Conscious Thought?

The God Question

What if? How often do those words come into our lives - what if? BUT what if we, as Christian's consider Jesus, but without religion? What if the world is a living entity - something that preserves itself over millenia by natural preservation - earthquakes, floods, tsunami's, meteor showers and the like. What if God is literally in every living cell from the heated core of the earth to unknown dark matter of the expanding universe - what if we are no more than beings that have choice, but that only has two constants - change and evolution! 

Why is there a split between science and religion? I do not and cannot see why they cannot work together - In Genesis, in the very first chapters, it tells the story of evolution: light/dark, sea/land, fish/birds, .... eventually man! Then you ask, what about the seven days? Surely in God's omnipotence seven days could be a billion years, besides - God is in everything and everything is of God, which surely that means every cell from the nucleus to the mitochondria are part of God! It also means that God is not what we think God is - He is far greater than any human comprehension, which brings me to the idea of worshipping in buildings and giving money to the church - Jesus despised the moneylenders, it was after casting them out that the Pharisees and Chief Priests plotted his death - money never played a role with Jesus - he had no belongings of his own, no house to call His home ... (we are born naked and alone, we leave naked and alone). 

And the church - It is written somewhere that a church is when two or more people come together in His name - so no grand stained-glass windows with massive atrium's and clanging bells ... no indeed, no expensive buildings there then - besides, has everyone who professes to be Christian forgotten that Jesus was born in a stable - humility comes to mind! Cast away the trappings (good word for them) of wealth - true wealth is found in inner peace, love and contentment (very hard to come by in these days). I used to scoff at conspiracy theorists, now I am not so sure - I think there is a conspiracy, but one we have all been a part of in the West in particular, even if at times without even realising it - we are self destructive, we buy into the brands, the celebrity, the belief that fame, money, materialism is everything - the greatest fool is one who is fooling him/herself. 

Humility is such a forgotten word ... courtesy, consideration, manners, respect ... old fashioned? How can they be? I don't fit the norm, whatever that may be, I never have. I have no desire to conform now either, this doesn't mean I am totally content, I still live in the West, with all it represents, but I despair of it. Even the very church that I deny, the church I see falling apart, stumbling blindly in the darkness, with only politics leading it, money driven to survive, betraying the people who still faithfully follow - but GOD I do not deny - I have fallen at times far by the wayside, and He should by rights deny me, but when I call ... there He is ... always there: to guide me, pick me up, console me, help me, support me. Never in all the years that I have believed, has He failed me ... though I regularly failed Him! Perhaps I am blessed, I believe we all are, we just deny it so much we fail to see Him or listen when He calls on us.

Occupy a New Language

I have recently noticed in conversations I have had, with not only with Occupiers from Occupy London and Occupy Wall Street, but with academics and religious leaders, the need for a language of change, but also a change of language. I recall a conversation in which a Jewish Rabbi was discussing the difficulties and questions, that were raised when Ben-Yehuda wanted to revive the use of Hebrew as an everyday language, and how at that time he faced opposition to this, as it was considered a sacred language, and had not been used as an everyday language for nearly two thousand years.

We have been bound by the language of power, which deliberately oppresses critical language awareness, which facilitates critical development of consciousness, in the discourse of our society. This dominant language of power inhibits the conceptualisation of shaping critical consciousness, often by playing to the inherently artificial, glib political rhetoric, where passion replaces rationality; and those who question this rhetoric are either silenced, ridiculed or simply dismissed. This ideology is pervasively present in language, and is one of the primary mediums of social control and power. Occupy as a movement was influenced by the Arab Spring uprisings and the Spanish Indignados, but has also come about through a rising dissent people feel from the economic crisis. The movement, challenges the dominant discourse of the legacy of neo-liberalism and capitalism. A legacy in which maximisation of the profits and power of the 1%, depends on the maximisation of the exploitation and domination of the 99%. This domination is often put in place through legitimising the ideology of the repressive forces of those in power, by means of coercion and consent in the maintenance of social control.

Increased government and institutional control has come about through a number of means, not least bureaucracy and state intervention. Just consider the UK government, now planning to cast its intrusive eye over all online activity, phone calls and text messages, under the guise of an anti-terror law. A law, in which they will not only know which websites a person visits, they will even be able to access private social network messages. Accumulating the data of every keystroke, this personal data that will then be stored by landline and mobile phone companies and internet service providers, and always at the disposal of the security forces.

Occupy has raised questions on how do we transform society to move away from an individualistic and fragmented society, towards an emerging consensus of a civil society. A society that strives for the benefit of the greater good, but with an understandable knowledge that this can only be undertaken as a global transformation. Should we be seeking a renewed collectivism, to ensure decision-makers are accountable and through endowing ordinary people with effective power, encouraging a fuller concept of citizenship. Not a citizenship based on globalisation in its current form - an accountable global form of citizenship - and how would we undertake this?

In times of crisis in the last century we saw a rise in economic dislocation, racial and national assertiveness, and the growth of chiliastic ideology - which once again we are starting to see emerge in the current crisis, especially in the UK and Europe. There has been a notable rise in racial hate crimes, the increase of membership to fascist groups, such as the EDL, and an escalation in political support for the BNP in the UK, whilst in Europe, people like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Le Pen in France are but two examples. Yet, the struggle for unity in order to eliminate economic, social and environmental injustice as a global problem, and not an insular one, has to move away from ideas of polarisation and move towards democratic aspirations beyond nation-state concepts.

Occupy London and the wider global Occupy movement are not the first to emphasise the importance of direct democracy and direct action, as legitimate and effective forms of political practice. However, what is so different with Occupy as a global movement, is just that - the coming together of people who consider themselves to be part of a global “community” - for all the intense diversity of participants. There is an overriding sense that radical social, economic and systemic change is necessary, now all we need to do is find the language by which to empower this change.