聽神談【正視「恐怖攻擊、瘋狂殺戮」問題的根源】
尼爾：美國前總統柯林頓，曾在二 00 一年十一月對喬治城大學學生的演講時談到，今日的國際恐怖活動，其淵源可回溯至千百年前，而現在美國活躍的恐怖活動才剛剛開始。
柯林頓提到：「第一次十字軍東征時，基督教軍人佔領耶路撒冷後，他們先焚毀了一座內有三百多位猶太人的猶太會堂，接著殺害聖殿山上每位回教徒女性與小孩。讓我告訴你們，這個故事今日仍在中東地區流傳著，而我們仍在爲此付出代價。」
這種宗教性的瘋狂殺戮行爲持續至今日，人們甚至在殺戮時祈喚著：「阿拉是偉大的！」讓人感到無比諷刺及深沉悲痛的是，有些人竟然看不出這其中的矛盾之處。
這就是組織化宗教的排他性、自以爲是與報復心施展之後，所帶給你們的影響。原本想解決的問題不但沒有解決，實際上反倒擴大了爭端。
尼爾：但宗教也做了許多好事，像慈善事業，還有上百萬被正面打動的生命。
宗教的確做了不少好事。對許多人伸出了援手並且促成個人生命的改變，它產生了許多的祝福。然而以一種推動社會進化的力量來看，它表現的並不好。
就提升人類整體的道德、動機，與促進達成這些目標的方法而言，爲何你們的宗教組織始終是如此格外地無效？爲何它們完全無法成功有效地轉化人心，產生世界整體意識的顯著提升？
這或許正是你們人類可以好好提出的議題。然而這也是你們害怕去詢問的問題。
尼爾：若是我們詢問了呢？
那你們將會發現問題並不是努力不夠，許多宗教組織都真誠地想讓社會改變，好爲人們帶來新的生活。
問題的關鍵是因爲「缺乏了解」。而缺乏了解是因為「固執」。
許多組織化宗教數百年來都未曾改變其基本的觀點，有些更是上千年食古不化。
讓我把它再說一次，以便你們能夠充分體會到它的影響：數百年、數千年以來，都沒有一個重大的新觀念被帶入大多數的主流宗教組織中。
摘自《與神對話之新啟示》第7章
Neale: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said in a speech to students at George- town University in November of 2001 that the international terrorism of today, which had only just then reached the United States, dates back thousands of years. “In the first Crusade.”
Mr. Clinton said, “when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, then proceeded to kill every woman and child who was a Muslim on the Temple Mount. I can tell you that story is still being told today in the Middle East, and we are still paying for it.”
This kind of religious insanity continues to this very day, on which you murder with the invocation, “Allah is great!” The enormous irony and the immense sadness is that some humans do not even see the contradiction.
This is the effect that your organized religions of exclusivity and righteousness and retribution have had on you. They have solved nothing.
They have, in fact, enlarged the very problems they were intended to solve.
Neale: But religion has done a lot of good in the world. Look at its charity work. Look at the millions whose lives it has touched in positive ways.
Religion has indeed done good in the world. As a helping hand and as a change agent in the lives of individuals, it has produced many blessings. As a force for societal evolution, however, it has not fared well.
Why have your organized religions been so singularly ineffective in bringing about a general uplifting of human morals, motivations, and modi operandi? Why have they been totally unsuccessful in producing any signif- icant shift in wholesale worldwide consciousness?
This is the issue humankind might do well to address.
Yet this is the question you are afraid to ask.
Neale: And if we asked it?
You would find that it is not for lack of effort. Most organized religions have been sincere in their attempts to bring about social change and a new way of life.
It is for lack of understanding. And it is because of stubbornness. Most of organized religion has not changed its basic point of view for centuries and, in some cases, for millennia.
Let me restate that, so that you can appreciate its full impact.
I said, there has not been a significant new idea brought into most major organized religions in hundreds and thousands of years.
