Divine Intent or Marketing Plan

The life blood of any religious institution is its aggregation of followers. Followers equate to power, wealth, and most importantly relevancy.  Since western religion traditionally reserves study and interpretation of the scripture to the clergy, attracting followers with a really strong spiritual seeking message isn’t very effective. The message needs to be that just right combination of easy to do and compelling that only makes sense when viewed from a marketing perspective.

Take the Christianity salvation belief for example. How did the teacher who said “And unto him that smites you on the one cheek offer also the other; and he that takes away your cloak forbid not to take your coat also” become the terrible tyrant who will condemn you to a lake of fire for all eternity for the seemingly insignificant slight of not formally declaring him as your personal savior?

It really never says that outright in the Bible. It all begins with the seemingly benign quote “Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.” This harsher salvation principle is developed by inference from this saying in combination other things in the Bible outside the context of this one, but this salvation principle is what many if not all Christians believe. 

Since it wasn't specifically stated, who made this salvation principle revelation, and by what logic, did it become the cornerstone of the Christian belief?  The call was made by very mortal religious leaders centuries after Christ was crucified by cherry-picking Bible verses (the content of the Bible was also decided years after the crucifixion).  It is no coincidence this salvation principle revelation reinforced the religious leadership's existing power structure.

“No one reaches the Father but through me” was been embellished into ‘believe in me or suffer horribly for all eternity in the afterlife’. This embellished message has no real spiritual value, but it does have great marketing potential because it is very easy (i.e. all you do is believe and support the belief support institution) and what could be more compelling than the gut wrenching threat of burning for all eternity in the lake of fire. In short, it is very effective in getting followers and keeping them in the fold.

The message really isn’t even very well thought out. Certainly the prospect of burning for all eternity in the lake of fire is frightening for anyone with a body, but probably does not present much of a threat to the spirit after the body dies. This weakness has never been a real problem for this message because so far no one has ever come back from this torment to report on that and likely never will.

Additionally, it seems inconceivable that a loving god could do such a terrible, cruel thing. Condemning anyone to a terrible torture for all the remainder of eternity is certainly terrible, but it is unthinkable that the warning of these dire consequences is so cryptically stated in the Bible that it has to be interpreted from numerous disjointed verses. The very least a 'loving' god could do is spell it out in one place and move it up to the front of the Bible in bold print.

It is not uncommon to hear Christians justify their faith by saying ‘what if they are right?’ This statement is a clear indication of the effectiveness of this salvation message as a marketing strategy. This salvation principle is clearly more the contrivance of mortal men who want to get and control follower and not the intent of the Divine. This salvation message seems incredibly inconsistent with other Bible quotes that have been carefully overlooked in the collection of quotes used to support the justification for this salvation story such as:

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

A set of parallel notions to this salvation principle is the contention that the one and only god is a 'jealous' god [“For you shall worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god”] that does not want you to have any other gods before you. In fact, he hands down a commandment to Moses that “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. 

Why would the almighty creator of the universe who purposely seems to be staying out of the obvious picture be jealous of other gods that don't exist? Isn't it more likely that religious leaders who like the power and advantage afforded by a flock of believers are the ones who are jealous? 

Jealousy, wrath and any other petty quality attributed to the Divine are qualities of shallow, mortal men.  They do not apply to the Divine.

This question about the fairness of this salvation principle is not new.   Universal Reconciliation is a doctrine that all lost souls will eventually be reconciled by god’s divine love. In this controversial doctrine (it is generally rejected by most Christians), those who created this doctrine generously allow some truth to the ‘believe in me or suffer horribly for all eternity in the afterlife’ notion, but they expect that love directed Divine intervention will eventually forgive all these lost souls and welcome them into heaven.

The Universal Reconciliation doctrine is being very generous. This ridiculous notion was intentionally contrived by mortal men with the specific intent to garner and control followers through fear and intimidation.


Fear and intimidation are not the Divine intention.

Disturbing Preoccupation with Worldly Things

The concept of religion is as old as humanity.  It exists in some form in virtually every human society, and it typically holds a position of high esteem in those societies.  But religion for all of its high aspiration is the work of mere mortal men, and as such, religion is prone to the weaknesses of these very mortal human administrators. 

Albert Einstein addressed these issues of weakness in his New York Times Magazine, 1930 article 'Religion and Science'.  In this article, he called out the most primal emotion in the original development of religious thought and experience as fear.  What he said in paraphrase is that:

'it does not take much consideration to see that the predominant emotions presiding over the birth of religion has been above all else our fear of the great unknown that surrounds us. The human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense [he was] speaking of a religion of fear.

