Spiritual Progress

Abraham, The Lord Krishna and Zoroaster

After Abraham (1813 – 1638 BC) destroyed the family business selling pagan idols, His father Terah moved the Family from Ur in southern Mesopotamia to a place called Haran.

There’s a town named Harran about 40 kilometers south of Gobekli Tepe, the oldest temple in the world. It may or may not be the place Abraham lived. Harana Tepe is a similar temple about 40 kilometers east of Harran. I’m guessing that Noah founded which ever one is oldest, probably Gobekli Tepe, and Abraham founded the newer one, probably Harana Tepe.

National Geographic (June 2011) recently told a story about Gobekli Tepe. It is an ancient temple, older than any city, in just about the neighborhood in southern Turkey, where Abraham may have lived. This may or may not be a coincidence. Adam, Noah and Abraham may have all lived in the region of earth that we call Turkeye today.

Abraham was born and raised in Ur in southern Mesopotamia. His father Terah moved the family to Haran. After His father died, Abraham moved on to Canaan and founded Jerusalem. Jacob returned to Harran to find a wife. He met Rachel at Jacob’s well, near Harran.

Remember the cultural context in which all this religious history is happening. These civilizations, which were arising in Egypt and Mesopotamia were immensely powerful and wealthy. Most likely, the vast majority of people usually lived in peace and prosperity.

These ancient empires fought each other from time to time, and their rulers were often ruthlessly oppressive. Many towns and cities were completely wiped out as these ancient civilizations, such as the Chaldeans, Akkadians, Egypt, Babylon and Assyria rose and fell and fought each other for supremacy.

The Chaldeans, Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians were all different generations of the same people. Different dynasties and different tribal chiefdoms, but often, the same people during different times. I’m sure there were people and tribes migrating in and out of Mesopotamia the whole time, but in general it was the ebb and flow of civilization on the boundary of the Indo-European people of Iran and the Semitic people of Arabia fighting over who gets to make the rules on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.

Abraham was obviously a contemporary of Hammurabi (Ruled 1792 – 1750 BC). The Code of Hammurabi (1790 BC) is the most ancient written constitution, creating a constitutional state protecting the rule of law and human rights in Mesopotamia.

Abraham is a Divine Teacher, like Adam and Noah, Who has revealed the Word of God. He says, and I believe Him, that there is only One True God, Who is creating all this natural history and Who sends these divine Teachers to reveal the Word of God, with its divine education about the divine Rule of Law, inspiring the progressive evolution of human consciousness and consequently, human civilization.

Essentially, it’s a never ending conversation between the one and only, uncreated Creator, and us, the creatures He is creating. The divine Education is an integral attribute of the process of creating human nature and civilization. We are born incomplete and the divine Education completes us. Human consciousness is the apex of the evolution of life on earth.

The story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is another story about the evolution of the human family. Abraham arrives in Canaan with His family and eventually His family grows until it fills Israel with the first truly spiritual civilization, the Kingdom of God, ruled by the one true God. The Covenant of Abraham promises that God will always send prophets to reveal the Word of God, for as long as the human race exists.

In one sense, the Manifestations of God, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham and Krishna are different, individual human beings. In another, spiritual sense, they are all One and the same divine Teacher. Almighty God creates the Manifestation of God in order to reveal the Word of God, the divine education of human nature and civilization.

All these Manifestations of God are immensely exalted above human nature. While They are human beings, They are very special Creatures, created by Almighty God to reveal the Word of God. Obviously, the idea that the Manifestation of God is the First Creature and that everything else is created by Them or through Them, implies far more significance than any material concepts. They are spiritual Beings, divine Teachers. I love them all and I believe They are all, Who They say They are.

The moral of the story of Nimrod and Abraham, is the contrast between the oppressive king of Babylon, who demanded that the people depend on and worship him, and Abraham, Who taught people that there is only one Almighty God and that the people ought to worship only that one true, living, loving God.

The children from Abraham’s first wife Sarah, became the Israelites, the Jewish people. While Sarah was young, she had been unable to bear children, so she gave her servant Hagar to Abraham. Abraham and Hagar’s children, especially Ishmael and His children, became the Arab and Muslim people. After Sarah died, Abraham married Katura, and her children were sent to the east to prevent conflict between them and Sarah’s kids. They became the Iranian and Zoroastrian people.

