No-MiddleMan Movement: Religion without middlemen

[Sonofason]

I recently joined the NMMM (需要安全验证) which is a movement for uniting the religions by removing the middlemen (scholar, priest, church, guru, rabbi, ...) and emphasizing on the common core in all religions: good deeds. I wanted to encourage you all to contribute to this movement by sharing your views/observations/articles and help shaping the direction by discussing and challenging the presented thoughts (perhaps the fb page is more suitable place for discussions)

Here is the manifesto:

Earth is, as always, full of non-religions in which some middlemen claim to know what the Creator wants, and ask us to blindly follow them, and them exclusively, or otherwise we will be burnt in the hellfire. The fear of fire, the peer pressure, accompanied with the indoctrination from birth lead us to the convenient trap of following one of these middlemen instead of the more challenging lifestyle of responsibly and continuously searching for good deeds and doing them.
The middleman phenomenon takes different forms:

• Sometimes it is a "knowledgeable" Imam/Rabbi/Scholar who knows about religion some "complicated" things that we "ordinary people" do not know, and hence urge us to obey his Fatwa/Rule/Sharia.
• Sometimes it is a priest that provides a particular interpretation of the holy books and urge us to trust their view.
• Sometimes it is a church, mosque, or religious school that tells to take a text as sacred and assume that it is letter by letter a direct revelation from the creator.
• Sometimes it is a "spiritual" leader/Pope/Guru who is supposedly "closer" to the creator and thus can "see" what is right and what is wrong, and urge us to follow his vision.

The middlemen have pretty established positions in their societies and through the many years they have produced a bulk of literature to justify their existence and silence the curious minds. In fact many followers feel "educated" after reading such literature. They are so good at what they do, to the extent that many followers do not even realize that they are obeying a middleman. It is not thus uncommon to hear:

• a Christian saying that I am not following any religion; I am just following Jesus! And yet their very understanding of Jesus and Bible is pretty much shaped by a major church/religious organization.
• a Muslim saying that I am not blindly obeying Imams; I rather only consider their advice that is formed based on the book and the Hadith! And yet their interpretation of the book as well as which Hadith is authentic or relevant is pretty much shaped by a major doctrine (Madhab).

We believe that the world has an intelligent creator; one need not to abandon reason to live as a believer; life is a continuous, reasonable search for truth, which should lead to doing beautiful deeds; but no exclusive doctrine can claim the "right" path towards this. These are the middlemen who always come up with something very specific in their doctrine and introduce it as the "secret sauce" for salvation, to color their followers differently and to establish a "us vs. them" mindset. In whatever community that we are born in, and whatever our starting point is, we are more likely to end up with righteous deeds if we do not let our minds to be indoctrinated by middlemen.
The mission of No-MiddleMan Movement is to coordinate a community effort to identify the middlemen in each of our religions, trace their influence on the ideology, and help our fellow believers to purify their religious views and free themselves from the indoctrination that they are born into. We invite each of the readers to share with us and other readers the influence of middleman that they observe in their local community. All the contributed posts will be accessible to public. The editors further select some contributed articles and maintain organized a summary for impatient readers. Feel free to reach us if you want to also contribute as an editor.

Yeah, great idea...lets get rid of all middle men while we're at it. Lets get rid of teachers and professors. Lets get rid of lawyers and insurance companies. Let's get rid of parents while we're at it. Kids don't need middle men to learn to be good and decent human beings, just like kids don't need teachers to learn. We can do it all on our own. We don't need anyone for anything at all.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Some amazing being created all the natural world around us with all of it`s fine delicate balance , beauty and design.

And horrible disasters and disorders and disfigurements.

with a uniformity that surpasses reason

That's because saying it is uniform is irrational.

quote by Voltaire ( 1778 ) " in 100 years the Bible will be a forgotten book !", however a quote by Jesus said " My word shall never pass away !"

It can be ignored, though. The people who idolize the book most are clearly the people who've read it the least.

Almost 100% of people I know who are Christians , will agree that , without Christ , there is " something " missing , a kind of God shaped space which only knowing Jesus can fill this space.

Or they can just worship God, like Jesus told you to do.

Without this free will , we would be puppets on a string .

Adam is essentially like a golem, a dirt puppet.

People try to fill that space with a variety of usually damaging things or lifestyles. Drugs, alcohol, porn, greed for wealth

Nationalism, egotism/ethnocentrism, idolatry ...

