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A People’s Manifesto: America, the Golden Rule, and Human Sovereignty on Earth

There have been times in humanity’s past when windows of opportunity have opened, a convergence of many cycles over hundreds of years resulting in a critical mass that makes change inevitable and where our choices determine the quality of life for scores of generations to come. One of these periods led to the creation of our Republic, and history has shown that our ancestors carried the day and through their courage brought forth a better existence not only for our people but the rest of the world. The event that consolidated the people’s resolve into what became the American Revolution was the publication of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, where he was able to bring forth the grievances against the monarchy and clarified the people’s innate right to rule themselves. Thomas Jefferson and others refined those ideas into the United States Constitution. Today, Americans once again are threatened with tyranny from both within and without. But different today is that we are no longer an isolated people: humanity and the lines and systems of power across the world have become so integrated and so corrupted that there really is no way for the people of one country, much less the world’s most powerful country, to secure true freedom for themselves greater than that enjoyed by others in the world: we are all today subservient to forces greater than any of our governments, and while slaves may live under different conditions all are slaves none the less. Either we the American people seize this opportunity for redirecting our country and turn it into a mass global awaking across humanity that results in a freer, more just, and more sustainable world for everyone, or we along with the rest of humanity will surrender to the forces determined to control us and eventually be reduced to nothing short of abysmal servitude. The only thing power cannot directly control on a mass scale are sane mentally stable people’s minds: our free will is intact and it is the key to our survival. The nebulous power over our world’s supposedly sovereign nations is now vying for its final step in world domination, and this is happening whether we like it or not. The time for confrontation is on us; further procrastination on our part will be fatal. The questions are if enough Americans today are up to the challenge? Can we reunite our country under the American spirit that got us here and channel that energy into once again defeating the forces of darkness attempting to destroy the Republic? Will we and our future generations be nothing more than cattle, slaves, and house servants to an elite master, or do we say no and take the action needed to regain—because it has been lost—our freedom? Are we men enough, citizens enough, to carry the day in our world’s greatest battle to date and then guide the rest of humanity into the long-held dream of world peace?

The truth present or not in the following can only be validated internally between you and your spirit of God—that faint voice that all of your life has been saying go here or go there, do this or do that—resident inside of you. There are many unanswered questions: humanity does not know peace, freedom, and goodwill: it is instead ready to learn how to come to peace, to live free, and to embrace the siblinghood of humanity. These proposals promote spiritual unity, not cultural uniformity: there is no centralization, no command structure, no need to commit to a belief in nonviolence or give up your right to self-defense, no commitment to religious beliefs related to any faith other than those stemming from your own personal experience with God in your mind, and in no way do these ideas promote a one world government, a one world religion, or any other type of human-based global power structure other than the collective will of humanity itself. They do, though, require that enough people assume their responsibility to both America and humanity.

The idea that God is sovereign in creation and humanity under God is supposed to be sovereign on Earth—in other words the idea of one God and that governments serve humanity not us serving them—comes from the Urantia revelation. God is understood as the ultimate father exhibiting absolute love, mercy, and forgiveness: in all ways the epitome of truth, beauty, and goodness. An entity of God our father resides in the mind of every person who has shown themselves capable of doing God’s will, hence the siblinghood of humanity: we are all sisters and brothers with the same God-father. This highest revelation of God yet brought to Earth came in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and before leaving he left his last and greatest commandment: to serve others as he or God our Father would have us do. Our highest duty as citizens of the world is to serve humanity for the sake of God. This highest level of the Golden Rule takes those of us applying it out of the picture, and forces us to conduct ourselves in a manner consistent with the other person’s best welfare. When enough of the people staffing our world’s institutions have committed to following the Golden Rule in all of their decisions both at home and at work, then those few people attempting to subvert the system at its highest levels will lose their ability to do so. All evil wielded as sin requires our participation to manifest, and when we refuse it has no power. The idea that the king had no inherent right or ability to rule came from Etienne de la Boétie who, in his book The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude explained that people were willingly enslaving themselves through their participation in the tyranny oppressing them. These ideas were later refined by Gene Sharp into his theory of social power and activated though his book From Dictatorship to Democracy, where he details the ways to undermine a dictator’s power using nonviolent civil disobedience. Theories of peace wax well on paper but crumble on the street, and public institutions and systems of commerce and governance, no matter how perfect they may seem on paper will never work because of the ever-present overlay of corruption and people’s willing or unknowing participation in it. And therein is the key: if enough of these people commit to the Golden Rule—to not engaging in those activities that violate one’s goodwill toward their siblings whether legal or not—then the system subjugating the people dissolves: banks cannot practice legal usury if people will not staff the jobs enabling it.

