Everyone wants to go to heaven; no one wants to die

Everything physical changes, ages and dies. That is by design. Physical life is not eternal, folks. Physical is merely a form of life. Earth is not Home. It is simply the only home our human body costumes know.

people-gone-too-soonWe have merely forgotten that we’re not our costumes. Consequently, we mourn when a character exits Earth’s stage. We cry that they left too soon or were too young to die. We deny the possibility that life and death are purposeful, that every soul who visits Earth comes here for a reason, and that each soul has given itself a timetable for fulfilling its purpose.

Now hear this: Not one soul stays on Earth’s stage too long or leaves too soon. Everyone has an exit strategy.

Death is indisputably inevitable for every physical body. I might add that death is obviously desirable, because not one soul has ever visited Earth with the intention of wearing a human body costume forever.

Remember what The Champ said, and make each day here count.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How Donald Trump’s dark energy lifted us into the Light

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.By Albert Einstein’s calculations, everything is energy. Although our ability to “read” the energy that surrounds us wasn’t part of his equation, most of us do possess that gift. We walk into a room or meet someone new, and we can instantly discern whether the invisible energy and vibrational frequencies in that space or around that person resonate with our vibe.

As immortal souls who are temporarily having a human experience, we don’t see energy as good or bad, but as light or dark. Light energy emits a brilliant, free-willing, powerful, attractive, truthful-loving, generous, and life-giving vibration. By contrast, dark energy casts a heavy, oppressive, commanding, forceful, dishonest, fearsome, avaricious, and untrustworthy vibe.

Does that mean dark energy is “bad”? I do not think so. Like many others, I see dark energy as a fascination. OK, sometimes it’s also annoying. But as Joseph (of “Technicolor Dreamcoat” fame) reportedly said in Genesis 50:20, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” In other words, dark energy can be a tool, a barbell that can strengthen our spiritual muscles for our Highest Good. 

I know, you’re wondering what this has to do with Donald J. Trump. Everything, actually. And nothing. Let me explain:

Super-size that dark energy, please!

In Drama Queen Workshops, we act on the premise that all energy is “good.” We draw that conclusion from another premise: Every soul has a good reason, a purpose, for being on Earth’s stage right now. And every prominent member of our cast, from intimate lovers to complete strangers, is here to help us fulfill the purpose we established for this incarnation. Even if our interactions are painful or even traumatic, they serve the soul’s purpose. Perhaps they repay old karmic debts or they are so jarring or traumatizing that they speed our awakening or ascension.

2 Corinthians 4:18Think of purpose as the motivating force behind our lifetime dramas, the scenes we scripted prior to slipping into these human body costumes. Wait. What? Did I say you scripted your miserable lifetime? I did.

Consider the possibility that Life is eternal, and anything that does not last forever—such as everything in the physical world—is not real. What if, as the offspring of an invisible, invincible, immortal, and equitable energy often called God, you were granted free will to create anything and do anything you wanted? But there’s a caveat: Whatever you do will be done to you; i.e., Karma will balance your actions.

With all eternity to live, what if billions of souls created a hellish physical universe to test our embrace of this simple principle and to practice instantly activating our Light in darkness?

The vibration in the physical universe is so slow, high-vibrating souls must wear low-vibrating human body costumes to be visible. These bodies are so dense, they add another challenge: We forget why we came. Invariably, we treat others in ways we would not want to be treated—and we must return to the hellish world and try to balance our behavior.

To successfully restore balance, the timing of our return is important. To accelerate our ascension to higher realms, ambitious souls return when the drama on Earth is peaking. There is a churning sea of dark energies: incivility, hypocrisy, lawlessness, corruption, deception, cruelty, misogyny, violence, disdain for truth, reverence for lies, greed, power struggles, and wars.

Before re-entry, we knew that America was the perfect stage on which to play. According to the master script, the country’s ghastly inhumane roots would burst through the thin layer of concrete that had barely obscured it for decades. It was an encore of a previous time—and an optimal time for us to re-enter to repay debts we owed from that visit. Perhaps we should wear costumes of a different color than our previous ones. As a bonus, we could perfect our godly-forgiveness proficiency.

Chicagoans protest the dark energy of the Trump presidencyIt served our purpose for anti-Christian energy to be on Earth. We knew the dark energy of a malevolent and malignant narcissist would attract souls who shared his beliefs and longings. We knew he could lure hoards of dark energies into public spaces by declaring himself their savior. Only he could unmask their racial hatred and religious hypocrisy. Souls who failed to learn the “let he who is without sin” lesson would amass karmic debt by trying to force women to give birth against their will. They would guzzle and amplify his lies and believe only “alternative facts”. These dark energies would pack huge venues; some would even sacrifice their bodies to attend.

Trump was the perfect barbell for souls whose purpose for this lifetime was to actively proclaim our discipleship to the energies of Light, Love, Truth, Peace, and Civility. He shook us from the comfort of our complacency and strengthened our resistance muscles. He also was the perfect catalyst for America to begin repaying its longstanding karmic debt. The country prospered from inhumanity, avarice, violence, dishonesty, and theft. The same values are destined to lead to its downfall.

Light energy coalesced as The Resistance during Donald Trump's tenure.

Women’s March 2017, Chicago © Patricia Arnold

We peacefully marched, actively protested, and filled polling places—for four human years. With every hurtful act he committed, we grew more furious. We hated everything he did, all the relationships he destroyed, and families he tore apart, not only at our southern border but at our dining room tables. We hated what he had done to our country, our air, our water. We hated the racism, the lawlessness, and corruption. We hated the media outlets, lawmakers, and sycophants who blithely championed unChristlike Christianity.

We awoke each morning, reaching for our phones to see what despicable thing he had done while we slept. He lied about COVID-19, urging his followers to act as if it wasn’t serious. Wearing masks would remind everyone that a problem existed and he could not save them. Millions contracted the disease. Hundreds of thousands died. America, with four percent of the world’s population, had nearly 25% of the coronavirus cases. We hated him more. Then, he led an attempted coup, leading to five deaths and dozens of injuries.

We were so outraged and distracted, we didn’t notice that his dark energies—hatred, anger, and fear—were slowly dimming our Light and they were threatening to derail one of the prime purposes for this lifetime: to perfect the practice of shining our Light to disperse dark energies. Mercifully, the Great Light whispered this reminder to writer and poet D. A. Schulman. He shared it online: D.A. Schulman quote about hate

We were ready to let go of hate, too. Our inner light began to flicker, then glow. We remembered that we created Trump’s dark energy drama. Now, we thank him for serving our purpose.

Be your own spiritual guru

Are your beliefs really yours? Did you form them independently, after serious thought, or did you accept them from someone else–no questions asked?

Most of us are not comfortable questioning our beliefs. Some of us are even afraid to consider it. That is understandable. After all, we have been threatened that God will punish us with sadistic, unending pain unless we believe what others instructed us to believe.

FAITH does not require us to suspend our disbelief or common sense.

Odd, since the same people also said that God is Love–and God loves me. That warrants a few questions: Does Love behave sadistically? Does Love threaten to brutalize its Beloved? Should we fear Love or anything Love will do? Does fear give us peace?

