{"id":4175,"date":"2013-02-26T11:27:05","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T16:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=4175"},"modified":"2013-02-26T11:32:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T16:32:45","slug":"one-of-the-most-challenging-passages-ever-from-cwg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=4175","title":{"rendered":"One of the most challenging messages ever from God…"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most controversial statements made in the Conversations with God <\/em>dialogues <\/em>was this pronouncement: \u201cNobody does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world\u201d I was flabbergasted when I first heard this, and, of course, I asked God for an immediate explanation. “What can you possibly mean?”, I wanted to know. Here is the challenging exchange that followed…<\/p>\n

GOD: I mean, no one ever sees their actions as \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: But some peoples\u2019 actions are <\/i>wrong, whether they see them as that or not.<\/p>\n

GOD: Perhaps this is a good time to bring up the Seventh New Revelation<\/span>…<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only What Works and What Does Not Work, depending upon what it is that you seek to be, do or have.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: How can you say that? How can you say \u201cthere\u2019s no such thing as right and wrong\u201d?<\/p>\n

GOD: Because it\u2019s true. \u201cRight\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d are figments of your imagination. They are judgments you are making, labels that you are creating as you go along. They are values that you are deciding upon<\/i>, depending on what it is that you want, individually and as a society. When what you want changes, what you decide to call \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d changes. Your own history proves this.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: Nonsense. The basics don\u2019t change.<\/p>\n

GOD: They don\u2019t?<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: No.<\/p>\n

GOD: Give me an example of a \u201cbasic\u201d value that doesn\u2019t change.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: Okay, killing. \u201cThou shalt not kill\u201d doesn\u2019t change. That\u2019s a basic human value.<\/p>\n

GOD: Unless what you want is to win a war.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: No fair. That\u2019s self-defense. We have a right to defend ourselves.<\/p>\n

GOD: Well, not all wars are wars of self-defense. Your planet has known such things as wars of aggression.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: Yes, but let\u2019s not talk about them. That only complicates things.<\/p>\n

GOD: I see.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: Our country never aggresses upon anyone. The only wars that we <\/i>ever fight are wars of self-defense<\/i>.<\/p>\n

GOD: Your country only fights wars of self-defense?<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

GOD: Of course it\u2019s right.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: And what does that mean?<\/p>\n

GOD: It means that you\u2019ve just proven what I said before. There is not a country and there is not a group of people on earth that imagines itself to be an aggressor. Everyone who enters into war does so saying that they are defending something. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Do you see this now? I am making a repeated point of this because it is something you need to look at very closely.<\/span><\/p>\n

On your planet there are no \u201cattackers,\u201d only \u201cdefenders.\u201d You achieve this interesting paradox by simply calling all attack a defense. In this way you are able to change your basic values from moment to moment as it suits you, without seeming to change them at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

You get to kill people with impunity to obtain what you want by simply saying that you had no choice. You had to defend<\/i> yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

All attackers see their actions in this way. Indeed, you have seen your own <\/i>attacks on others exactly this way. <\/i>Not just in war, but in every situation of conflict in your life, from battlefields to bedrooms, command centers to board rooms. Nobody attacks, everybody defends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing another\u2019s attack on you<\/i> in <\/i>this way can produce miracles. Yet you could never see another\u2019s attacks in this way so long as you imagine that there is such a thing as \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: This is very hard to swallow, I hope you know that. The idea of a world in which there is no such thing as right and wrong is very difficult to accept. It seems to me that we really do have some basic values here on this planet. Values shared by all people\u2026or certainly, by most of them.<\/p>\n

GOD: Well, don\u2019t be shy. Give me another example.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: Okay, the prohibition against suicide. Most people consider that the taking of one\u2019s own life is wrong. It is immoral.<\/p>\n

GOD: Yes, on the question of ending one\u2019s life, it is the current imaging of the majority of people on your planet that it is \u201cnot okay\u201d to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarily, many of you still insist that it is not okay to assist another who wishes to end his or her life.<\/span><\/p>\n

