With the greatest respect to those who are in the various fields of science and whose work is motivated exclusively for the benefit of humanity in a purely altruistic way, rather than other motives such as glorification amongst their peers or perhaps financial reward, there are many people in those areas who have shut the door which leads into wisdom and knowledge for countless millions.
The often repeated mantra of the extreme Rationalist or the neo-Atheist*[1] can often be heard as something like: 'Provide us with demonstrable evidence which withstands the rigours of scientific scrutiny, show us what can be reproduced empirically in a science laboratory!' Such people will then go on to claim that they, along with the rest of the professional body of civilisation, have the only true vision for the future because nothing else is shown in their test tubes, as it were.
There are two kinds of characters - generally speaking - who would call himself or herself an Atheist. The first is someone who has an open mind and does not dismiss God, His host, or His Spiritual World as pure fantasy or foolishness, but prefers to remain non-committed, perhaps due to an unpleasant association with extremist religion or simply because extremist religion has adopted an unethical manmade teaching which shows itself to be bigoted. This person is prepared to accept God, His host, or His Spiritual World but only if one or all of these things make themselves recognisable in a form which is perhaps clearly distinctive to themselves, but until such an event they shall remain unconvinced.
The second kind of person who would call himself or herself and Atheist, is someone who makes of point of teaching that there is nothing beyond the physical universe as far as spiritual matters are concerned, and anyone who believes otherwise is misguided, afraid of death, easily led, unintelligent or other such charges.
These two different characters are quite separate in terms of open-mindedness and how their attitudes affect their entry into the Spiritual World once the physical casket has been dropped, what they will find on arrival, and how they will cope.
What is in fact being presented is a form of denial so subtle that it presents itself as credible to an easily-lead generation. Of course there are always extremes, and what is referred to here is the extreme i.e. people who claim they are not 'religious' and follow no system of 'cultural belief' but when analysed under the microscope of open-mindedness, it is seen as just that, a cultural belief system. It is a belief, a Faith, because by having such a 'belief' not only is existence being justified but also it is something to cling on to in the earth life to fill the void left by a missing spirituality.
It is hardly surprising that so-called scientific 'cultural belief systems' such as those dogmatic theories and denials expounded by certain people based solely upon limited physical experiments in a three dimensional world, arises in the face of the dogmatic 'cultural belief systems' of the literal and pedantic Religionist. Statements from the Religionist such as: 'Believe what we tell you or you are going to hell' do not go very far in the estimation of open-minded people, and the 'Rationalist' quickly reacts with indignation.
However, the reactionary atheistic scientist or Rationalist has fallen into the reactionary trap (and takes with him or her portions of coming generations). He or she is attempting to judge everything according to physical senses. A human animal is all these people make man out to be - a human animal with senses and so-called higher intelligence, who is limited to a physical plane of existence - very limiting indeed! No rules can exist outside of their physical estimation of life, and that estimation is based upon physical evidence and one plane of being alone. How therefore can they be conclusive and so forthright in their dogmatic claims?
Of course, they will say that they are open-minded and willing to accept something which can be proven according to their criteria for judgement - the science laboratory. But this is far from open-mindedness. What they are doing is exactly the same as the old witch-test except in another form: 'Throw her into the water and if she drowns she is not a witch and if she lives she is a witch' - in other words, there can only be one outcome for them because the criteria for their test is limited to physical laws. Or to put it another way, asking to prove dimensions beyond the physical but using only physical experiments is like giving someone a lead pencil and asking them to produce a rich oil painting. They do not allow for an existence beyond their noses, as it were.
A system of belief which does not take into consideration all planes and spheres of existence, is a very immature and faulty belief system indeed. Hence, to take a serious view of life in its entirety, one must also consider planes of existence beyond the physical senses, and then indeed the whole perspective and criteria for assessment of life is vastly increased and magnified into something which has a wholesome quality.
Indeed, mankind would be far better off in general if he looked for inspiration (guidance from Spirit) instead of relying on his senses. The cures for which he was looking would not be half-cures but would be cures which treated the root of the problem which does not lie in the physical at all but in the spiritual. A holistic approach is needed for the betterment of mankind in general otherwise there will be a constant seepage of spiritual illness, and cures do not last - such as has happened with antibiotics, where the disease simply mutates to avoid the superficial cure, as it were.
