By a Mortal Man
[Note: If you have not read Part 1 and Part 2, it is better you do to understand the context this part 3 is written. At least read Part 2. In retrospect, the first section of Part 1 started out a little over-wordy but the meat of this essay is still definitely worth reading. Part 2 is a piece de resistance (at important and provocative). If you, reader, cannot handle controversy, especially within the realm of religion, then these writings are not for you. For those who dare go where “there be dragons” you will find an interesting and provocative thread of thoughts indeed. Also a reader who reads in a semi-slow and contemplative manner will likely have better flow. Good readers do not attempt to read for speed.] Parts 1 and 2 respectively:
https://stateofthenation.co/?p=233424
https://stateofthenation.co/?p=233965
We addressed the reality that there are various levels of human understanding (and confusion) within the wide world of news and fake propaganda: 1) those things we can know as verifiable, 2) those things we know because we believe we know—such as religious scripture based more on faith, and 3) those things we believe based mostly from our personally selected points of view (biases we trust) and assumptions we have already acquired over time, and 4) other ideas we are often unsure because we live in an information environment so riddled with unfamiliar sources and various kinds of disinformation or lies, using various attempts to manipulate our thoughts and assumptions.
The additional filter we focused on was on how many people, because of their belief in Christianity and especially the Book of Revelations, also filter and evaluate current events from the perspective as to how they anticipate End Times Theology to play out. We explored this “religious filter” and its political consequences in depth in Part 2 (and even more herein part 3 as it is very important and immensely interesting). Overall, both previous essays are somewhat long for today’s standards, but both are interesting and important, and delve into topics not much addressed squarely elsewhere (and certainly not in the manner therein).
Overall, hopefully we became even more aware there is enormity of news angle and disinformation coming at us, from so many different sources, on so many subjects, that they potentially load down the average person of curiosity with a great burden. Those of us who try to stay abreast are swamped in our own kind of quagmire of a swamp (few who are adept at trying to sort through or drain).
As we try to pay attention to this explosion of news sources, and diverse motivations creating it, we realize we can be easily misled by many smokescreens of subterfuge.
And on top of the amount of information available, and a recharged recognition of the significance of deception, there is also more stress, anxiety and worry (affect) effecting us, because rightly enough, too many things seem to be changing in our unstable world, whilst there is much “cultural warfare” being enacted as “psychological warfare” aimed to curtail our individual and collective power. This truly is warfare.
Hence, given such a hostile, or inimical, propaganda environment we wade through, and with so many potential things to be concerned, and a seeming, if not rather apparent increased level of deceit detected by ordinary people (with red herring issues to distract us) millions have either given up trying to make sense of our chaotic time in history (as too much of a burden for the individual mind) or by falling prey to sideline issues that are not as relevant (or as not as likely to actually take place (e.g. space alien invasion versus pending major wars)).
Again in Part 2 we went into depth on why the New Testament’s Book of Revelation is questionable as to being what it is purported to be—real prophesy ultimately from a supernatural and divine source. We especially note the single human source is dubious—someone named John of Patmos.
Importantly we question the mental health of the supposed author of Revelation, John of Patmos, and, even more so, we question any and all willing to belief such a book is real prophesy (true, future events expected to happen (even if found in the ‘sacrosanct’ New Testament).
We covered a variety of important related facts, such as it is widely known there were many compilations, or codices, of what would come to be known as the official New Testament; along with the far more ‘recent’ fact of ‘new’ findings of the Gnostic Gospels and how these once undoubtedly censored and lost chapters bring to us contemporaneous peoples a lot more questions about those ancient Christianities (plural) of the early Common Era (Jesus’ life to 600 A.D).
