Everything in Life is Relative

A few years back, I looked at everything in life as being either black or white. Under such a narrow definition, any action is reduced to being either right or wrong. I guess I did not fully comprehend the ramifications of being a Daheshist in particular and a human being in general, or I would have understood that nothing is absolute. Once, while waiting my turn in traffic court, I heard the judge ask another defendant, "Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" The defendant responded, "Your Honor, I am a little bit guilty." The judge replied, "There is no such thing as being a little bit guilty. It's just like being pregnant: Either you are or you aren't." When it comes to human laws, many actions can be looked at in terms of absolutes, but How about the spiritual laws that govern Earth and the universe?

I truly believe that spiritual laws are absolute. However, our interpretations of them is relative. Spiritual laws are not always easy to understand; in many cases symbolism and allusion have been used to express them. The dilemma begins when we try to interpret spiritual laws narrowly and accept certain things as absolute. Taken in this context, members of a religion will see their own religion as the one that is right and will regard all others as wrong. Religious intolerance is the result.

Consider, for example, the words of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) Does this mean that all Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and others are doomed? Of course not, unless you are interpreting those words literally. I recently sent a questionnaire to approximately 140 churches in Northern Virginia. One of the questions I asked was, "About one-half of the world's population is split between India and China, where the practice of religion is predominantly confined to Buddhism, atheism, Hinduism, Islam, or some other non-Christian faith. Add to them the population of Islam throughout the world, and you end up with 65%&shyp;75% of the world population as non-Christian. According to the New Testament, the way it reads today, Jesus Christ said that nobody will be saved except through him. If the "Hour of Judgment" were to take place today, do you truly believe that all non-Christians would be doomed to hell forever?" Many of the churches did not even bother to return the questionnaire; of the few that did return it, a great many answered with a big fat yes.

Literal interpretation of holy books can be dangerous. Many spiritual statements need to be analyzed and interpreted broadly. The following example illustrates my point: According to the Ten Commandments given to Moses and accepted by every Jew, Christian, and Muslim, "Thou shalt not kill." This principle is clearly stated and is incorporated in the laws of every nation on Earth. Taken in this context, it is absolutely wrong to kill. This precept is carved in stone, and nothing could be more black and white than this particular commandment. Yet according to the Old Testament, Jews were told by the same God who gave them the Ten Commandments, "But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." (Deuteronomy 20:16&shyp;17) Again, if those are truly the words of God, then the first major exception to the rule came within a few decades of the revelation of the Ten Commandments. This quote does not describe a case of defeating an enemy in war but instead constitutes an order to cold-bloodedly kill every man, woman, and child of those nations and take their property. Why the contradiction?

How about other nations that did not reside in the promised land? "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee." (Deuteronomy 20:10&shyp;14) So we started with "Thou shalt not kill" and ended up with "Thou shalt not kill, but " Yet within two thousand years of their entry into the promised land, the same God decreed to the people of Israel through His prophet Jesus Christ: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." (Matthew 5:43&shyp;44)

Now wait a second. What has changed? Is God running experiments on us? Is God unsure which laws to apply? Absolutely not. Things are not what they seem. It is unlikely that God would have ordered such atrocities be committed. Human interpretation of God's words may have led to the committment of such attrocities. If God wanted certain people be put to death, he would have done it Himself the same way He eradicated the entire population of the Earth save Noah and his family a few thousand years earlier. The only thing that had changed with Jesus Christ was that it had become time to raise the consciousness of the people. In other words, thousands of years ago, the primitive people of Earth existed in spiritual darkness. Their consciousness was raised a little bit at a time throughout the ages at the hands of the prophets of God and His envoys of religious, political, and social reform. What may have been acceptable behavior during a period of lower consciousness became unacceptable at a later time. In the case of Christianity, looking at a woman lustfully constitutes the same sin as committing adultery. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:27&shyp;28).

