A New Faith Needed to Unify Humankind As We March Into Future

theSpec.com | February 14, 2009 | Terry Neal

[RightResponse]

Barack Obama is now leader of the most influential nation on earth. Are we yet capable of dancing to his song of hope?

Obama was elected by default by a desperate nation drowning in faithlessness and cynicism. He was simply the best bet for change.

This bleak outlook is the chronic disease of our day. We are pessimistic about our economic and ecological futures. We distrust government officials, officers of the law, bureaucrats and the principles of big business (while we scramble to enhance our own bottom line.) We doubt the trustworthiness and ambitions of people of other colours and other religions. We have our phones and e-mails rigged to monitor the fidelity of our mates.

We are a society shorn of hope and faith.

Every past society that devolved to a world view only admitting the materiality of the physical world eventually disintegrated. On the other hand, every political and spiritual genius of his particular time understood human nature and its needs. Those superior minds attempted to unite people "in one mind" -- of moral rectitude and faith; of faith in the ultimate triumph of goodness.

The vigour of Zoroaster's religion propelled ancient Persia to world-class status. Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Soter after him recognized the spiritual need in man and attempted to unite the Greek world with a "universal religion." Later, Caesar Augustus reinvented and reinvigorated the Roman religion, and Rome survived a few more centuries. Constantine recognized this human need and modern Christianity was born. Then came Mohammed, who lifted a fractious and barbarous people into the most civilized and scientifically advanced empire of the age.

We must seek God ... or Goodness (or Love, if you prefer) for our own mental health. Belief is our sustenance as much as is the food we eat and the air we breathe. Spiritual food gives us the confidence to walk into the future with clarity and optimism. A healthy individual and a healthy society must have hope and confidence that the ultimate outcome of all things will be for the good. That is the essence of religion and has been since antiquity.

Strong beliefs bond differing minds and group into a working whole. It creates internally integrated morals -- internal laws that need no outside coercion to ensure. It gives us the courage to live justly, and to die well.

If Barack Obama is indeed the political unifier that Americans -- and us -- have put our atrophied hopes in, perhaps he will take the steps so necessary to heal his nation of its distrust and cynicism. Perhaps he will have the courage to harness the will to believe in some transcendent goodness.

But he must lead. He must demonstrate how to believe again in what is demonstrably true: That there is something out there that is greater and grander than the individual.

We need faith, but the faiths of our fathers are tired now, or are spent forces. We must recognize this whether we are Muslims, Sikhs, Jews or Christians. We are now a global village, and only a global world view will suffice.

As in the past, this new and unifying faith must be novel, vibrant and inclusive. In this new global era of widespread education and immediate communication, this new faith must also be credible. It must align with scientifically obtained knowledge yet be aware also of the undiscoverable -- the great mysteries that hold us rapt and in awe.

The marriage of a believable faith with the husbandry of government is the union that must be contracted.

Only then can there be a United Nations, only then shall we have peace on Earth and goodwill toward all.

Terry Neal lives in Stoney Creek.

[Shadowstrike]

uhm...I’m happy with the Religion I have thank you ever so much.

I know who my Father is, and will accept no imitations. :)

[Professional Engineer]

He nust be smoking some goooood stuff.

[steve86]

We must seek God ... or Goodness (or Love, if you prefer) for our own mental health.

One hallmark of One World Religion types, besides several that have been pointed out already, is they seek a non-personal God like this...one not capable of "judgmentalism". But they will feel free to define what "goodness" is...mainly in terms from secular humanism. And the "Love" means tolerance of depravity.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Quix]

You are 1,000% correct.

Thx.

[piasa]

1993 : (PARLIAMENT OF WORLD RELIGIONS : "RELIGIOUS LEADERS" ADOPT THE DECLARATION "TOWARDS THE GLOBAL ETHIC" - See also CATHOLIC DISSIDENT HANS KUNG AND HIS "GLOBAL ETHICS PROJECT," FORMER SOVIET PRESIDENT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, AND CANADIAN 'ENVIROMENTALIST' MAURICE STRONG) [Catholic dissident Hans] Küng [the progenitor of the UN Earth Charter] first pushed his notion of a global ethic at the United Nations in 1991 and then at the Parliament of World Religions in 1993.  There the gathered religious leaders adopted the declaration "Towards a Global Ethic" which became a rallying cry both in UN documents and gatherings of international leaders culminating in the formation of the Earth Charter by former Russian [Soviet] President Mikhail Gorbachev and Canadian-born UN environmentalist guru Maurice Strong.  The founding documents of the Earth Charter credit Küng's global ethics with its underpinning.... the global ethics document [adopted at the Parliament of World Religions in 1993] is amorphous and open-ended...---------- "A Warning Against False World Religion Seen in Pope's Meeting with Hans Kung," by John-Henry Westen, LifeSite, September 28, 2005

1995 : (UN FUNDED CGG ISSUES REPORT CONTAINING PROPOSALS FOR A GLOBAL TAX, GLOBAL COMMONS, EXPANSION OF WORLD BANK POWERS & JURISDICTION OF THE ICC, ...) [Maurice Strong's] credentials include membership in the UN funded Commission on Global Governance. This body's 1995 report called "Our Global Neighborhood" contained a number of ominous proposals including the establishment of a global tax, UN control over "global commons," expansion of the powers of the World Bank, expansion of the jurisdiction of the International Court, removal of U.S. veto power in the Security Council and creation of an Economic Security Council to oversee the world's economy. Clearly, the implications of such proposals were intended to move us towards the creation of a world government infrastructure. Unfortunately, they also necessitate and precipitate the decline of U.S. sovereignty. -------- "The Strong Scent of Tyranny," By James L. Hirsen, J.D., Ph.D. http://www.firstliberties.com/scent_tyranny.html

[melsec]

If a new religion is to come it will have aspects of secular humanism in which people of no religious inkling will find welcome but it will have enough ‘spirituality’ so that those who wish to believe there is something out there but don’t want to name God or those who want anything but traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs will feel quite at home with.

BTW this New World religion was started a couple of years ago by the UN and in all places the USA.

Mel

If you don’t believe me do a search on UN One World Religion Presidio should give you plenty - I think the invocation is online soemwhere as well - evil stuff.

[Tarpon]

Naw, it's jive talk, Obama just lies -- Doublespeak is trying to confuse and obfuscate, in the same speech. He isn't very bright, and thinks you didn't remember what he said yesterday. You can do that when you are a community organizer and your audience is a bunch of ignorants in the hood. Heck all they hear is what free stuff he promises them anyway.

Just because you can read from a teleprompter with the funny voice inflections and nuances, doesn't make you smart. He is just another race hustler actor.

[JesusBmyGod]

Thanks for the ping dear brother.

[chapin2500]

And pinging some Calvinists who just might . . . cobble together sufficient fair-mindedness to wrap their minds around this

Please remove me from your foolish and obsessive ping list please.

[marbren]

I am not sure revival is in the works, except for the personal one on one kind.

[Quix]

Sure.

[Quix]

Certainly,

chapin2500;

Sorry for the annoyance.

You have been removed.

Las Vegas Dave will check and see if you are on his backup copy of the original list—you weren’t on mine, interestingly,

and remove you from that one, too.

[Quix]

Actually, the beginnings have been percolating along for several decades, at least. In some respects since at least 1965, when I first came across evidence of such working groups associated with the Oligarchy.

[melsec]

Yes I have been reading about them for a long time too but this was an official declaration of a One World Religion! I will look it up when I get time.

Cheers

Mel

[Quix]

True.

but there have been several such declarations.

They are iteratively frog in pot inching us toward it.