Yeah, great idea...lets get rid of all middle men while we're at it. Lets get rid of teachers and professors. Lets get rid of lawyers and insurance companies. Let's get rid of parents while we're at it. Kids don't need middle men to learn to be good and decent human beings, just like kids don't need teachers to learn. We can do it all on our own. We don't need anyone for anything at all.

I thought the only Teacher was God or something. Didn't Jesus say as much? Jesus told us to shine OUR lights. If we had to rely only one someone else's, why tell us to shine our OWN?

 

[safdar.dushantappeh]

I thought the only Teacher was God or something. Didn't Jesus say as much? Jesus told us to shine OUR lights. If we had to rely only one someone else's, why tell us to shine our OWN?

What a beautiful and profound verse: Matthew 5:16
"Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

 

[Brother P]

Yeah, great idea...lets get rid of all middle men while we're at it. Lets get rid of teachers and professors. Lets get rid of lawyers and insurance companies. Let's get rid of parents while we're at it. Kids don't need middle men to learn to be good and decent human beings, just like kids don't need teachers to learn. We can do it all on our own. We don't need anyone for anything at all.

How many teachers/professors/parents have you met who threaten you with eternal punishment/death/shunning if you don't listen to their "God ordained" words, and the words of the other people who also are revered and later misunderstood even further?



I think the spirit of this movement is understanding our place in the grand scheme - i.e. we are not the masters of others with their life in our hands, but rather, on the same journey/life of discovery. From what I could see it's more about dragging religion out of the stone age lol.

 

[godnotgod]

Bhudda is dead , Jesus is alive !
Mohammed is dead, Jesus is alive !
Confucious is dead , Jesus is alive !

The other story is that Jesus did not die on the cross, and was spirited away by Joseph of Aramathea to the Hemis Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, India, which it is reputed as the place where he lived and taught during some of his so-called 'missing years' from ages 12 to 30. It is here that the Buddhist monks referred to him as their 'beloved St. Issa', which translated means 'savior'. Christians cannot actually claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead; that is only their belief system at work. Many god-men came before Jesus and were crucified. While it is the Crucifixion that is the event by which a divine being shed his blood for the remission of mankind's sins, it is actually the Resurrection that is the centerpiece of Christian doctrine, because it is the Resurrection that 'proves' that Jesus was who he said he was: God incarnate. Without the Resurrection, as Paul says, Christians are nothing, and that is because he died just as all other god-men before him died. So really, this scenario demonstrates the lack of faith that Christian have regarding Jesus's claims of his divinity. IOW, they cannot accept at face value what he claims; a miracle is required for them to have faith in that doctrine. But when the Resurrection is looked at more closely, it shows itself to be nothing more than wishful thinking and poppycock. Christians would be much better off with a Jesus who WAS found in his grave. That would make him far more believable than a resurrected Jesus, the details of which lack credibility. On top of the shaky Resurrection claim, we have an Ascension claim, making the story even more incredulous; both are concoctions created to create a sensational myth, which, when analyzed, reveals serious flaws. The fact of the matter is that the real man, Yeshua the Nazarene*, did NOT believe in bodily resurrection, animal (let alone human, or even god) sacrifice, nor a virgin birth, and who was a vegetarian.

*BTW, the Nazarenes were a sect of the Essenes, a Jewish mystical sect. Their teachings are 3 layered, with the initiates on the outer layer, and who do not understand the inner mysteries. Modern Essenes claim that these ill informed initiates broke with the primary Essenes and became the first evangelical 'Christians', whom today we find to be very aggressive and loud in general, even filled with righteous anger, which they even take pride in (!). This would fit their claim, as these initiates lack the deeper intuitive understanding of the mysteries, and teach only conversion via blind acceptance of doctrine.

How do we know Jesus is alive , because when you come humbly to Him , He will respond and dramatically change your life whether drugs is your problem or alcohol , or violence addiction or fear, or hopelessness , or just plain feel the need , then Jesus will fill the gap that your heart is searching for.

