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Now, an aside, especially for those who think religion is self-contradictory, weird, and prejudiced, but you certainly are beyond all that. ... Now, this God of my childhood is not God, I know now. That God was and is an image made from images, and a very inconsistent one. We, as humans, are image-making creatures and, so, such with imaging the Absolute. Images of God reflect our felt-needs, including biases. Our God becomes biased, created in our image. Even atheists, having an image of God they do not believe in, have a biased image of God and in the likeness of their atheism; so, in reality, atheism carries its own contradiction, its own prejudice. And agnosticism has serious doubts about God existing and will not commit, and they do not know enough to tell us who or what this God is they have decided may or may not be. Very interesting, all this... so, I think it wise for us to see how biased and inconsistent we humans can be, without judging others whom we have decided and are, really, thinking like we think. But to this thinking problem later. Suffice it, now, to remind us that judging differences of quality or agreeing and disagreeing with are not necessarily being judgmental or biased against. You can be graciously inclusive of another and disagree, for example, with what he or she does or holds as a belief.
Disagreeing with something is not the same as being disagreeable or disagreeing with the person or group. Making value judgments is a natural, essential part of living in community for the common good. No, I do not want one convicted of pedophilia teaching in a school for children. No, I do not want a serial killer living next door to me. And, no, I do not wish to worship in a fellowship that teaches a God, like the one of my childhood, is God and will send to a burning hell those who disagree with Him and His so-called only way to a residence in a heaven. Still, in Grace, by Grace, I am one ~ as you are ~ with that one called a pedophile, the serial killer, the fellowship that teaches hell-fire-and-brimstone. There is no absolute image of our oneness, and we do not choose oneness: We are oneness. Can we, then, together create a better world to live in by differentiating between the person we see, who is totally one with you and me, and his or her behavior, which we naturally may disagree with, even feel a need to protect society from? Can we, from Oneness, invite our true Self and its insight into our union with others, seeing through Love, not bias? Can we welcome a Love beyond our ideas of right and wrong, beyond even the ways we observe that appear to make us better, even holier, than others?
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