The extremist who expounds his or her dogma of life based upon the findings of the physical scientist, is often heard claiming that 'faith' is 'mumbo jumbo'. Again, this notion is bigoted and hypocritical. What is the 'Rationalist' propounding, if he or she does not have 'faith' in what he or she is proselytising? They have faith in what they deem to be the truth. Indeed, they have seen and heard something, and have accepted it as truth based on their criteria for assessment of truth - they have faith in their criteria, it is what gives them a reason for their existence, albeit a very limited 'cultural belief system'.
This is not referring to the actual scientific experiments and their results, this is referring to the dogma which arises in the minds of people who base their existence upon theories derived from the mind of man which are in turn based on scientific experiment, and scientific experiment alone - a vast difference, it should be noted. What such people preach from the altar of the science laboratory work-top seems like mumbo jumbo to someone who has opened his or her mind to the existence of life on other levels of being, for once the truth of the existence of life in the truly spiritual sense has been absorbed even in a minute way, then there is no turning back because it would be like trying to live in daily life without a heart and mind.
It is quite easy to be offended by 'Religionists' preaching sanctimonious and elitist dogmas, but it is also quite easy to be offended by extremist physical intellectualists preaching their elitist, limited and empty dogmatic rhetoric on life - empty in the face of the beauty of Divine Love. Most of these people would no doubt claim to be moralistic and loving human beings, but if they could just for one brief moment in this dimension of time, space and causation, experience true Divine Love, they would see that they had a very shallow and offensive set of doctrinal beliefs indeed, and that they were no better than the offensive 'Religionist'.
For instance, with regards a Virgin Birth: If the Religionist depends upon the literal acceptance of his or her dogmatic metaphysical concept for his or her salvation, and then mentally persecutes others because they fail to accept this supposed 'only way of salvation' which he or she offers, then he has taken fact and developed a fictitious hypothesis from it (and yet probably feels justified by 'preaching' what he or she considers to be the only way for their concept of 'salvation'). However, equally offensive is the materialistic 'Rationalist' who, with no deference at all to an open-mindedness, preaches (teaches) that a Virgin Birth is nonsense and is nothing more than fable. Such a statement is as bigoted as any statement ever made. The person making the statement would probably claim that it was not bigoted because they have judged according to their criteria for proof - but they fail to see that they are just doing what the Religionist is doing, offending others based upon the facts derived from a belief system which he or she considers, along with others, as the be-all-and-end-all of assessment of truth. They do not have it within their system and set of criteria for assessment of truth, to ever allow for such a possibility as a Virgin Birth (although they may claim that they do allow for such a possibility yet in the same breath they dismiss it as nigh impossible).
In such a case, any alternative explanations or perspectives are considered absolutely inadmissible. Thus any Greater World philosophy is never even given the chance of consideration. Those who have passed into the Better Land assess truth differently however. To them it seems very strange that man in the flesh, with all his so-called intellectual powers, finds a Virgin Birth such a stumbling block. To quote one such person who passed out of a physical body a 'long time' ago:
"...That the Creator of all - of those marvellous details of nature, of the heavenly worlds and constellations, of the secrets of so-called science - it seems curiously strange to us that the One Who brought into being not only your little world, but those vaster, greater worlds and spheres and states beyond: that He Who thought out the construction of the physical body in which our lord was carried - that this simple miracle, if you like to call it thus, should be considered beyond His power or imagination.
"This is a very serious subject. It is a jewel which has been given to mankind: that priceless gift of God, as man, going through the same experiences as you and me, knowing and feeling just as the least of His little ones; Divinity taking on so simply, so wonderfully simply, those experiences with us on earth - that this should be discredited, that this should be ruled out of court as something which strains the powers of reasoning to breaking point, is hard to understand..."
