1. Google

I found Thomas Orr with Google. Search, click, another click and suddenly there he was. The front page of the website had the title "Freedom Gates", a number of references to some political essays and the intriguing link to "True religion".

Skip politics, let's take a look at the "true" religion, my curiosity demanded. So, this was what I did. I had previously found many fascinating stories and opinions on the internet but the "True religion" was something I haven't seen yet. The text broken into seventeen paragraphs was signed by "Thomas Orr, the Spokesman for God" and it provided about twenty minutes of reading, which was quite memorable. It is ... quite new - I wanted to repeat the line of the Emperor from the movie Amadeus - and, was it my imagination? - I could here Thomas Orr answering with pride and excitment, as Mozart did in the movie, "Yes, it is new. Did you like it?".

According to Thomas Orr, the prophet, the true religion is secular. It preaches freedom and suggests that followers engage in personal search for the spiritual meaning of life rather than follow a rigid doctrine or accept the leadership of religious authorities. So far nothing of extraordinary, sounds like a familiar mix of New Age and Oriental Mysticism, but then Thomas Orr brings up the Bible. The true meaning of the Bible - he says, or should I say, teaches - is political. There is no value in Christian virtues of loving the neighbour and doing good deeds if the issues of social justice are ignored. Following Jesus Christ means building the Kingdom of God as the political system. This is what the story of Creation is all about, the recipie to build a nation around the concepts of freedom and social harmony.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

The Light is the Knowledge, it is the vision of fundamental principles, on which the Kingdom of God is to be founded - explains Thomas Orr. It would be the Constitution in our American reality. I am the light, said Jesus Christ. I am the light, repeats Thomas Orr - my job is to write the God's Constitution.

Waters are laws and regulations. Separating waters above the firmament from the waters under the firmament is to implement the wisdom of separation of power in the governement, or separation of governement and religion, whatever interpretation fits the situation.

Interpretation of the Biblical Flood and Noah's Ark is equally innovative, if I might say. Flood is, in essence, cleaning up the mess of unruly religions each trying to undermine the secular state and political authorities. Thomas Orr does not propose destruction of the religions. He offers each a license to operate in the Kingdom of God within the guideliness of good behaviour, or else be destroyed by the flood of tough laws. Each religion attempts to judge how we behave - says Thomas Orr. The Judgement Day is to reverse that. Now, we are going to judge religions on how well they behave and condemn to hell those that don't.

Parting the water of the Red Sea was less of a job for a magician and more of what the lawyers do, continues Thomas Orr with the subject of waters. Well, I had to admit that even if he is crazy he is quite consistent. May I say, logical?

In the first reading of the Freedom Gates Thomas Orr challenged my concept of a prophet. I was looking for a description of how his revelations came about. Was it a vision in the tradition of what Apostle Paul experienced on the road to Damascus? Was it a dream? Nothing of the sort. "I have not received any divine revelation as some would expect of a God's prophet and I do not wish to experience one. The truth does not need revelations to be recognized as truth and the need for revelations disqualifies an aspiring prophet." - says Thomas Orr. Wow, it is either very profound, or crazy, or both. I knew I had to investigate further.

2. The Prophet answers my email

2.1 Q. I found your website very interesting and would like to learn more about your ideas on religion and politics. Can you help me?

A. I will gladly answer by email any specific questions you might have but on one condition. You have to accept that I hold the copyrights to all the materials I will share with you.

2.2 Q. Do you know God?

A. Your question if I know God does not make sense. Let me explain. Assume you are a physicist and you just published a paper on some particular cosmic radiation. What would you answer if I asked you: "Do you know Cosmos?". You would probably say that I am asking the wrong question. There are plenty of good questions I should ask instead. Does your paper contribute to our knowledge of cosmic radiation? Was the thesis of your paper verified and accepted by the scientific community?

Of course, I know God in my personal way, which is probably somewhat similar to and somewhat different from how you know God, or how you reject the concept of God for that matter. I criticize religious authorities but I am not saying that the Pope doesn't know God while I do. I am simply saying that whatever the Pope teaches on the subjects of spirituality, morality, ethics and conditions of salvation are simply and plainly wrong. I am also saying that what I teach on those subject is correct.

