"Author"ity of Life

A long time ago, there once lived a man, who walked upon the Earth telling everyone that he was God. He would say to people, "I and the Father. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. I am the way the truth and the light."

The authority figures at the time questioned the man "To what authority do you speak?"

He responded, "Did John's authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?"

The authority figures, not knowing where the authority came from, could not answer. These authorities had come to be where they are from the extension of what the previous authorities told them. From there, it was one person, before the other, before that one, before that, to Moses, to before that one, and before that, to what was spoken to them by Abraham who was the true authority passing the authority along because he got it from someone else. It is the belief that authority can be passed along. Fast forward a few centuries with the founding of the Catholic Church and how it begins to make claims of the authority given to them from the Holy Spirit and that the Church has this book called The Bible and that they can only interpret the book for you. Around this same time, several people started to lay claim to land and create a country all the while anointing themselves king and they say have the divine authority to rule over the people.

Jumping to today, the Jewish religion and Catholic Church have evolved in some ways, but for the most part have remained the same. Countries have come and gone, with only a few monarchies left, but new types of rulers have come to lay claim to authority. This means that every person under the watchful eye of religion and the ruling authorities more or less has been influenced by what is called social conditioning. From birth, your parents, family, and people have molded you in your community to have certain beliefs, values, behaviors, and desires. All of these have molded your mind to what it is today. This means the decision to know what is true comes down to you the individual. Are you going to believe what your religion says to be true? Are you going to believe what the king says to be true? What about the person who rules over the country from which you live within? If nobody believes in the authority of religion, the religion could not exist without the people to believe it. If the king had no peasants to do as he commands, he could not have authority to claim the title of king. If the ruler of the country from which you live within did not have anyone follow his commands of authority, he could not rule.

You may claim that your religion is the one true religion. That is only an opinion and there are far more people to disagree with you. You say what the king says is true. That is only an Appeal to Authority and there is nothing to say otherwise. My mother told me many things when I grew up, and I learned the hard way about what she said was true and what she made up. You say the ruler of your country speaks the truth. Again, this is an Appeal to Authority. You have every right to holds these opinions, but I am inclined to disagree with you.

Then where does authority come from? In most cases today, to be an authority requires putting together ideas and writing them down. It takes lots of footnotes and documentation. It is not enough to speak once and expect to be an authority. It is about blending of words and phrases from one-person and another person and from books and other documents and then everything gets jumbled together and it is a complete mess. You then come around and place everything in order and add your own spin on the matter. Then you do it a dozen times over again and you begin to be an authority. In simple terms, authority is just an "author", the writer. As the author, you assume responsibility for what you write.

Authority is not Power

Authority and power are two terms that have been pressed into our minds to make us believe that these terms are one in the same, but this is not true. Authority is taking personal responsibility. Responsibilities cannot be given or taken away. A parent takes responsibility for his or her children by feeding, clothing, and being a proper role model for them. A person who fails at responsibility only fails himself. You may argue about the failure of the children, but the children were not the ones with the responsibility. Power is about control and influence over others. This is an assumed right. A parent wields power upon his or own children by criticizing, bullying, hitting, and pushing them to do what he or she wants. This is about force and dominance.

Submitting to Authority

In order to submit to authority would mean a person believes that they are absolved of their own responsibility under the illusion that someone else has picked up the responsibility on his or her own behalf. A person who chooses to be irresponsible is only a blamer. "I did this because my parents did this." "I was following orders." "He told me to do it." In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University conducted a social psychology experiment on obeying and personal conscience to see how they conflict. His aim was to see how far a person would go to induce harm on another human being as long as the person has been notified and absolved of any wrongdoing. As a result, sixty-five percent of the participants were willing to do the most harm. Milgram stated that persons who were willingly to pass the responsibility were in an Agentic State. In order for a person to be in an agentic state, two things need to happen:

1. the person giving the order is seen as a legitimate leader

2. the person feels that the leader will accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions

Mark Passio calls people in this state of mind "Order Followers". A person following orders has turned off his or her own conscience and cannot judge right from wrong in the process of carrying out orders. A person in an agentic state who is an order follower has never absolved responsibility and is still responsible for his or her own actions. A person will try his or her best to make excuses and blame others, but again, a person cannot give or take the personal responsibility of his or her own authority to someone else.

Government/Religious Authority

Government/Religious authority does not exist. If authority only comes from within one’s own self and it cannot be given or taken away, then authority cannot exist in a collective or a group. Therefore, Government/Religion is and has always been about power and is not a legitimate authority. Power is about control and influence. In order to maintain power, these groups use guilt, fear, and coercion among the people. Any person who does not obey is punished. Government/Religion use public shaming and humiliation as a form of an example for not following their power. A single person or several people will be put of public display for all to see as an example of what not to do. Saying there is a danger spreads fear and you must be afraid. Then there is coercion, where force is used on the people by taking personal property and/or arresting the person against his or her will.

The type of person who believes in this power and does not question orders, living in this state of guilt, fear, and is easily pushed around is a child. Children are more controllable and are easy to manipulate. In order for a person to come out of a child-like state, a person would have to grow up and start taking responsibility. It is beyond imagination for a person to believe that truth can be found in a system, creed, book, or human claiming the right to rule.

The problem is not that people do not know any better, the problem is that people do not know how to grow up to be more human. People have not come to the realization that they are the authors of their own life. Being human is about enhancing humanity instead of waiting to be rescued from it. You are the authority. You are the only authority. You are the true ruler and author of yourself. The truth lies within you. No one holding power will ever say that, because if you were to discover that you are your own authority, the one holding power will no longer have power.

"YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE!"

"BEGONE!"