Zarathustra, the Founder of the Zoroastrian religion, may have been one of Abraham’s children or grandchildren, from His wife Katura. The fact that the Zend Avesta was revealed in the eastern Iranian, Avesta language, during about the same time that the Hindu Rig Vedas were originally revealed in Sanscrit, puts it in just about the right place and time frame, and mixing Israeli and Indian spiritual influence is just another wave of the growing together of human nature and civilization, just like the Kemet and Hyksos gradually grew together into one human nature and civilization.

In fact, if all these dates that I’m reading in Wikipedia are correct, the Rig Vedas themselves could be a result of Abraham’s children and grandchildren. Abraham lived approximately 3800 year ago, the earliest Vedas were revealed approximately 3500 years ago. That is probably not a coincidence. Which means that Abraham may be the Source of not only Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism as well.

Another interesting story in the fabric of the evolution of human nature and civilization is the story of Abraham’s son Isaac. When Isaac was old and blind and ready to bless He and Hagar’s oldest son Esau, his younger son Jacob, Sarah’s oldest son, managed to get the blessing, instead of Esau.

The blessing was that Jacob’s family would be very large and prosperous. Esau was very sad and angry and asked Isaac to bless him too. Isaac blessed him and the blessing was that he would have a large family and they would be fighting their neighbors forever.

Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and His 12 children became the 12 tribes of Israel. Esau eventually married a woman from another clan and left Canaan. It’s interesting that 3700 years later, the people of that region are still fighting their neighbors.

I hope and believe that Baha’u’llah’s revelation, just like the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament, is a blessing for all the people of earth and will soon cause the extinction of all crime, corruption, conflict and contention, throughout human nature and civilization.

Joseph and Moses and the Lord God

I’ve read several stories about an Egyptian Pharaoh named Amenhotep IV (1380 – 1334 BC), who changed the Egyptian religion so that everyone had to worship only one God, the sun God, Aton Ra. He changed his name to Akhenaten, servant of Aton, and declared himself to be the only voice of God, insulting the priests of the ancient Egyptian religion. His capital city has been discovered and explored. (wiki/Akhenaton)

I suspect, and this is just another purely personal speculation, this may be related to the Biblical story of Joseph, the Israelite (1562-1452 BC) Who led the Egyptian nation through a famine as a kind of ancient prime minister. I’ve watched other videos, which claim that Joseph was the Egyptian leader Imhotep, who saved Egypt from a great famine. There are massive underground grain storage structures and the stones quarried from the granaries were used to build the very first Egyptian pyramid, which is thought to be a monument in celebration of Imhotep.

The story of Joseph is apparently about 180 years earlier than Akhenaten. Perhaps Akhenaten was a child taught by Joseph, or studied ancient writings revealed by Joseph. In any case, after Akhenaten died, the Egyptians returned to their former pagan religion and the Israelite people were forced into slavery (jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Joseph.html)

About 400 years after Joseph lived, Moses appeared, which means that the Israelite people were Egyptian slaves during Akhenaten’s reign. Or perhaps they were enslaved when the Egyptians rebelled against the monotheistic religion Akhenaten founded and returned to their ancient pagan religion.

Moses was an Israelite raised in the Pharaoh’s family and educated in the best Egyptian schools. He went into exile after killing an Egyptian, while defending an Israelite slave.

Later, He returned with a revelation of the Word of God, instructing the Pharaoh to release the Israelite people. The Pharaoh scoffed about releasing his slaves, which were an important part of the Egyptian economy.

After a powerful and magical confrontation, Moses led the Israelite people out of Egypt. Moses’ battle cry, “Let My people go,” is a spiritual principle, an ancient form of the principle of, “detachment from everything except God, independence from everyone except God.” (Baha’u’llah)

It’s also a lesson to all people of all time, to release the people from the man made pyramid, the imperial power, the military industrial complex, the superpower of every day.

God makes the rules in our lives. Its unnatural and unhealthy for us to follow any man made rules, including our own self made rules. That’s the whole point of the religion of God, its teaching us to learn and follow God’s divine rule of law, not any form of man made laws.

The Revelation of Moses is another wave of spiritual progress, similar to Abraham’s rejection of His cultural ecosystem and His founding of a spiritual tribe in Canaan. A pattern repeated in various forms throughout the Sacred Writings of all true religion.