Reality

A freer, more just, and more peaceful world in the future requires enough people accepting the fatherhood of God and the subsequent siblinghood of humanity, and then committing to the highest level of the Golden Rule in their lives at home and work. The process is going to be messy, mistakes will be made, and as usually happens humanity will go overboard until reason sets in and the new order is established. Our best hope for negotiating our way forward is to first commit ourselves to the highest goal we can visualize, and then use only those ways in alignment with that goal to bring it about. In this way we transform our society into a higher order of human existence instead of cycling back to the systems of power that today threaten our survival: in other words, the means shape the goal and the goal must never be used to justify means that are contrary to the Golden Rule.

God, not religion, is central to our future. Because of this the idea of atheism first needs to be clarified and then put aside: it is unsupportable and will eventually have little relevance. The philosophical side of the atheist’s statement of disbelief in God is more correctly put as disbelief in God as presented by the world’s religions and portrayed in the lives of their members. Given the hypocrisy, contradictions, and unmitigated horror associated with the world’s religions what sane person can argue for God’s existence based on religious dogma without in the end simply reverting to one of the many “just because” stories. The religions dominating the planet today, without exception, have not only failed to elevate the dignity, integrity, and welfare of humanity they have done much to reduce us to our present level of depravity—a level so low that it should be unimaginable to even the most barbaric among us instead of being our accepted everyday existence.

But once the true nature of God our father is known and the evolutionary process of material worlds is understood, most people then validate the truth of God’s existence through their own unique experiences interacting with the actual entity of God resident in their mind. Knowing God’s existence is not based on deductive reasoning, but rather on your personal experience with God and only you can validate the truth of that experience: no one else can enter the process even if you so desired that they do so. You, in your heart, must decide the truth or not of God. Knowing God in this way, through actual experience, is true religion as opposed to the social groups of people believing the same way that are now formed around the world’s faiths.

On the pseudo-scientific side arguing for atheism are those people claiming to be both atheists and scientists who base their disbelief in God on their belief that consciousness cannot exist without a physical correlate, in other words, no brain no consciousness hence no soul. Even though science cannot prove that consciousness cannot exist without a brain, they believe that eventually it will. The problems here are that a belief is a philosophical statement of reality, where the scientific method is a process absent of belief and dependent on observation, experimentation, and the commitment to follow the evidence where ever it leads. Regarding whether or not consciousness can exist without a brain, there are innumerable documented cases of near-death experiences by medical doctors showing what does appear to be consciousness after the death of the material brain that supposedly produced it. At this point in humanity’s knowledge the most any true scientist can say on the subject of God’s existence is “I do not know.” From there that scientist then has every right to develop his own personal belief system and internal relationship with God without compromising his scientific integrity or being ostracized by the scientific community.

Both cases above are different than those people who cannot know God. Not everyone is born with a mind capable of making a decision based on truth, beauty, or goodness: this is obvious in today’s world. These people do not receive an entity from God to reside in their minds—they are the people who have committed some of humanity’s most horrific atrocities, and they are viewed by the rest of the celestial host in the universe as animals of that world with no potential for developing an eternal soul. When Jesus was asked by a friend if he would defend himself if attacked, it was this type of person to which Jesus referred when he answered that he would, and that he would do whatever it took regardless of the consequences to the other man. In other words, in this case the other person was seen as an animal and not as a son of God, and if needed he would be treated the same as one would do to a wild animal attacking them.

