COMMENT OF INTERVIEWER:  The break was much shorter than expected so with only a few minutes to spare I was able to return and continue….

 
THE ANSWER:  This can be a rather complicated answer to such a simple and rather innocent question.  I will no doubt have the need to tap into Lamah’s own memory banks to find some of the means to express my own thoughts and understanding of man’s perplexing plight with this whole question of what is real.  It makes little or no difference whether man’s belief is vested in some supreme being, a methodological God, a powerful spirit, some evil spirit or even ugly devil, the simple image of the sun, or even some living human being claiming to being a god; they are all the devious creations of man himself without the aid or assistance of any divine power, and probably deviously created only to possess and maintain power and dominion over the otherwise free spirits of men and women.  It was this very oppressive nature of the Sadducees and Pharisees of my own Hebrew traditions that accounted for the immense sadness that was expressed on the faces of my own brothers and sisters some two thousand years ago; I’m not sure that this be wilderness has ever shown any real change since that time when I had observed this sadness on the faces of my brother Hebrews.  It just doesn’t seem that much has changed!  You should be reminded that it was precisely this state of ominous depression that gave rise to my on simple ministry aimed specifically at bringing a bit of joy into the lives of my Hebrew brothers and sisters.  It was in my own naïveté that gave rise to my own failure to realize that such a devilish result could have ever been born of such a once simple suggestion as to how one should live in order to experience joy in one’s life.  It was the beginnings of a divergence from my one and only commandment to love one another by even some of my own faithful disciples that caused Matthew some twenty years after my departure from Judea to seek me out and together put into writing my own original message as best we could.  Matthew was seriously concerned in his own right, and now I see why he was so rightfully disturbed at what he had seen being initially manifested by even some of my own once faithful followers.  I now see and am deeply sadden that the sole purpose in the creation of the holy Roman Catholic Church was to establish a religion that could demand and maintain the blind and unquestioned obedience of its subjects that were intended to be nothing more than spiritual slaves, obedient first to the church and equally to Rome.  The very fact that it established a complicated and irrefutable hierarchy of power that demanded this ominous obedience dramatically illustrates its gross departure from my own once simply ministry.  I never saw myself as any better, superior to or more important than any of my other Hebrew brothers and sisters, and most of them were pitifully poor, not only in material things but also most assuredly in spirit.  I may have been unduly blessed with a gifted education, but it was that very education they gave me the necessary insights as to how I could possibly best serve and minister to my own people and save them from their experienced despair.  It is this broad and thorough liberal arts education that I have so admired about Lamah that gave him he necessary tools to employ this most unusual interview in the first place.  This world-wide education that we share is precisely the very source of our mutual concern for the ultimate plight of all of mankind and the real answers for either of us certainly didn’t come from any of the Jewish Scriptures that were such an awful testament or depiction of man, and only served to further impugn the “fear of God” into its own people.  I never thought to or ever sought to have any dominion over any of my brother’s spirits or even demanded any obedience or adherents to my simple teachings.  The belief in some higher power or God only robs the individual of his or her own and singular importance as an integral part of the entire world-wide brotherhood of all mankind.  There are no supreme beings, and equally, there are no human beings that are worthy to demand this kind of supreme and unquestionable obedience from or worship by any of his fellow brothers and sisters and that includes every race and creed thereof.  The very creation and maintenance of the concept that man is somehow born in and of original sin is just another meaningless mythology deviously designed only to enslave the minds and spirits of those who are too ignorant to know any better.  Ignorance is no sin; it is just the sad absence of the truth.  That is why I always suggested that the only true salvation from this ominous oppression, created and maintain by other men, was the simple acquisition, recognition and then the ultimate acceptance of the truth.  Gods, devils and any other countless superficial or metaphysical beings are only perfunctory creations designed to put fear in man's lives and hold total dominion over their intended free spirits.  I am in full sync with Lamah’s own take on the matter with his own decree: “The belief in anything that is not real, is to become less than nothing.”  Break a man's spirit and you can control his very essence and life.  Convince him that he is born broken; you have very likely destroyed his own desire or ability to find salvation and/or any true joy in his own life.  That is why he often continues, throughout his or her entire life, the seeking of salvation somewhere outside of him or herself.  