Most religions came out of the axial age. The general premise is that the age ended in the 3rd century A.D. We shall put that timeframe aside with this post and go with the idea that most religions came out of the axial age and we’ll view these religious claims from then until now. And yes,  Islam was also birthed in the axial age via Judaism.

So it’s been 2500/3000 years since we’ve dealt with these axial age religious claims. How much evidence of these extraordinary claims do we have in 2017? To my knowledge the only empirical evidence humanity has for 2500 years of religious claims is the limited efficacy of meditation.

I would argue this is an unimpressive record! What are we to make of this? Does it mean that God doesn’t exist? Well, no, not necessarily. I will argue in this post that there are still a number of explanations that could explain the disappearing act of God!

1. In fact, God doesn’t exist and the best way to think about God is scientific pantheism. BTW, I would place Buddhism within this purview although I concede it’s not a perfect fit.
2. I favor and lean towards Gnostic explanations of the religious phenomenon. That is to say that the god of all axial age religions is a false god! See this. If this were true we would expect all religions to be false and contradictory with knowledge of the ‘true’ god obscured and hidden. I would add, then, that the only evidence we would have if this were true is ‘signs and wonders’…I know, frustratingly uncompelling. Here is a link to Lord Rothschild talking about ‘the miracle’ of Zionism after 3000 years. Skip the cheesy presentation and go to 3:18 as the minute conversation is very much worth your time. I’ve argued on this site that this phenomenon is a ‘sign’ of Gnosticism being true …..Especially in light of the fact that The Torah is a factual disaster as far as historical claims go. Strange indeed!
3. Panentheism of the type Ken Wilber espouses; that is a modern neo-Vedanta, aka–spiritual evolution. The problem I have with this view is as of today there is absolutely no scientific evidence for spiritual teleology …Personally I’m extraordinarily skeptical of this view, however, I do find the premise possible. I do find the Gebserian take on this more compelling than Wilber’s.
4. The alien extraterrestrial hypothesis. This is the notion that ‘god’ in a practical way is of extraterrestrial origin. There is a universe of ideas out there on the net for you to muse on so I’ll let you do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
5. I’ve mused on this one for a long time and this is the first time I’ve put it out there. This is my idiosyncratic version of a preterists view of The Gospel. That the reason Jesus has never returned is that, in fact, he has never left! He is The Right Hand of God and deals with all those who seek truth, beauty, and goodness! On the other hand, if one is prone to all manner of mischief,  then one deals with The Left Hand of God–Lucifer, the one who is as much god as Christ. This aligns perfectly with Jesus’s claim that he is The Bright and Morning Star ( the light bringer Lucifer). It also aligns near perfectly with the basic tenets of Judaism; especially the relation between God and Satan in The Book of Job.                                                                   A tidbit from my, Get a Job series: The year A.D. 70: God(Jesus), ” we will agree to end all supernatural means of persuasion until the end of the age?” Lucifer “agreed!”                                I get that orthodox Jews will find it appalling to equate god with Jesus but that wouldn’t be all that surprising if this view were true. I concede that the ‘non-facticity’ of western theism is a problem here, and in that regard, I revert to 2 on this list and 1 as being the most likely explanations for the disappearing act of god…..

The truth, however, as truths tend to be, is simple; it is alterations of the truth – lies -that is complicated.

Neoliberal economics as implemented by, The Chicago School of Economics, has a department of worldwide spiritual propaganda. To be fair, this is speculation on my part, but I believe history will prove it to be accurate. This page shows that neoliberal policy is as close to fascism as it comes without being definitive; I could liken it to a door: inside the door is fascism–neoliberalism is a hand on the door handle with the door one inch open! The point is this: as fascism becomes normalized throughout the earth’s nations it should be no mystery as to how it happened–every mayor, premier/governor, prime minister/president who embraced economic liberalism can and should be held accountable for these coming travesties. Of course, the great irony here is that it’s right-wing atheists who run this department! We do know all fascist movements have their own particular spiritual departments of propaganda.

A quick search of Meetup.com’s spiritual pages offers up one of the best views of the outcome of this department’s agenda: spirituality for sale! That is to say– rampant spiritual materialism of every imaginable claim; it appears it matters not how outlandish the claim is, so long as it’s able to be packaged in ‘free-market’ capitalism.

The mythological Tree of Life was taken out of the garden so this would not happen to it.

I was just musing on this irony: the Christian fascist capitalists are doing everything possible to help God invoke the millennial communist reign; the earthly communists are trying everything possible to dispose of God and capitalism!

From where I posted this little gem on Truthdig.com

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  andrewmarkmusic  theghostofjh • 4 days ago

  There needn’t necessarily be a point on an atheist, materialist, reductionist leftist political forum: it’s nihilism all the way up and nihilism all the way down.
  But if you were asking me to put my hand into the barrel full of monkeys of universal points it may be this –but I’d have to invoke one Howard Bloom of Global Mind fame: ‘atheism is no fun at all; Gnosticism is where all the actions at!’….
  So come all you poets, painters and panzie’s and put on your Neo and Morpheus glasses and see through all the krafty and cunning false dichotomies offered up to you by the archons who rule over you in a deadly game of deceptive divide and conquer!
  Reductionist materialism and fundamentalist literalism have always been a false choice ………………
  Once one puts on the glasses panpsychism becomes obvious!
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    theghostofjh  andrewmarkmusic • 4 days ago

    Okay … thanks for clearing that up .. lol

This is a companion video to Identity Politics.

“It was a day of pain
and a time of sorrow
when the messenger of light
entered death
when he entered complete Nirvana“