1. APPARENT LOVE OF OTHERS BY PROJECTION OF THE EGO

This is idolatrous love, in which the ego is projected onto another
being (ie; 'Jesus'). The pretention to divinity as 'distinct' has left my organism and is now fixed onto the organism of the other. The affective situation resembles that above, with the difference that the other has taken my place in my scale of values. I desire the existence of the other-idol, and am against everything that is opposed to them. I no longer love my own organism except in so far as it is the faithful servant of the idol; apart from that I have no further sentiments towards my organism, I am indifferent to it, and, if necessary, I can give my life for the safety of my idol (I can sacrifice my organism to my Ego fixed on the idol; like Empedocles throwing himself down the crater of Etna in order to immortalise his Ego). As for the rest of the world, I hate it if it is hostile to my idol; if it is not hostile and if my contemplation of the idol fills me with joy (that is to say, with egotistical affirmation), I love indiscriminately all the rest of the world. If the idolised being rejects me to the point of forbidding me all possession of my Ego in them, the apparent love can be turned to hate.

from: Zen and the Psychology of Transformation, by Hubert Benoit

 

[LuisDantas]

Anyone willing to discuss how the NMM (No Middleman Movement) does or should deal with scriptures and other texts?

It seems to me that, if anything, texts are more of a middleman than the average person could possibly be.

But I assume that part of the premise of the NMM is that at least one of those texts known as revealed scriptures is indeed revealed by God and therefore inherently reliable as a religious reference.

I have a lot of problem with such a premise, which seems self-contradictory to me. But is it a part of the idea of the NMM?

 

[Brother P]

Anyone willing to discuss how the NMM (No Middleman Movement) does or should deal with scriptures and other texts?

It seems to me that, if anything, texts are more of a middleman than the average person could possibly be.

But I assume that part of the premise of the NMM is that at least one of those texts known as revealed scriptures is indeed revealed by God and therefore inherently reliable as a religious reference.

I have a lot of problem with such a premise, which seems self-contradictory to me. But is it a part of the idea of the NMM?

Excellent point - it's often sacred text "worship" that's the biggest issue in all this, not necessarily just the interpretation of said texts.

Clearly, (at least in the bible), in order to be unified or 100% accepting of others people have to either ignore clear religious texts, or rationalise them away. So it boils down to a matter of whether one is more a "sacred text" literalist, or more a principle / broader minded reader.

This quote from NMMM website should shed more light:

"Sometimes it is a church, mosque, or religious school that tells to take a text as sacred and assume that it is letter by letter a direct revelation from the creator."

So it seems to me that in order to be part of this movement, no matter how many good deeds you do, you would likely be treated as an outcast of your parent religion (one of those "Godless persons" who "water down the truth" lol).

That's one of the challenges I can see straight away. The other one would be a lack of organisation and "fire under the ***" to motivate action. Seems to me in life not many people are motivated by peace, that's too boring! Give them some drama and a guy who comes along dictating to some degree (even better if they're a "hero") and the general population loves to be a part of it.

 

[icehorse]

Could you elaborate?

I'm an agnostic and a skeptic.
Do you consider me, for example, as having underdeveloped spiritual-religious attributes?

Why would I WANT to have more developed spiritual-religious attributes?

I'm a spiritual anti-theist, and I don't want anyone trying to cram their religion into spirituality, which by all rights is it's own thing.

 

[safdar.dushantappeh]

It seems to me that, if anything, texts are more of a middleman than the average person could possibly be.

But I assume that part of the premise of the NMM is that at least one of those texts known as revealed scriptures is indeed revealed by God and therefore inherently reliable as a religious reference.

I have a lot of problem with such a premise, which seems self-contradictory to me. But is it a part of the idea of the NMM?

As Brother P pointed out the NMMM Manifesto already mentions that taking a text letter by letter sacred is already a manifestation of middleman. So, that is surely not a premise in NMMM. The only premises that are stated in the Manifesto are these:

We believe that the world has an intelligent creator; one need not to abandon reason to live as a believer; life is a continuous, reasonable search for truth, which should lead to doing beautiful deeds; but no exclusive doctrine can claim the "right" path towards this.

There is no proof provided for such premises meaning that each individual decides whether they find these believable or not (and as the comments under Manifesto indicate some of the readers do not). One might be a shepherd far from any doctrine spending her life contemplating in nature, and simply find these to be reasonable believes when hears them. You are right though that many people who find these believable might have been led to such state by reading some texts that are being considered (partly or fully) sacred by a particular community. But such texts, and specially any particular text, is not the premise of NMMM.

NMMM invites the individuals who find themselves agreed with such premises to open their eyes and revisit the belief system that they are born into, verify them by reason and common sense, and see which parts are and to what extent are perverted/invented by middlemen. That includes the sacred texts and their interpretations. From the Manifesto:

The mission of No-MiddleMan Movement is to coordinate a community effort to identify the middlemen in each of our religions, trace their influence on the ideology, and help our fellow believers to purify their religious views and free themselves from the indoctrination that they are born into.