This is quite a revealing statement and one which is given to add another dimension to a limited and apparently self-satisfied set of criteria for assessing truth. And as can be seen, this not simply deal with the fact of there existing something beyond the Rationalist's set of physical criteria, but the deeper issue of the very Divinity in Christ - a subject of much discussion among those with a host of varied perceptions of the Person mankind calls Jesus.
It is important to encourage our children to at least hold the mind open to the possibility that a greater truth exists beyond that which is discovered by repeating observable scientific experiments within the physical laboratory. There is not a thought in the mind of any decent-thinking human being which does not rebound and come back to that one, if that thought has betrayed his or her better self - only the one attempting to live in denial of truth will deny such a thing - it is called conscience by some. Hence, this rebounding of thought leads to compunction and remains until it has been 'worked out'.
So the Greater World philosophy would state generally that, according to degree, those implicit thoughts of the Rationalist and neo-Darwinian Evolutionist that a Virgin Birth is utter 'nonsense', must return to them when they have passed over and seen a far greater truth revealed to them, and it should not be difficult for any open-minded person to imagine how such a one will feel in the face of truth, especially if they were instrumental in leading others up their proverbial garden path. But much prayer, understanding and love is what they need here and Thereafter, for there is nothing worse than self-condemnation in the face of truth and reality.
The dogmatic Rationalist may happily comment upon how Religionists cannot agree on which interpretation is right in God's sight, but when each and everyone finds themselves in another land, wherever they might be, they will have the opportunity to see that there were and are many ways to find Divine Truth, none of which are entire and complete because Divine Truth simply cannot be contained in it's entirety except by Divine Truth.
So Rationalist and Religionist alike will find that they have placed themselves where they find themselves, according to their wish to think or do aright; it is the nature of the motive based upon the highest and purest love - not what is believed. Perhaps this is a simplistic-sounding statement, but nevertheless a truly ethical statement in its highest sense, if one lays aside all prejudice in a rigorous and honest fashion.
A sad irony is that just one genuine brief experience of the beauty and power of Divine Love, and those people - who worship the god of logic and pray at the altar of the science laboratory bench where they perform the rituals of physically verifiable experiments - would have learned more about knowledge and life in that brief moment than they could ever learn in a thousand lifetimes of secular education. But they have ruled such knowledge as inadmissible because their criteria for acceptance cannot measure Divine Love. Such extremist 'Rationalists' do humanity no good at all in the spiritual sense and our children will not thank them for such dogma.
Indeed, the one who has made a god of the mind and has nurtured the mind of children only with an over-importance of physical dogma yet has neglected to treat their child as a spirit coming to this earth plane with the purpose of struggling and striving to make the Divine within their own possession - that person has much humiliation and bruised emotions in store for them when he or she passes over and sees how unbalanced in their attitude towards life they really were by putting so much importance upon the physical mind when on earth whilst neglecting the Spiritual.
Indeed, many who have considered that they know so much more than their fellow peers upon earth because of their intellectual capacity and apparent 'progression' because they have defined life in physical terms alone, dismissing all spiritual life as belonging to an ignorant and backward people, cannot be taught anything about the new life they find themselves in. No, it is not possible because character and memories are all that is taken from this earth life, and a character which has been built up over years and which is so sure that there is no God, no Spiritual World, and no life after death - such a character is totally unprepared to receive spiritual knowledge let alone receive it from someone who may have never even read an earthly book on science or philosophy.
One must ask oneself: Where is the real intelligence of someone who teaches against the existence of an Afterlife when they cannot prove that it does not exist? Where is the real intelligence of someone who - because of their lack of knowledge of anything beyond the Physical, and because they teach that the Spiritual belongs to the realm of superstition - where is their real intelligence when they do not permit the possibility of the existence of an Afterlife, and as a consequence they arrive in Another World confused, lost and humiliated, and they must start to learn anew about real Life in classes which are equivalent to pre-primary school education?
Many people who have passed over, adults and children alike, are so very grateful that there are people in the flesh who have held the lantern of Divine Love high for other members of humanity to catch a glimpse of its wondrous Light, with it's hope and vision for the future, a glorious and certain gift of continuing and expanded life when this important yet short and limited earthly stage is over.
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