When we are in dire need or deep despair, does our common sense direct us to seek out someone who is full of wrath, harshly judgmental and excessively punitive–someone we fear? Do we normally trust our lives to someone who reportedly solves problems by killing innocent humans? Is violent conflict resolution divine or demonic –and why do we worship someone who behaves that way? After all, we cannot worship a violent god without worshiping violence.

An educated mind entertains a thought without accepting it. ~Aristotle

If we were not being threatened with severe harm, would we willingly worship a god who acts like a demon? If we had the freedom to choose, would we prefer a close, trusting relationship with a god who loves us as unconditionally as the father in The Prodigal Son parable; a god who does not possess the same characteristics as the most vile humans on the planet; a god who does not hypocritically tell us to forgive 70 times 7, then refuses to forgive unless an innocent son is brutally tortured to death?

How can we find that god? Perhaps a spiritual teacher can lead us. Or maybe we can become our own teacher. We have as much God within us as the world’s most revered spiritual masters. The only real difference is their relentless search for Truth. That is what led them to mastery. You can follow that lead.

One way to search for Truth is to read more than one book. I discovered that years ago, after finding a small collection of books on religion and spirituality in a new apartment–my 19th home. (You can learn more about this adventure in my metaphysical memoir.) My research has led me to believe there are no accidents in the Universe, so I have concluded the books were left there for me, to help me fulfill my life purpose.

Over the years, that stack of books formed the foundation of an extensive collection of books on religion and spirituality. My collection will continue to grow because I am a lifelong learner, and I want to continue to grow. I have written questions in the margins of some of the books because I spotted inconsistencies or illogical proclamations charading as facts.

Like everyone on a spiritual quest, I question everything and I have but one goal: to seek truth and find God within it. That requires me to be open, objective, discerning and curious. I cannot bring any preconceived notions to a text or filter it through the jaundiced eye of preexisting beliefs. In other words, I do not assume everything I read is true. I demand the text prove itself true or provide citations so I can verify its claims. I suggest you do the same.

Spiritual truth is not mysterious. It is not complicated. If something doesn’t make sense, it probably is not true. Take what makes sense to you; discard anything else from consideration.

If you want a deeper understanding of what God is and what God does, and you want a relationship that is not based on fear of harm but on unconditional love, you can have that. Be your own spiritual guru.

If you do not know where to begin, I have created a list from the delightfully diverse collection of reading material that has informed my common sense spirituality beliefs for the past 40 years. This list will continue to grow, because I want to continuously grow.

Download the list here, and enjoy reading yourself wiser!

If you would like to recommend a book that is not on this list, please share it in the comments section.

Where did we get our spirit of fear?

Think these are scary times? Who gave you that spirit of fear?

Once upon a time, Halloween appeared once a year. Since 2016, it has popped up, intrusively and unannounced, almost every day. Oh, the horror stories! How often have we heard someone say these are “scary times?”

Mind-numbing and heartbreaking dramas are being enacted on stages throughout America. Millions of Christians are waging a war on Christianity, spitting disdainfully on Jesus’s teachings; embracing sexual assault, lies, corruption and cheating as the new normal. They scornfully consider treating others as they would want to be treated as “political correctness.” They cheer politicians who urge us to resolve conflict violently if anyone disagrees with them or is not White. They support government leaders who kidnap infants and children from their parents, even though they would be devastated if someone ripped their children from their arms.

Yes, the heartless barbarism of lesser developed, ancient civilizations has staged a comeback. As CNN anchor Chris Cuomo reflected recently, today’s political rally attendees share the values of crowds who cheered when Christians were fed to the lions.

Are the times scary—or are we simply choosing to respond to the times with fear?

Carpetbaggers peddling blatant lies and stoking our wildest fears have invaded centerstage in yet another revival of a weary, centuries-old drama. The casts change, but the ending is the same: The bad actors always lose.

Yes, it is disconcerting to discover that disciples of the Antichrist are in such close proximity, sometimes in our own families. Hold them in Light. Their decision to dive into a bubbling pool of bad karma should frighten them, not us. Eventually, they will awaken and remember this is a what-goes-around-comes-around world: Whatever we do while wearing these human body costumes will be done to us at some point in our eternal life.

Is Life fair?

Karma is scarier than hell.There are four principles Drama Queen Workshops hold dear. The first: Life is always fair. Folks typically are stunned by that. But it simply means we reap exactly what we sow—an eye for an eye. Fair? We believe so.

Karma balances our actions more fairly (and godly) than the demonic concept called hell.

It’s humans who use their God-given free will to act unfairly. They justify it by claiming God does the same: refusing to forgive the guilty unless an innocent son is brutally tortured to death.

Our beliefs free us—or freeze us

Those who believe we are souls created in the likeness and image of an invisible, invincible and immortal God have a different life experience than those who believe we are physical bodies. Since our beliefs heavily influence our behaviors, and our behaviors impact our outcomes, it is important to explore and understand our beliefs—and identity.

Only physical bodies experience fear; only bodies can be manipulated by it. Fear is not a soul experience.

The late President Franklin D. Roosevelt described fear as nameless, unreasoning, unjustified and paralyzing, and he declared that the only thing humans should fear is fear itself. There are other considerations.

Where did we get our spirit of fear?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Often, we adopt beliefs without thinking logically or critically because we’re afraid of being punished or ostracized. Sometimes, we’re threatened or belittled, which justifies our fear. We freeze. We won’t ask common sense questions and accept nonsensical answers.

Much of this manipulation is rooted in scriptures portraying God as diabolical, punitive, unforgiving, authoritarian and inhumane. The same book contradicts that, portraying God as divine, loving, generous and empowering. Among those scriptures: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2Timothy 1:7) Common sense question: Would God bestow those gifts on eternal souls or the human body costumes they are temporarily wearing to be visible here?

The human body can be a house divided

Most of us don’t trust someone who is kind one day and volatile the next—but we claim to trust a mercurial God. We don’t admire someone who has boasted of committing genocide—but we worship a genocidal God. We believe it’s unjust if an innocent man is executed for others’ crimes. But if God does it, and if the crimes were ours, OK.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.Any human body can be a house divided by holding conflicted beliefs. In ancient times, this was known as double-mindedness. I explored this curious phenomenon in a previous post that included a “Double-minded Quiz.” It went viral. You can take it here.

It is critical to examine our beliefs because an unstable mind is fertile ground for  manipulative fears. Are our beliefs consistent and plausible? Do they disparage God, dehumanize men and foment fear’s dark energy?

Earth is not for punks

The drama-fraught environment here, and its horror shows, offer unique opportunities for souls to evolve to higher spiritual levels. That’s why we chose to be here now, witnessing fright nights and election results.We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Government officials and press secretaries are not drowning themselves in bad karma for our entertainment. Their pain can be our gain.

