If a community accepts a gift of a large marker displaying The Ten Commandments, must it accept and display a gift of a marker with the tenets of a different religion?
The US Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that might decide the question. (Nina Totenburg of NPR, reports on the case.)
Shown Summum Bonum Amon Ra, aka, “Corky,” with the Seven Aphorisms.
The city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, contends that just because it erected a privately-donated Ten Commandments monument in its public park, it does not have to accept a monument from a little-known religious group called Summum espousing its principles.
Summum claims that its Seven Aphorisms, or principles, underlie creation and nature and were initially revealed to Moses, but that these aphorisms were so far beyond the understanding of their time that they became hidden knowledge passed on only to a select few who could understand them. The Ten Commandments, according to Summum, were a lower set of laws that Moses gave in place of the Seven Aphorisms.
Pleasant Grove’s Ten Commandments memorial sits in a secluded area that honors the city’s heritage. The monument has been on city property since the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated it in 1971.
In its lawsuit, Summum says, “The rights of plaintiff Summum are violated when the defendants give preference and endorsement to one particular set of religious beliefs by allowing the Ten Commandments monument to remain in a public park or in a forum within the public park supported by taxpayers and disallow a similar display of the religious tenets of Summum.”
Moses, aka, Charlton Heston, with The Ten Commandments
The Summum organization is based in a pyramid and mausoleum complex designed by its founder, Mr. Corky Ra, in Salt Lake City. Inside the pyramid are the mummified remains of the members’ pets.
Mr. Ra founded the religion in 1975. He was 30 years old at the time. He lived a short life. In January of just this year, Ra passed away at the age of 63. Ra was born Claude Nowell, but in 1980 legally changed his name to Summum Bonum Amon Ra. At the time of his death, according to his instructions, his body was sealed in a vat of mummification fluids and remained in the group’s Salt Lake City pyramid for six months. During the time of his mummification daily rituals were performed in the pyramid.
Ra claimed that in the 1970s he had an encounter with “advanced beings,” that enlightened him and helped guide him in forming the Summum religion. Summum is Latin for “the sum total of all creation.” Ra wrote a book called, “Summum: Sealed Except to the Open Mind”
An article in The Wall Street Journal quotes a religion scholar at California State University, Sarah Pike, as saying that beyond its Egyptian trappings, Summum is a “UFO religion” with some ideas borrowed from Mormonism, the religion into which Mr. Ra was born. They are “very much under the New Age umbrella, with an interest in Gnostic Christianity,” she says. “The use of crystals, beliefs in aliens or UFOs, meditation practice and the turn to ancient Egypt are common in other New Age religions.”
These are the Seven Aphorisms of Summum:
- SUMMUM is MIND, thought; the universe is a mental creation.
- As above, so below; as below, so above.
- Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.
- Everything is dual; everything has an opposing point; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes bond; all truths are but partial truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.
- Everything flows out and in; everything has its season; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing expresses itself in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
- Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is just a name for Law not recognized; there are many fields of causation, but nothing escapes the Law of Destiny.
- Gender is in everything; everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all levels
These sound more like laws of physics. Tell the UFO crackpots to go post these in Roswell, New Mexico.
OK Bud. Tell the Christ-is-my-copilot group to move this other stuff to Jerusalem.
Hello. I am a Christian, one who has personally accepted Jesus who is the Son of God Himself, as my own Savior and Lord. I know a thing or two about the Law of God. One thing I do know is that the Law of God (or of “Moses”) is complete. There was no “aphorisms” before it. All that there is in it is all there is. God is to be exalted, feared, worshipped, and loved above all things! I speak of the Great and Merciful Lord of Heaven and Earth. He is Jesus Christ. According to the Holy Scripture of the the Holy Bible, God told us not to follow “strange new ideas” and “old wives tales” that would come in the last days. I’m not condemning anything or anyone but all I’m saying is the Word and Perfect Law of God is just that— Perfect and complete. All wisdom is found in Christ (I know this by experience). As it is written in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30, “…Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
Furthermore all of this “religion” stuff is useless and doesn’t mean a thing. What matters is a “new creation” and being “reconciled to God through Christ” His Son. God loves humanity but He has set a day of Judgement and the Judge will the be the very One whom the world rejects: Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. Faith and trust in the Truth, not human reason, will set you free!
All “Summum” is is the fulfilled of prophesy. The Bible says that in the last days many people would turn away from the true doctrine of the Holy Bible. God said that people would “follow doctrines TAUGHT by demons”. I know that these “advanced beings” were jus that– demons. They deceived this poor man that Christ died to save, and are still deceiving many people. I know that many people who read this will not believe and will not accept Jesus as who He Truly is, God in the flesh, the Son of God. But, nonetheless, I speak the Truth in Love. In the Bible 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18-19 says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. “Summum” focuses on humans and the creation rather than on the Creator Himself. All this is and other “religions” is man’s attempt to get to God without recognizing and repenting of his sinfulness. They reject Jesus though His Truth rings out! Either way, God still loves you all, even you the reader, and by His Son Jesus, not my any other person or thing, He wants you to come to Him and recieve True and Life that will last Forever. Even more that than is, He wants to forgive your sins. As it is written in John 3 verse 17, John 14 verse 6, AND John 17 verse 3, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him,… Jesus answered, “I am The Way and The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the God the Father EXCEPT through ME… Now THIS IS Eternal Life: that they may know You, the only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” I appreciate you reading all this. May my God richly bless you cause you to “come to the knowledge of the Truth”.
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