This fear is  an important element that stabilizes the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a role of societal dominance on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.'

Albert Einstein - 'Religion and Science' - 1930

In these few words, Einstein has captured the essence of the great problem that plagues all religions in all times.  They all beginning with the message of some noble moral intent, but the process of getting this message out inevitably results in the creation of an organization that needs followers to fund the effort and make the existence of the organization relevant.  These organization's pursuit of followers can lead its leadership to a disturbing preoccupation with worldly things.  A trap that seduces many of these religious leaders who control the religious message to become false prophets.


This disturbing preoccupation with worldly things can have a very divergent affect on the religion's messages and intent when changes are made to the message for the worldly sake of the organization. This control of the message affords those church leaders considerable power.  When they control the scripture and its interpretation, they have a lot of opportunity to insert personal opinions and prejudices. Through the ages there have been church leaders with personal opinions who wanted to insert their thinking into church doctrine. In some cases, these insertions were done to promote a cause they thought had been overlooked. In other cases, they were trying manipulate thinking a more selfish way. 

This primal fear of the great unknown that surrounds us creates a special vulnerability in potential religious followers that can be exploited to extreme advantage.  To allay this primal fear in their followers, religions profess to assume a higher ground to provide comforting explanations and a sense that a higher power is providing us guidance.  They frequently  proclaim  there is a powerful being who is watching over us, and this loving being has a code of behavior that must be followed to warrant the favor of reward over the punishment for misdeeds.  

Some succumb to the temptation and exploit this special vulnerability for personal gain.  There are no shortage of those willing to exploit.  These exploitation problems with organized religions can be found throughout history. Some recent examples include the Prosperity ministries and The Guru of Bling, but the decadence of the 16th-century Roman Catholic Church that led to the Protestant Reformation is a classic example.   But as Einstein said, the problems goes back much further than this as in all the way back to their inception

The fact that the western religion clergy control their scriptures has been known for a long time. Even Jesus acknowledged the problem in one of his sayings recorded in the Gospel of Thomas: 

Jesus said, “The Pharisees and the Scribes have taken the keys to knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered, nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so. As for you, be as clever as snakes and as innocent as doves.” 

--  Gospel of Thomas saying 39

In eastern religion, the Buddha denied many things around the ritualistic brahminism that dominated the Hindu world view of his times.  His teachings are filled with truths from the Veda scriptures, but he denounced organized Hindu brahminist that lead how the Vedas were understood and practiced then. He took the radical position of taking only the Vedic inspired kernels of truth and dismissed the rigid structure of rituals, forms, and methods that largely favored the religion organization.  He made enlightenment a personal struggle to overcome to overcome illusion and suffering.

Many people derive great solace from their religious beliefs, but much of this solace is from the fear of the dire consequences their religion has instilled in them about not believing their religious doctrine. Somewhere along the way, many religions have become very aggressive in their pursuit of followers sometimes to the extent of actually waging war against those of different faiths. Some religions actually regard apostasy as a capital crime in places where they have the political clout to enforce these executions. Ironically, all this coercion, hate and violence is being done in the name of their god(s) who they say is full of love and mercy.

The religious messages of love and compassion have become corrupted and mangled by centuries of manipulation by persons and institutions that are much more focused on power and wealth instead of spiritual fulfillment. After centuries of this corruption, any spiritual value these religious messages may have had originally are now pretty much diluted away with religion being plagued by a number of problems such as religious inspired hate and prejudice and faiths sharing the same scriptures openly hating and are in conflict with each other.

These religions all claim to be the worldly representation of the same god(s) who lovingly created life and gave it free will, but their leadership ranks are filled with those who are much more interested in their personal well-being. Many of them are quick to point out these weaknesses in the religions they compete against for followers, but they are unable to see the very same corruption in their own ranks. Some are involved in religion for the right reasons of doing right unto others, loving their neighbor, and loving (not fearing) their god. They may even be a majority, but this scourge of personal self-interest for power and wealth seems to overwhelmingly predominant perception.

All these religious zealots who want to forcefully apply their religion seem to have missed one very important point. All men are endowed by their creator with the free will to aspire to whatever spiritual pursuit they choose. No mortal man or institution has the right to abridge that god given free-will.