In the end, the question of God’s existence cannot be successfully argued either way. Knowledge of God comes down to the person validating that experience in their heart based on their personal experience with the entity of God in their mind, combined with their knowledge of God’s nature and his plan for humanity’s spiritual evolution. No one else is or can be involved in this process: it is internal and personal to each one of us. Over our history humanity has been given progressively higher revelations of God as we have grown in spiritual maturity: these revelations have progressed from fear of the lord to love and worship of the divine father. The last and highest of these divine revelations was shown to us throughout Jesus’ life on Earth as he went about doing good. His life, not his teachings, demonstrated for us the revelation of God resident in all people’s minds, the subsequent realization of the siblinghood of humanity, and his greatest commandment to serve humanity for the sake of God. The God-father that Jesus brought to us through his life of love and service never condoned any of the horrific acts attributed to him. To be specific: anything and everything that has ever been said, written, or enacted under the name of God that does not exceed the epitome of humanity’s understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness is wrong: it is human based and will not survive eternity. While there are reasons our world suffers as it does, absolutely none of them relate to God willfully making us suffer, and along that same line, there is no hell where God supposedly punishes us for our sins. Eternal life is a gift freely given, it is to be freely received, and at all times the choice to remain in God’s kingdom is ours: we are not forced to survive. In the case of those people who have spent a life of sin, a life of knowingly going against God’s will, when the point of decision arrives in their lives they choose to not ask for forgiveness: God may have already forgiven them, but a lifetime of bad decisions hardens them to where they do not want that forgiveness. In the end, with these people all of value in their life returns to the father and the once human personality born in time and space simply dissipates back into the universe like would a drop of water in the ocean. Furthermore, on the one topic that has probably held more people back from joining Christianity than any other over the ages: God did not send Jesus to die and pay for the sins of others. Not only did human beings murder Jesus, but the entire idea of punishing someone else for our sins is crass—it is a childish display of people’s depravity representing, along with all other ideas of God ransoming our worship, humanity’s lowest level of spiritual maturity. If Christianity holds to the atonement doctrine and fails to resolve the despicable infighting between its hundreds of sects the religion founded by man under Jesus’ name will become irrelevant. Love is the essence of creation, the universe has a perfect symmetry to it that cannot be violated, and anything not in perfect oneness with God is error—evil without malice—and will eventually either come to oneness with God or be pushed out of existence in eternity.

The world’s religions are social groups for people who believe the same way. As God is no respecter of people, he is also no respecter of cultures, religions, or generations of people: none hold God’s favor. These religions teach that God is distant and that we humans have to go to God to petition him for entrance into the kingdom of heaven, instead of the truth that God comes to us and literally installs an entity that is one and the same as himself in our minds. It is this pair, the entity of God and the developing human personality, that at some point in our spiritual progression eventually melds into the new eternal soul. By religions teaching that God is separate from the person they intentionally create space where it can be said that others have the right or power to intervene between God and the person. This is false doctrine, most of the world’s religious leaders know it is false, and it allows clergy and other self-proclaimed gurus to place themselves between God and the person so they can control them for their own purposes.

Humanity’s need is for the world’s religions to accept equal status as social groups under the umbrella of one God the father of all. Greater humanity has the right to demand this shift in theology, or we have the right to abolish those religions that continue to divide us. No religion or any other human institution has the right to force its will on the rest of the world. Change of this order is a process, not an event. All religions have their clergy, their fanatics, their devoted followers and those more moderate, and then those people who are considered backslidden—people who see themselves as members of the faith but make no attempt to outwardly practice it. Of these groups the acceptance of God the universal father residing in each person’s mind and the equal status of religions under that God will at first be accepted by the moderates and people backslidden. These two groups represent the greatest number of people in any of the world’s faiths, and many of them have been lack-luster in embracing their religion for just the same reasons that other people chose atheism. It is from these people that the seeds of a new world will eventually come to fruit when they realize the true nature of God—a God they not only want to believe in, but now with dignity can. Power is never relinquished peacefully: it is taken. The clergy and fanatics in the religion will fight to hold their power but they have to be confronted, and while the exact process will be different in every situation one thing will remain the same: the new cannot come into existence until the old has gone away. In the process of this inevitable confrontation the devoted members of the faith—those people who are sincere but not fanatical in their desires to know and do God’s will—will be able to see each side for the truth it contains. With time the old guard in the world’s faiths will either be purged or die off, and a new more mature spiritual leadership will assume control and facilitate the peaceful existence of all religions under the umbrella of our one mutual father.

