When
Rabbi Leynor and I (Jim Myers) met, we never dreamed we were beginning the journey
that has now lasted over a quarter of a century -- or that we would now be talking about realities, genes and memes. It
is unbelievable that the most important things we now know about realities,
genes and meme were not discovered until the 21st century. Our focus
back then was on understanding belief systems and searching for ancient meanings
of the Hebrew and Greek words of our Scriptures.
I
had been engaged in research about the Jewish Jesus for about six years before
I met Jeffrey. During that time I created two guidelines that helped me stay on
track in my work and help members of my Bible study groups resolve conflicts
that often involved differences in beliefs.
Belief Systems Guideline
My Belief System
will be large enough to include all of the Facts, it will be open enough to be
examined and questioned, and it will be flexible enough to change if errors or
new facts are discovered.
Linguistic Guideline
A word or phrase consists
of symbols or sounds with an attached bundle which is a product of the Source’s
culture, time period, geographical location and personal experiences.
We
did not realize it back then, but the above guidelines brought transparency to our discussions.
Today we know that transparency is an
essential requirement for cooperation and cooperation is an essential requirement
for maintaining a healthy democracy.
One of our primary
goals today at the TOV Center is teach as many people as possible the skills we
learned about creating cooperation.
Two Guys with Mutually Exclusive Monotheistic Belief
Systems
When
Jeffrey and I first met, we both had congregations. He was a rabbi of a Conservative
synagogue and I was pastor of a Protestant church. We both had mutually
exclusive monotheistic belief systems. We both believed that only one God exists,
but we didn’t agree on who that God was.
In
Jewish belief systems, Yahweh is that God, but in Christian belief systems the
Trinity and/or Jesus is that God. In Jeffrey’s religion Jesus cannot be God,
while in my religion Jesus must be God. This is where the “mutually exclusive” part of our belief systems plays a major role.
Unless one believes “the official version
of the religion’s God” – that person
cannot be a member of the religion.
Without
having agreed to follow the Belief
Systems Guideline above, we would not have been able to engage in the
transparent discussions that we have had from the beginning. By agreeing to
follow the guideline, “we gave each other
permission to examine and question each other’s beliefs.”
We
always respected each other and treated each other civilly, especially when we
asked the real questions that were on our minds without the usual ecumenical
filters. We had both participated in interfaith meetings, in which clergy from
different faiths explained things about their religions. However, everyone
usually avoids addressing the issues that separate them.
We
had permission in our discussions to ask the “other” questions – questions that only people with polar
opposite Belief Systems can ask. Why? Our brains automatically spot things
that are different – especially skin color,
gender and conflicting beliefs. One question that repeatedly popped up was
this – Where did you guys come up with
that? One of those occasions involved the Trinity. Have you ever tried to
explain the Trinity to anyone – especially
a rabbi! During discussions like these, another often repeated question
popped up – Are you talking about a
belief or a fact?
In
discussions about religious beliefs, discussions always lead back to the same
place – authority. In Protestant Christianity
that authority is always “the Bible.”
For my nondenominational denomination, a foundational doctrine was about the
Bible: “The Bible is the inerrant
infallible word of God.” A very simple question forced me to rethink not
only the doctrine, but how I had been reading my Bible. That question was -- “Which Bible?”
There
are literally hundreds of English translations and thousands of ancient
manuscripts of the books found in Bibles – and
they differ in many different ways. However, for people with the belief above,
everything in “the Bible” had to
agree. Things written in Genesis had
to agree with things written in Revelation.
I think members of our churches probably subconsciously learned not ask
questions that disagreed with the church’s doctrines and beliefs. My religion didn’t give members permission
to “examine and question” official doctrines.
It
is by having permission to examine and question each other’s beliefs and
doctrines that transparency emerged in our relationship. Everything was on the
table for examination and questioning – including
the basis of religious authority of a group or religion. We understood the
consequences of a religious leader “acknowledging
being wrong” – job security,
salaries, pensions, status, power, etc. This is the challenge that
transparency brings to the table too. We believe that as members of religions
learn to “value transparency,” they
will come to not only value leaders that acknowledge errors they discover, but their congregations will reward them for
sharing that information with them!
What
we believed over twenty-five years
ago is very different from what
we know today. Jeffrey and I have helped each other discover errors and
new facts so many times that changing our belief systems has become like
updating security programs on our phones and computers.
About
five years ago we became aware of the role that the human brain plays in our
belief systems. As a matter of fact, we discovered that “belief systems” was
the wrong name. We discovered that “Religious
Beliefs” were not stored in a separate compartment in the brain under “religion.”
All beliefs -- religious, political, economic,
etc. -- are memes (electrochemical
information stored in huge complex neural networks as parts of memory). Instead of changing beliefs, we were actually
changing our realities – the ways we
sensory perceive our worlds and give meanings to what we perceive.
I
will share more about our journey in the next blog. We will also be discussing
this topic soon on Facebook Live. Be sure to “Like” our “Lives 1st Facebook Page”
so you can watch our discussions live. I will also provide a link to it so you
can share it and watch it again later.
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