Instead of letting them scare the bejesus out of you, challenge yourself to live fearlessly:

  1. Know thyself. You are a part of God, not the body costume you are wearing.
  2. Know what is godly. Defend God against fearmongers who accuse God of doing things only a demon would do.
  3. Overpower dark energy. Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. No matter what your religion, the light of the Christ is within you. Remove the bushel.
  4. Differentiate physical life from real Life. Physical life is finite. Real life is infinite. As the Apostle Paul wrote: Things that are seen are temporary; but things that are not seen are eternal.
  5. Choose the ethereal over the material. Anything you can’t take with you when you lift out of that body costume has no eternal (real) value. There’s wisdom in putting God first.
  6. Seek your life purpose. Every soul comes here purposefully. Seeing a lesson in everything you experience will help you find and fulfill your purpose, instead of failing your mission.
  7. Only create pleasant karma. We receive what we give. The most selfish thing you can do is treat others the way you want to be treated.
  8. Clear past painful karma. You have been alive forever, and you have made mistakes. You may have come to balance one or more of those mistakes. Welcome this opportunity to pay those debts; don’t fear it.

Earth is not for punks. There are less challenging places a soul can visit. But if you can be in this world but remember you are not “of it,” Beloved Soul, you can accomplish your purpose for this visit to Earth.

Remember: God gave you power, love and a strong mind. Don’t let ’em scare you.

Gate to church closed

Did Christians cause lower church attendance?

The headline in lead story of the Washington Post’s Acts of Faith newsletter on Easter Sunday was enticing: “One reason why churches have such a hard time getting people in the door.” The contributor, Christian writer Amy Julia Becker, quickly revealed the reason church attendance is down: Christians. She says they block others from studying the Bible, joining the faith and attending services.

Ms. Becker made this insightful discovery as she considered inviting friends to attend Bible-study. It had all the ingredients of a pleasant gathering: great food, affable attendees. But that might not be enough, she thought: Everyone doesn’t own a Bible, have a Bible app or know the books of the Bible. They might even think “studying” the Bible signals an exam at the end.

Those concerns are legitimate; but I think there might be another impediment: Her prospective guests might have read enough of the Bible to know they don’t want to spend more time with it. Even at the risk of missing out on some really good food.

Does the Bible also impact church attendance?

Studying the Bible, we see scriptures normalizing or justifying sexism, slavery, racism, domestic violence, infidelity and murder. We also discover there are more than 10 commandments. In fact, more than 50 scriptures command us to commit murder: Kill those who work on Saturdays. Kill brides who are not virgins. We are even commanded to kill those who do not share our beliefs.

No wonder Shakespeare wrote, “Even the devil can cite scripture for his purposes.” Shakespeare knows more than most. Historians say he was involved with writing King James’ immensely popular version of God’s word.

The Bible also commands us to murder those who have sexual relations with someone of the same gender. Addressing that, Ms. Becker expressed concern that Christians “condemn people outside the church for their sexual decisions.”

Is there a link between church attendance and homophobia?

It is the 21st century. Surely, people inside the church know humans aren’t the only species in which same-sex orientation appears. Other mammals don’t make sexual decisions; they do what comes naturally. Quite possibly, humans do, as well.

Same-sex orientation is not in my genetic makeup, so I would not “decide” to be sexually involved with another woman. It would be as unappealing to me as it would be for a person with same-sex orientation to be with someone of the opposite sex. It defies our nature.

While Ms. Becker is concerned that Christians who condemn different sexual orientations are negatively impacting church attendance, quite possibly, the issue is that these Christians have erected barriers between themselves and the profoundly loving and inclusive teachings of Jesus. He was no fan of organized religion, and his teachings were diametrically opposed to those in the Old Testament where these inhumane and homophobic commandments dwell.

Do the unchurched accept the church’s version of Jesus’s life story?

Ms. Becker feels those outside the church have difficulty believing “God’s existence in the form of a Jewish carpenter who died and rose again.” She’s half-right.

First, we do believe God existed in Jesus. Seven New Testament scriptures assert that God exists within everyone. Jesus was no exception. We believe he died and rose again, just as we believe the life narratives of Horus, Mithra and Dionysus, whose legends were written thousands of years before Jesus’s. Like him, they were said to be offspring of immortal gods and mortal virgins. They healed the sick and raised the dead. They were executed, and all rose on the third day. The tradition of writers appropriating popular myths for their own purposes has survived through the ages.

Another point: Christians insist upon using the word “died”—as if Jesus merely stopped breathing. Let’s be spiritually honest: Jesus reportedly was murdered; sadistically tortured to death, mocked and scorned. People inside the church have confessed to the sins that caused this gruesome execution and humiliation, and they say they are grateful it happened.

The Church’s Demonization of God

I understand why Christians euphemize this assassination. No one with a conscience or sense of decency would boast, “Jesus was tortured to death for something I did!” But I take exception to them demonizing God by shifting the blame. (The Church’s demonization of God is my personal barrier to entry.)

Christians want us to believe—and threaten us if we don’t believe—that God would not forgive the guilty unless innocent Jesus was barbarically tortured to death. Only a demon would do that!

God is good; 61 of their Bible scriptures affirm it. Another 14 scriptures say God is forgiving, and God’s grace is mentioned 318 times in the Old and New Testaments; 18 Bible verses declare that God loves us. Some clearly state God IS Love. Common sense question: Would Love voluntarily sacrifice Its one and only child to sadistic murderers?

Contrasted to religion, spirituality does not worship inhumane behavior. It builds no barriers between us and God. In spirituality, we are souls temporarily having a human experience. No one needs to give souls eternal life; we’ve always had it.

Spirituality also does not restrict the omnipresent spirit some call God to a gender or confine God to outer space, hundreds of light years away. In spirituality, God is not a hypocrite who commands us to forgive 70 times seven, but commits genocide by flood and filicide by crucifixion instead of forgiving.Do we need to be saved from anything LOVE will do to us?As I like to say, “If Love wouldn’t, God didn’t.” We believe the Divine has the compassion and capacity to forgive as unconditionally as the father in Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son.

It’s no wonder the Church says God’s ways are mysterious. It is definitely a mystery that God alternately is portrayed as divine in one chapter of the book they study, and unquestionably demonic in the next. It says God is full of wrath, violent, vengeful, judgmental, murderous, genocidal and will inflict pain for all eternity unless we believe Jesus was tortured as our surrogate. We should retreat to this demonic but merciful god during times of need.

Christians can build barriers to their buildings. However, they lack the power to separate even one soul from our omnipresent, good-all-the-time God.

Test Yourself: Do You Really Know What Love Is?

In the immortal words of Natalie Cole, “I’ve Got Love on My Mind” this Valentine’s Day:

There is nothing complicated about Love itself; in fact, Love is quite simple. Humans make it difficult. That’s why so few of us truly understand it—particularly those who say, “God is Love,” and then contradict themselves with claims that constitute accusations that God does things that only a demon would do. 

My mother used to say, “I can show you better than I can tell you. With that in mind, I decided to put words in motion and produce a video that offers life-altering thoughts about this omnipresent spirit called Love.

Love is always with you!

How will the power of this “11” year impact your life?

It’s 2018, a powerful “11” year to numerology buffs. And I have some definite plans for how I am going to leverage this power.

For those unfamiliar with numerology, Wikipedia defines it as “a belief in the divine, mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events.”

For starters, numerology reduces any number with two or more digits to a meaningful single digit: For example, 937 first shrinks to 19 (9+3+7=19), then again to 10 (1+9=10), and finally becomes 1 (1+0=1).