In many ways today, it appears that religion has created more suffering than it has alleviated. 

So where do we find our salvation?

False Prophets: Those Who Would Deceive Us

The great mystery of life is bigger than a single person can handle by themselves.  Everyone needs a little help on occasion as they sort through all the details trying to get a handle on their particular great mystery.  They seek counsel from family, friends, teachers, doctors, and clergy to name but a few.  We even have institutions such as science and religion that are venerated for the integrity and knowledge that they are assumed to represent.  

Most of these counseling resources are struggling with the great mystery themselves so there is only so much help they can provide.  This abundance of difficult things to understand and the shortage of counselors with a comprehensive understanding creates a gap in everyone's reality that needs to filled.  

Some well meaning souls try to step up and address this gap as honestly as they can, but many of them are simply not as informed as they would like to think.  They are well intentioned and believe the things they are promoting.  Many of them are unconsciously motivated to promote certain of their beliefs because if others believes these same things that reinforces their commitment to the belief.  Frequently, this need for external validation of their beliefs is indicative of a weakness in those beliefs.  As well intentioned as they are on the surface, these ill informed helpers are really only contributing to the confusion.

From a darker perspective, there are many others who see this information gap as an incredible opportunity for themselves.  These other helpers are not motivated by the purest of intentions.  Rather, their motivation is purely personal gain by way of some sort  of deception and ultimately manipulation.  They are the frauds, cheats, con-men, and charlatans that are so common in our world. They not only contribute to the confusion, they actually profit from it.

Both the ill informed and deceptive/manipulative helpers want to seduce others for a variety of their own selfish reasons.  The ill informed are trying to find support for their own weak beliefs, and the deceptive/manipulative are more interested in personal gain in the form of money, power, or prestige.  In western religions, both these types of opportunists are called out as false prophets (those who would lead you astray) and those who choose to follow them are told to beware.  The details in those warnings on how to spot and avoid the false prophets are sparse to nonexistent.

Western religion has a prominent, central placement in society where its organizations have garnered much power, wealth, and influence in the name of their god. These resources could be used to do their god’s work like administering to the poor and down trodden in our midst, but all too frequently, these resources are used instead to provide lavish lifestyles for the persons administering those resources or promote some political agenda that is favorable to them. 

Instead of their god, these organizations are managed by very mortal men with all the frailties and vulnerabilities of mortal men (though most of them would never admit it) while the god remains invisibly in the background.  Many of these mortal managers succumb to their human frailties and vulnerabilities and become these false prophets. Most are so self-absorbed they don’t even recognize themselves as false prophets.

In established religious institutions, there are varying degrees of vetting required before someone can be trusted into the clergy. In less structured situations, some can be self-ordained on the Internet, but all too frequently, there are no certifications or tests required before someone can independently declare themselves the voice of god. 

Anyone can stand-up and declare themselves to be ordained by god without a shred of qualification or ability, and if they have sufficient charisma with an aptitude for public speaking, they will gather some followers. Since these self-ordained religious spokesmen represent a god who is conspicuously not around, they in many cases have near absolute power over their followers, and as is widely known, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Common to most western religions is some sense of good versus evil with an associated reward versus punishment. A loving god rewards good behavior while punishing the evil, but since the loving god isn’t obviously available, there is considerable wiggle room for the religious spokesman to interject some of the own feelings into their particular message. This mortal meddling in the religious message has been going on for a very long time. As a result, much of this meddling is very established in western religious thought, but it can be identified by careful examination and analysis by looking for mortal fingerprints.

As with so many things, the industrial age has greatly extended the reach of the false prophets. Once constrained to the small communities in their immediate reach, these manipulators could only impact small groups of people, but mass media outlets like radio, television, movies, and now the Internet have enabled them to extend their influence in the form of political propaganda, market manipulation, and religious opinion into mass markets that are national and even global in scale.

The eastern religions approach is less inclined to the false prophet’s tools of manipulation because it is less based on faith and more on personal spiritual growth by way of study and experience on the path to ultimate enlightenment.  Eastern religion scriptures are very cryptic, but since they are more knowledge than faith based, they do not appear to be as contaminated by human intervention like western scripture.  In spite of this better foundation, there are some false prophet issues even here.

There is an old saying in the eastern traditions that ‘The well doesn’t go to the thirsty man. The thirsty man comes to the well.’ The problem with this notion is that there are lot of thirsty men of varying degrees of thirst and not nearly enough wells (i.e. well versed and good intentioned god men). 