Now, rather than a story about Moses’ family, this is a story about a tribe of people, becoming a nation. The stories associated with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all about family. This one is about a family that has grown into a tribe, establishing a spiritual nation in the midst of violently oppressive superpowers, like Assyria and Babylon in the east, the Phoenicians to the north and Egypt in the west.

Another significant change that Moses introduced was to write the Word of God down. These stories were transmitted from generation to generation through oral stories, told around the camp fire for thousands of years. Moses wrote the stories down and included some of the ancient stories in His own Revelation of the Word of God.

The divine education revealed by Moses, including His appeal to “Let My people go,” caused the mystical transformation of the Israelite people, from a tribe of pagan slaves into a spiritual nation, and left one of the most influential stories in all of human history and culture.

Moses set up a federal system of justice, with judges of 10 families, judges of 100 families and judges of 1000 families, with Moses as the Judge over all the Israelite people. The Israelite people migrated back to Israel and lived with this system for several generations. Everyone studied the Word of God and did whatever they wanted to do. Whenever there was any dispute, the people would consult with the judges and the judge would settle the dispute.

I believe that this structure of society is a very important model for a spiritual civilization. It is very similar to the structure of the House of Justice and the universal and divine civilization founded by Baha’u’llah.

Baha’u’llah says that the World Order of Baha’u’llah is unlike anything that has ever existed before, so the similarities are not the whole story. There is far more to the idea that Baha’u’llah is ruling the world according to the laws of Moses, than any of us can possibly understand.

I also believe that the repetition of the phrase “Let My people Go,” in the Bible is a very important instruction, educating and transforming human nature and drawing human civilization out of its animal heritage, the world, the matrix of life on earth, and causing the mystical transformation of human nature into a new divine Kingdom of God.

Hundreds of generations of human beings have been studying that story for thousands of years. That divine education has been and still is influencing the evolution of human consciousness and human civilization.

I found a story about some Christians wandering around in the Arabian Desert who filmed themselves exploring what looks like the camp of the Israelites at the foot of the Mountain where Moses spoke with God. Just about every detail of the Biblical story is right there, in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

The crossing the Red Sea spot. The rock table where the Israelites built the golden calf. The rock where the water poured out. The foundation of the alter that Moses built. Even the plants and animals described in the Bible are still there. A new generation of them, of course.

This story is attempting to blend all the science, history, philosophy and religion that I’ve explored, into one holistic story about human nature and civilization. It is no substitute for your independent investigation of truth for yourself, including especially the Sacred Writings.

After a while, the Israelite people wanted a human king, like the nations surrounding them. God warned them that, having a human king would cause them a lot of trouble.

King David (ruled 1010 – 970 BC) and King Solomon (ruled 967 – 927 BC) were great Prophet Kings, spiritual philosophers, and mark the apex of Israelite civilization. Soon after their reigns, Israelite civilization began to disintegrate and was eventually disbursed in a great diaspora, which lasted approximately 2000 years.

This particular part of the story of the Old Testament teaches us the lesson fairly clearly, that adding to and subtracting from the system designed by God, inevitably leads to the disintegration of human civilization.

About 3000 years ago, soon after the reigns of the Israelite Kings David and Solomon, the Israelite people began diluting the religious teachings of Moses and falling apart in a series of political conflicts.

About 2500 years ago, Nephi, the original Author of the Book of Mormon, left Egypt with his family and first went to Jerusalem and then, left for the Americas. When I read the story, I got the impression that they traveled by land all the way to Vietnam and then built an ark and left for America in the ark. Soon after they left Israel, Jerusalem was sacked and the Israelite people were taken into captivity in Babylon.

Nephi and His family founded a civilization in America that ebbed and flowed for approximately 1000 years, before fading out into the surrounding peoples. Mayan civilization began and ended at approximately the correct time, 500bc – 500ad, and interestingly, built pyramids, which they called towers, just like their ancestors did in Egypt.

Daniel appeared among the Israelite people in Babylon, warning King Nebuchadnezzar (ruled 604bc – 561bc) to release the Israelite people, repeating that same message that Moses had revealed addressing the imperial super power in Egypt, to “Let my people Go.”

He also taught the people to worship the One True God and not King Nebuchadnezzar, or any other human being. Eventually the Persian Empire conquered Babylon and the Iranian King Cyrus released the Israelite people, who returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple.

About the same time Daniel was teaching in Babylon, about 575 BC, the Buddha appeared in India, teaching people to live in harmony with each other and their environment, to practice harmlessness and detachment from material things, and to live a moral and spiritual way of life. Detachment is another way of saying, “Let my people go!”

