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Warren William Luce
LET’S MAKE OUR WORLD BETTER
How Politics and Religion Stand in the Way
by
Warren “Bill” Luce
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I Politics
1. A Perverse Political Atmosphere
2. A Better Way to Curb Terrorism
3. How to Really Cut Health Care Costs
4. Deficit Spending and the National Debt
5. Jobs and the Economy
6. National Security
7. Immigration Reform
8. Social Security
9. U. S. Postal Service
10. The Middle East Solution
Part II Religion
11. Religion: The Great Barrier
12. The Nature of Our World
Blessing and Prayer
13. Does God Really Exist
14. The Nature of God
15. The Nature of Man
The Physical Body and Conscious Mind
The Soul or Subconscious
16. As We Think So Are We
17. Materialism and Spiritualism
18. The Experiencers
19. The Joy of Death
Heaven, Hell and the Devil
20. Health, Healing and Medicine
21. Conclusion
Introduction
This book, in part, is a lament for our magnificent world and its remarkable inhabitants who have gone astray, making it something less than the paradise that was intended for us. Perhaps you have read how the astronauts describe earth as stunningly beautiful, and the feelings they experience of awe, wonder and joy and when they view it from space. Even we earthbound mortals stand in awe when we behold its majestic mountains, the tremendous expanse and power of its oceans and the magnificent towering forests, green pastures and waving fields of grain which give us sustenance and life.
This work explains how we have gone astray, what it has done to our beautiful world and what we must do to right ourselves and make our world better. We need to understand that we humans determine our own destiny.
Surely, no one can deny the capabilities of mankind. The human mind has brought forth many things from nothingness into existence, from an idea to an actuality simply through the creative effort of thought. We create ideas, like skyscrapers, automobiles, airplanes, instant worldwide communications, space travel, and transform them into reality. Think of the beauty man can construct, not only architecturally, but in less tangible areas such as music and the written word. We create music out of nothingness and then bring it to reality in the form of song or through instruments that we construct. Consider the beautiful prose and poetry that man has brought forth, through imagination.
But neither can we deny the ability of man to create ugliness in the world such as war, starvation and harm to our environment. So, what is our destiny? Is mankind to descend completely into uncivilized behavior and depravity and the world be destroyed in some Armageddon-like cataclysm as the theologians have convinced many to believe? Or do we have a choice? Can human behavior be changed? Can our world be changed for the better? Could mankind possibly achieve world peace?
There is no doubt in my mind that the answer to the latter questions is yes. But not until we change our perceptions. Perception is everything! Behavior modification, more often than not, is unsuccessful, but once perceptions have been altered, a change in behavior automatically follows. We will be reconsidering how we perceive politics, terrorism, health care, government finances, Social Security, national security, immigration, the US Postal Service, religion, foreign policy, war, God, human nature and even death.
For example, most of us are aware of the adverse affect that politics can have; a prime example being what the politicians are doing to the United States. We have a dysfunctional Congress, with the political parties, out of greed, vying for power and wealth, causing our country great harm, as well as having an undesirable affect on the rest of the world. While religion has done some good, we would be hard pressed to find any redeeming qualities in politics. They lend to corruption. They are polarizing. They are the prime cause of the U.S. financial problems. They are the direct cause of our dysfunctional Congress. They are a major factor in the Middle East conundrum.
Religion is generally considered as something good to have. However, if we honestly analyze the effects that religion has had on humanity, we would have to conclude that it has caused mankind a great deal of grief. It has divided the human race like no other issue, causing discord, enmity and violence when it should be uniting people in harmony with one another and with God. It is at the root of much of the world’s problems. It is a major cause of violence in the world, from the feeding of early Christians to the lions for entertainment, to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust and most wars. Hitler claimed to be a Christian and thought he was doing God’s will. The Japanese Shinto Authority believed it was their spiritual destiny to control the Far East and the Pacific, thus their attack on Pearl Harbor. Look at what Protestants and Catholics (so-called Christians) did to one another in Ireland. How about the Sunnis and Shiites blowing each other to bits because of their contradictory beliefs about Muhammad’s successor?
We are told that global terrorism is a serious threat to all of us. It is not. Our fear of terrorism is not justified. We have been brainwashed by both government and media hype to believe world terrorism poses a grave danger to U.S. national security and our individual safety. The facts dictate otherwise. Deaths from terrorism since 9/11 in the U.S. have been primarily at the hands of American terrorists. You are much more likely to be killed in an automobile accident than from a terrorist incident.
We have been conditioned to believe that God is in charge of our world and wonder why He lets all the bad things happen to humanity. The truth is that God does not interfere in our lives. He has given us free choice and told us that we are to have dominion. Obviously, we have made some terrible choices. We are in charge and that is why bad things happen to good people; they are of our own doing. When we understand that and accept responsibility for our actions and things that happen in the world, then the world will change for the better.
We sorely need to change the perception of our own being. We have been conditioned, both by religion and in a secular sense, to believe that we are flawed, poor sinful beings, that it is human to err and it is our nature to cause all the hell that goes on in the world. It has become the greatest, most harmful self-fulfilling prophecy in the history of mankind. And it’s all false. We need to perceive ourselves as magnificent sentient beings, who have the power to choose right or wrong, who are masters of our own destiny, and who can control circumstances along the road that leads to it. We need to listen to God who has told us we are “made in his image, wonderfully and respectfully made, the light of the world and salt of the earth and to let our light shine forth so as to make the world good.”
Our perceptions of heaven, hell and death, are badly flawed, conditioned by false religious dogma. For example, we need to question the existence of hell. It is absurd to claim that God, whom we believe is perfect in love and justice, created such a terrible place where He sends people, including little children, to suffer eternally because they aren’t perfect or do not believe in a certain religious dogma.
We need to open our minds to what we have tragically and unnecessarily done to our world and one another. We must awaken to the truth that through clear perception, the right choice and true application of thought, we have the power to right ourselves and thus, our world. We all hope for a better and peaceful world. Hope springs eternal in the human heart but we need to understand it is love that will bring it to fruition. There is a universal human want to know that everything will turn out all right in the long run. This work can fulfill that hope.
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