Despite the noble and humane words of Jesus Christ, most Christians throughout the world do not practice what they profess to believe. For example, during the Gulf War, a Virginia church posted a big sign beside a road. The sign read, "God bless our soldiers." I am sure the church's congregation did not analyze the sign's meaning; otherwise, they would have refrained from erecting it. Why would a church that is presumably dedicated to the teaching of God's word to the world be involved in such nonsense? Why didn't they say, "May God bring all politicians and military leaders to their senses and stop this bloodshed," or "May God bless our soldiers and the soldiers they are fighting, and return them all safely to their loved ones without bloodshed." What happened to the words of Jesus, as far as loving and blessing the enemy? Do you think the individual American or Iraqi soldier had anything to say about his presence in Kuwait? Weren't they all victims of politics?

Throughout history, despite Jesus Christ's nonviolent teachings, the clergy have gone about accomplishing worldly goals that at times have involved nations in wars and at others have entailed hiring assassins to eradicate foes. Many of the Popes of Rome were involved in simony, nepotism, torture, murder, sexual promiscuity, or other sins unbefitting anyone claiming to spread the word of God. Some may think I am making personal accusations against Christianity, but I assure you that I am just reporting history.

Although the gospel of Jesus Christ is exemplary in its ramifications for the human race, it is lacking on several grounds. It came at a point in time when the consciousness of the people needed to be raised to a certain level, but not necessarily a very advanced one. Before you get upset, allow me to explain: Human rights are God-given rights, yet Jesus did not challenge the occupation forces of Rome, nor did he take a stand on torture or imprisonment. Slavery is evil, yet Jesus did not explicitly call for the abolishment of slavery, nor did he explicitly forbid his followers from holding slaves. The gospel of Jesus Christ was revolutionary in its own right, but it did not denounce all the improprieties of life as we now see them. In other words, what is appropriate in one era may become totally inappropriate in a different era, once people have had the chance to raise their consciousness. I am certain that the teachings of Jesus Christ implicitly call for the abolishment of slavery, torture, and imprisonment by advocating global love among people. If people practiced what they professed to believe, slavery, torture, hatred, and imprisonment would have been eradicated in the Western Hemisphere during the first few centuries after Jesus.

From the time of Jesus until now, God has provided humanity with prophets and other envoys of religious, political, and social reform. Although such envoys as Martin Luther and Mahatma Gandhi are not recognized to be in the same league as the great prophets, they did manage to raise our consciousness. Because Christianity did not take an explicit stand on slavery, some men of the Christian faith held and traded slaves until the late 19th century. George Washington himself was a slaveholder. Other Christians saw the evil in slavery and revolted against it. God finally provided the United States with a hero, a champion of freedom. After a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln managed to eradicate slavery. Almost 100 years after the abolition of slavery, the United States, the most advanced and powerful country in the world, remained blind to the prejudicial treatment of African-Americans. Only a little bit more than thirty years ago, the United States treated a significant portion of its population as second-class citizens by denying them equal rights, including the right to vote, because of the color of their skin. Human rights and freedom are beautiful words, but unfortunately, only a small portion of the world's population enjoys these privileges. About half the world's population lives in India and China, and the situation is not any better in the Arab world, nor in many African, Latin American, and Eastern European countries.

I am not here to lecture the reader about what is "right" and what is "wrong." After all, what is right to one person may be wrong to another. I am sure that slaveholders did not view themselves as evil people, and many of them were otherwise God-fearing, church-going individuals. How people collectively interpret things in life determines their morality, and in a democratic society, these moral codes are reflected in human laws. All I am saying is that we should look at many of the so-called traditional laws as laws that once were appropriate for humanity. When humanity began to evolve spiritually and gained additional knowledge, some of these laws became inappropriate. You may ask, "How are we to know which laws to retain and which to discard?" God, in His infinite wisdom, continues to provide humanity with guides at varying levels to help us make these decisions. These guides bring issues into the open and encourage us to reevaluate our beliefs and principles. The question remains, Are we ready to move from the absolute to the relative in our outlook on life?