Jose Silva on Religion

    In this article, Jose Silva gets a little controversial. He would always remind people that he was expressing his personal opinions when he gave these comments.

    As always, you are free to accept them or reject them - or to "mentally shelve" them for now, and come back to them later on when you have more experience and information.

By Jose Silva

    This column will not be popular with some people. I've been advised not to talk about politics and religion. Well, I'll meet them halfway - I won't talk about politics.

    Why talk about religion? Because we hope that this will get you to examine your beliefs, to analyze why you
believe what you believe.

    Throughout history we have seen that virtually every religion insists that their followers accept their doctrines. Some religions become very violent if you do not accept their doctrines - sometimes they become violent if you only question them. Unfortunately, we have experienced that personally.

    But we are not the first to face this kind of arrogance and fear. Yes, fear. History has shown us that some religious leaders are so afraid of being proven wrong that they will even kill those who dare to challenge their
dogma.

A TORTUROUS EXPERIENCE

    Take Galileo for instance. More than 300 years ago, he confirmed what Copernicus had figured out: That the sun and stars and planets do not revolve around the earth; it is just the opposite: the earth and planets revolve around the sun.

    That was unacceptable to the Catholic church. Their insisted that since man was made in the image of God, it
had to follow that everything revolved around man -- that man was at the center of the universe.

    This was not their first mistake, of course. For centuries everybody agreed that the earth was flat. Wrong.

    In Galileo's case, his discovery proved to be very painful. He verified Copernicus' explanation of why some planets - like Mercury - seem to stop and back up from time to time. But they only appear to back up - which would be a physical impossibility of course - if you think that they revolve around the earth. Once you realize that they revolve around the sun - as does the earth - then you realize that they all keep going the same direction all the time.

    But the church didn't like their teachings being challenged. After all, according to them they got their messages directly from God. So church officials took him into custody and tortured him until he recanted, and agreed to agree with them that everything revolved around man.

    A few years ago, the Catholic church officially apologized to Galileo - three centuries too late to make any difference to him, and a feeble gesture that could never erase the horrible pain that they inflicted upon him.

TRUTH EVOLVES SLOWLY

    We could give many more examples besides these two, to illustrate the mistakes that people made in times past. Even religion has evolved through the years. We have moved from human and animal sacrifices, and from worshiping animals and idols, into the multitude of religions that we have in the world today.

    Yet for all of that religious evolution, there is still no universal agreement.

    All religions believe that they have the answer, and that others are wrong.

    And unfortunately, most of those religious seem to be willing to fight to the death for their beliefs!

    They are very quick to destroy the highest creation of the Creator in the name of the very Creator that created
that creation - and we're talking about human beings, of course.

    *Catholics and Christians are killing each other in Northern Ireland.

    *Arab and Jewish children are taught to hate and kill each other.

    *Hindus and Moslems and Sikhs and other religions are not exempt from this tendency to hate their rivals.

    Just as Christians say that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, most other religions can point to
their scriptures - the divine messages that they believe that they get from God - to prove that their way is the
only way!

Could they all be right?
    Could be.

    Might they all be wrong?
    Could be.

    Is it possible that there is some truth in every religion, but that no religion has the complete answer?
    Could be.

    By now you have probably figured out that when I say could be, it is because I know that we don't know all of
the answers yet.

WHO HAS THE ANSWERS?

    Doesn't it seem terribly arrogant for anyone - preacher or priest or philosopher or scientist or anybody
else - to insist that they have all the answers, and refuse to listen to anybody else?

    Scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, as well as explorers like Columbus, have expanded our knowledge far
beyond what religious leaders and scientists of the day accepted as proven knowledge.

    And they are still doing it.

    We have put together a scientifically researched and proven program to help people actually use parts of their minds that they have never consciously used before, to help correct problems and make the world a better place to live.

    During our research in the 1950s and 1960s we were criticized - and yes, even condemned and threatened with excommunication - for daring to ask questions!

    What were they afraid of?

    What did we do that threatened them so badly that they were willing to go to all the trouble to call me in to
consider kicking me out of the church?

    Are they afraid of the truth?

    Or are they afraid of losing some of their power of people if they are shown to be wrong about something?

    Is it God who governs people, or is those who claim to represent God - the human beings who choose to take on the role of representing God?

    Would an all-powerful God worry about a man - who was created by that God - assuming so much power that it would threaten the position of God?     On the other hand, what about men - "mere mortals" as they say - who fear losing their tremendous power over people, a power they hold because they tell us from birth that they  represent God and that we will suffer forever in a fiery hell if we fail to do everything they tell us to do?

    Is God running scared - or the men who claim to represent him?

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

    I had thought that this was all in the past. The Bible says, "By their fruits ye shall know them." If a tree bears
good fruit, the Bible says, then it is a good tree.

