The idea for the Ministry of The Dead has been in incubation since I was young. I was raised in a christian family like most Americans, but as I grew older I failed to see the logic in the application of christian ideals towards social issues in America. The extremely pious would spout rhetoric that everyone must accept Jesus to be saved, abortion violated the 5th commandment and that homosexuals were inevitably going to hell. At the same time, secular atheists touted science as the solution to all of humanity's problems, while scolding religion as a nuisance that needed to be wiped out all together in order to facilitate a long overdue evolution.
Fortunately enough, I was raised in a family that celebrated humor and art over religious bigotry and scientific snobbery. Subsequently, I took interests in stand-up comedy and drawing at a very young age. The freedom of which, granted me the ability to construct a philosophical framework that encouraged the questioning nature of philosophy, and the observational nature of science, while fostering a healthy spiritual practice in the self expression of art. As a result, art became the means of uniting the false paradigm between the mystical gnosis of religion, and the fact based knowledge of science. Many people fail to acknowledge that the process of art has existed well before religion and science, and that it is alchemical mixture of both disciplines. Art is the practice of using aesthetics, which has it root in the science mathematics, but unlike religion art, “recognizing the figurative value of the mythic symbols” which religion, “would have us believe in their literal sense, and revealing their deep and hidden truth through an ideal presentation.” as Richard Wagner once wrote.
This past September 11th a pastor in Florida raised controversy when he declared that he would make September 11, 2010 “burn a Koran Day”. The shear arrogance of this pastor, and many of the other non-Christlike televangelist that spread a message of hate and intolerance, prompted me to reconsider the idea of becoming ordained and starting my own ministry to promote the love and forgiveness that Jesus once talked about. I was also fueled by a book by Deepak Chopra that my girlfriend gave me called The Third Jesus. As a result I got myself ordained and started The Ministry of the Dead. It seemed clear that Jesus spent a lot of his time trying to explain to us how we can transcend the pains of the world. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus' message was not about accepting him as the lord and savor of mankind, which would forgive us for our sins, but a message about consciousness. It is only at the human level that the concept of sin exists, to the contrary the universe is quite forgiving. In fact, Jesus made a point to show us that God's ability to be a loving and compassionate entity was eternal, and also unconditional. As long as we can forgive ourselves, and more importantly that we can forgive others for their transgressions, then we can work are way closer towards unity with the Universe.
Why the Ministry of the Dead? Because Jesus' ultimate sacrifice was death, both his psychical death, and his many spiritual deaths. In order to transcend we must kill what we “know”, and look at the world unadulterated by the culture that surrounds us. By dissolving the known, not only our concepts of reality, which are embedded in our culture, but by transcending our concept of who we are, and the roles we play in our society then, and only then, can we reach higher realms of consciousness that will transform a state of duality into pure unity. The only way to attain unity with God, or more appropriately the universe, is by dissolving everything that fosters a reality that you are separate from the universe in the first place, the root of this is your ego. I'd like to make myself clear that when I use the word ego, I'm not talking about a sense of pride, but the psychological aspect of a human psyche that identifies itself through an empirical process of what makes it different then everyone, and more importantly, everything else. Everything you know about yourself within a culture is the result of a systematic empiricism, which creates the illusion that you are separate from the universe. It is true that we all have different personalities and different roles within society, but we are all in this together, and our unity is symbolic of our true realization of god, and the universe.
As our civilization is approaching a critical epoch of information, the effects of which are still not know, it has transformed an event in the future into what maybe the most important in human history, and we must treat it this way. As humanity approaches such an epoch, less and less are becoming prepared for the challenges our species faces. We must do what we can to facilitate a cohesive union of knowledge in order to deal with the event. Such a cohesive union, which I will call the “ways of knowing”, whether that be scientific, religious or aesthetic knowledge can help in the preparation for what may be the dawning of a new paradigm in human civilization. It is because of this that art may be, and quite possibly is, the unifying factor that has constantly linked our scientific and religious heritage as one in the same. Let us create the world that we desire by being, as Gandhi said, “the change you want to see.”
- The Dead Guy