With some historical research we gain perspective that apocryphalwritings were intimately part of Jewish tradition ‘before’ any assumed time of Jesus Christ. See article:
Ancient texts encouraged hope and endurance when they spoke of end times
Within this article we quickly learn:
“… But long before Revelation was written, apocalyptic thinking took root in ancient Judaism during times of significant political unrest, violent oppression and social devastation. …
“The Book of Daniel reflects one such crisis: Parts of this book were written in response to the conquests of Jerusalem by a Seleucid king named Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus desecrated the Jewish sacred temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C. by setting up an altar to the God Zeus within the temple’s precincts. …
“The book addresses the suffering of the people, it recalls the history of violence and portrays this history with terrifying visions. But it also speaks of a coming judgment day that will be followed by a new kingdom – a kingdom that is everlasting and stands in contrast to the oppression of earlier times.”
This kind of insight is important, historically, because it throws cooler water on any assumption that ‘Armageddon’ is mostly a Christian phenomenon. Moreover, it gives significant credence to ideas gained, or garnered, from the Gnostic Gospels, such that there is not a black and white dichotomy in faith between some Jewish sects and Christian sects in the first centuries when Christianities (plural) were forming. Technically they were fashioned, by and large, Jewish peoples.
We can now in our historical modernity become aware, to the extent we are open to studying what is now being revealed of those once ‘censored’ booklets and passages, even as they seem to be muddying the waters (formally thought more crystal clear by orthodox Christianity) about what in fact could, and should, be considered legitimate Christian thought and values, because now we know there were gospels, writings and oral teachings that were not included in the so-called “Constantine version” (as selected or censored by ‘human’ or flawed Bishops of questionable motive) three hundred years, or so, after the assumed death of Jesus the Christ.
Yes, indeed, what should not surprise any person of sophistication, there is a human nature of personal politics that seems to infiltrate all areas of human endeavor including the creation and control of religions and their dogmas.
When the Roman Empire started to tolerate Christianity and accept Christians into its ranks of Roman political leaders, theorists have it there was a changing of the religion as well, in which case the religion too became more like an authoritarian state. How often are adherents of Christianity challenged to think about such matters?
For example, there are many videos on the Internet about Origen of Alexandria an early Christian scholar. To watch and hear some of these lessons is instructive for us of modernity to realize how early church Bishops played their hard-ball politics as to those earlier thinkers deemed politically correct or damnably wrong. Here is a short video doing justice to such personal politics back then:
Origen of Alexandria by Saints and Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Yn1bBH-Xk
Too bad the English language doesn’t have a Shakespearean who could have written plays on such stuff as to all these early church wranglings. Regardless, there has never been a better time to become academic in subjects like history and theology. In this sense it is a very interesting time to be alive.
Yes, those were the good old days! Young Origen born into the cosmopolitan city of Alexander, rich in trade and learning with the Alexandrian Library. His father was a teacher. What a cosmopolitan mecca to belong. Are you not a bit envious? And yes it took a tyrant like Julius Caesar of Rome to partially burn this leading library. Still what a great historical time of learning even way before Origen. Wikipedia says:
“The Library of Alexandria was not the first library of its kind. A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East. The earliest recorded archive of written materials comes from the ancient Sumerian city-state of Uruk in around 3400 BC, when writing had only just begun to develop. Scholarly curation of literary texts began in around 2500 BC.”
Did you get that lofty phraseology: “scholarly curation of literary texts in around 2500 BC”? My one could think such ‘consideration’ [con ‘with’ sider ‘stars’] worthy of Acapulco gold and ancient Babylonian beer? Yes a starry night in the desert walking and seeing all those stars. Note: Wikipedia says: “Chemical tests of ancient pottery jars reveal that beer was produced about 3,500 BCE in what is today Iran, and was one of the first-known biological engineering tasks where the biological process of fermentation is used.” Did any of Jesus close disciples drink beer or much wine?
Wikipedia also says: “The Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hebrews, among other Semitic cultures of the Middle East, mostly acquired cannabis from Aryan cultures and have burned it as an incense as early as 1000 BC. Cannabis oil was likely used throughout the Middle East for centuries before and after the birth of Jesus.”
