Rewriting Scripture: 

Bringing Our Holy Books Current

The sacred writings supporting the religions stemming from Abraham – Islam, Judaism, and Christianity – all state people should both love and fear their Creator. More than just causing confusion, this contradiction has set the stage for continual war. The civilizations based on these religions have patterned themselves after the construct of a wrathful God - one that justifies violence as acceptable. Global peace remains unattainable. Teaching people to fear God has anchored humanity in the past and restricted our spiritual evolution. While our ability to kill one another escalates, our knowledge of how to get along remains stagnant. We do not have to follow this model: we can choose love over fear and create an environment from which peace can result.

These scriptures teach the glory of God’s love on the one hand, while on the other they present a Creator who has thrown tantrums, can become angry and will condemn those who transgress divine will to eternal hell-fire. We are told that upon death we can expect God to greet us as a stern judge before ever assuming the roll of our loving parent: whether we knew we were wrong or not, and regardless of how noble our intentions may have been, God will impose punishment on us for our sins. Death looms ahead of us like a hangman’s scaffold being built outside a condemned person’s cell. This assurance of God’s retribution changes how people live.

To save themselves from this fate the faithful are told to internalize their “fear of the Lord.” Ceremony, moral dictates and spiritual practices must be adopted to please God, and while politically correct to tolerate other forms of worship, dogma continues to state that theirs is the only path to heaven: other faiths – even different sects within one’s own religion - will not be saved. The unified nature of humanity – the fact that we are one race originating from the same source - is not supported. Unconditional love becomes qualified. The resulting constructs defining right from wrong have kept our world in conflict.

Fear is not compatible with love: the two are opposites and like oil and water repel one another. God cannot be both all merciful, and still refuse to forgive a violation of religious dogma; be the perfection of love and still possess human emotions, or be no respecter of persons and yet grant divine favor to one faith over another. To educated minds these fundamental contradictions undermine any degree of rationality in religion, while for those of a fanatical bent they provide the needed justification for violence. Teaching fear discredits the concept of God, reduces the desire of people to know our Creator, and has kept a race possessing nuclear weapons at the spiritual evolution of those for whom swords were too much power.

Men in the ancient world wrote scripture when magic, sacrifice and superstition were the accepted norm. Ignorant of science, geography or astronomy these writers constructed a God in their image of a strong ruler – male, uncompromising, and in control. Might made right; altruism – selfless concern for another – was in short supply; strangers were often greeted as enemies and people knew little of the other clans around them. Life was difficult; tragedy often unexplainable, and fear – manifested through the emotions of hate, anger, greed, revenge, intolerance and selfishness - dominated almost every mind. It seemed natural that if punishment was necessary to keep tribal members obedient, then it was logical God would do the same: fear maintained universal order.

Some moderate clergy and religious scholars say errors were made in the original interpretation of scripture. Their claim is that admonitions to fear God are more correctly interpreted to mean to respect or to revere our Creator. This ambiguity is understandable: all scripture has been translated through time and across languages – many of which are no longer spoken. Our ability to understand the finer points of a different culture that coexists with us is limited: attempting to do so hundreds or thousands of years after they their demise is an educated guess, at best.

Translations of all scriptures are rough approximations of the original writings, not exact representations of what their authors intended. While most contain part of the truth, none are complete. Understanding the importance of honoring our founding documents and those who wrote them does not absolve us of our responsibility to meet today’s problems using modern science, documented history and experiential knowledge accumulated over time. If we are expected to grow in wisdom as we age and make better decisions because of that maturity, then why should we not expect the greater institutions framing our lives to also evolve?

Few people are scholars of their faith: most are, to various degrees, willing to accept what their religious leaders tell them is correct. Many still learn their native language from reading their holy book, and they often do not have access to other ways of belief. Discussion of the text is seldom allowed: being considered sacred – meaning dictated by God – eliminates any degree of human reasoning from the debate. Bound by fear and secure in numbers, most people born into these environments never escape the peer pressure used to maintain their allegiance.

Fundamentalism relies on dogma: it requires a literal reading of what is claimed to be of God, whether rational or not. Fanatics of every persuasion depend on keeping original teachings free from compromise. While they reject each other’s books as the correct way, the idea of altering any of them sets a precedent that reduces the validity of the others. Allowing those in authority to maintain this status quo condemns our future to more of the past. A better world will require a new framework that allows peace to emerge as a result of love-based decisions, not fear-based reactions.

Those books we consider holy must reflect our highest state of thought. While the original documents can be kept for historical research, the editions used in daily practice need continual refinement as we grow into greater levels of spiritual awareness. It is not enough to expect someone to figure out that admonitions to fear God really mean something else. Scripture must be changed to reflect the unified nature of all people, teach that we reside in a universe bound by love, and state that we are all children of the same loving parent.

We know there is some truth in all religions: we also realize that much written to support them is no longer appropriate. Teaching that hate, violence, and intolerance are acceptable cannot be condoned in a progressive world system, regardless of its source. We do not allow prejudice in our schools, and neither should we in our churches. Religious freedom has bounds. We must do more than simply say others have the right to believe as they choose: until our equality is internalized we leave open the door for oppression. A secular world order is required for fairness: we have the right to limit religious expression - and documents - that retard our growth.