False prophets in the eastern traditions are generally charismatic leaders who pass themselves off as more evolved than they actually are to take advantage of the spiritual yearnings of common people for personal gain and enrichment. The advantage they have is that the path to enlightenment described in their scriptures are not that easy to understand. The cryptic nature of the teachings is the opening that clever, unscrupulous conmen exploit.

Though not originally as well organized for fraud as the west, these eastern false prophets have taken to the Internet and television emulating the western industrialized flock fleecing approach to enrich themselves from larger, international audiences. This difficulty in understanding eastern thought makes it easy for charlatans to perform their magic that works particularly well on naïve western paying audiences.

By far, the most common false prophet targets are those persons who are passive in their approach to belief.  Passive believers are those persons who just adopt notions as beliefs without adequate questioning or verification.  These people are basically inclined to believe things they are told by persons they regard trustworthy, and their threshold for trustworthy can in some cases be quite low. Lower thresholds of trustworthiness tend to create a much greater risk of vulnerability.

There are two huge problems with this passive approach.  First, manipulation of passive belief is their primary (perhaps only) mode of operation of the false prophets.  Passive belief can render someone utterly defenseless against their assault.  Secondly, it is also by far the least useful (as in not useful at all) in the process of evolving your understanding of anything.

Intellectual evolution requires the thinking and critical analysis that are not being used in passive belief.  Thinking and critical analysis are critical steps in believing effectively, and believing effectively is required to ultimately discover the core truth of existence. 

There is no shortage of those willing, many even yearning, to provide spiritual assistance, but not all of these would-be prophets are reliable sources.  Many of these are the false prophets who try to exploit others to their advantage by manipulating this very human tendency to believe.  That certainly includes the traditional notion of religious false prophets, but it is extended here to include all manners of individuals who try to exploit human belief to their personal advantage because they all contribute to humanity’s suffering and bondage.

Actively Engaged or Passively Resigned

Everyone creates their own understanding about who they are and what is going on around them that becomes their personal reality.  This understanding is a combination of things that are known (are verifiable as true) and things that are believed (we have convinced ourselves or been convinced by others to accept them as very likely true).  

Everything that we each individually know about our reality is this intricate combination of things believed and known, and frequently, the line that distinguished between known and believed is blurred or even non-existent.  Anything in our personal reality that is based on incorrect belief creates gaps in our understanding of reality.  These gaps give rise to the illusions that generate our internal confusion and make us vulnerable to external manipulation. 

There are certainly similarities in everyone's concept of reality.  Differences exist in each individual conception of reality because there are innumerable subtle nuances of our respective interpretations of reality on top of the broad brush similarities making everyone's particular situation unique. Thus, there is no one size fits all solution for everyone's unique personal journey of self discovery. Everyone has to create their own personal reality perspective, and belief is an important part of that process.

Belief is one of the most important things that we have to do, and it is a relatively difficult undertaking for which no formal instructions exist describing how to do it correctly.  The consequences of poor choices can be dire, but when it comes to making belief choices, the burden of responsibility for that belief choice rests solely with the individual who made or accepted that choice. 

While it is true that there are many forces at play trying to manipulate what you believe, it is also true that everyone ultimately believes what they choose to believe.  As such, everyone bears the burden of responsibility for those things they have chosen to beliefs.  This simple matter of being honest about belief degree of certainty is very important.

Passive believers are those persons who just adopt notions as beliefs without adequate questioning or verification. These people are basically inclined to believe things they are told by persons they regard trustworthy, and their threshold for trustworthy can in some cases be quite low. Lower thresholds of trustworthiness tend to create a much greater risk of vulnerability.   

There are two huge problems with this passive approach.  First, manipulation of passive belief is the primary (perhaps only) mode of operation of external manipulation. Passive belief can render someone utterly defenseless against their assault. Secondly, it is also by far the least useful (as in not useful at all) in the process of evolving your understanding of anything.  Intellectual evolution requires the thinking and critical analysis that are not being used in passive belief.  Thinking and critical analysis are important steps in believing effectively, and believing effectively is required to ultimately discover the core truth of existence.

There is another approach to believing where the individual believer is actively involved in the process of deciding what to believe. Active believers are those persons who question everything to carefully and rigorously test the validity anything being consider for belief. Everything including input from highly trusted sources are subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Active believers expect every beliefs to ultimately become knowledge.  If it cannot stand the rigorous scrutiny, it is eventually discarded.