From the acceptance of the fatherhood of God stems the subsequent fact of the siblinghood of humanity: the fact that all human beings are spiritual sisters and brothers with an entity of the same divine father indwelling their minds. This creates spiritual unity among people without forcing cultural uniformity. In other words, nothing outwardly changes—we pursue our own lives in our own countries according to our own cultures watching our own governments continue to posture and compete and make fools of themselves all the while simply realizing that we are all members of the greater family of God and treat one another accordingly. Again, it will be the moderates and those backslidden that will at first be willing to open their hearts in love and siblinghood, if they have not already done so.

Jesus’ last and greatest commandment was the Golden Rule: to treat all other people as he or God our mutual father would have us do instead of the previous lower level of the rule where we were to treat others as we ourselves wanted to be treated. By taking ourselves out of the picture we focus our efforts on doing God’s will without letting our petty feelings and human urges and desires degrade the process. The Golden Rule is committing to making any decision based on the choice that contains the highest level of truth, beauty, or goodness in any given situation, and refusing to engage in activities that harm others for our own or other’s benefits. When enough of the people staffing our world’s governments, corporations, and public institutions have committed to the Golden Rule those people engaged in activities harmful to humanity for their own gain cannot carry out their plans. The ultimate power always resides with the people’s willingness to participate: when enough people refuse to do so, all power structures dissolve.

The American people with their extreme individualism and personal independence have succeeded where others have not, and our past achievements have elevated life for many others in the world. We today still have the seeds of that spirit inside us, but no we longer have a government that represents us or our founding principles or is responsive to our calls for change: the normal channels for legislative process have been subverted and it is unsupportable to say that the people’s will is being met, much less honored. The noblest government ever devised by man, one crafted specifically for its citizens to pursue lives of freedom, happiness, and prosperity has become infested over generations with elected leaders and appointed bureaucrats using their positions of power for their and other’s benefits at the expense of our freedom. We know this: we see it every day yet we have become so conditioned to simply living with malicious evil and so beaten down into accepting our master’s will from regulations and economic hardship that we Americans today are on the verge of losing our right to claim that title as Americans. The most important crime of my lifetime in our country was the murder of our beloved President John F. Kennedy, the singular event that steered us into the spiral of deceit and corruption today threatening the very essence of our nation. And yet on learning the truth that our CIA and others in our government were responsible for his murder, that a coup had occurred in our country and the perpetrators were still in play, Americans did nothing and continued on with life simply waiting for the next blow to land so they could forget that one. Where was the outrage? Where was the mass spontaneous out pouring on to the streets shutting down business as normal in our country until those responsible for killing President Kennedy were found, tried, and publicly hung by their necks until they were fucking dead?

When systems governing people’s lives become so corrupt and perverted, so entrenched and so blatantly wrong over generations people lose their sense of identity: they no longer know who they are. They can sense their demise but cannot see it. America is at that point: many of our people know not from where they come and most of our people are grasping for saviors instead of looking to themselves. The basic element of any human society is the person. As each of us matures society improves, but if we devolve back to our animal nature our lives and country will resemble that state. We the citizens are America. We need to change our country from the bottom up, which means each of us coming to terms with reality as we know it and then embracing our duty to transform ourselves, and in the process our society, into a higher level of existence though the recognition of the siblinghood of humanity and our commitment to serve man for the sake of God. We are better than how we are now existing. The era of goodwill on Earth is in our grasp, and Americans are in the unique position to usher it in though the decisions we make in the weeks ahead. We can accept business as normal—which is nothing short of evil made legal happening right in front of our eyes—or we can demand an accounting for what brought us to our knees and insist that our elected leaders create a government that truly serves us while working to facilitate the global transformation needed to achieve peace on Earth and goodwill among humanity. Our leverage is our participation across every aspect of society that supports our leaders, and if we withdrawal that participation they lose power. In the end, humanity holds the right to sovereignty over the Earth but we can only assume that position by enough of us becoming the people we want our leaders to be: we can expect nothing less of ourselves and still achieve the social transformation needed for our future survival. Stand tall Americans and assume your destiny: we are once again called to uplift the world and we will either meet our challenge or the world will suffer for many generations ahead. Godspeed.