Yes, some of those ancients thinkers, with their libraries and forms of entertainment were rather sophisticated—maybe even more so than some souls today supposedly educated in America’s dumbed down version for a consumer society with bread and circus propaganda for dummies. Our subservient civic jobs now during modernity are to spend money and keep the economy running—not to think too deeply and especially not to ask controversial questions (or dare answer them).
Oh yes we are supposed to vote for the either the corrupt Democrats or the corrupt Republicans. We follow along with the programming never realizing how much of a series of staged event it all is meant to be. You mean you do not realize there are some college professors, more or less, paid to falsify history?
You may want to watch this very interesting video on Emperor Constantine (he certainly was not an angel):
The Controversy Of Constantine’s Conversion To Christianity | Secrets Of Christianity | Real History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qYiwPBQ8Qg
It is a video worthy of watching more than once.
Nevertheless, it was from those Hellenized times (Greek culture instilled into the Middle East way back) where we come to recognize our invitation to a New Age, or revival, to learning more about the many heresies that dominated the early periods during the evolution of Christianity (as we presume to know it—as we have been enculturated to believe).
We also considered a few notions from the prolific writer Elaine Pagels’ analysis of the Gnostic Gospels (or the Nag Hammadilibrary) and we quickly got more questions than answers. And in this bargain we receive some questions that challenge the very assumptions people normally have presumed from the traditional codex, known as the New Testament (determined to be the politically correct PC versions decided by some ‘human’ Bishops with all their foibles and such).
For example, some of these once suppressed and censored teachings say Jesus had secret teachings that were disseminated to the more adept insiders (a minority) and not shared in public discussions.
These teachings were not part of the official New Testament as we know it. Wow! Did you get that? It almost sounds like there were two or more versions of Jesus’ teachings. How damning can this be—actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were suppressed (and /or hid from the masses of commoners)?
[Note: The word damn is from Latin damnare “to adjudge guilty; to doom, condemn, blame, reject,” from noun damnum “damage, hurt, harm.” Here’s a word that still packs some punch—conjuring up all those controversies from the many heretics who chose to view things differently. ‘Conjure’ too is a sensational verb coming from the supernatural world “summon a sacred name, invoke by incantation or magic,” and conspire,” yes, yes conspiracy theories!! How apropos! Those DAMN Free Thinking HERETICS!]
This stuff was happening within a so-called Hellenized world. See video:
The Hellenistic Background of Christianity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx-ct4ldEfA
Again referring to an article recently cited:
Ancient texts encouraged hope and endurance when they spoke of end times
“The idea of an apocalypse, a time of catastrophic suffering, has existed for thousands of years…
“The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to the period just after the apocalyptic writings in the Book of Daniel, spoke of impending terrible battles between good and evil…
“Much of what scholars know about the Jewish community that wrote and preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls, speaks to a people in the throes of what appeared to be the end times. …”
Recall that the Book of Danielreferred to conquests of Jerusalem by a Seleucid king named Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus tried to Hellenize Jerusalem and some within the priestly caste then did not appreciate it.
1-4-5 — Antiochus Epiphanes – Life of Christ – Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIIkxCtQNOY
With more potential attention now slowly being paid to the Gnostic Gospels and Dead Sea Scrolls the origins of early Christianity lie still in earlier Jewish apocalyptic worldviews: “John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostle Paul all seemed to have apocalyptic worldviews and preached messages about the imminent end times.” Ancient Texts Encourage Hope (above citation).
Nevertheless they were in full force after Antiochus desecrated the 2ndTemple with his depiction of honoring Zeus etc.
There is also such questions as to what Jesus actually meant by his phrase “the Kingdom of God is within you” which could very much question even the notion of an afterlife kingdom so many assume.
Recall that back then the Middle East was the “middle” of trade routes spanning from East Asia throughout the Mediterranean. These were not naïve peoples. They were familiar with alternative religions and philosophies, such as Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, etc. And back then some might have thought life had a daily grind (in which the spirit needed to take a chill).
