IN DEFENSE OF NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY LOGIC AND ALL DEEP THINKERS AND QUESTERS

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me
~B Russell .♡

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world -- not even in infinite space. I was free -- free to think, to express my thoughts -- free to live to my own ideal -- free to live for myself and those I loved -- free to use all my faculties, all my senses -- free to spread imagination's wings -- free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope -- free to judge and determine for myself -- free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past -- free from popes and priests -- free from all the "called" and "set apart" -- free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies -- free from the fear of eternal pain -- free from the winged monsters of the night -- free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought -- no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings -- no chains for my limbs -- no lashes for my back -- no fires for my flesh -- no master's frown or threat -- no following another's steps -- no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds."
R. Ingersoll ♡

Native American Spirituality vs Christianity~

Most history textbooks designed for high school courses mistakenly consider the various Native American religions as an indistinguishable whole. One popular textbook, The Amer­ican Waydescribes Native American religion in these words: "These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature." The American Way may have been attempting to show respect for Native American religion, but it doesn't wash. Stated unequivocally in this way, the beliefs are depicted as opaque or meaningless fallacy and fable, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization. Let us attempt a similarly succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today as might have been described by Native Americans:

"These white men believed that one great invisible infinitely wise and powerful male god in the sky ruled the world and that he must be obeyed or we will be punished for eternity after we die. Sometimes they divided the deity into three parts, which they called Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They ate wafers and wine, believing that they were eating the body of the God’s son named Jesus and drinking his blood. Jesus was born to a virgin and was later murdered on a wooden stake in the form of a cross but after three days rose from the dead. If people were obedient and believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died in a place called Heaven. They believe we are all born morally depraved, born into ‘sin’ and that the son of God was sacrificed so that our sins could be expunged. ”

In the excellent Canadian movie Black Robe (1991) the Mohawks and other native tribes were incredulous and dazed by the childlike beliefs espoused by the Catholic missionaries who attempted to convert them to Christianity. In consideration of the above, this incredulity and skepticism is certainly plausible.



In spite of its stark truth, textbooks however would never describe Christianity in this manner since it would be considered offensive to the dominant cultural and ethnocentric white European worldview of Judeo-Christianity. But as Robert A Heinlein the great science fiction writer once said, “One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh”. Christian beliefs such as a virgin birth, a resurrection from death and the existence of an omnipotent invisible God whose only son on died for our sins are not perceived by Christians as mindless superstition. But the Native American belief in the Great White Spirit, the efficacy of a rain dance or that all living things have spirit lives is regarded as such.

Textbooks could present American Indian religions from a perspective that takes them at least as seriously and appealing as mainstream Christianity. My personal view is that all religions are equally superstitious and false but that is not the point of this discussion. But on a plausibility scale, the Native American religions make a lot more sense than do any of the three main monotheisms of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. The anthropologist Frederick Turner has pointed out that when white people remark upon the fact that Indians perceive a spirit in every animal or rock, they are simultaneously admitting their own loss of a deep spiritual relationship with the earth. Native Americans are "part of the total living universe," wrote Turner; "spiri­tual health is to be had only by accepting this condition and by attempting to live in accordance with it." Turner contends that this life view is healthier than European alternatives: "Ours is a shockingly dead view of creation. We ourselves are die only things in the universe to which we grant an authentic vitality, and because of this we are not fully alive." Thus, Turner shows that taking Native American religions seriously might require re-examination of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But no textbook would ever entertain such a controversial issue. Native Americans could never understand the white man’s total lack of respect and reckless disregard for the natural environment which they held in reverence. They would burn and slash, kill hundreds of thousands of buffalo and leave the carcasses to rot on the plains. To the Comanche and Kiowa for example the white man seemed to hate everything in nature. As the Kiowa chief Satanta said, “A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers there here on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry.” A Crow chief, Bear Tooth~

Source:

http://www.skeptic.ca/Native_Religion.htm

"God"
By John Lennon

God is a Concept by which we measure our pain
I'll say it again
God is a Concept by which we measure our pain

I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in Tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in Mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in Yoga
I don't believe in Kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles

I just believe in me, Yoko and me, and that's reality

The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the dreamweaver
But now I'm reborn
I was the walrus
But now I'm John
And so, dear friends,
You'll just have to carry on
The dream is over

https://youtu.be/jknynk5vny8