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When is Change Really Change or Just a Reworded Rerun?

By Sean Stubblefield

When Christians are offended by people comparing themselves or others to Jesus the Christ, I wonder why, because he encouraged us to be like him... to follow his path. Jesus- and therefore presumably GOD Himself- wanted us to essentially become him. It is clearly written in the bible. And if Jesus is God, or the way to God, then does that not necessitate our becoming as God? It was God, after all, who knowingly set us up to take The Fall through partaking of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil... thereby attaining the godly consciousness to determine right and wrong for ourselves. And which Lucifer also sought to promote by tempting us to exceed our boundaries. Even if Jesus is not God proxy or incarnate, should we not aim to manifest the ideal which God is supposed to represent?

For some reason, such a noble aspiration of personal responsibility frightens most so-called Christians.

It is somehow ok to pursue the ideal, but not ok to achieve it? Are we to live by a policy of "Look, but don't touch"?

The Bible is designed and utilized as a tool of psychological manipulation and social control, by providing a system of behavior through belief. This "holy" book establishes and projects a kind of ideological MacGuffin to seek, a goal towards which to strive. Without a purpose or meaning, many assume that there would be no point to human existence- that life would have no meaning. So religion was invented, and gods created in Man's image, to give us a prescribed and proscribed path to walk... a destination for our journey called life.

Which begs the question: if there is no God, should we all kill ourselves and each other?

Of course, the question is rhetorical in its absurdity. Because we do not need a God in order to have a reason to live, nor to be good.

An absence of gods is no excuse to live irresponsibly or without self-discipline. We are good to each other not for God, but for the mutual benefit of ourselves and each other, because we want it. We do so because we would make our lives unlivable otherwise. Just because there is no God does not imply there are no consequences for our actions and that anything goes- cause and effect is a natural law, God or not.

Recently, a video on Youtube labeled "The Church of Oprah Exposed" featured Oprah Winfrey supporting a new book titled "Don't Drink the Kool-Aid", as she declares:

One of the mistakes that human beings make is believing there is only one way to live. And that we don't accept that there are diverse ways of being in the world. There are many paths to what you call God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9eW6OpZiTk

Status quo Christians criticize her for not taking the Bible literally, and for denouncing conventional Christian dogma.

But she's right: The search for truth requires that we dismiss doctrine. Abandoning religious doctrine would not erase spirituality or questions of purpose and meaning... it would liberate them. What we need is a search for something more than and beyond doctrine.

In the spirit of open mindedness and thinking outside the box, Oprah also supports Barack Obama for President. Obama is discarding politics as usual, just as Oprah is discarding religion as usual. There can be no change- no growth or improvement- by staying the same.

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