Welcome, Raj Patel, secular messiah!
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. ” (Matthew 7).
A complete list of alleged new messiahs of the 20th and 21st Centuries would take days or even weeks to compile, ranging from those who have been highly successful (Moon, Hubbard) to those whose careers have been disastrous (Ratzon and the ridiculous Travesser).
But the craving for a new messiah is not one which is set to diminish. Only recently Raj Patel, a mild mannered UK academic, was named by mystics as the Maitreya (new messiah or even anti-christ), drawing worldwide media attention. I myself have been called a “green messiah” – but my beliefs are entirely secular, rooted in biology and evolution.
The craving for a new messiah is the craving for a fundamental truth, an all-embracing knowledge capable of resolving the uncertainty to which most of us occasionally succumb. As such, it is a very natural human desire.
Raj Patel is a sensible, intelligent and compassionate man who demonstrates in his work a commitment to humanity and a confident and consistent world view… So, one might ask, why shouldn’t our species be allowed a merely human messiah, a person like Raj Patel?
The nature of our minds, of consciousness and self-consciousness, means that free will is inescapable. At some profound level you and you alone are choosing whether to believe, whether to have faith or not to have faith. We may convince ourselves otherwise but in fact we are the authors of God, not the other way around…
So why this compelling need for mysticism and the paranormal when there are wonderful and insightful individuals already in our midst who can guide us towards a sustainable 21st Century? Why not consider instead the notion of a messiah who demands no ‘leap of faith’, for whom there are no fairy tales of immaculate conception or the six day manufacture of our world?
Why not consider an entirely human messiah – and a messiahdom in which all of us can participate?
Because it is true – a fact rather than an article of faith – that the world is ours to create, that we can choose who our leaders and messiahs should be. We are the engineers of this world and ordinary people like us will determine whether it is a world of compassion or of greed.
For this reason I welcome the messianic calling of Raj Patel. Raj is precisely the type of compassionate and empathic person we should be celebrating, the type of guru humanity needs.
Welcome Raj Patel, messiah!
As a footnote, Raj modestly draws comparisons to Brian in the famous Monty Python film. He quotes the catchphrase: “I am not the messiah, I am just a naughty boy.”
In my case, sadly, I am not even a naughty boy – so where does that leave me?
William Tarkovsky
www.thebookofnewcreation.co.uk
April 25 2010
William Tarkovsky 