There are many advantages to the practice of active believing. Certainly, the chances of being manipulated by others are significantly reduced, and adoption of correct beliefs greatly increases the likelihood of happiness and success in life. It is also the only approach to believing that can be used to really understand the truth about anything and especially the ultimate truth about everything. 

The key to active believing is an approach that is structured around these guidelines:

1) Believe in your intuition:   Everyone has some intuitive ability.  Common phrases like ‘I had a hunch’ and ‘It just didn't feel right’ implies that intuition is a common human experience to some degree.  Be cautiously open to intuitive impulse, and believe with reservation what your intuition leads you to believe.   Just like muscle mass, if you don't use it, you lose it.  Just never forget that these things intuitively believed could be wrong.  Challenge them relentlessly to establish their validity, and always remember, the intuitive mind and rational mind are a team.

2) Don't be foolish:   Too many people are all too willing to accept baseless notions on a blind faith basis (belief without question).  Blind faith is foolish on so many levels, and by its very nature (the suspension of ongoing verification analysis), it incapacitates any possibility of forward progress which is not a good thing.   Consider whatever you think is inspired by your intuition, take ideas and recommendations from trusted others into consideration, but never accept anything on a blind faith basis.  If it is worth believing, it can withstand intellectual scrutiny.

3) Avoid Package Deals:  Be wary of collections of ideas that are taught as a package deal.  Frequently with package deals, you end up 'believing' in something that you didn't even really know because you didn't read the fine print in all the doctrine.  Large package deals are impossible to rationally consider and are rarely worthy of consideration.

4) Beware Threat and Intimidation:  Ideas that can’t stand on their own are frequently marketed under some threat of dire consequence if you fail to believe.  Any idea promoted based on fear typically has no merit. Pass it by.

5) Challenge Your Beliefs:  Always have a clear understanding of those things you believe and distinguish them at all times from the things that you definitely know.  The inability to distinguish between belief and proven fact is the root cause of so many hurtful things.   As beliefs are successfully challenged over the course of time, it will become more and more trusted, perhaps even to the point of clearly being known to be true.  Never rush that process of verification.

Belief is the only starting point mechanism available to get to the truth about our reality, but done incorrectly, it is also the mechanism that can cloud our perception of reality to create the various illusions that impede our progress. 

It is one matter to intellectually understand this concept of the nature of belief, but it is quite another to actually experience and know it.  It is only by actually knowing and experiencing the truth of this concept that we are freed from the illusions and bondage that results from these gaps in our understanding.

Don’t be afraid to believe incredible things, but don’t be foolish.  It is fine line to be tread between the liberation of truth and the bondage of illusion. 

The Myth of a Chosen People

Around the world there exists various groups of people who believe they in some way are chosen to be more worthy of favor than others.  All too frequently, this chosen people notion is a religious belief wherein the members of that particular religious group believe they have greater or even exclusive favor of the Creator by virtue of their affiliation with that  religion.    

In other cases, this privileged status of a chosen people is consider to be deserved by virtue of some perceived special accomplishments that particular group feel sets them apart from all others and makes them superior.  These chosen people expect special favor and special treatment from the laws and privileges of society.  A classic example of this type of particular chosen people syndrome is the White Supremacist movement that believes white people are superior to other races and therefore should be dominant over them.  

In the view of these people who believe they are chosen, those others who are not in the select group are deemed inferior and unworthy of favor by the self-proclaimed chosen ones.  More importantly, those considered to be unworthy are conveniently used as a scapegoat for all the problems that exist in the otherwise perfect society the chosen people feel they alone have created.  The net result of these chosen people delusions is the oppression that it generates around the world in the form of racism, bigotry, and hatred.

Sometimes membership in the chosen people group is considered a birth right for those born into the tradition as with White Supremacists, and sometimes it is granted to those who accept the terms and conditions to be adopted into the fold in many religious groups. Not surprisingly, these beliefs of privileged status for the chosen group are typically only held by people who consider themselves to be included in this special group.  Everyone else simply sees them as deluded and deranged.

All three of the major Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) embrace this chosen people concept. With each thinking, their religious traditions are superior to all the others even though each of their religious traditions share some of the same scriptures and revere some of the same religious figures (all hold Abraham as their patriarch).  Further divisions occur within each of these religions when sects develop and believe their own particular practices and interpretations are superior to other sects in the same religious.