In both cases you say this should be \u201cagainst the law.\u201d You have come to this conclusion, presumably, because of the ending of the life in question occurs relatively quickly. Actions which end a life over a somewhat longer period of time are not against the law, even though they achieve the same result.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, if a person in your society kills himself with a gun, his family member lose insurance benefits. If he does so with cigarettes, they do not.<\/span><\/p>\n

If your doctors assists you in your suicide it is called manslaughter, while if a tobacco company does, it is called commerce.<\/span><\/p>\n

With you, it seems to be merely a question of time. The legality of self-destruction\u2014the \u201crightness\u201d or \u201cwrongness\u201d of it\u2014seems to have much to do with how quickly <\/i>the deed is done, as well as who is doing it. The faster the death, the more \u201cwrong\u201d is seems to be. The slower the death, the more it slips into \u201cokayness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what a truly humane society would conclude. By and reasonable definition of what you would call \u201chumane,\u201d the shorter the death, the better. Yet your society punishes those who would seek to do the humane thing, and rewards those who would do the insane.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is insane to think that endless suffering is what God requires, and that a quick, humane ending to the suffering is \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPunish the humane, reward the insane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the motto which only a society of beings with limited understanding could embrace.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you poison your system by inhaling carcinogens, you poison your system by eating food treated with chemicals that over the long run kill you, and you poison your system by breathing air which you have continually polluted. You poison your system in a hundred different ways over a thousand different moments, and you do this knowing these substances are no good for you.<\/i> But because it takes a longer time to them to kill you, you commit suicide with impunity.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: What about stealing? It\u2019s a basic human value that we don\u2019t take from another that which is not ours.<\/p>\n

GOD: Unless you think that another has no right to it, and you do.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: That\u2019s not fair. If someone else has no right to something and we do, then, precisely because it is not theirs, but ours<\/i>, we have a right to take it away from them. <\/i><\/p>\n

GOD: Of course you do. According to your values, that is true. Particularly, your value called \u201cownership\u201d (which we shall discuss later). Yet that is precisely my point. You are doing nothing here but proving my point.<\/span><\/p>\n

My point is that your values change as your perceptions change. They change as your desires change, as the things you want<\/i> change.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want something that another party thinks is theirs, and if you want it or imagine that you need it bad enough, you will justify yourself in taking it. Believe me. You have done this. You have done exactly this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Values are a moveable feast. You cannot think of a single \u201cbasic human value\u201d that has not been temporarily set aside, altered, or completely abandoned at one time or another by human beings who have simply changed their mind about what it is they wanted to be, do, or have in a particular moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you think, therefore, that there is such a thing as absolute \u201cright\u201d and absolute \u201cwrong,\u201d you are deluding yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

NEALE: You mean, we are \u201cwrong\u201d?<\/p>\n

GOD: That\u2019s very clever, and it points up a major problem with your word \u201cwrong.\u201d It has for centuries been used in at least two different ways\u2014to mean that which is \u201cmistaken,\u201d and to mean that which is \u201cimmoral.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An action that is called \u201cmistaken\u201d is an action that does not produce a desired or predicted outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

An action that is called \u201cimmoral\u201d is an action that violates some life code or larger law a society has put in place\u2014or that a society imagines its Deity to have put in place.<\/span><\/p>\n

The difficulty with morals, as I have just pointed out, is that they change from time to time and place to place, depending upon what it is a society or its members are trying to accomplish. Morality is, therefore, extremely subjective.<\/span><\/p>\n

The difficulty with \u201cmistakes\u201d is that in religious societies or contexts they are often equated with moral failure, rather than simply operational <\/i>failure. This makes it not merely inconvenient or unfortunate to have made a mistake, but sinful. <\/i>\u00a0In certain religious or morality-based cultures, normal human error can be considered an offense against God\u2014<\/i>punishable by severe and disproportionate sanctions or suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have already looked at some examples of this. Here are more:<\/span><\/p>\n