The Art Of Teaching

In these pages recently I have taken both the ‘Mormons’ in particular and Christianity in general to task.  Why so.

Because it’s time.  And Time.

Consider.  There is considerable evidence in by now of, as I have also said (and put it) in these pages, ‘the natural fact of reincarnation and its attendant Law of Karma’.  And so, the idea that we have only one crack at ‘life’ - at this classroom for aspiring gods; this realm of Duality, where we have the opportunity not only to learn lessons (as befitting a classroom) but to experience ’evil,’ and thus, by having ‘opposition’,(1) make choices, to grow by.  Or not - is a misnomer.  And so, we are ’saved’ by ourselves.  By our own hand, as it were.  Yes, we can experience the value in our lives of the examples of other souls engaged in the same process who are perhaps further along The Path than we are.  But still, our growth - towards Mastery - is up to us.  And so, the religion of Christianity is in the way of our owning our own potential.

Having said that: What is my attitude towards ‘religion’?

I concur with former president Ronald Reagan in that regard.  As U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah has said, in his recent mailing i(which I received in yesterday’s snail mail) in support of ‘the Bill of Rights Institute’:

“You no doubt remember or have heard how, as President, (Reagan) would frequently say:

“‘Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.’…

“In his farewell address, which Presidents usually reserve for their gravest concerns, President Reagan described the risk to freedom in no uncertain terms.  Although he discussed it for several minutes, let me share with you just his conclusion:

“‘Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.  And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.  Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise.  And freedom is special and rare.  It’s fragile; it needs protection.’  

“President Reagan foresaw us racing toward a cliff and he tried to warn us.   

“Today, polls indicate that we are on the very brink of that cliff.  Survey data now shows that 41% of Americans under age 35 think the First Amendment is dangerous.

“Why?

“These young people are turning against the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights because someone might be able to use freedom of speech to say something that hurts someone else’s feelings.

“As if to put an exclamation mark on these troubling survey results, FOX News aired a video of college students at Yale University being asked to sign a petition to repeal the First Amendment in its entirety.

“The report concluded that 50 students very willingly signed in less than an hour.  They signed up even when told that ‘Just as a reminder, the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press - and oh yeah, freedom of petition.’   (Emphases in original.) 

“President Reagan’s worst fears are coming true…”

Ah.  And the larger subject of ‘our constitutional rights’ - as far as the Constitution goes.

I have dealt with this subject in these pages before as well.  But it (obviously) bears repeating:

You can infer that the Bill of Rights applies to the states and their governments as well as to the federal government.  But that perspective is not explicit in the Constitution - and according to such valuable source materials as The Federalist Papers, is clearly and unambiguously a precise misreading of that document.(2)  People still need to be protected from excessive government regulation and regimentation - i.e., the sense of rule over them (3) - by their individual state constitutions.     

Not to get into a discussion here about either the misreading of the Constitution or the actual legality of any of its Amendments, or even the relative values of a federal as opposed to a centralized government; for the purposes of this particular blog, let me cut to 

The bottom line: 

If you are strong enough - have enough power ceded to you - to keep people from saying things that (even just) might ‘offend’ somebody, you are strong enough to keep them from saying things that (even just) might offend your State.  And if things come to that point in your society, there is nothing to keep your Masters from deciding just to cut their offending subjects’ tongues out.  And then, while they’re at it, to cut their other organs out, for transplants.  And then kill the transgressors of their decrees.  As the equivalent of ‘useless eaters’.  That’ll teach them.

Not. 

There are better ways to teach, and learn, lessons than this Way, of the use of brute Force, and its corollary attitude of Power Over Others.  Of what can be called the Satanic Way.

Which Way we now need to get off of.  And onto the Real Way.

Of, in a word:

Love.

I am reminded here of something that the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu said, a very long time ago.  Quote (in translation): “The more rules and laws, the more thieves and robbers.”  Just so.

How much better to let the Law of Karma take (primary) care of these sorts of things.  Since there is such a Law.

Our being spiritual beings having a human experience, and all. 

—

footnotes:

(1) One of the teachings of the Mormon religion has been the idea of ‘There must needs be opposition in all things’.  Which perceptive thought is part of why I have been attracted to the religion that I was born into.  Even though other parts of it have caused me to reject it. 

   The idea of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater comes to mind, here, for me.  And possibly for you, also.

   Our ultimately being One, and all.

(2) The argument is that the whole of the Bill of Rights was turned on its head and made to apply from the federal government to the States - i.e., the modern idea of the (widespread) expression ’our Constitutional rights’ - by the terms of the 14th Amendment.  Under a made-up ‘principle’ of what is called ‘incorporation’.  Which is simply legalese.  That is to say: jargon.  The 14th Amendment does not say, in effect ‘The rights and powers formerly reserved to the States respectively or to the people shall now reside in the federal government.’  But that is, by and large, what it has been made to say.  And held to, by ‘Precedent’ (in legalese: stare decisis).  By members of the judicial branch of government, over the intervening years, who simply have wanted it to say that.  And whose ‘tribe’ has managed to convince the rest of the public to go along with the idea. Through the power of both the educational and mainstream media institutions in particular.  And the tendency of The People to let their governors get on with what they have been elected to do, and thus to let them just get on with their own, personal lives.  Which isn’t sufficient enough of an attitude, in this country’s form of government.

   And thus, President Reagan’s perceptive warning.   

(3) As per Red China.  And the former Soviet Union.  And so forth, as in the extremes of ‘collectivism’ in various socialist and communist, and fascist, systems.

   Red China’s example - complete with its Social Credit system - obviously being the template that our EMs have had in mind to make the U.S. over into.  And thus, The Process, that we are in.  Nicely analyzed by the philosopher F. Hegel.  Who got it mostly right.  But not quite.  As to its final Outcome.  

   Coming up.
   And Up.