Observations From the Spectrum

Like many, I find solace and peace in nature, and to me, nature is my connection to God and my faith in things bigger than me. But I am not static or rigid in my thinking, I believe change is adaptation is evolution is finding solutions and implementing them so things can be.

Static is the opposite of evolution like religion is the opposite of creativity. Those who are strict followers of a religion don’t have the capability of evolving because too many of their choices are dictated based on their religion.

Those who are not strict followers of an organized religion have the ability to evolve and therefore a direct and easy pathway to creativity. Afterall, man’s only contribution to the evolutionary process is innovation.

This, certainly, may be a stretch but I think there is enough evidence to support my claim. I will start first close to home. My father was a painter of some note. He was also, in his younger years, a Jesuit priest for the Catholic Church. 

As I was brain gaming and mind mapping this blog, I realized that my dad had evolved as a man as well as a painter and his later works are those that he is most recognized for. I remember having conversations with him in which he clearly stated that Faith is important but how we get there is not. 

By his end of days, he was a Catholic, Buddhist, New-Age Hindu all mixed up into one. And his paintings reflected this. In his early work, he was tortured. It was evident in the color scheme and the themes and titles of the pieces. It wasn’t until he accepted life as it is, not as how someone designed it, that he found peace in his personal, spiritual and artistic life.

From the moment he found peace, his paintings went in a whole different direction and the response to his work resonated with more people as it should. Faith and love are for everyone. Religions are for the few.

But, this was not the catalyst to this piece. A few weeks ago I wondered if Native Americans would have evolved like Indians to view the Buffalo as a sacred animal to be nurtured and protected instead of hunted, eaten and used like the Indians with the Sacred Cows based on new information.

Creating a society in which we live symbiotically with nature is better than one in which we try to dominate it. We are in real-time coming to terms with this now. Diet is one way we can do this. A vegetarian whole-food diet using some animal products is better for the long-term survival of humanity. Growing animals for food only does more harm than good.

Unfortunately, change only occurs when our need for it outweighs our desire to stay the same. This is why All religions have a charlatan quality to it. The traditions of religions are static and therefore stopping its followers from change, adaptation and evolution. 

Tobacco is a prime example of this when we compare its first use to its use now. Tobacco when first cultivated until about 1995 was a recreational substance much like alcohol and caffeine. Harm was debatable therefore making use acceptable.

Today, however, we know that tobacco, especially in the forms of cigarettes, kills. And not only do they kill the user, they kill those around the user. Making the user a suicidal murderer in the long-term. Basic cause and effect.

Yet, some religions still use tobacco and believe it to be an acceptable substance for its followers. Why? Because the religion, or those that control the religion, know that they will lose followers the moment real rules are implemented. And it will happen quickly and for two reasons.

One, a followers desire to stay the same and not change. So they will leave religion behind so that they can continue the behaviors or ideas that have changed to meet the demands of modern day.

The second is that followers will wake up and see that religion is not the path to God. Faith is. Faith is creative, not static. So when a person wakes up from their static stupor and sees creativity as the path, nothing built with pillars and immovable foundations will elicit any of their attention.

Life is not static. It is ever moving and evolving. Religion is static. It survives based on being immovable and unwilling to evolve. Religion is man-made. Nothing man-made is perfect except art and art is made by the creative mind not a static one.

• All works at Observations from the Spectrum written by Dylan Netter
• Observationsfromthespectrum.org
• OFTS.blog 
• On? a third point of view – book of Essays
• Marinehippie.com podcast w/ Docstodden.com – dialogue exploring politics and musings of life 
• Horizoncoaching.org – English Tutor and Guide