Give any man or woman the idea or concept of a god or a devil and they are more apt to lose their own innate ability to take responsibility for there own salvation, and of course, even more sadly, their ultimate damnation; both of which are part of life and not some conceptualized afterlife that most fortunately the Hebrews understood that part of life.  And that understanding is the very source for the ultimate establishment of their own laws.  All of this superior posturing of the Christian churches, particularly in America, is why I'm so amused, no, disgusted, with some of the ostentatious structures that house these floundering ministries and some of the ridiculous costumes worn by the modern-day clergy that both appear to be some contrived symbol of faultless righteousness that gives the church and/or its clergy the undeserved and certainly the forged authority to demand obedience to their truly false and unreal god.  Of course, in the absence of some true god, the only actual explanation for this auspicious display of superior authority is the exercise of civil and carnal power.  I never wanted or displayed any of this illusory superiority for myself simply because I never saw myself as possessing any greater importance than those to whom I only sought to free from their debilitating oppressions.  Believe in a god, even passionately if you must, but if that god deprives you of your own divine nature and seeks to offer you only some felonious salvation that comes from anywhere but your own heart and ability to love, then you have abdicated any hope for experiencing true joy in your life.  You're more apt to spend the whole of your life searching for something that can only be found within the bounds of your own unique essence.  It is sad that the church has abandoned many of its lost souls to seek their salvation in a bottle of alcohol or in a syringe full of opiates.  The very meaning of my original words have no doubt been intentionally twisted and corrupted when I was to have said, “If you have known me, you have known God.”  The fact remains that I am no god, and the only thing that I might have actually expressed was the idea that man alone possesses that divine ability to love one another and that love by its very nature needs to be totally unconditional.  The truth is that man shares the equal ability to display hatred when presented with that terrible option; hate is simply the absence of love.  Any man is apt to first encounter this acquired ability to hate when he is first denied the freedom to express love.  That is why abused children often lead a life deprived of giving or even the ability of receiving love.  This awful and contrived concept of sin is another creation of man only to redefine and hide the truth and reality that sin is likewise and only the absence of love.  And I repeat, hate, were it a reality in and of itself, is likewise only the absence of love.  This is the basis for my having expressed that, upon this one commandment of loving one another, as well as one's self, rests the entirety of the law.  Are there any evil acts?  Yes!  But most of these evil acts are more likely to be conducted by those abused as well as those others not abused who have equally failed to love themselves simply because they have been so falsely led to believe that they are not worthy of any love.  I may or may not have ever addressed a prostitute in a manner that was reported in the Bible, but I certainly would not have ever addressed her “sin” as though it defined her life.  I would have more likely told her that she was far more worthy of a good life and would have convinced her to seek that more joyous and truly rewarding life; certainly not to “go forth and sin no more!”  I was “offering,” not “demanding” a change.  I accepted that I might in some fashion be “my brother’s keeper,” but I only took that to mean that I was to offer them the truth; I never took it upon myself the burden of their salvation.  I never judged any of my brothers and sisters because I had come to fully understand their pain and their uncanny need to strike back at a cruel world that had likely shown them only hardships and oppression, even from their own once trusted shepherds.  No truly loving god, were there ever actually such a supreme shepherd, would ever inflict anything but joy?  Love only begets joy: never hate or oppression!  The very expression of the “fear of God” or “God’s wrath” is a contradiction of divine terms.  The idea of a Catholic pope who lays claim to speaking with or for God is another divine travesty designed only to give the appearance of authority to a man who is no better than a murderer who has taken the life of another man.  Why is this?  Because the Pope in his own deceptive expression of supreme authority robs the Catholic parishioner of his or her own inalienable right to determine their own destination in his or her one and only life in this once more beautiful and plentiful Garden of Eden.  I once sought only to reinstate that basic and most fundamental right in every man, woman and child, whether a Hebrew or of any other faith.  So, you asked me as to whether there is any harm from believing that there is a god.  The only true harm is the dreadful risk of losing one's soul; without a soul there is absolutely no true meaning to one's life.  Look within!  Even Buddha understood this and encouraged others to seek that inward and enlightened path to life; not death!