The article below is posted with permission of the author. Examine the history of any culture from anywhere in the world and you will almost certainly find a self proclaimed priesthood, existing hand in hand with ruling elites and displaying all the pretensions of their political masters; expecting deference, power and ‘tribute’ for the ‘mystery’ they claim to understand on ‘our’ behalf. Well that great wheel of history and final of all judges, having already consigned numerous examples of religion to its own dustbin of oblivion, may be turning once again to deliver its verdict on all Christian monotheistic claims which exist today, and even human nature itself! However tempting it may be to presume the contentious debate between proponents of Evolution and Intelligent Design will be the battle ground for this final reckoning, think again; even if this conflict between very different, competing conceptions of understanding and claims to knowledge are playing an unwitting role in defining the rules of engagement. For they clarify the central threat all monotheism confronts to its credibility. That is, after almost five thousand years of theological development and tradition, and contrary to their own scriptural record, the world is no closer to any insight, understanding, or path for faith, able to confirm either the possibility of God or the claims tradition makes to speak for the name of a potential reality, yet to demonstrate its own existence unequivocally. Even the word ‘reality’ suggests something solid. And whatever ones religious convictions might be, progress continues however haphazardly, because of criteria applied to that concept which has been the sole gift of secular scientific method. What makes this conception of understanding such a great leap ahead of any previous philosophical or religious truth claim is simple. Science demands that something works. Every true reality can be tested. And the intrinsic accountability of science, recently observed by the disgrace and fall of a Korean scientist for falsifying data and results, while not perfect, is still the best mankind has evolved for discerning the difference between reality and self deception. Religion on the other hand has no such checks to its fervent imagination except scriptures; which have themselves been the cause for more dispute, conflict and division than history can count. Without a foundation in reason and ethics, it reverts to violence and coercion when its orthodoxy is threatened. The contradiction of three competing claims to the same God plagues monotheism. The regular abuses and corruption of both priest and institution continues to undermine whatever credibility it pretends to. So intellectually vacuous have religious ideas become in some quarters of the modern world, many thinkers, intellectuals and scientists, particularly those evolutionary biologists, with what might easily seem a more plausible, alternative theory of the universe, have concluded that theistic religion, if not God, is just a human invention, self deception and historical illusion woven into culture. With so many unresolved conundrums facing mankind and the earth itself, so briefly into a new millennium, any new hope for the new century has already given way to foreboding, of new conflicts, fears for the environment, of natural disasters and pandemic. following closely on the heels of previous world wars, sectarian conflict, ethnic cleansing and holocaust; with uncountable millions dead, it’s hard to avoid the impression, even if there is a God, he doesn’t give much of a damn for humankind, in spite of anyones particular religious bent? If religious claims were a harmless phenomenon there would be little concern. But religious institutions demand loyalties, command and consume vast resources and are powerful players in every political sphere they inhabit. Their agenda is often in conflict with the ideals of freedom, democracy and conscience. For that very reason did the American founding fathers, all too aware of the destructive European experience with religion, try to limit its impact within a new country by the first amendment to the US constitution? Yet completely unforeseen or expected in anyones lifetime, this status quo of embedded historical divisiveness, political interference and the greatest unresolved questions of human existence may finally have been disentangled. If material circulating the web proves itself to be authentic, and there appears to be both the means and a concerted effort to confirm it, the implications defy the imagination! For anyone interested, spreading from a number of web sites, being distributed free as a pdf. download, made up of twenty nine chapters and three hundred and seventy pages is a intellectual, religious and political bombshell: the first wholly new and complete interpretation of the teachings of Jesus the Christ and The Law for two thousand years. It’s entitled: The Final Freedoms. And this new teaching or revelation has nothing whatsoever to do with any religious tradition known to history. It is unique in every respect. This new interpretation, also called the Gospel of the Resurrection, defines the moral foundation of all human conduct and finds expression within a new ethical conception of human spiritual union, the marriage between one man and one woman. It resolves the most intractable questions and issues of human sexuality and offers possibilities for peace, health and cultural development only dreamt of by any political process. This new teaching is pure ethics. It requires no institutional framework or hierarchy, no churches, no priestcraft, no scholastic theological rational, costs nothing and requires only the convictions of faith and the necessary measure of self discipline to accomplish a single new moral imperative. Using a synthesis of several thousand scriptural elements from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha , The Dead Sea Scrolls and The Nag Hammadi Library, it describes and teaches a single Law, a single moral principle and offers its own proof; one in which the reality of God confirms and responds to an act of perfect faith, by a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; providing a correction to human nature, a change in natural law, altering consciousness and human ethical perception. Here is new, primary insight and understanding of the human condition. As the first ever religious teaching able to demonstrate its own efficacy, the first ever religious claim to understanding and knowledge that meets all the criteria of the most rigourous, testable scientific method, this teaching represents something new to history. That is to say the first living and testable religious truth and proof of the living God has been published on the Net! But this is not man testing God but God testing man! The beginnings of a moral and intellectual revolution are unfolding on the web and this expression of insight called: The Final Freedoms, self-evidently reflecting a profound understanding far beyond human intellectual origin, is more than able to bring the entire theological history and claims of monotheistic tradition to dust, and probably redefine the very future of our planet. So if the road to a greater future for our species is to be found over the dead carcass of a theological counterfeit tradition we have mistakenly called religion, so be it. And let the gnashing of teeth be heard all around! Copyright R.A. Landbeck 2006 The manuscript: The Final Freedoms is a free pdf. download from a number of sites including the two listed below. Links: http://www.energon.uklinux.net http://thefinalfreedoms.bulldoghome.com