All three traditions believe there is only one Creator for which each has their own name.  They even have some scripture in common, but still they individually believe, their particular interpretation of these scriptures and understanding of the Creator's intent is more correct and proper than those outside their chosen group. 

It is little surprise that the three have shared contentious relationships which frequently flare-up into wars for centuries. While there are various political and land rights issues cited as the basis in some of these problems, the root cause seems to be this difference of religious opinion and each group's belief they are the chosen ones.  

Historically, the most glaring example of the dangers of the chosen people syndrome was the rise of the Nazis in 1930's Germany.  The German Nazis believed and taught the German people to believe they were directly descended from the mythical Aryans who were favored by the pagan gods and better than the rest of humanity. They committed terrible atrocities on a scale that has never before been known. They were able to convince their solders to commit these atrocities because they had been conditioned to think these targeted people were somehow sub-human. 

More currently, the self-proclaimed Islamic state ISIS very recently has been guilty of murder, enslavement, rape, and pedophilia using the excuse of being the chosen people dealing with infidels. The atrocities are not on the scale of the Nazis, but then neither is the scale of their successes.  The recent incidents in Charlottesville USA and Barcelona Spain are simply further examples of this chronic and pervasive chosen people problem.

The root cause of these chosen people myths is the very human weaknesses of vain pride, envy, and hatred being cloaked as the will of the Divine.  The truth is that everyone on this Earth has a right to be here.  This chosen people myth is not of god.  It is very dangerous, and there is no place for it in our civilized society.  

There are no chosen people. There is no superior race.  Only a multitude of people who are simply trying to survive and be happy, and each and everyone of them deserves an equal opportunity to that end.

This life challenges us to learn many lessons, and far and away, the most important of these lessons is to learn how to embrace the many faces of humanity's diversity because collectively this diversity is the true and complete face of our creator.

We are all the same in spirit.

Understanding Our Vulnerabilities

The matter of belief is an important process that needs to be done with care and rigor.  The consequences of poor belief choices can be dire, but when it comes to making these choices, the burden of responsibility for that belief ultimately lies solely with the individual who made that choice.  There are many people who are actively trying to convince us to make certain personal belief choices, but they bear no responsibility for poor choice even if they did suggest them (perhaps even persuaded us).  In truth, everyone ultimately believes what they choose to believe, and in making that choice, they bear the full burden of responsibility for those things they have accepted to believe.

Good life choices depend on high quality beliefs that contribute to choice consideration.  To ensure high integrity of our beliefs, it is important to understand the things that can cloud our thinking with respect to forming those beliefs. There are some key human vulnerabilities that can very adversely impact correct belief creation. These vulnerabilities can be grouped into the three major categories of self-deception, fear, and laziness. Collectively, these three things are responsible for most of our inclination to believe things that are not true.

Self-Deception

It is commonly understood that the easiest person to deceive is the person who wants to be deceived.  Everyone has an inclination to want to believe things that are favorable to them.  If someone is in love, they want to believe the person they love, loves them in return, but this wishful thinking is not always true.  It would be very easy for the object of this person’s love take advantage of their belief to manipulate and exploit them.

There are other more selfishly motivated self-deception factors operating inside us that can cloud our thinking that also need to be considered.  These selfish motivations can induce self-deception when we manufacture reasons to justify these selfish indulgences.  Humanity has long been known to be vulnerable to a variety of selfish indulgences such as those listed below.

Ego Afflictions
Lust	Desire for physical and emotional gratification.
Greed	Desire for wealth and power.
Wrath	Feelings of hatred and anger
Envy	Preoccupation with what others have.
Vain Pride	Belief you are better and more deserving than others.

These ego afflictions can have a corrupting influence on belief development by creating an inclination in the individual to accept untrue notions as fact if they help them to rationalize their own unreasonable behavior.  The danger posed by these ego afflictions is twofold. First, the behavior they encourage in us is potentially hurtful to the other people, and second, the illusions these beliefs inspire prevent us from seeing the truth about our flawed rationalization thus bonding us to this unhealthy behavior. 

Curiously, the same selfish motivations that inspires humans to conspire to manipulate and exploit others can also be the root cause of the weakness in their victims to submit to this type of abuse.

Fear

By far, the most common means of propagating a belief in someone else is fear mongering because it is easy and effective.  It is easy because it can be based on assertions without any supporting evidence, and it is effective because most people are easy to scare.  This scare tactic is widely used in interpersonal relationships, and it is also a common factor in the broader approaches of religion, marketing, and politics.