You see, your question brings up an interesting observation. We expand our knowledge of physics, and any knowledge for that matter, by patiently observing, asking questions, formulating hypothesis, testing hypothesis and verifying the results in the peer review process. The progress has always been the work of very few most talented people who are passionate about their work. Gaining political power and authority has no relevance in the quest for becoming an accomplished scientist. Why then gaining spiritual wisdom should be different from success in science or in any other field of work? Spiritual success and authority are not granted by assuming this or other religious title.

In the Catholic Church mystics, monks and nuns who devoted their lifes to prayers and search for God gained far more insight into the world of spiritual, and got closer to experiencing and understanding God than any pope ever has. The Pope, by comparison is just a clerk, a bureaucrat in a powerful institution. Yet, the Church insists that the Pope is the ultimate authority on all spiritual matters. This is ridiculous especially in the face of all grave errors and mistakes the Church, under "divine" guidance of the Pope, committed in the past. The world must be crazy, however, because this state of affair, having incompetent people claiming the authority to serve ultimate verdicts on the subject of God, morality and ethics, is the norm not only in the Catholic Church but in most of the Churches of the world.

Many people believe without questioning that reading the Bible will provide them with knowledge about God. Why? We tried this approach in science in the Medieval Ages and we failed. The medieval "methodology" consisted of searching for the truth in the works of established authorities. Consequently, people believed that a horse had as many teeth as Ariostotle taught. It took centuries before somebody actually counted horse's teeth and found that Aristotle made a mistake. Compare where science was in the Medieval Ages, when studying authorities was the only methodology available, with where it is now, when we finely got the courage to investigate "God's secrets" with our own minds, and you will understand where we are in our understanding of the spiritual.

Dramatic expansion of our spiritual knowledge will happen in this new millennium and it will happen in the same way any progress happens. We will have spiritual giants building on the work of other spiritual giants and thus expanding our spiritual knowledge beyond what is imaginable today. Spiritual work will become as rigorous and as effective as science. In fact, spiritual research will merge with science. Only then we will understand how primitive and incoherent our spiritual beliefs were in the preceding millennia.

Until that happens I will politely ignore the "spiritual" teachings of this or other church and concentrate instead on examining what those churches contribute to the well being of humanity.

To give you an example of how dramatically our understanding of God will have to change consider this. For a long time people were imagining that God is sort of a person. When we die and go to heaven we are supposed to see God. Well, recently some scientists decided to study what happens inside the brain of mystics - Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns, when they experience spiritual ecstasy, which they describe as "seing", or experiencing God. The results of those studies lead the scientists to conclude that human brain is "prewired" for spiritual experience. If it is ever possible to see God, they say, it is not with our physical eyes but rather with those brain centers that get activated during deep meditation or fervent devotional prayers. In the light of those studies it is only logical if we shift our focus and instead of searching for God in the vast Cosmos we will start exploring our human brains.

When I was a student of mathematics the famous Fermat theorem was not proven yet. However, the Fermat hypothesis had almost magical power over people and many of them felt personally challenged by it and devoted tremendous amount of energy trying to solve it.

A friend of mine, a mathematician, was in charge of reading the papers submitted to the Polish Academy of Sciences on the subject of Fermat's theorem. He told me it was a difficult and frustrating job to evaluate those papers. As a mathematician he knew that engineers, teachers, and people of different backgrounds submitting those papers had zero chance of accidently finding the proof of the famous Fermat theorem. Yet, he had to read each paper and find inevitable logical mistakes in them so each author could receive a proper and respectful response from the Polish Academy of Sciences. Well, listening to "spiritual" quarrells of different churches is like reading the papers on the Fermat's theorem. Fortunately, unlike my friend I have no obligation of taking the claims of those churches seriously. You may want to point out that belief in God is so widespread, and some attributes of God as a superios power who controls and judges us, are so commonly accepted, that there must be something unique about the subject and that this uniqueness validates the spiritual claims made by churches. Well, I will offer you a simple explanation. The subject of God stirs passions and urges people to make the most illogical claims for the similar reason the Fermat theory compelled otherwise rational people to get obsessed with the task of solving the impossible. The Fermat theory is formulated in very simple terms and almost anybody can understands what it is about. People tried to solve it for the same reason they fall for the "get rich quickly" scheme. People believe that what they need is a little luck and they will become famous overnight. It is the same with the concept of God. It sounds deceptively simple. Anybody feels entitled to have his personal opinion about it. In addition, the concept of God can be used to manipulate other people, to scare them into submission and take advantage of them. It can be used to make one feel superior to "sinners" and "evildoers". So people go ahead and use the concept of God for their little pathetic means as they did when Jesus came and exposed them.

