No Human Being Has Access To Knowledge Or Power That Is Not Accessible To Other Human Beings

This is a highly controversial statement, especially to my religious brothers and sisters. However, it is a fact that whatever is accessible to one man, whatever one man can learn, another can also learn. No man has magic eyes or magic ears. If there is a sound, we can all hear it. If there is a sight, we can all see it. To say otherwise is to give some men the right to lie and to force the rest of us to believe it. The word “force” is key here. When one man lies, it is only by violence and coercion—verbal, physical, and psychological—that the lie can be spread among the rest of us.

This coercion pushes us to override our rational thinking and our affinity with the truth with our animal emotions of fear of being hurt, shamed, or excluded. Every one of us is equivalent in the basic tools we have and the knowledge we have access to. No matter how much some may claim to have special access to the world or the universe, ultimately, we are all the same.

Even if some of us are smarter than others or more knowledgeable about certain things, there is always another smart person, another expert, another master of a given text. Therefore, there is no uniqueness in terms of value about the person in authority. He is one of us, and she has the same worth and natural authority as the infant who can’t speak and the beggar with no money for food. The authority is in the position, the role being fulfilled, not in the person fulfilling it.

Claiming unique or revealed knowledge is not unique to major religions; many smaller secular and non-secular organizations make the same claims. This includes multi-level marketing companies, health or fitness brands, new age movements, and more. In each case, the organization claims to have access to special knowledge that new members can only hope to gain through serious dedication and commitment to the group.

Of course, in almost all cases, if not all cases, this leads to corruption, tyranny, death, and cruelty of one form or another. It leads to the reduction in personal freedom, in the exclusion of some by others, and in the creation of a stratified society in which a minority rule over the majority – not because they were voted in, but rather because they are seen as being closer to the ‘divine’ leader —- knowing more of what he knew than the rest of the ‘ignorant’ masses. Than the rest of you and I.

Of course, this makes no logical sense and from the outset is flawed. As I mentioned previously whatever one person can know, another can know. To believe otherwise is to open the door to special treatment and superiority, of legitimized tyranny — to allow a person to kill you while you feel you deserve to die — for not only the person making the claim but moreover for every other individual after him.

After all, if God, the Universe, the Infinite, speaks to one man one time, why would it not speak to another? We know this door-opening idea is true in that we have multiple major religions each with their own special leader(s) who conversed, saw, interacted with, or even became the Divine.

This has been the case for as long as we have been writing. And perhaps even longer.
The problem with this is that it leaves us with two situations – either it is true that God speaks to some people sometimes. Or God doesn’t.

If God does speak to some people sometimes – how do we know who these people are?

And by what authority do we deny this cosmic conversation to others who say they have spoken to God today?

It is a slippery slope indeed. Especially because the slope itself is littered with the bodies of many millions of people – victims to the bad decisions, and malevolence of dictators past.

Truthfully we cannot know whether a man has spoken to God or not; rather we can only know that none of us have, and that no one can open this door for us — that when it is opened; tyranny forms, and many people die.

That some human beings become the slaves and property of others; that those who refuse to believe are killed; that those who change their minds are killed; that those who disagree with the leader’s ethics are punished, and killed.

That the man becomes a god on earth through his claim of speaking to the God above.

This is unacceptable.

If one person can learn something, or know something. Many others can also learn it or know it. We must let go and reject any special privileges for some of us above others — we are all equal in value. No matter the story some of us may tell, or the experiences some of us may have.

You Were Born Free – No One Owns You: No Human Being Has Any Inherent Authority Over Any Other Human Being