But 11 is a “master number,” which means it cannot be reduced to 2 (1+1=2). Ditto for the 22 and 33. Numerologists disagree whether all same-digit twins, such as 44, 55, etc. are also master numbers. I am functionally illiterate on the topic, so I can’t take sides. But I do know this:

For several centuries, “11” years were rare. In the 1700s, for example, 1703 1712, 1721, and 1730 were the only four years that qualified; in the 1800s, there were three: 1802, 1811 and 1820. The following century, there were only two: 1901 and 1910.

The 21st Century has a wealth of “11” years

This century is different. Every nine years will have the power of 11. The first was 2009. Was it mystical? Well, that was the year medical researchers announced effective new AIDS and H1N1 vaccines. The Nook, Motorola Droid and the (only $200) iPhone 3GS entered the marketplace. And researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory figured out how to levitate mice, which clearly is mystical, but in a very “Why, God, why?” way.

More pertinent to awakening souls, numerology.com claims that the number 11 symbolizes the potential to push the limitations of the human experience into the stratosphere of spiritual perception. It claims that the energy of “11” has the symbolic power to link the mortal with the immortal, man with spirit, darkness with light, ignorance and with enlightenment.

Let our levitation begin, mice and men. What will you do with this power? For me, 2018 will be the year that I stop trying to awaken others by screaming to the high heavens, “For God’s sake, open your eyes!”

via GIPHY

My “11”-powered resolutions

Starting this year, the Loud Mouth is turning down the volume. I resolve to give others the loving allowance to look for their god millions of miles away. It annoys them when I remind them that Jesus said the kingdom God is within, anyway.

When they warn me that I must be saved from God’s sentence of eternal torment, I will squelch the urge to point out that only a demon would do that. When they insist that Jesus died for their sins, I won’t ask why they are so delighted and grateful that an innocent man was brutally tortured to death for something they did.

When they say that God wants us to be rich, I won’t ask why we are not. When they say my thoughts control my outcomes, I won’t remind them that the words “disappointment” and “surprise” exist in our vocabulary.

Nope, not this year. I will be more disciplined and more silent. After all, the energy of the “11” year has more power than I to link the mortal with the immortal, man with Spirit, darkness with light, and ignorance with enlightenment. I will step back and get out of its way.

If they want to pile blankets on top of the bushel they’ve placed atop the Christ Light within them, I will turn and leave the scene. I will restrict spiritual conversations to spiritual people. I have been out of my lane, trying to save others from themselves.

Does worshiping a fearsome God heal or harm a soul?

Horror movies have always been popular because a large segment of the human race loves to be frightened by monsters and monstrous people. I don’t like them. Never did. But I don’t stand outside movie theaters flagging people away. I shouldn’t stop anyone who wants to worship a violent, vengeful God who has threatened non-stop torment, either. They have a right to enter that theater of thought—and to stay there, if they desire.

This year, I am going to make a concerted effort to allow the power of “11” to be the wind at my back. It will unquestionably require great fortitude; but I can do this. I will do this.

I will let Spirit direct me into the company of those who worship a god who really is good all the time, individuals who prefer a fearsome, genocidal, sadistic Bogeyman who does things Love would not do. Besides, I prefer not to be in the company of those falsely accuse God of being inhumane, unforgiving and heinously filicidal.

There will always be those who have eyes and cannot see, ears but cannot hear. In their own time—and more important, in their own way—they not only will find God and their own divine nature. They will eventually discover that all things material have no eternal life, and they will seek growth through every apparent lack or need

How will the power of this “11” year impact your life? Know that I honor your choices, even if I don’t always agree with them.

Love you much!

How Donald Trump Amassed So Much
Good Karma

Karma is perhaps the most misunderstood and maligned spiritual law, which is odd because it is so simple—and benevolent. Drama Queen Workshop Principle #1, Life is always fair, pays homage to this law.

In a nutshell, karma restores balance. It appears in Judeo-Christian scripture as “eye for an eye.” It is “what goes around comes around,” or as we say in Drama Queen Workshops, “Whatever you do will be done to you.” Not good, not bad, just balance. If you’ve been kind and generous, kindness and generosity will return to you.

Karma Is the True Law of Attraction

Karma is scarier than hell.Unquestionably, karma is not a Christian belief. Central to Christianity are the mandatory beliefs that 1) God will sadistically torment you throughout all eternity for sins you commit during this bat-of-an-eyelash human lifetime and 2) God would not forgive the guilty unless an innocent son was brutally tortured to death.

Whether traditional or New Thought, Christians worship excess rather than fairness and balance. New Thought Christians, who worship a benevolent god, believe you reap 100 times the material blessings for each buck you’ve given. Traditional Christians believe God’s default response to human error is brutal and excessive punishment. Their god’s behavior is cruel, unusual and unfair. The heinous banishment of Adam and Eve—creatures made of mud and bone, with a brain capacity and decision-making ability comparable with Pinocchio, who was also manufactured from natural materials—and the genocidal Great Flood bear witness.

Christians passionately revere and defend these implausible stories and their depictions of an inhumane god who gives us free will and will torment us forever if we dare to exercise it. They endorse this diabolical behavior as godly, which draws them to the conclusion that vengeful, sadistic punishment and murder must be proper responses to transgressions. This behavior is good—because God, whom they worship, did it.

It is through this cock-eyed lens that can clearly see why, in that great theater of truth, the White House Press Room, Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci would proclaim with a straight face that Donald Trump “has really good karma and the world turns back to him.”

Scaramucci gets the concept. But let us take a look at some of the behaviors that he finds good because Trump—whom Scaramucci and 26% of America’s eligible voters worship—did it:

  1. Sexually assaulting women, by his own account.
  2. Sadistically supporting efforts to force women to give birth against their will.
  3. Ripping parents from their children through deportation, with the heartlessness of a slave master.
  4. Advocating the assassination of terrorists’ families.
  5. Endorsing torture.
  6. Risking the lives and health of more than 20 million Americans, simply because he wants to annihilate the legacy of a black president.
  7. Bearing false witness against his prime obsession, Barack Obama. Repeatedly.
  8. Habitually lacking integrity, exhibited through his unfaithfulness to wives and business partners, and pathologically lying about…whatever.
  9. Inciting his supporters to violently violate the rights and bodies of dissenting attendees at public rallies.
  10. Satanically thriving on revenge; bullying anyone who disagrees with him.
  11. Disrespecting the physical and mental torture endured by John McCain.
  12. Filing multiple bankruptcies to walk away from debt.
  13. Pretending to be a Christian, whatever that means these days.
  14. Pretending to be a billionaire.
  15. Pretending to donate more than $100 million to charity, and establishing a foundation that admitted to the Internal Revenue Service that it violated a legal prohibition against self-dealing
  16. Pretending he was financing his campaign and would be beholden to no one.
  17. Fomenting racial hatred, misogyny and xenophobia.
  18. Acting in ways that caused him to be a defendant in more than 1,400 lawsuits
  19. Pandering to the moneychangers in Evangelical Christian temples.
  20. Divulging classified information to Russian government officials.
  21. Allowing a known foreign agent to control America’s national security, and have access to the nation’s top secrets.
  22. Aggressively attempting to hide the Truth from investigators.
  23. Leveraging his office to enrich his family business.
  24. Putting other entrepreneurs out of business because he refused to pay.
  25. Viciously demeaning his competitors and other members of the human family.
  26. Being willing to win at any cost, even if the cost is our democratic principles.
  27. Establishing a for-profit non-accredited “university” that allegedly defrauded its students, and threatened those students for complaining.
  28. Misleading middle class Americans to believe he was the cure for their ills.
  29. Screaming “America First,” demanding onshore manufacturing while his family’s businesses manufacture abroad.
  30. Willingness to subject another generation to the dangers of coal mining—and countless other acts harmful to God’s children.

