God created me free, not almost free....If i am not free it is because by fear i dont want to be free....
We may enter this life as almost a blank slate, but often enough, or most often, our beliefs are the results of our own meaning making machine.
It may not be by fear we are not free though, it may be the ignorance of not knowing what we don't know?
I heard this story which serves as a great example of this
phenomenon.
A young married couple
are in the kitchen and the wife has just cut the leg of ham into two large pieces, cutting through the bone. The husband asks the wife, why do you cut the ham in half? The wife says that her mother did it, and it tastes better that way. The husband makes no sense of this reply and some years later while his mother in law was there and his wife was baking ham, asks the mother, why does the ham taste better cut in half?
Her reply was that the oven she had back then was too small, and to fit in the whole leg, she'd cut it in half, and it wasn't for taste at all. The grown wife had presumed in her childhood the reason, the meaning of the ham cut in half, and her mother wasn't even aware she had created a superstition about it.
People don't like uncertainty, and so we give meanings to events in our lives, to explain why things have happened. Most often the meanings we have created are based upon a total lack of knowledge of all the facts, and much of these foundations of our beliefs are developed in our childhood. With little to draw upon as children, people make assumptions on the meanings, and often twist how events occurred to conform to these meanings, and then they affirm the meanings, incorrect meaning are the personal superstitions.
Each of us carries our own personal superstitions, fears, limiting thoughts, beliefs for example that we are better or lesser than others. We shouldn't compare our weaknesses against another's strengths or vice a versa.
Special we are not…
We are all special, every single one of us, and because we are all special, we are also not special. Continue to be special, and allow others to be special as well, this will build up self esteem, not condescending others.
Seeing our superstitions for what they are, the creation of our own making (delusions), and breaking free of them takes honesty and courage. It's by the letting go of Ego and embracing truth that we move past our fears, our superstitions.
As for the Bible, what an enlightened contrast can be seen from the old to new teachings. And it would be interesting to discover the original unaltered texts, however as distinct sources have been found, for example texts found at the
Qumran Caves, at least these copies show a great deal of the original scripts was most probably kept reasonably intact. I went to the exhibit in Melbourne Museum when they toured the world with some scrolls. I still have the book I bought from the Museum.
@ghasley
The roar of Moses' Triumph was heard throughout the hills.
Joshua's Triumph was heard throughout the land.
Old Testament bikers?