I suppose that in response to the incredible diversity of ideas and opinions about God in India and the sometimes intense conversation about God, as far as I can tell, the Buddha doesn’t say much about God. He mostly teaches people a spiritual way of life.

Zarathustra revealed the Zend Avesta and founded the Iranian civilization during the same time frame. He taught the people to strive for all of your thoughts, words and deeds to be in harmony with the will of Ahura Mazda, the one true God. The three wise men who visited Jesus when He was born, were Zoroastrian Magi. I wonder what the relationship is between the words magi and magician! They’re probably related.

King Cyrus, the Great, founded the Achaemenid dynasty in the 6th century BC. It was the Zoroastrian civilization. The Persian Empire flourished under King Cyrus and his son King Darius. Human rights, including religious liberty were respected, in probably the most humane of all the ancient empires.

I recently saw a story about there being a possible connection between the Achaemenid dynasty and the Buddha. Which means that both the Lord Krishna and the Buddha may have direct connections to the Zoroastrian culture. The Zend Avesta and the Rig Veda were probably revealed during the same time. The Buddha’s family may have been associated with the Achaemenid dynasty.

This was also about the same time that Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Plato and Aristotle in Europe, were teaching their philosophy. Greece was a primitive outpost on the edge of Babylon and then the Persian Empire, which at that time, stretched from India to Greece and from the Arabian Sea to the steppes of Siberia. Instead of the USA and the USSR, we had Egypt, Babylon, Persia and India and later on, the Roman Empire and China.

The Celtic people of western Europe were seafaring people. The people of the Mediterranean were seafaring people. The Phoenician people traded by ship with all the Mediterranian people, and carried civilization around with them. The people of Asia were also seafaring people. There was already a lot of traffic on the inland, Silk Road. The Persians called the Russians, the barbarians from the north. Persians and Egyptians got their slaves from the slavic people of eastern Europe.

Hippocrates and Socrates studied in a culture heavily influenced by the Israelite prophets, radiating civilization onto the European continent from its source in the Holy Land. The Persian Empire eventually absorbed both Egypt and Greece and then Alexander of Macedonia conquered the Persian Empire, a generation or so later.

The Persian Empire seems to have been a rare exception to the ruthless oppression that often characterizes human civilization. It was King Cyrus who not only allowed the Israelites to return to Israel from their captivity in Babylon, he helped them rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. He treated all the people and tribes and nations in the Persian Empire the same.

I often hear complaints about the ruthlessness of the people in the Bible. Well, God is creating this spiritual civilization in the midst of man-made empires and civilizations, in which thousands of villages of people have been completely wiped out by other people, all fighting each other over land and other resources, with swords and battle axes.

And now we fight each other with machine guns, supersonic stealth aircraft and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Not because God wants us to, but because we often follow the rule of man, dictated by a strong man or an oligarchy of people, an elite ruling class, instead of following the rules revealed by God.

God has been, is and always will be teaching us to love and respect one another. To live in peace and harmony with each other. To transform earth from a wild jungle, into a beautiful, peaceful garden.

It’s up to each generation of the people of earth to study and learn the divine education revealed by the Manifestation of God and to practice the moral values and spiritual principles in our lives, individually and collectively.

Babylon, Assyria and Iran evolved in waves of progress in the social and economic development of human nature and civilization, in and around Mesopotamia. Egypt and India were cauldrons of social and economic expansion and contraction, the ebb and flow of civilization. Civilizations emerge and then pop, just like the bubbles in boiling water.

All these Manifestations of God and Their followers are teaching the Faith in the midst of these vast, powerful and fabulously wealthy civilizations. Quietly guiding and influencing the education and training of the people and the evolution of the civilizations.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve noticed that the time, right around 600 to about 300 BC, seems to be a very busy time of the flowering of our spiritual civilization. Daniel was revealing his prophecies in Babylon. The Buddha revealed His revelation.

Zoroaster (628 – 551 BC?) revealed the Zend Avesta and founded the Zoroastrian religion in Iran. Confucius (Kung Fu Tzu 551 – 479 BC), Lao Tzu (6th, or maybe 4th century BC), Mencius (alive in 319 BC) and Chang Tzu are Asian philosophers like Socrates, (469 – 399 BC) Plato (424 – 348 BC) and Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) are European philosophers. Confucius says that he met Lao Tzu one time.