Don't let your mortal self amass karmic debt

Some Losses Are Disguised as Wins. Bigly. 

Every soul leaves Home with an angel on its shoulder. Her name? Karma. Nothing we do during our traverse through this physical world or others escapes her notice. Everything we do is a work order, triggering a ricochet that will be pleasant or painful.

We have the opportunity to choose, upfront, what returns. We are more likely to blow that opportunity when we believe that we are bodies that possess souls, rather than souls that temporarily wear bodies.

There are dark forces that want us to believe the former. They want us to believe that God is trillions of light years away, and the only real things are perceptible with the human eye. They want us to believe that material wealth is a gift from God and that manifesting matter is evidence of spiritual achievement. They prefer that we’re distracted by shiny objects so that we do not fulfill the mission for which we came. It keeps us on the karmic wheel so they can mess with our heads. Again and again.

Because we don’t always see the effects of karma while a soul is wearing a particular costume, the forces have convinced us that crimes can actually go unanswered. But just as the clothes students wear to class do not receive diplomas, the human body costumes we temporarily wear are not the recipients of our karma.

Karma is attached to the immortal part of us, the soul who is wearing that costume in this classroom called Earth’s Theater. At the most perfect time and in the most perfect way, karma returns the pain or pleasure we’ve given. On occasion, we’re lucky; it returns while we’re wearing the same costume and we can connect the dots.

We should not take a public job if we want to maintain private secrets. But ultimately, the soul who is currently wearing the human body costume we recognize as Donald J. Trump, Sr. may escape every legal remedy available through man-made jurisprudence and congressional authority. After all, America has amassed a tremendous amount of karma itself that needs to be repaid, perhaps through the dismantling of all it holds dear: its status as a world leader and its facade of equal justice and opportunity for all. Trump could be part of the payment plan. We’ll know soon enough.

There is but One Life—and It Is Eternal

Unlike manmade law, spiritual laws are inescapable. They apply equally and produce the same results for everyone.

In chiding Scaramucci for his hilarious claim that the Karma-Creator-in-Chief has a positive balance in his karmic bank account, CNN’s Jake Tapper reflected the typical misunderstanding of karma, incorrectly asserting that karma “takes place in the next life.” There is but one Life, Jake, and it is eternal.

While some of us believe that is a good thing, others hope life ends when their human body costumes die. They don’t want to held accountable for their actions. But everyone—not everybody—has an eternal date with karma, including the immortal soul currently known as Donald Trump.

If he has a fetish for showers; she will surely fulfill his fantasy. And, like the rule it inspired, it will be unmistakably golden.

Four Ways to Make Your Good Friday Better

Annual rituals invite us to do the same things the same way, every time. How else can we maintain the traditions? Holy Week is no exception. Perhaps it should be.

This year, I invite us to do several things differently. With little effort, we can make this our best Good Friday yet—because this time, we could move closer to God than we’ve ever been. Here are four ways we can do that:

1. Render unto God only things that are godly.

God is good all the time--except Good Friday?What images do the words “God” and “godly” evoke for you? Do you see a gigantic male who lives in the farthest reaches of outer space, and sees every living being and blade of grass? Are His judgements harsh and His punishments extreme? Have you ever wished his angry vengeance upon someone who’s done something really horrible? Are certain acts unforgivable for Him? Does He favor some of us over others? Does He not love some humans?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you probably are God-fearing.

But do you also trust God in times of need? Does He occasionally grant your prayer requests and shower you with blessings? Do you believe that today, what has come to be known as Good Friday, is God’s greatest blessing of all? Do you celebrate the day “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life”?

In plain-speak, this well-known verse means this: God loved His sinful children so much that He gave His only sinless son to the barbaric Roman soldiers as a scapegoat to be slowly tortured to death so that sinners are saved from God’s sadistic punishment for their own wrongdoing.

For most of our lives, we have clung to the belief that God behaves like a demon. But we also declare that God is good all the time. It is either one or the other. We have choices to make, Sweet Souls. May I offer some options:

We can consider the possibility that what we fear about God is based on “alternative facts.”

We can proclaim that injustice is not godly. It is not fair to shift the responsibility for Adam’s hapless mistake to every living human at their birth, or to shift the responsibility for every living human’s mistakes to Jesus upon his death.

We can defend God’s divine essence, instead of defending ourselves against what we believe is God’s wrath-filled violence.

We can stop cowering in fear at the thought of being in God’s presence, and start cuddling.

We have rendered unto God things that are wholly ungodly, and indisputably unholy. We fervently believe that a savior must protect us from God’s crimes against humanity, and we want others to believe it, too. We have relentlessly demonized God and we can make it right this Good Friday.

2. Do unto Jesus what you’d want done to you.

We play word games to obfuscate the heinous nature of Jesus’s death and exonerate ourselves from any responsibility for it. We love to say Jesus “died” for our sins. Let’s be clear: According to three gospel authors, Jesus was crucified—slowly and sadistically tortured to death as a criminal—even though he had done nothing wrong. For that, we thank God.

Really? We wouldn’t be grateful if any other loved one was murdered for something we did. We wouldn’t wear a symbol of the killer’s murder weapon around our necks, hang it in our homes, places of worship or from our rear view mirrors. Why do we make an exception for Jesus?

Are we so tone deaf that we can’t hear ourselves shout, “Better thee than me, Jesus!” We loudly and proudly thank God for washing us in Jesus’s blood, seemingly oblivious that this bloodbath is part of a satanic ritual.

Every open eye can see that the entire crucifixion drama is based on one premise: The appropriate and divine response to human error is heartless banishment, genocide by flood or sadistic torture. 

Why on Earth do we want to believe God is so brutally unforgiving? And why do we believe Jesus is mentally ill? Let’s face it, if anyone else volunteered to be slowly tortured to death for crimes others committed, we’d call him a masochist. But if it’s Jesus, we call him our “savior.”

We must own our beliefs. No one can force us to believe anything we against our will. We choose our beliefs and values. We choose whether it is good to be angry and vengeful. We choose whether it is fair for someone to suffer for the wrongs of others. We choose whether it is right or wrong for someone we love to be brutally tortured to death—and whether Jesus’s murder or the murder of any member of the human family warrants praise and thanksgiving. We also choose what kind of god to worship.

Conceivably, the primary reason we have such a distant and strained relationship with God is because we don’t know God. We don’t want to believe God is divine—and as God’s offspring, so are we.

We choose to believe implausible and horrific tales about what God is and what God does. It’s because we believe before thinking. As a result, not only do our beliefs disparage God, they force us to do nonsensical things: We run to a genocidal maniac to ask for a blessing, a healing, a lover. Or a lottery number.

Holding God in higher regard could significantly improve our relationship with the Divine. If we want to know God more intimately, we can start this Good Friday by treating Jesus the way we’d want to be treated. We could resist demands to be grateful he was allegedly murdered for something we did.