Whenever someone is trying to sell their beliefs through the use of fear and intimidation, it is typically a sign of weakness in the belief being proposed.  It is also a strong indication that the promoter of the belief has an ulterior motive.  Never let your decision to believe be based on or swayed in any way by fear. Any idea that is being promoted with threat and intimidation is weak at best and likely not even worthy of consideration.  At the worst, it is outright dangerous. 

Spiritual Laziness

Sadly, most people only want to be told what to believe because they suffer from the malady of spiritual laziness. This attitude dooms them to an existence of illusion and bondage because life is a journey of discovery, and you are not going to discover anything unless you are actively looking. There can be no help for those who take these passive positions until they assume a more assertive position about the things they believe and become able to help themselves.

This lazy approach requires no critical thinking. As matter of fact, critical thinking probably needs to be suspended because it is just going to get in the way. It is certainly easier to just have someone else tell you what to believe, but if you want to get anywhere, you have to be willing to expend effort posing honest questions and accepting equally honest answers.

This passive approach is problematic for two reasons. 

First, manipulation of passive belief (just believing something you told without question) is the primary (perhaps only) mode of operation of those who want to manipulate us. Passive belief can render someone utterly defenseless against their assault. 

Secondly, it is also by far the least useful (as in not useful at all) in the process of evolving your understanding of anything. Intellectual evolution requires the thinking and critical analysis that are not being used in passive belief. 

Thinking and critical analysis are critical steps in believing effectively, and believing effectively is required to ultimately discover the core truth of existence.

On the Matter of Belief

From the first moment of our entry into this world, there are so very many things that need to be learned. We become consciously aware in the body of a child in an ongoing story with more history than we could ever hope to discover, moving into a future that is largely unknown.  All of the guidance and instruction provided to us (we find out later) has been developed by persons who don't really have the great mystery all figured out either.  

With all this conceptual wiggle room, it is little wonder that humans have developed the capacity and even an inclination to fill in all these vague, confused, and missing pieces with things that we believe.  Believing is a process whereby someone can call on the immense power of their mind to speculate, imagine, or otherwise conjure up explanations for these many mysteries.

Each individual is in complete control of what they choose to believe and how they choose to believe it.  Some people challenge their beliefs in an attempt to determine their veracity thus improving their overall understanding.  These people see belief as a forward moving process.  Others find so much comfort in their beliefs that they simply cling to them and defend them whenever they are challenged.  These people are complacently content considering their belief as a finished product.

Believing seems harmless enough, but it is actually quite a risky venture that should not be taken lightly.  Beliefs that are correctly assumed and properly vetted become the key to expanding our understanding of the world and our situation, and these correct beliefs are the key to our liberation.  Incorrectly assumed beliefs that are never questioned will inevitably become the very illusions that can impede our progress and generate bondage.

An illusion is the sensation of experiencing something but by virtue of things believed incorrectly,  being convinced the experience was something quite different.  Much of what we know about our everything including ourselves is a mix of ‘I know’ and ‘I believe’.   For example, if someone see something in the air, they might interpret it to be an airplane which is certainly very plausible (i.e. high on the ‘I know’ and low on the ‘I believe’).  Alternately, they might interpret it to be a vehicle from another planet which is a lot less likely to be true (i.e. low on the ‘I know’ and high on the ‘I believe’).  The higher a belief is on the 'I believe' side, the more likely it is to be an illusion and possibly very dangerous.

Illusions are created in this area of 'I know' and 'I believe' when some of the beliefs we hold are incorrect.  Most illusions are not apparently obvious, and many of them can result in a condition of unreasonable attachment called bondage.  Magicians exploit these illusions to entertain, but con-men, false prophets, and disingenuous others use these illusions to manipulate and exploit.  We are particularly susceptible to the illusions we create to fool ourselves.  

Since these beliefs are a critical part of our personal truth and understanding of the surrounding reality, illusions create a very critical vulnerability for us.  To minimize this vulnerability, the belief creation process must be effective and executed correctly.  Effective belief creation  begins with an understanding of the three ways we garner information about our surroundings and situation.

The Senses (i.e. sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch):  As reliable as we would like to think our senses are, they are frequently prone to error or misinterpretation because anything experienced through the senses is followed up by an analysis in the mind where it is embellished into what we believe we experienced through that particular sense. This interpretation occurs immediately after the sense is engaged, but it can go on indefinitely afterward with interpretations occurring way after the fact being much more interpreted belief than truth.