NMMM aside, my personal view is that books that are considered a revelation are more like a hand pointing/highlighting some phenomena in life that are normally difficult to see due to distorted culture that we are born into. This "pointing hand" does not have to be a sacred text and there are many other ways that one could make similar observations.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Great idea. I just hope it does not give people over-confidence that they are perfect in knowing and interpreting (not in worshiping) absolutely everything on their own without considering other views and opinions (which is not really taking middlemen by definition), since sometimes things are not as easy to understand even if they are thought to be obvious at first.

Islam is mainly such a religion. There is no need to as someone to deliver their prayers or implores to God (actually, that's forbidden), but it should be done directly from the person to God.

 

[Sat Gascon]

Great idea. I just hope it does not give people over-confidence that they are perfect in knowing and interpreting (not in worshiping) absolutely everything on their own without considering other views and opinions (which is not really taking middlemen by definition), since sometimes things are not as easy to understand even if they are thought to be obvious at first.

Islam is mainly such a religion. There is no need to as someone to deliver their prayers or implores to God (actually, that's forbidden), but it should be done directly from the person to God.

That is a great point. I think this could be improved by being open minded, getting our fellow religious people to continuously criticize our current understanding, and let ourselves to be exposed to variety of thoughts and not just ones from like-minded people.

In such society there will be no religious hierarchy. A group of people do not "tell" the others what are the good deeds; people rather "help" each other to get close and closer to righteous deeds. In christianity the closest school to that is Friends (Quakers).

Members of the various Quaker movements are all generally united in a belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access "that of God in every person," and therefore they profess the priesthood of all believers

Not sure how it goes in practice but their ideology sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Sapiens]

A step in the right direction, but after you get rid of the middleman perhaps you will better see the defectiveness of the product that they're selling.

 

[Sapiens]

A step in the right direction, but after you get rid of the middleman perhaps you will better see the defectiveness of the product that they're selling.

 

[safdar.dushantappeh]

Some FAQs that are answered in the manifesto:

Q1: Is not NMMM itself yet another middleman?
A1: No. At no point one needs to trust NMMM or anyone else. If you find yourself agreed with the beliefs mentioned above, then you can participate in the movement by presenting rational arguments and help your fellow believers in search for the truth. You would read the rational arguments, discuss it, challenge it, and then decide for yourself.

Q2: Is NMMM rejecting the absolute truth?
A2: No. The manifesto never rejected the absolute truth; it rather pointed out the common sense observation that each of our ideologies is "at its best" an interpretation of the truth. It is more convenient to call the ideology that we are born into the absolute truth and enjoy the support from the like-minded neighbors. It is however much more difficult to admit that that there are many obstacles (least of them all the language) that distort our understanding of any phenomenon (most of them all the truth) and life should be a continuous search for improving this understanding. (The answer contributed by Safdar DushanTappeh)

Q3: Is NMMM claiming its own truth while being critical of what others consider the truth?
A3: Any movement is about people who share the same beliefs and the same concerns. NMMM Manifesto has mentioned a few basic common sense observations as its core beliefs (intelligent creator, reasonable life, continuous search for truth and good deeds, and religious pluralism). It does not provide any rationale for these nor it tries to convince anyone that they are true. It rather invites people who "already" find them rational by their common sense to join the movement and help us, the fellow believers, in the eternal search for the truth.

Q4: What is your proof for the intelligent creator?
A4: Refer to A3. If you are an atheist then you are not the target audience of NMMM.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If you really want to cut to the chase, go to Zen. Not even a doctrine. Just a finger pointing to the moon.

Mu

 

[safdar.dushantappeh]

If you really want to cut to the chase, go to Zen. Not even a doctrine. Just a finger pointing to the moon.