    For more than half a century we have been producing good fruit from the research that we began in 1944. But
that doesn't stop religious leaders from panicking when I question one of their claims. 

    They point to the Bible and say that I have no right to question it.

    I point to the fact that the Bible was written by men, often long after the events took place.

    And then the Bible was translated into other languages - again, by men.

    And then various versions were written, to satisfy the needs and wishes of various people - like King James, who wanted permission to get a divorce. A version, in case you don't know, is defined by the dictionary as a variation of the original. That means that it is different from the original.

    And I also point out that they men who wrote the original, and men who wrote the translations, and the men
who wrote the variations, and the men who translated the variations - all of these men lived in times when we didn't know very much about what was going on:

    *Those men thought the earth was flat.

    *Those men thought that the sun and stars and planets all revolved around the earth.

    *Those men thought that natural disasters represented the wrath of God.

    *Those men thought - and apparently many religious leaders still believe - that the Creator will approve of
our destruction of other human beings because they do not believe the same things that we believe!

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?

    And I ask this question:

    If those men were wrong about so many other things, is it possible that they might also be wrong about some of the things that they wrote - or translated - in the Bible?

    The Bible - and the other sacred books, such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Talmud, and others - were not written by God; they were written by men.

    Were the men inspired by God?

    Could be.

    Even if they were inspired by God, we know, from our scientific research, that even the best clairvoyants only
average 80 percent accuracy.

    Even though we know much more today than we ever knew before, we still know that at least 20 percent of what we think we know is wrong!

    Is it worth fighting for every last word in the translation of the variation of the translation of the Bible that happens to be popular today?

    Or we so sure that there are no errors, no mistakes, no misrepresentation, no misunderstandings, and no  outright propaganda and lies inserted by someone for their own selfish purposes? Can we be sure of that?

    Or should we be tolerant with one another.

    Should we be patient with each other, and explore together to find out what will help us to solve more problems, and to make the world a better place to live?

    Isn't it interesting that those who believe in devils, find devils everywhere they look for them?

    We explain, at the beginning of the Silva Method Basic Lecture Series, how that happens - go back and review Mental Housecleaning.

    People who believe in God - and do not believe that there is any such thing as the devil - find God everywhere.

    In the Bible, we read many stories about Jesus practicing tolerance. "Let he who is without sin cast the
first stone." "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

    We also read stories about the religious leaders of the day accusing Jesus of being in league with the devil. They rationalized that the only way a person could be so good at casting out devils, was if he was in league with
the devil.

    It seems to me that times never change, for religious leaders have accused me in the same manner!

    Well, at least we're in good company; while we in no way believe that we are as highly evolved as Jesus, we
don't mind being compared with Him. It makes us believe that we might be on the right track, that we must be moving in the correct direction.

    We don't want to go too far in that direction, though. Remember - they crucified Jesus!

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE?

    Well, we've gotten that off our chest. These ideas will surely be unpopular with some people. They will surely
rationalize and find ways to condemn me for expressing my feelings.

    But ask yourself: Throughout history, what kind of people have refused to tolerate people thinking for
themselves? Dictators. Despots. Bigots. Totalitarians.

    What kind of people welcome questions and new ideas? The constructive and creative people who lift humanity to new heights, who lead us to a better future, who do not cause suffering but who relieve suffering, who do not kill other human beings but who save the lives of human beings.

    So ask yourself why you believe what you believe.

    Does it make sense? Someone once said that there is nothing less common than common sense. What  does common sense tell you?

    Is it worth sacrificing all of the good work that a person has done because that person questions whether Jesus claimed to be God? After all, Jesus taught us to pray, "Our father..." He seems to be saying that He was one of us.

    But even if this is wrong, why would religious leaders fear the question so much? Do they think that God cannot handle it?

    Or do they fear that people might begin to question some of the demands that are place on them by these men who claim to represent God? Do they fear the loss of their power over people?

       Which is more valuable:

    *That religious leaders maintain their power over people, so that they can -- hopefully - keep people in
line.

    *That we continue to ask questions, to search for the real truth, even if that means that we have to stop
believing that man is at the center of the universe and the sun and stars and planets all revolve around him.

    We staked out our territory a long time ago: We'll keep searching for truth, and we will continue to do
anything that helps to correct problems and make the world a better place to live.

    And if they crucify us for doing that - if we must drink the cup - then so be it.

--- --- ---

    Thank you for joining us for this edition of the SIGA Success Strategies Magazine. Please stop by and visit us occasionally at the clubhouse: http://www.SIGA.org. And please be sure to take advantage of the many resources we've put together for you.
    Thank you.

Avlis Productions Inc., P.O. Box 691809, Houston, TX 77269, United States