Scripture provides the “default” settings – the belay – that defines the level to which we can fall back: unless routinely modified we remain condemned to starting over again from the beginning. Our world will not come to an end if we revise our holy books; it will rather be given its first chance for peace. If we do not want people to fear God, to believe in a wrathful creator, or to be intolerant of other religions then we need to leave these admonitions behind us. To keep them in the documents we promote is to accept them as valid, either now or in the past. God did not just suddenly grow up: never have these mandates been correct. Changing our texts will require courage: character cannot stem from cowardice.

It is our right to evolve: attempting to stop this growth is a function of fear. No one should be expected to accept dogma without question: those unwilling to consider other views show the lack of faith that they have in their own. Understanding humanity’s dual nature is essential. There are human emotions, those ways grounded in fear, and divine feelings, those sublime traits that stem from the eternal residing in us. Spiritual progression requires the self-initiated effort to transcend a life based in our lower selves to one exemplifying our best conduct. As individuals have learned the benefits of this process, so will our race.

If love is understood as the essence of God – the binding force of all creation – and if we believe that only that of our Creator is eternal, then we can see that fear is not real to God; it exists in the material realms of space, but not in eternity. Rather than a force in and of itself – which suggests an entity from which it emanates – fear is rather the absence of love. While the effects of it are very real to us, only that of love continues forth. There is that of God – which survives – and that not. Anything else is the result of human reasoning, not divine inspiration. God has never told anyone to harm another.

Teaching people they do not have to fear our Creator will free them to love God, themselves, and their fellow human beings without the pressures of hate, greed, jealousy, revenge, intolerance, etc. To choose love over fear shows spiritual progression – moving from that human to that divine. We were not born evil: love is our natural state - we simply have not given it a chance. War is the means by which a few people remain in power, but more of us want peace than not: the choice is ours. When we have evidence of the destructive nature of past beliefs we have the obligation to change.

While some people take on leadership roles within these religions, it remains up to the membership to control their clergy: people are responsible for the teachings they support. None of us helping others learn about God have divine license: we are all human and everyone can be replaced. Clergy serve at the will of their brethren, not God. Those who have chosen to specialize in religion should be expected to keep the documents framing their faith current with our world’s increasing level of consciousness: this is their greatest responsibility.

Religious diversity enhances our cultures: it benefits everyone to know more about their fellows. This reduces the fear of the unknown that allows for criticism and judgment, Gandhi’s passive precursors to overt violence. By knowing one another better we develop the ability to love each other to a greater extent. We require a framework that allows us to expand into the spiritual siblinghood that recognizes the unified nature of our race. This means teaching people a better understanding of God’s attributes, and their acceptance that all ways of belief - including those that claim no God - reside equally under the same Creator.

Coordinating this work between the faiths will be difficult: those who have used fear, hate and intolerance to gain power will not want to give up their authority. Required are new leaders from the moderate majority in each of the faiths to modify doctrine, rewrite scripture, and change religions ceremony to reflect our highest understanding of a loving God. No one has authority to grant us this permission: it is ours by right. People living at any time always have a greater duty to themselves and their children’s future than they do to maintaining the ways of their ancestors. While each religion will remain unique, we require a treaty between them that places all ways of belief – including the right not to believe - on equal footing under one Supreme Being. Evolving to a higher state means having criteria upon which to base the degree of divinity in any idea or action. Only in this way can we gauge the validity of that claimed to be of God, whether coming from our own minds or someone else’s.

Our nature is to model ourselves after what we most respect: if that is a wrathful God then we will at times be wrathful, as we have seen. Most people want to do right – they become angry, intolerant and unforgiving because they have been taught it is acceptable: if our Creator at times falls into these emotions, how can we be expected not to? This situation resulted from patterning God after us. To find eventual peace, this relationship must be reversed: we need to teach people the greater attributes of Deity – divine love manifested as eternal truth, divine beauty, and infinite goodness - and then help them learn how to transcend their human heritage and rise to their divine potential.

History shows we have little hope of changing people’s minds: attempting to do so often causes more problems than it solves. Patience will be essential. Humanity is in constant flux: older people pass on and new souls take their place. Every day the contrast between the results of fear and those of love are clearer: we are better able to see our options. Peace will result from a new generation making better choices, not from trying to change those who hold power now.

When people understand the original source of all creation as the perfection of truth, beauty and goodness they act differently. If God is patient, tolerant and always willing to forgive sincere repentance, then it is correct for us to do the same. Most people want to abide by divine will; we just need to raise our understanding of what that is. Only from a change at this most fundamental level of our being, shifting from fear-based decisions to love-inspired actions, can we evolve to a level of conduct were peace will result. As people who embrace love ascend to higher states of being, so will all of humanity when, over time, we rewrite the admonition to fear God with one to love our mutual Creator.