2.3 Q. Are there any religious figures you judge more favorably than others?

A. I like Dalaj Lama. I also like christians like Jimmy Carter and Wendell Berry. I like the Amish people. And for the record I don't like Mother Teresa but I like Shirley MacLaine.

2.4 Q. You said "I am not a spiritual advisor, I am a politician". Why then you come forward claiming to teach the "true religion"?

A. First of all, religion is political and politics are religions. Show me one religion not seeking the political influence and power. Show me a politician that doesn't impose on society "religious" values demending that citizens be patriotic, respect authority of the law and make sacrifice of their lives fighting the wars. A friend of mine says that American Justice system, and American Political system make up together the biggest religion in this country. The Constitution is like the Bible, out of control judges and congressmen act like priests. Acts of disobedience are punished like heresy. We even have the equivalent of superstition and magic. Manufacturers are placing very strange disclaimers on their products, a practice very similar to casting magic spells to keep the bad luck off. Those disclaimers, like spells, offer only illusionary protection because if something goes wrong manufacturers will be sued anyway. (One of the strangest disclaimers I've seen was the warning on the cardboard for covering the windshield to keep the sun rays from overheating the car. The warning says: "Remove before driving".) "Secular" state - my friend explains - means only that no religion is allowed to be more important than the biggest religion of them all, the state. Every religion is very jelous about other religions and this explains the passion with which the "separation of state and religion" is enforced in this country.

In the area of politics I have to reclaim the meaning of such important words as freedom and justice, which got twisted and highjacked by the priests-politicians of false religions. Isn't it a religious work? Don't I teach the "true religion" by doing that? But in addition I also do something very important for the spiritual well-being of the nation. There is no spiritual life without freedom. People who are enslaved by the need to pay taxes and mortgages are in no position to have meaningful spiritual life. In the old times the seekers of spiritual wisdom would find a shelter in a monastic life away from the crowd and from the pressure of the "world". However, what you need to escape from is not the world, not the community, and not the people. You need to escape the enslavement of the conditions created in the world and the best way to do it is to give people back their freedom. If this is not true religion I don't know what is. And neither do the religious leaders of the world.

2.5 Q. How would you respond to the accusation that the political solutions you propose are another form of utopia?

A. Recently we had this discussion on the Kyoto protocol and Bush's refusal to sign it. President Bush said that he is determined to defend and preserve the "American lifestyle". If you want a perfect example of an utopian dream there you have it, the president's dream to continue unsustainable way of living.

I agree with you that the communist or hippie styles of the community belong to Utopia. Under the communist regime the community didn't work for the very simple reason that the real community was not allowed. The communist authorities would not tollerate any independent entity so the only thing they were able to create was a caricature of a community - people herded together and forced to follow the most nonsensical orders handed down to them from the party bureaucrats. On the other hand, the hippie movement fell into the drug-induced dream of worshipping the communal life as, presumably, the place where love naturally flourishes and people are magically changed from mean beasts into angels. Well, they got it wrong for the simple reason that community is supposed to make the life of individuals easier and better while they thought that first you need to force an individual into a community to satisfy some abstract ideal. On top of that their idea of a community was not very practical. It was a place where you could have as much sex as you pleased and do as little work as it suited you. I am not saying that having a lot of sex is wrong, or not working much is wrong. If you are smart and first create the conditions where such lifestyle is possible and sustainable go ahead, do it, and enjoy it.

Building a community as I suggest does not mean that you gather people together and impose some strange ideals upon them. It means that you come to people and help them to organize their lives better. It means that people discover for themselves the advantages of having each other for help, the advantages of pulling their resources together, the advantages of finding happiness through meaningful interaction with other people. And by the way, the community is not always defined as people living in some common settings. We have the community of scientists, for instance, where members of the community can live thousand miles apart and this community is nevertheless as important as community of villagers who live in the same town in close proximity to each other.

Building communities around the world goes on now as we speak in some of the poorest countries of the world. In Kenya, the tree planting campaign started by a now-famous woman helped to organize communities and succeded because ultimately the communities stood up behind it while most government sponsored initiatives around the world failed.