The Great Spirit is Dead
by Gilbert Oskaboose

Isn't it about time we got organized religion out of our lives. Hasn't it
caused enough pain and confusion? The Great Spirit is dead. The Creator is missing.

He (feminists would say She) wasn't around at Wounded Knee. He wasn't around at the Sand Creek Massacre. He wasn't around on the Cherokee Trail of Tears. He wasn't around when 12 million First Nation people were wiped out since European contact. He wasn't around when generations of First Nation children were chewed up in residential schools. He was nowhere to be seen when our lands were stolen and destroyed, the waters we drink poisoned and the air we breathe polluted. He didn't "take pity on us."

Religion has always been the source of trouble. It was a Christian Germany that gave us the Holocaust. It was a Christian Spain that gave us the Inquisition. It was a Christian America that gave us Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a Christian Europe that gave us the Crusades. In Northern Ireland Catholics and Protestants have been slaughtering each other for centuries. The Holy Land has to be the most unholy place on the planet.

The world has gone nuts over religion. Check it out!

• There are approximately 22,000 separate and distinct Christian groups, the
  largest being Roman Catholic at 900 million members.

• The Eastern Orthodox Church is second with 158 million.

• Next is the various Baptists churches at 31 million.

• Church of England is next with 20 million.

• The Methodist have 13 million.

• Luthererans have 8 million.

• There are 3.5 million Pentecostals, 3.2 million Presbyterians, 2.8 million
  Mormons, 1.7 million United Church of Christ and 1.6 million who belong to
  the Church of Christ. There are 700.00 Jehovah's Witnesses and 113,000
  members of the Religious Circle of Friends (Quakers). Judaism has 18
  million followers.

Everyone of the above believe their God is the one true God and that everybody else is a heathen, a pagan, apostate or simply nuts. Where does Indian Country's few hundred thousand born-again followers of the Great Spirit and "t'underbirds" fit into this mess? Who cares?

Not into Christianity? How about Islam with 840 million devotees or Hinduism with 648 believers or Buddhism with 307 million faithful.

Numbers don't mean squat. Most of the world believed the world was flat at one time. It wasn't so. Most of the world believed the earth was the centre of the universe and that the sun revolved around it. Galileo proved they were wrong and even the Church ‘fessed up to the error 400 years later.

When are we going to catch on that God didn't create Man. Man created God, in his own likeness and with all the human bullshit that goes along with him. That's why we have fair-skinned blue-eyed Christs, Black Christs, Mexican Christs, Red Christs.... Everybody has the one true Christ in his back pocket and the rest of the world is nuts. They can't all be right.

Get real. Get a life. Just because most of the world still believes in an archaic fairy tale that's outlived it's usefulness doesn't mean you have to as well. Or do you still believe in Santa Claus too?