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   %RELIGIOUS LEADER INTERPRET SCRIPTURE EXPERIENCE 930421

     Beware of religious leaders who encourage you to take
seriously their interpretations and the interpretations of
other persons like them when they presume to say what  the
real meaning of scriptures are,  without encouraging their
listeners  to  evaluate  what  is  said  by  them  and the
scriptures in terms of common people's experiences  talked
about  in  open and honest dialogue  among  common people.
Such religious leaders are setting up situations in  which
great  power  will  be concentrated in them by  taking the
power  away  from common people.  They  are  power  hungry
rather than full of wisdom.

     The  true meaning of scriptures cannot be known apart
from relating  them to the daily personal  experiences  of
common  people in open and honest dialogue with the common
people. It is arrogant of anyone to claim to know what the
meaning  of  scriptures is to the  common  people  without
being involved in  intimate open and honest  dialogue with
the   common   people  in  regards   to   their   personal
experiences. In such arrogance religious people presume to
know  how  to prescribe  what is good behavior and what is
evil  behavior  on  the  part  of  people  whose  personal
experiences they do not know. Such prescriptions are often
pretentious   and  uninformed.   Religious leaders do  not
reduce  the  level  of pretense  when  they  claim  to  be
speaking on behalf of God with the authority of God.

     Personal and communal integrity cannot be promoted by
prescriptions  and  proscriptions imposed upon people from
the outside;   for such  prescriptions  and  proscriptions
engender alienation which is disintegrative and evil. Thus
no  system  of  rules,   regulations,   morals,    ethics,
prescriptions,  proscriptions, taboos, etc. can be imposed
from the outside upon people as individuals or communities
apart  from  open  and  honest dialogue  about  their real
personal   experiences---and  the  results  of   such   an
imposition  be  the promotion of  personal   and  communal
integrity. People who claim otherwise should be considered
carefully   to   see   if   they   are   participants   in
disintegrative  collusions,  addictions,  and patterns  of
codependency.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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