This is the fourth in a series of blogs, begun last week, on the seemingly unending conflict in our world. The series makes the point that there is a way to avoid the constant conflict and killing upon the earth, and that way is for the earth’s people to adopt a New Spirituality — a new “story” about God, about Life, and about Each Other.

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* Seeking people of commitment
* Creating a whole new way of being Human
* The Cultural Story we tell outselves — and that is killing us
* The myths that form our lives – yikes!

I said last week in this space that in the days ahead I was going to lay the groundwork for agreement on the ending of violence in our world — and see if we can pull together our own group of Agreeing People to counterbalance the group of people who seem to feel that terrorism and violence is the most effective method of affecting permanent change in the way humanity creates its collective reality.
What those of us who disagree with this approach have an opportunity to now do is extract a commitment from our own group of Agreeing People to move forward together in a new and powerful way that could bring an end, at last, to that threat of a War to End All Wars that I described in a fictional scenario last week, and to produce, at last, Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Humans Everywhere.
We are talking here about creating a whole new Cultural Story; a New Idea about Who We Are in relationship to God, to Life, and to Each Other. And that is what we’ll explore here. We’re going to raise the flag and see if anyone rallies round it.
We begin by observing that, as challenging and off-putting as it is for some people to admit…

…it is our present Cultural Story about all of these things that is killing us. This is not easy for many human beings to acknowledge because they have based their entire experience, they have foundationed their entire behavior, they have based their entire approach to life, on the Cultural Story of Humanity as it now exists.
A Cultural Story is a story which has been handed down from generation to generation, across centuries and millennia. It is the Story that you tell yourself about yourself.
Humanity’s present Cultural Story is based on Illusions (shown below in parentheses) that produce Myths, and not on an understanding of reality.
The current CULTURAL STORY OF HUMANS is that…
1. God has an agenda. (Need Exists)
2. The outcome of life is in doubt. (Failure Exists)
3. You are separate from God. (Disunity Exists)
4. There is not enough. (Insufficiency Exists)
5. There is something you have to do. (Requirement Exists)
6. If you do not do it, you will be punished. (Judgment Exists)
7. The punishment is everlasting damnation. (Condemnation Exists.)
8. Love is, therefore, conditional. (Conditionality Exists)
9. Knowing and meeting the conditions renders you superior. (Superiority Exists)
10. You do not know that these are illusions. (Ignorance Exists.)
This Cultural Story has been so ingrained in us that we now live it fully and completely. This, we tell each other, “is just The Way It Is.”
We have been telling each other that now for many centuries. Indeed, for millennia after millennia. For so long, in fact, that Myths have grown up around these Illusions and Stories. Some of the most prominent of these Myths have been reduced to concepts, such as…
• Thy will be done.
• Survival of the fittest.
• To the victor go the spoils.
• You were born in original sin.
• The wages of sin are death.
• Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord.
• Ignorance is bliss. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.
• God only knows.
…and many others, equally destructive and non-serving.
Based on these Illusions, Stories and Myths — none of which have anything to do with Ultimate Reality — humans have come to think about Life in a very interesting way.
We will explore that here tomorrow.