In China, the Zhou Dynasty had disintegrated into a cluster of small nations fighting each other for supremacy. The Mauryan Empire was taking shape in India. Greek culture was flourishing in south eastern Europe and the ancient Hallstatt culture of central Europe was evolving into a diverse assortment of Celtic cultures in western Europe.

Human Civilization is Always Evolving

Iranian civilization, starting in about the 9th century BC, has evolved in waves of progress for thousands of years. That original civilization, founded by Adam, was eventually destroyed by the flood, which has both natural and spiritual significance.

Abraham and Katura’s children were sent to the east to separate them from Sarah’s kids. They became the Zoroastrian people. While the Semites in Mesopotamia built forts and palaces, the Aryans in Persian built hospitals and universities.

As the Iranian people built up a dynasty, they would attract the “barbarians from the north,” the Aryans and Scythians. Iran means Aryan. The civilization would be destroyed by the invading barbarians, and at the same time and in the same process, the barbarians would become civilized, and a new dynasty would arise from the ashes of the old civilization.

King Cyrus’ Achaemenid dynasty was followed by the Seleucid dynasty which was followed by the Sassanian dynasty. After Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and then died young, General Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt and General Seleucus founded the Seleucian dynasty in Babylon in about 312 BC. It lasted until about 100 BC.

The Parthian Empire flourished in and around Iran from about 247 BC to about 224 AD (Wiki), the same time the Han Dynasty in China and the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean Sea were flourishing. The three wise men would have been Parthian Zoroastrian Magi.

Human civilization was obviously thriving, with the Roman Empire in the west, the Parthian Empire in the center and the Han Dynasty in the East. The silk road connecting Europe, India and China was busy, the world economy was booming.

In the midst of this flourishing human civilization, our Lord Jesus Christ appeared, revealing a new revelation of the Word of God. He became the ultimate sacrifice. He sacrificed His life to atone for our sins. That and the divine education He revealed, has caused the mystical transformation of human nature and civilization.

The Sassanian Empire of Iran flourished from 224 CE to 651 CE during the same time the Byzantine Empire existed in eastern Europe. The Sassanian Empire was finally absorbed by the thriving Muslim civilization growing up out of Arabia.

Islam and the Mongol invasion are two of the more recent waves of change and interaction between Iran and the people around it. Islam, which had arrived in Persia seven hundred years before the Mongols, no doubt influenced the invading Mongol conquerors, just like it influenced Christianity in Western Europe. The Mongols then carried that spiritual influence into the far reaches of northern Asia.

During 700 to 1000, Islam and the Muslim people reminded the European people about the Greek philosophers, helping to inspire an intellectual enlightenment. It was the Catholic Inquisition against Islam and the intellectual Renaissance of the European people inspired by Islam that provoked the Protestant Reformation and the European Enlightenment.

The Lord Jesus Christ and Muhammad

Thank God Jesus saved us. He sacrificed His life to atone for our sins. No other Prophet of God claims to have done that, because Jesus has already accomplished it, once and for all.

The Israelite religion had evolved into a complex, almost industrial scale system of sacrificing various animals for various occasions and reasons. Jesus Christ voluntarily became the sacrifice that healed our relationship with the one true God, Ahura Mazda, Allah.

Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of every human being, past, present and future. His Sovereignty will last forever. He never married anyone and He always obeyed the Law of God, completely and perfectly.

He taught the people the same eternal, unchanging Faith of God, that Adam, Noah and Abraham, Krishna, Zarathustra, Moses and Buddha had all taught before Him, and Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah taught after Him.

Jesus says that those who have the Son, have the Father; those who have the Father, have the Son. In my opinion, one of the things that means to me is that, people who have the Father, as a result of the covenant between them and almighty God, revealed by the Manifestation of God during their time and in their place, have the Son, Jesus Christ.

For example, Buddhists are saved by their faith in and devotion to the Buddha. Jesus Christ sacrificed His life to atone for our sins. No other Manifestation of God needs to accomplish that Mission, because Jesus accomplished it once and for all. Never think your religion is superior to anyone else’s (Baha’u’llah).

Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Baha’u’llah are all the exactly identical, divine Teacher. God does not need religion. Human beings do.

Religion is revealed for the benefit of man. It is our divine education. Its purpose is to educate, raise up and unite all of the people of earth into one universal and divine civilization. Not to oppress people or impose any particular ideology or to be used as leverage to gain advantage over anyone.

