We are all familiar with clich� "born again" Well; here is an interesting thought to go with your morning coffee. If we were REALLY born again, we would return to atheism. We would all be atheists. Why? Because that is the way we are born the first time around. Every baby that comes into this world has no belief in god, goddesses, Jesus, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Shiva or anything else until such time as we brainwash, indoctrinate, threaten or coerce them into some adult belief system, the same one usually that we were brainwashed into as children.Through acculturation, we become something other than what we were at birth. That is the definition of atheism. The only reason that you are a Christian is because you were born in America. You are not a Christian� because you have studied all the major religious traditions of the world and then chosen to be Christian. You are not an Episcopalian because you have studied all of the 460 Christian belief systems of doctrine and then after study, chosen to be an Episcopalian. You are an Episcopalian because you were born in America into an Episcopalian home where your parents made you to go to Sunday school. Had you been born in Japan, you would be Buddhist. Or Taoist. Depending on location you would be Jewish, Hindu, Moslem or whatever religion you were born into.� Religious belief systems are only an accident of birth.
"After seventy years exposure to politically contrived humbug, I have come to see the world as a small ball in space inhabited by people all viciously arguing and killing each other over beliefs which they hold purely by accident of birth and geography." Reverend Fred RoperHistorians of religion estimate that there have been at least 100,000 distinctly different religious traditions over the past 150,000 years. Born atheists as we all are, babies are quickly indoctrinated into the belief system of a family. The belief system will have its day and cease to be. The Egyptian myth of Isis, Horus and Osiris lasted for 4500 years before extinction. Historians are already calling the 21st century the "post -Christian era."
It seems to be so.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica non-believers are 1.4 billion now in numbers in the world. There is a sharp decline in financial support as reported by all major Christian denomination. Conservative William F. Buckley writes a national column asking "Are Churches No Longer Relevant?" documenting their importance. The New York Times news service headlines a story "BIBLE OR BUST," documenting the loss in sales a 48 percent drop from a year earlier. Some 60 percent of the people polled said they "don�t have time for it and the Bible is no longer relevant. The resurrection of a free human spirit from this dying monolith will turn out to be one of the significant events in the history of civilization. Like the Phoenix, the spiritually free will rise alive from the ashes.
William Edelin, former adjunct professor of religious studies and anthropology.
Edited by Newton Joseph, Ph.D. and Darwin Copernicus, Ph oolBelieve it or not
By Newton Joseph, Ph.D.