3. Learn a little ancient history.

Intellectual curiosity is often discouraged in religious circles. Sometimes we are even threatened when we question beliefs that others cram into our heads and ram down our throats. We’re told to just “have faith,” as if doing so will miraculously transform the implausible into the actual. If we don’t have faith, they say, we offend God. We are not believers; we are heathens.

Contrary to what some command us to believe, knowledge is not a sin. And neither is reading. They prefer to read to us what they want us to know. In our ignorance, many of us believe Jesus not only was Christian, he founded the Christian Church. If we read for ourselves, we’d know he was born Jewish, and remained so until he was crowned “King of the Jews” by the Roman soldiers who crucified him. We’d also know the Church wasn’t established until more than 300 years after his murder.

Reading also reveals that the cross was not created as a symbol of Christianity; it harkens back to the Bronze Age, thousands of years before Jesus was born. We’d also discover that Jesus’s life story precedes his time on Earth by many centuries. Wait. What?

Ancient mythology has told and retold this narrative many times. At least five sons of gods predated Jesus by centuries. Each had a father who was a god, their mothers were human virgins, they healed the sick and raised the dead, they were murdered by the establishment and all rose on the third day. In order of appearance: Horus of Egypt (c. 3000 BC), Mithra of Persia (c. 1200 BC), Attis of Greece (c. 1200 BC), Krishna of India (c. 900 BC) and Dionysus of Greece (c. 500 BC).

Don’t take my word for it. Read. What better day than today?

4. Forgive yourself this Good Friday.

Alexander Pope famously wrote, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” He apparently believed God is forgiving. Yea!

Perhaps humans don’t forgive freely because we believe God doesn’t. Our belief that God opted to banish Adam and Eve, drown almost every living thing on Earth—even the animals and plants—and brutalize Jesus rather than forgive wrongdoing has a powerful influence over our willingness to forgive.

Forgiveness is powerful, transformative and liberating. It is an exercise we need this day, perhaps more than any other. Instead of modeling our behavior after that of an angry vengeful God, we could mirror the father in Jesus’s Prodigal Son parable. Jesus portrayed God as an unconditionally forgiving father who enthusiastically showers his wayward and disrespectful offspring with love and care, upon his awkward return home.

Who are we going to forgive first? How about starting with ourselves? We made a conscious decision to believe that God planned Jesus’s horrific murder, and that Jesus thought that was a splendid idea. We set aside the implausibility of any soul wanting to come to Earth to be sadistically tortured to death, and refused to ask even one common sense question:

If Jesus agreed to come to Earth to be slowly tortured to death for the wrongs of others, why would he say of his murderers, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”? 

Because we didn’t ask that simple question, naturally the follow-ups were never asked:

1. If Jesus was nailed to the cross solely because God wouldn’t forgive, wouldn’t he know his plea of forgiveness would fall on deaf ears?

2. Since the Roman soldiers were fulfilling God’s and Jesus’s plan, why would the soldiers need to be forgiven?

3. If Jesus was knowingly fulfilling his destiny, why did he reportedly cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

We blindly believe that Good Friday is part of human history—and that it is a holy day. Perhaps it is time to exonerate God and fully pardon ourselves for the criminal accusations we’ve made and evangelized, based on the claim that God solves problems by killing His children, one at a time or en masse.

In 325 AD, when the Emperor Constantine and a gathering of clergy selected the books to included the Judeo-Christian Bible, it is clear how they wanted God’s image to be embedded into the human consciousness. It is just as clear what they didn’t want us to believe.

The chosen Gospel of Mark contains the initial birth and death narratives that were later mirrored in the chosen gospels of Matthew and Luke. They neither knew Jesus nor were his contemporaries. Curiously, the Gospel of Thomas, written by one of Jesus’s disciples, was not selected for inclusion.

Thomas’s book makes no mention of a crucifixion or resurrection—and he was there. Instead, his book focuses on what is really important about Jesus’s life: His wisdom and his lessons. Among Jesus’s sayings:

“If those who lead you say to you, ‘look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds will get there first. If they say ‘it’s in the ocean,’ then the fish will get there first. But the Kingdom of God is within you and outside of you. Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. And you will know that it is you who are the children of the living father.”

This Good Friday offers an opportunity for us to think evolutionary and enlightening thoughts about who we are, and who God is. It is a chance to forgive ourselves for perceiving God as somewhere rather than everywhere, and demonic rather than divine.

It’s the perfect occasion to grab a hefty supply of free Forgiveness Coupons. They’ve been in popular demand on the site since 2006. Stock up, share freely. Spread the love. Change a life.

May your decision to believe that you are a child of the divine and life-affirming God make this your best Good Friday yet.

I love you!

Christians reject Jesus's teachings

Christians abandoned Jesus’s teachings and very few noticed

We’ve been bombarded with coverage of the unprecedented worldwide protests following the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. But the largest march—the one primarily responsible for that ceremony—has received little mention: Millions of Evangelical Christians defiantly declared their independence from Jesus’s teachings, and it’s as if no one noticed.

Christians reject Jesus's teachingsMaybe it wasn’t newsworthy. After all, Christians haven’t been followers of Jesus for centuries. However, they do like being seen carrying a Bible to church, prominently displaying images of a non-Semitic Jesus, and they have a macabre practice of adorning their homes, churches and necks with the weapon that murdered him.

But like grinning all the time, it was inauthentic and exhausting; so they stopped. Throughout campaign season, they openly embraced values that are the antithesis of Jesus’s: hatred, misogyny, racism and xenophobia. They opted to build a wall around themselves. And rejected Jesus’s directive to care for “the least of these.”

According to Pew Research, 80 percent of self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians who voted and 52% of Catholics who voted say they cast their ballot for Trump—the proudly vindictive, misogynistic serial adulterer and KKK-supported cyberbully who urged violence against members of Jesus’s human family at his rallies. Their affinity for him reveals six things about Christians.

1.  Christians don’t ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” 

Our assumptions about Christians defy actual facts. Not only do they reject Jesus’s teachings, they are outright hostile toward them. In elementary school, these Christians would not have voted a think-skinned, petulant kid who reveled in name-calling and poked fun at other kids’ physical appearance as their eighth-grade class president. He’d be considered unsuitable to represent the class. As adult Christians, he is their ideal representative.

2.  Christians don’t have to be followers of Jesus

For years, I have made a distinction between Christlike and Christian: The former describes how a person behaves; the latter merely describes what a person believes. You don’t have to respect, obey or follow Jesus’s teachings to be a Christian. You simply have to hold some core beliefs:

  1. A human being can be conceived without human sperm fertilizing a human egg.
  2. God will not forgive the guilty unless an innocent son is heinously tortured to death; i.e., God is not the unconditionally forgiving father portrayed in Jesus’s “Prodigal Son” parable.
  3. Jesus’s purpose for coming to Earth was to be brutally murdered for sins committed by others—before, during and after his lifetime here.
  4. God will sadistically torture us throughout all eternity if we do not acknowledge that Jesus was murdered for what we did, express gratitude for his murder, and proclaim that Jesus saved us from God’s demonic, unending punishment.
  5. Jesus’s body ascended into outer space without the aid of a projectile, pressurized aircraft or spacesuit.

