January 16, 2009
   
 
 
Hello Jon,
   
   I am taken aback to be classed an atheist. Is a Buddist or Taoist an
atheist? I think of an atheist as someone, like some friends of mine,
who deny all experience of divinity. Jesus refering to his father in heaven
is allegorical to me. He speaks like an unqestionably intelligent fellow who
is speaking good-heartedly from his own experience; and my own experience
of divine presense verifies his outlook, taken as verbally allegorical. For
example, he suggests at one point that anyone could conceivably be more
remarkably divine in achievement than he was being, suggesting that he did
not class himself as unusual, as you and many christians describe him to be.
   I think it possible that he did in fact believe in a single autonomous
ethereal intelligence that originated his physical body and literally
everything else. I have one quite intelligent friend who believes in that,
based on experience of prayer and specific verbal divine guidance rather
similar to my own. The assessment of evidence from solitary experience can
be problematic.
   I theorize that the precise nature of my own consciousness may be quite
different than the conventional image, of me being a solitary entirely
autonomous awareness with a clearly definable range of influence that
doesn't crossover anyone else's. I have had fairly extended periods of no
clear boundary of consciousness or awareness, and three years without any
autonomous conceptual viewpoint about anything.
   I don't agree that a real boundary must exist between each person and
the divine advisory voice they hear, to validate my experience or that of
Jesus or that of my friend; though the voice is unquestionably aware of
data unavailable to regular people and is astoundingly sharp of wit. I
believe that that voice I've heard does speak from the source of the Adrian
identity, but I have observed that the Adrian identity is no more
substantial than a computer program, and quite nonessential to my physical
life.
   Your concern about salvation has no match in my experience, and the
christian definition of individual sin is a serious logical mistake to me.
I have observed that if I am left completely socially outcast by all other
people (which happens quite easily due to countless petty issues), and I
allow that, then all neurotic or heartless emotion in me fades. I lose all
inappropriate desire and spiteful spirit, and life becomes an amazing gift
that is easy to feel appreciation for.
   Thus I conclude that this christian presumption of an individual being
inclined towards sin is ridiculous, and potentially quite destructive. Sin
is a systemic problem of social networks. It does not originate in any one
individual. This is also Mr. Joseph's conviction. He and I have the view
that the only way to successfully address sinful or heartless expression,
such as that of Mr. Branch, is to deliberately rearrange the social network
to allow and encourage each person to follow their own benefit, and let
their emotional hysteria shake down.
   This is my understanding of what inspires the buddist or zen idea of
meditation. It is a period of deliberate ceasefire internally that allows
becoming completely socially outcast for an hour or so. I find also that
use of prayer, in the style of the lord's prayer, is a huge help in
initiating a meditation period, in breaking an emotional hysteria that I am
caught in. I also have noted that there is no need to break emotional
linking with anyone in order to meditate. Someone who is expressing welcome
of me supports the meditation effect.
   Thus I relate to Jesus' remark about him being essential to release from
sin, or access to "the father", as reference to this. He expressed
unconditional welcome of everybody, so a successful meditation experience
must include him (and the toddlers and all other people who are welcoming
at the time). Outcasting anyone destroys the emotional catharsis of
meditation. Mr. Branch's vile expression could inspire me to reject him, to
reject his place on the earth, but we are all linked in some kind of subtle
way that will make that actually a partial rejection of myself also, a self
poisoning. I must instead observe and embrace his rejection of me, grant him
unconditional license to his hysteria, so that he will either abandon me or
embrace me, either way supporting my meditation.
   Jesus noted also that innocent friendly children must be deliberately
embraced to achieve a successful meditation. I think he was speaking in the
allegorical language of his culture. He was doing his best to effectively
communicate with those he was with at the time. His choice of words
inevitably makes less sense to our current culture.
   From my own experience I observe that each identity arises sometime
during the first several years of a person's life, out of the psychic moshe
that appears to the young child to be a single conscious entity, a single
awareness excluding no-one. That single awareness is clearly conceptually
focused and thus identifiable as not being feminine, as being masculine in
nature, and so is accurately described as the father of everyone's identity.
   For someone who has forgotten this birth of their identity and cannot
imagine what it is like to be alive without one, none of this is clear, but
this is mechanically the origin of everyone's autonomous mental construct,
so I think that this is what Jesus is refering to by the term father. An
identity is a deliberate conceptual illusion invented by the collective
conceptual awareness of those already present, to facilitate social
participation. Expression of the Adrian identity is my gift to the rest of
you, to make possible this social choreography.
   Thus you can imagine the literal physical creator god notion is absurd
to me, childish nonsense as stupid as flying reindeer or a stork bringing
a new baby. But in my view I am no more an atheist than Jesus.
  