There is only one Almighty God and Muhammad is His Apostle. The greater Jihad is our personal struggle to submit to God, instead of running wild, following our own animal passion and man made rules. The lessor Jihad is to contribute to the development of a spiritual civilization.

The interaction between Islam and Christianity inspired a protestant reformation and a philosophical enlightenment in Christian civilization, which was in the midst of a dark age, when Islam came along and shocked Christianity out of its complacency.

I wonder if the Christian clergy’s rejection of Islam and the subsequent Inquisitions, Pogroms, witch hunts and Crusades hasn’t spawned the anti-Christianity growing increasingly shrill in its midst. Just like the Jewish clergy failed to recognize Jesus and then the Israelites were dispersed in a diaspora that lasted about 2000 years.

The Christian clergy failed to recognize Muhammad and they lost the divine Authority that Jesus had invested in them, and then they began to mutate into ruthless oppressors, instead of spiritual servants of God and guardians of the people.

And now, the Muslim clergy has failed to recognize the Twin Manifestations of God, the Bab and Baha’u’llah, and Islam is mutating into a ruthlessly violent perversion of real spirituality. Nevertheless, the true followers of the Lord Krishna, Moses, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Baha’u’llah are all the Armies of God.

No matter what the individual members of the clergy say or do, those true believers in every religion are the children of God, who are loved by God and who love God and each other and all life on earth.

The influence that these spiritual people are having in the midst of human civilization is nothing less than the mystical transformation of human nature and civilization from troops of Homo Sapien, into one universal and divine civilization. And nothing, other than God, can prevent our universal commonwealth from evolving out of the matrix of natural history.

Earth is, after all, Almighty God’s garden. He is growing this one universal and divine civilization. Are you a flower or weed? Weeds are selfish, aggressive and competitive. Flowers practice voluntary submission to God, cooperation, service and unity in diversity.

The divine education revealed by Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad has influenced the evolution of human consciousness throughout the Middle East and the world. The divine education revealed by the Lord Krishna and the Buddha has certainly influenced the evolution of Indian civilization. And Zoroaster’s revelation has inspired the progress of Iranian civilization.

The sovereignty of Jesus Christ will last forever. He sacrificed His life to atone for our sins, once and for all. Jesus taught the people around Him to Love God with all of our heart, mind and soul, and to love each other just like we love ourselves.

Muhammad

About 1400 years ago, 1260 years before the Revelation of The Bab, Muhammad arose amidst the Arab pagans. He taught them that there is, “no God besides Allah.” One thing we know about any aliens is, they have the same God that we do! Allah, which is the Arabic word God, is infinitely exalted beyond the capacity of human beings to comprehend, let alone describe.

Allah revealed the Holy Quran through His Apostle Muhammad (570 – 632AD). Like Moses, Muhammad taught Muslims moral and ethical values and spiritual principles, including the ethics of war, because the Arabian pagans were trying to exterminate them for teaching people that there is only one Almighty God. The Holy Quran teaches people to be humble and submissive to Allah, and only Allah.

Islam means submission. Muslim means believer. Jihad is the inner struggle, to submit to Allah and follow Allah’s rules, instead of following our own animal passion. It’s the Muslim version of, “Let My people go.” Humble submission. Follow the rules revealed by God, not any man made rules, including your own man made rules.

Egypt, the pagan world, materialistic civilization and selfish ambition are the animal passion, the instinct, that human beings inherit from our natural history. Islam, spirituality, is the difference between a wild animal and a civilized human being. Islam is the inner essence of every true religion. Jihad is our inner struggle to practice Islam, submission to the will of God, instead of our own animal passion.

Islam has influenced the evolution of civilization, directly by the civilization the Muslims created, and indirectly by influencing the civilizations around them. It spread across North Africa in a wave of spiritual progress.

Eventually, Andalusia [Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal] became one of the most advanced Islamic nations, where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in harmony. They also invaded France. France had to raise a large army to defend against the Muslim invaders, thereby becoming the first western nation.

The growing popularity of Islam alarmed the Christian clergy and they launched the inquisition and the pogroms to purge Islamic ideas and Muslim people out of Christianity; and the Crusades in order to try to liberate the Holy Land in Israel from the Muslims.