3.  Jesus’s followers don’t have to be Christians 

Jesus’s followers don’t have to share these beliefs. Punctuating that, I was given a palm card at the Women’s March in Chicago that read, “Love Trumps Fear.” It was distributed by Jews for Jesus—and reminds us that Jesus was born Jewish and dubbed “King of the Jews” by his Roman murderers.

Love Trumps Hate, Love your neighbors as yourself
Jesus’s teachings are at the core of his followers’ beliefs:

  • Love one another, be kind to one another, forgive others as God has forgiven you (John 15:12); i.e. God is the unconditionally forgiving father portrayed in Jesus’s Prodigal Son parable.
  • Love your enemies. Live peaceably with all. Do not be vengeful. (Luke 6:27, Romans 12:17)
  • Treat others as you’d want to be treated. (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:4)
  • Show compassion for all and help them: the poor, despised, and outcasts. (Matt. 4:24-25)
  • “Be sincere, not a hypocrite” (Matt. 6:1-6)

Followers of Jesus consciously strive to live by these tenets, as evidenced in the massive protest marches in various parts of the world. But for Christians, treating others equitably—or only saying and doing thing to others that you would want said or done to you—is scornfully dismissed as “politically correctness.”

4.  Christians hate political correctness

Political correctness definitionChristians want to say whatever, insult whomever and do whatever they desire to those who don’t look like, act like or think like them and, of course, those who are less privileged. They don’t care that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40) because they are not followers of Jesus.

5. Christians disrespect or distort Jesus’s lessons on karma

In Luke 6:37 and Matthew 7:1-3, Jesus reportedly admonished us against creating bad karma: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” he said. “Condemn not, lest ye be condemned.” Translated: Whatever you do will be done to you.

Christians often quoted that admonition to excuse themselves from acknowledging facts about Donald Trump. “The Bible says that we shouldn’t judge!” they proclaimed.

But facts are not judgments: Trump is a serial adulterer. Fact. He has been sued by dozens of small business owners for not paying their invoices. Fact. He was sued by a woman who claimed he raped her when she was a teen. Fact. His foundation admitted to spending $20,000 on a portrait of Trump and $250,000 to settle private legal disputes, in violation of IRS rules. Fact. He’s taken six corporate bankruptcies. Fact. He boasted of grabbing women’s genitals. Fact. He settled a civil fraud claim brought by 6,000 alleged victims for $25 million. Fact.

These are facts, not judgments. But none of these facts cost him Evangelical Christians’ support.

6. God giveth free will; Christians taketh away

Contrasted to Followers of Jesus, Christians want to be the boss of every body, particularly women’s. Evangelical Christians and Catholics, in particular, are obsessed with forcing women to give birth to unwanted children. Many cited this as the reason they voted for Trump, who was pro-choice until it was politically expedient to be pro-birth.

This is not a pro-life issue. Notably, once fetuses breathe on their own, faith leaders and their flocks are not interested in their lives. Perhaps they should stick around to witness the results of their strong-arm tactics:

At least they’re consistent. These are the same folks who willingly endangered the lives and freedoms of God’s Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ, Native American, Mexican and African-American children with their votes—further proving they are not “pro-life,” simply pro-mandatory birth. If you already have a body, they could not care less.

Cameron Harris's fake news story about Clinton was shared by six million readers

Winners never cheat; cheaters never win

Take young Cameron Harris, a recent college grad who, according to this New York Times story, parlayed the $5 he paid for the “Christian Times Newspaper” domain into $22,000, by unscrupulously publishing fake news stories that supported Donald Trump’s narrative.

After Trump claimed during a campaign stop in Ohio that the election was rigged against him, Harris diabolically wrote and published a story claiming that an electrical worker had stumbled upon “tens of thousands” of fraudulent Clinton votes in a Columbus, Ohio warehouse.

Compounding his deceit, Harris added a photo of a guy behind stacks of bins marked “ballot box.” But he didn’t mention that the man and the ballots were in Great Britain. The story was eventually shared by six million people, worldwide.

After Harris was unmasked, he was fired by Maryland lawmaker David Vogt. Chances are, he will be welcomed into another political camp that appreciates his diabolical immorality.

Christians have shown us that the simply want to win. Even if they have to cheat. Whether by concocting fake news or drastically gerrymandering legislative districts to favor their party. When intelligence officials revealed that Russia had manipulated the outcome of the election, Christians weren’t alarmed that America is now a pawn for the Kremlin. They followed their leader beyond disrespecting U.S. intelligence community, and straight into denial.

And finally, the elephant in the room

Christians mouth the words that we are all children of God; but they voluntarily joined the same voting bloc as the KKK. They also knew Trump was being counseled by a reputed white supremacist, and had attracted the enthusiastic support of white nationalists. They’d heard Trump’s blatantly racist challenge to the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, falsely claiming that Obama was not born in America—another insult to the intelligence officers who vetted him. The government had access to Obama’s late mother’s passport records, which revealed where she was on his birth date.

Beyond normalizing hatred, Trump’s candidacy and electoral victory turned up the volume on hate speech and unleashed hate crimes against other Americans. Apparently, it was simply waiting for a golden calf to set it free. And it fled into Christians’ open arms.

Jesus’s teachings can be our guide

I know many of us have called ourselves Christians all our lives. But if we still share Jesus’s values, we’re Followers of Jesus who choose to stay on the path.

Let’s bid a fond farewell to our Christian comrades, as they march into the Siberian wilderness, following a leader with a gyrating moral compass. May they find what they are looking for—and may we respect their choice, while making every effort to protect our rights and our freedom.

Thanks to them, millions of Americans fear for their safety because of the occupant of the White House. As these Christians march off into the dark side of history,  consciously trampling Jesus’s teachings, immorally attacking humans’ God-given sexual orientation, usurping a woman’s control over her own body and eradicating Christlike democracy, they will have nothing to show for it but calloused feet and bulging karmic debt.

They won their battle, but not their war. Love will forever trump hate.

Christians reject Jesus's teachings

At the Most-Attended March, Christians Broke Free from Jesus’s Teachings

We’ve been bombarded with coverage of the unprecedented worldwide protests following the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. But the largest march—the one primarily responsible for that ceremony—has received little mention: Millions of Evangelical Christians defiantly declared their independence from Jesus’s teachings, and it’s as if no one noticed.

Christians reject Jesus's teachingsMaybe it wasn’t newsworthy. After all, Christians haven’t been followers of Jesus for centuries. However, they do like being seen carrying a Bible to church, prominently displaying images of a non-Semitic Jesus, and they have a macabre practice of adorning their homes, churches and necks with the weapon that murdered him.

But like grinning all the time, it was inauthentic and exhausting; so they stopped. Throughout campaign season, they openly embraced values that are the antithesis of Jesus’s: hatred, misogyny, racism and xenophobia. They opted to build a wall around themselves. And rejected Jesus’s directive to care for “the least of these.”

According to Pew Research, 80 percent of self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians who voted and 52% of Catholics who voted say they cast their ballot for Trump—the proudly vindictive, misogynistic serial adulterer and KKK-supported cyberbully who urged violence against members of Jesus’s human family at his rallies. Their affinity for him reveals six things about Christians.