  
   
   
   
   
   
My posted comment on Zeitgeist Talk by Jon Topping on Vimeo:   
 
Adrian Wolfe 2010

Hello Mr Branch [another posting fellow]: you are expressing in a manner 
that quite trashes the respectability of an atheist view, so I presume you 
feel no remorse for hurting Jon's feelings, and for that I recommend that 
Jon delete your heartless posts and correspond with you solely in private 
messages until you show him minimal humanity.

Hello Jon: I appreciate your film and your source checking. I have a personal 
interest in the Zeitgeist Movement and thus address the same issue as you in 
having people inclined to trash the whole game based upon some of the 
presentation being dubious. The Roman Catholic Church is the real focus of 
Peter Joseph in suggesting a political agenda. That he uses erroneous sources 
is probably a huge embarrassment for him, but his thesis stands, that the 
Roman church made up a lot of the traditional story from astrological 
traditions, and that objective truth about Jesus became less reliable after 
that.

Mr. Joseph also seems to me overtly concerned about addressing sin in human 
relations, through a Christian style approach to economics, having everyone 
live as the lilies of the field, indifferent to bookkeeping or entitlement. 
The Pentecostal approach involving belief in a religious tradition even more 
farfetched sounding than Santa Claus and his reindeer, and presented by 
regular fallible people, is not a reasonable alternative for me or Mr. Joseph. 
To suggest that a bodiless immortal alien of unknown nature designed and 
created trillions of galaxies full of insanely complex matter in a single week 
by merely talking to itself is totally ridiculous to me, to Mr. Branch and to 
Mr. Joseph.

Nevertheless, I once had a voice out of an apparently burning poison oak bush 
advise me very competently about my life direction, so I am not so quick as 
some to suggest that the Christian Bible isn't divinely inspired; only that 
any story in the rest of the book that seems on the face of it to be highly 
improbable or impossible I will leave as possibly written in a misleading way 
or allegorical or translated creatively. The ancient Jews were quite famous 
for insane focus on precise records, so straight up lies seem a bit doubtful 
to me.

The real test for this religion thing has been for me in direct encounter. If 
I pray for advice or technical answers with a sincere heart, a voice clearly 
far wiser than me answers me verbally or directs my life to appropriate 
encounters. Unfortunately, the phenomena will take on whatever form my 
imagination conjures for it, so I assume that all the other reports of the 
same sort are actually personalized for the viewer in a similar way, as they 
believe so it is for them. For someone seeking reliable facts this is 
intolerable, but unavoidable. Is the voice I hear Jesus or God or an ancestor? 
Given that I can coax it to take any form, I think it's a trick of my own mind,
expressing from outside of personal identity and emotional influence.

I can imagine that Mr. Joseph's movie unfortunately trashed a lot of people's 
religious conviction. I think that is terrible, to have you and so many others 
turn away from the Zeitgeist Movement because it's originator lacks religious 
experience and has read too many dubious books about religion. You sound like 
a fool to me too, but an incredibly kind and noble fool with much of value to 
say. I suggest that Mr. Joseph is just as kind and noble, and that his proposal 
for having the world economy evolve into a resource based arrangement is worthy 
of Christian study.

I find your remark about the other religions lack of addressing of sin to be 
highly significant. I think perhaps one could say that the various religions 
have sort of specialized somewhat, with each having useful caution or areas of 
study to suggest, but all having gaps that matter. The Christians address sin, 
the Taoists address entitlement, the Hindus address sexual kindness, the 
Confucianists address political decision making, the muslims address economic 
sanity and some of the aboriginal religions address developing psychic ability 
or address illness. Mr. Joseph is right I think in being dubious of the sanity 
of adopting only the Christian religion.

Thank you for your great film and may it inspire a thousand people to 
experiment with prayer!
  
   
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