Algebra, Greek philosophy and the nation state are some ideas, among many, that western civilization has learned from Islamic civilization. Thomas Aquinas was one of the Christian philosophers who studied the writings of Plato and Aristotle and expanded on a Christian perspective of philosophy. Friedrich Hegel, Carl Jung, Soren Kierkegaard, John Maxwell and many others, extended the spiritual perspective of philosophy into the modern age.

During that European enlightenment most people kept their faith. Christianity is the spiritual foundation of western civilization. Yes, of course, I respect my ancestors and their Celtic Druid spirituality and other pre-Christian ideas. I do not think we should be regressing back to that primitive understanding of spirituality, any more than I think we should go back to the third grade after we finish high school. On the other hand, just because we’re in college now, doesn’t mean that what we learned in grade school is wrong.

Some other European philosophers abandoned the faith. Freud taught people that religion is a remnant of some primitive human instinct, which civilized human beings have no need for. Frederick Nietzsche taught people that religion is a mental illness that we needed to eliminate from human consciousness. Karl Marx was another atheist philosopher, revered in our academic circles.

Now, our schools have been teaching this philosophy, that God is a figment of primitive, uneducated human imagination, for several hundred years now and it is starting to erode the spiritual foundation of western civilization. I see it with my own eyes and ears. America has definitely wandered away from the natural law upon which it is founded and out from under the protection of nature’s God.

I’m thankful that I got my education from the library and book stores, because I do not regret missing all the secular humanist propaganda. I realize that most people take that for granted, after all, our schools have been teaching it ever since at least the 1600s. Also thankfully, the Christians have not neglected to teach a spiritual philosophy, they just seem to be losing the argument to the secular monopoly in our public schools.

The one thing I do miss about public education is the socialization skills. I resent our academic establishment using tenure and credentials to enforce the intellectual monopoly that is so blatantly obvious in our society these days. I probably wouldn’t even notice it if I had an academic education, so maybe my non-academic education is good and valuable.

Denying that our schools are teaching this atheist philosophy is either ignorance or deception. When I was a kid, religion was a normal part of life on earth. We argued about whether the Catholic, Mormon or Protestant religion is the only true religion, but at least we were free to practice our religion, both in public acts of devotion and in our constitutional right to freely speak about it. Now, it is being systematically removed from our public discourse and our society is becoming more and more materialistic and barbaric.

Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets. In my opinion, that means that He is the last of a series of Prophets beginning with Adam, Who have revealed progressive revelations of the Word of God, educating and training human nature and civilization.

One facet of that divine education is the idea that a universal Prophet would appear at the end of time and unite all humanity into one universal Kingdom of God. Every religion, including Islam, includes this prophecy in one form or another. I believe that Baha’u’llah has already fulfilled that prophecy.

Just as all the previous Prophets looked forward to the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, all future Prophets will look back to Baha’u’llah, like Jews, Christians and Muslims consider Adam. Although, I think we will have a much higher esteem for Baha’u’llah, than at least the Christianity I grew up with, has for Adam.

I also think that Baha’u’llah glorifies Adam, just like He glorifies Jesus Christ and all the other Manifestations of God. The followers of Baha’u’llah have a higher regard for the previous Manifestations of God than Their Own followers do.

I’m not saying that Baha’is are holier than Christians, Muslims or Buddhists or any of the others. That is strictly personal and only the Manifestation of God will be the Judge of that. It just means that Baha’u’llah glorifies all of previous Manifestations of God.

Religious Unity

Baha’u’llah has already united all religions, all races of people and all nations, into one universal and divine civilization. Adam is a Manifestation of God, just like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.

In the future, scientists will dig around investigating the pollution layer, just like scientists of our generation are investigating the Iridium layer, the K-Pg boundary, associated with the extinction of dinosaurs. Fossils deposited before the pollution layer will include evidence of crime, war and disease. Fossils deposited after the pollution layer will include evidence of the evolution of one universal and divine civilization, evolving in peaceful waves of progress.

Every thousand years or so, another Manifestation of God will appear to renew and extend the Word of God, as the human capacity to comprehend it evolves, as we learn more each time the Prophet of God appears, very much like kids going through the grades of school.

And according to Baha’u’llah’s son, Abdu’l Baha, the authorized interpreter of Baha’u’llah’s revelation, this progressive revelation of the Word of God will continue for at least the next 500,000 years, which means that this is just the crack of dawn of the history of human nature and the awakening of the human spirit.