1.  Christians don’t ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” 

Our assumptions about Christians defy actual facts. Not only do they reject Jesus’s teachings, they are outright hostile toward them. In elementary school, these Christians would not have voted a think-skinned, petulant kid who reveled in name-calling and poked fun at other kids’ physical appearance as their eighth-grade class president. He’d be considered unsuitable to represent the class. As adult Christians, he is their ideal representative.

2.  Christians don’t have to be followers of Jesus

For years, I have made a distinction between Christlike and Christian: The former describes how a person behaves; the latter merely describes what a person believes. You don’t have to respect, obey or follow Jesus’s teachings to be a Christian. You simply have to hold some core beliefs:

  1. A human being can be conceived without human sperm fertilizing a human egg.
  2. God will not forgive the guilty unless an innocent son is heinously tortured to death; i.e., God is not the unconditionally forgiving father portrayed in Jesus’s “Prodigal Son” parable.
  3. Jesus’s purpose for coming to Earth was to be brutally murdered for sins committed by others—before, during and after his lifetime here.
  4. God will sadistically torture us throughout all eternity if we do not acknowledge that Jesus was murdered for what we did, express gratitude for his murder, and proclaim that Jesus saved us from God’s demonic, unending punishment.
  5. Jesus’s body ascended into outer space without the aid of a projectile, pressurized aircraft or spacesuit.

3.  Jesus’s followers don’t have to be Christians 

Jesus’s followers don’t have to share these beliefs. Punctuating that, I was given a palm card at the Women’s March in Chicago that read, “Love Trumps Fear.” It was distributed by Jews for Jesus—and reminds us that Jesus was born Jewish and dubbed “King of the Jews” by his Roman murderers.

Love Trumps Hate, Love your neighbors as yourself
Jesus’s teachings are at the core of his followers’ beliefs:

  • Love one another, be kind to one another, forgive others as God has forgiven you (John 15:12); i.e. God is the unconditionally forgiving father portrayed in Jesus’s Prodigal Son parable.
  • Love your enemies. Live peaceably with all. Do not be vengeful. (Luke 6:27, Romans 12:17)
  • Treat others as you’d want to be treated. (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:4)
  • Show compassion for all and help them: the poor, despised, and outcasts. (Matt. 4:24-25)
  • “Be sincere, not a hypocrite” (Matt. 6:1-6)

Followers of Jesus consciously strive to live by these tenets, as evidenced in the massive protest marches in various parts of the world. But for Christians, treating others equitably—or only saying and doing thing to others that you would want said or done to you—is scornfully dismissed as “politically correctness.”

4.  Christians hate political correctness

Political correctness definitionChristians want to say whatever, insult whomever and do whatever they desire to those who don’t look like, act like or think like them and, of course, those who are less privileged. They don’t care that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40) because they are not followers of Jesus.

5. Christians disrespect or distort Jesus’s lessons on karma

In Luke 6:37 and Matthew 7:1-3, Jesus reportedly admonished us against creating bad karma: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” he said. “Condemn not, lest ye be condemned.” Translated: Whatever you do will be done to you.

Christians often quoted that admonition to excuse themselves from acknowledging facts about Donald Trump. “The Bible says that we shouldn’t judge!” they proclaimed.

But facts are not judgments: Trump is a serial adulterer. Fact. He has been sued by dozens of small business owners for not paying their invoices. Fact. He was sued by a woman who claimed he raped her when she was a teen. Fact. His foundation admitted to spending $20,000 on a portrait of Trump and $250,000 to settle private legal disputes, in violation of IRS rules. Fact. He’s taken six corporate bankruptcies. Fact. He boasted of grabbing women’s genitals. Fact. He settled a civil fraud claim brought by 6,000 alleged victims for $25 million. Fact.

These are facts, not judgments. But none of these facts cost him Evangelical Christians’ support.

6. God giveth free will; Christians taketh away

Contrasted to Followers of Jesus, Christians want to be the boss of every body, particularly women’s. Evangelical Christians and Catholics, in particular, are obsessed with forcing women to give birth to unwanted children. Many cited this as the reason they voted for Trump, who was pro-choice until it was politically expedient to be pro-birth.

This is not a pro-life issue. Notably, once fetuses breathe on their own, faith leaders and their flocks are not interested in their lives. Perhaps they should stick around to witness the results of their strong-arm tactics:

At least they’re consistent. These are the same folks who willingly endangered the lives and freedoms of God’s Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ, Native American, Mexican and African-American children with their votes—further proving they are not “pro-life,” simply pro-mandatory birth. If you already have a body, they could not care less.

Cameron Harris's fake news story about Clinton was shared by six million readers

Winners never cheat; cheaters never win

Take young Cameron Harris, a recent college grad who, according to this New York Times story, parlayed the $5 he paid for the “Christian Times Newspaper” domain into $22,000, by unscrupulously publishing fake news stories that supported Donald Trump’s narrative.

After Trump claimed during a campaign stop in Ohio that the election was rigged against him, Harris diabolically wrote and published a story claiming that an electrical worker had stumbled upon “tens of thousands” of fraudulent Clinton votes in a Columbus, Ohio warehouse.

Compounding his deceit, Harris added a photo of a guy behind stacks of bins marked “ballot box.” But he didn’t mention that the man and the ballots were in Great Britain. The story was eventually shared by six million people, worldwide.

After Harris was unmasked, he was fired by Maryland lawmaker David Vogt. Chances are, he will be welcomed into another political camp that appreciates his diabolical immorality.

Christians have shown us that the simply want to win. Even if they have to cheat. Whether by concocting fake news or drastically gerrymandering legislative districts to favor their party. When intelligence officials revealed that Russia had manipulated the outcome of the election, Christians weren’t alarmed that America is now a pawn for the Kremlin. They followed their leader beyond disrespecting U.S. intelligence community, and straight into denial.

And finally, the elephant in the room

Christians mouth the words that we are all children of God; but they voluntarily joined the same voting bloc as the KKK. They also knew Trump was being counseled by a reputed white supremacist, and had attracted the enthusiastic support of white nationalists. They’d heard Trump’s blatantly racist challenge to the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, falsely claiming that Obama was not born in America—another insult to the intelligence officers who vetted him. The government had access to Obama’s late mother’s passport records, which revealed where she was on his birth date.

Beyond normalizing hatred, Trump’s candidacy and electoral victory turned up the volume on hate speech and unleashed hate crimes against other Americans. Apparently, it was simply waiting for a golden calf to set it free. And it fled into Christians’ open arms.

Jesus’s teachings can be our guide

I know many of us have called ourselves Christians all our lives. But if we still share Jesus’s values, we’re Followers of Jesus who choose to stay on the path.

Let’s bid a fond farewell to our Christian comrades, as they march into the Siberian wilderness, following a leader with a gyrating moral compass. May they find what they are looking for—and may we respect their choice, while making every effort to protect our rights and our freedom.

Thanks to them, millions of Americans fear for their safety because of the occupant of the White House. As these Christians march off into the dark side of history,  consciously trampling Jesus’s teachings, immorally attacking humans’ God-given sexual orientation, usurping a woman’s control over her own body and eradicating Christlike democracy, they will have nothing to show for it but calloused feet and bulging karmic debt.

They won their battle, but not their war. Love will forever trump hate.