Interestingly there was a post to NMMM page showing the traces of middlemen in Buddhism: No-MiddleMan Movement

Here is the abstract:
Peaceful Buddhism, Violent Buddhists!
Buddhism is generally seen as among the religious traditions least associated with violence, but in the history of Buddhism there have been acts of violence directed, fomented or inspired by Buddhists. What’s truly disturbing to many is that groups like the 969 Movement in Myanmar and Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka aren’t just composed of Buddhists, but are led by monks as Buddhist groups, purportedly operating on Buddhist beliefs and under Buddhist doctrine, to promote violence and aggression.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I recently joined the NMMM (No-MiddleMan Movement) which is a movement for uniting the religions by removing the middlemen (scholar, priest, church, guru, rabbi, ...) and emphasizing on the common core in all religions: good deeds. I wanted to encourage you all to contribute to this movement by sharing your views/observations/articles and help shaping the direction by discussing and challenging the presented thoughts (perhaps the fb page is more suitable place for discussions)

Here is the manifesto:

Earth is, as always, full of non-religions in which some middlemen claim to know what the Creator wants, and ask us to blindly follow them, and them exclusively, or otherwise we will be burnt in the hellfire. The fear of fire, the peer pressure, accompanied with the indoctrination from birth lead us to the convenient trap of following one of these middlemen instead of the more challenging lifestyle of responsibly and continuously searching for good deeds and doing them.
The middleman phenomenon takes different forms:

• Sometimes it is a "knowledgeable" Imam/Rabbi/Scholar who knows about religion some "complicated" things that we "ordinary people" do not know, and hence urge us to obey his Fatwa/Rule/Sharia.
• Sometimes it is a priest that provides a particular interpretation of the holy books and urge us to trust their view.
• Sometimes it is a church, mosque, or religious school that tells to take a text as sacred and assume that it is letter by letter a direct revelation from the creator.
• Sometimes it is a "spiritual" leader/Pope/Guru who is supposedly "closer" to the creator and thus can "see" what is right and what is wrong, and urge us to follow his vision.

The middlemen have pretty established positions in their societies and through the many years they have produced a bulk of literature to justify their existence and silence the curious minds. In fact many followers feel "educated" after reading such literature. They are so good at what they do, to the extent that many followers do not even realize that they are obeying a middleman. It is not thus uncommon to hear:

• a Christian saying that I am not following any religion; I am just following Jesus! And yet their very understanding of Jesus and Bible is pretty much shaped by a major church/religious organization.
• a Muslim saying that I am not blindly obeying Imams; I rather only consider their advice that is formed based on the book and the Hadith! And yet their interpretation of the book as well as which Hadith is authentic or relevant is pretty much shaped by a major doctrine (Madhab).

We believe that the world has an intelligent creator; one need not to abandon reason to live as a believer; life is a continuous, reasonable search for truth, which should lead to doing beautiful deeds; but no exclusive doctrine can claim the "right" path towards this. These are the middlemen who always come up with something very specific in their doctrine and introduce it as the "secret sauce" for salvation, to color their followers differently and to establish a "us vs. them" mindset. In whatever community that we are born in, and whatever our starting point is, we are more likely to end up with righteous deeds if we do not let our minds to be indoctrinated by middlemen.
The mission of No-MiddleMan Movement is to coordinate a community effort to identify the middlemen in each of our religions, trace their influence on the ideology, and help our fellow believers to purify their religious views and free themselves from the indoctrination that they are born into. We invite each of the readers to share with us and other readers the influence of middleman that they observe in their local community. All the contributed posts will be accessible to public. The editors further select some contributed articles and maintain organized a summary for impatient readers. Feel free to reach us if you want to also contribute as an editor.

So really, you're starting a new religion and you're one of its middlemen. Am I wrong?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Interestingly there was a post to NMMM page showing the traces of middlemen in Buddhism: No-MiddleMan Movement

Here is the abstract:
Peaceful Buddhism, Violent Buddhists!
Buddhism is generally seen as among the religious traditions least associated with violence, but in the history of Buddhism there have been acts of violence directed, fomented or inspired by Buddhists. What’s truly disturbing to many is that groups like the 969 Movement in Myanmar and Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka aren’t just composed of Buddhists, but are led by monks as Buddhist groups, purportedly operating on Buddhist beliefs and under Buddhist doctrine, to promote violence and aggression.

Buddhism doesn't guarantee that there won't be violent people.

 

[safdar.dushantappeh]

So really, you're starting a new religion and you're one of its middlemen. Am I wrong?

I guess you missed the FAQ section at the end of the manifesto: No-MiddleMan Movement
Your question is one of the FAQs.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I guess you missed the FAQ section at the end of the manifesto: No-MiddleMan Movement
Your question is one of the FAQs.

- I didn't read your FAQ until just now.

- it strikes me that you are setting yourself up as a middleman without using the word, so I question the response in your FAQ.