Rational Mind:  This sensory interpretation is but one of many and varied forms of input that our mind is able to rationally analyze.  Another common source of input our rational minds are the many ideas that are shared with us by others. Information shared by others might not be correct.  For one thing, the source might not be well informed, but more importantly, they may have a deliberate intent to deceive. All information from external sources needs to be considered suspect until it can be verified.

Intuitive Mind:  The rational mind is good at building layers onto an existing conceptual structure, but when the existing conceptual structure needs to be replaced, it is the intuitive mind that can step outside the current misconception to pursue radical, new solutions.   Intuition can be the internal insight that solves otherwise unsolvable problems, but all too frequently, wishful thinking is misinterpreted to be intuitive insight. It is all to common that vividly imagined delusions are confused for intuitive knowledge. There is a difference. True intuitively derived knowledge has substance that can stand the scrutiny of our rational mind and can be verified through our senses. Imagined delusions cannot.

Neither the intuitive mind or rational mind alone is sufficient to the task of solving this great life mystery, but together, they are a formidable team for shaping credible beliefs that can ultimately be molded into knowledge.

Belief is not a frivolous matter to be taken lightly.  It is the key to understanding our reality and ourselves, and it is the heart of the very serious matter of our ultimate liberation.  It must be done with great attention to detail, or we will continue to be trapped in our mundane rather than celestial existence.

Believe great and wonderful things, but don't be foolish.

Understanding Religion

Historically, religion is the venerated source for answers to the great mystery of life questions that hauntingly preoccupy humanity and are considered too difficult to be answered otherwise.  The advantage religion has in answering these unanswerable questions is that it is not limited to what is known.  It has the advantage of being able to exploit the incredible human capacity to fill in the vague and missing pieces in what is known with things that have simply been accepted as belief.  

This heavy reliance on belief can ultimately become a problem.  This problem is compounded by the extreme diversity of religious perspectives that shapes their many beliefs.  The world is home to a multitude of religions, and each of these religions has multiple sects each with their somewhat different religious interpretations.  All these many groups think the things they hold as beliefs are correct, and everyone else is wrong.  

With all these different beliefs about so many things that matter, how does one choose the correct religion?  Reviewing the merit of all these individual religions and their many sects might seem like an impossible task, but at a high level, most of these religions and their many sects can be reduced down into either of the two very broad categories that have historically been designated as Western and Eastern.  

The terms Western and Eastern in this context simply refers to the general geographic points of origin of these various religious tradition which has made them historically, culturally, and theologically distinct.  After centuries of intermingling and sharing of ideas between cultures, both Western and Eastern religious traditions can be found in all parts of the world today, but the fundamental difference between the two different religious approaches is still very apparent.  

The fundamental difference between eastern and western religions is the clear distinction between how the religions in each category advocate spiritual progress.   

Western religions are based on faith. Followers are expected to believe on blind faith what they are told to believe by religious leaders who have assumed the responsibility for sorting out all the spiritual details to be spoon fed to the masses of followers.  On close examination however, many of these religious answers are filled with inconsistencies, missing big pieces of the story, and things that just don't ring true.    

Instead of faith, eastern religions are more focused on spiritual growth through introspection, practice, and study.  Eastern religion rituals and personal practices (e.g. meditation and asanas postures) promote personal spiritual growth on the path to spiritual enlightenment. In these eastern religions, the aspirant is more focused on seeking and finding salvation rather than simply holding some belief of faith and expecting salvation to find them.

These high level, specific ideological differences between western and eastern religions has a significant impact on each religion's ability to support the search for the Ultimate Truth. 
Those who are about discovering the truth will be drawn to the Eastern religions.  Those who want to believe what someone else has told them to believe is the truth will be drawn to Western religions.

In reality, life is a spiritual journey of self discovery that spans many lifetimes to complete.  As such, it must be lived actively questioning all things, rather than being slavishly bound to blind faith obedience and stale outdated dogma.  In the context of discovering the Ultimate Truth, the eastern religious approach is superior and will ultimately as one's spiritual journey advances become the approach of choice.

As it turns out though, you really don't need affiliation with any religion.  All you need is the correct and relevant knowledge that a religion might be able to offer because ultimately you alone are responsible for validating the things that you believe.  You alone are responsible for your own salvation.