Could some abstract version of “the kingdom of God is within you” possibly have meant, at least to a few abstract thinkers, more awareness and focus to realize the richness of living in the present—kind of like what mindfulness meditations try to instill in those of us too wrapped up in our own racing-around-lives? Just maybe it was a more metaphysical message—at least for some.
Arguably Jesus said some puzzling things. This becomes more perplexing now when we now know some of the gospels teachings were essentially censored for hundreds of years.
Apparently people over the centuries were interpreting this man in a number of different ways, and given that the first gospels were supposedly not published until some decades after his apparent life it should not surprise anyone, with an open mind, the man is a much a mystery today as he apparently was back 2000 years ago.
[Note: It is not a goal herein to convince readers one way or another as to what the real Jesus meant and said. He very much remains a mystery and what we do know was written by other people (and their own personalities). But certainly some of his messages like the “kingdom within you” is open for consideration. A little later we will ponder why he supposedly focused a good deal on a fiery punishment and wrathful return to judge. Was he really such an even-handed man of cool judgement.]
Cherie Carter-Scott’s book: If Life is a Game, These Are the Rules, in Chapter 6: “There” is No Better Place Than “Here” subtitle Peace says:
“…Relaxing into the present moment puts you in the mental and physical state of calm, quiet, and tranquility and finally gets us off the here-but-get-there treadmill. …
“One of my favorite movies is Being There, in which Peter Sellers plays the lovable idiot savant Chauncey Gardner. Simple-minded Chauncey lives his life only in the present moment, with absolutely no awareness of anything other than what he sees before him … of course, the rest of the world interprets his simple statements as wise analogies … Life is simple and easy for this man, to who past and future references have no meaning. He is focused completely on the present moment.”
Doesn’t this seem like good spiritual advice for those of us who could be worrying, every minute of the day, about a regional war in the Middle East or Eastern Europe quickly going global? Is this not what some airy gurus of our time are telling us?
At the end of the Being There movie Chauncey walks close to and over a pond that strongly insinuates Jesus walking on water. People have puzzled over this somewhat perplexing ending. After all this is a gardener guy who lived thinking TV was programmed reality when he was not gardening. Now an audience is confronted with some perplexing idea like maybe life is as it is perceived however individuated and arbitrary.
Whereas, we of mass society, are so wrapped up in all the cultural craziness of our times, and all its distractions, and all the potentialities we could be worrying about. We do not share this movie’s innocence (and frankly neither did those depictions of Jesus written in the New Testament so focused on judging the wrong doing).
Current American Evangelism is in a frenzy of expectation awaiting all manner of rapture eschatology, consisting of End-Times events, supposedly, when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected, and rejoined with Christians who are still alive today, and together, will rise “into the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”!
But to many people this is not airy-fairy hot air.
This is the finale when the world stops operating as we know it—even though there have literally been hundreds of End of Times predictions from a Christian perspective throughout the centuries since the time of Jesus (and before).
So many people are now are riveted to the fears of such an anticipated set of events (or thinking themselves the select chosen in rapture) they cannot live a normal healthy, somewhat carefree life—because so much drama is in our midst.
Watch For 8 SIGNS In 2024, God’s Prophetic Word, The End Times Are Here (Last Days Bible Prophecy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7ZVZXzQlL4
Yet there are alternative perspectives on such literature. Take this book: How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature—Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference, and What It Means for Faith Today by Steven L. McKenzie
An abstract for this book at www.academic.oup.com starts out: “More people read the Bible than any other book. … The question is, do they understand what they’re reading? As this book shows, quite often the answer is, “No.” … we must grasp the intentions of the biblical authors themselves—what sort of texts they thought they were writing and how they would have been understood by their intended audience”.
Chapter Four of this book is entitled: Not the End of the World as We Know it: Apocalyptic Literature In the Bible. The abstract says:
“This chapter discusses apocalyptic literature in the Bible. While their eschatologies differ, apocalyptic literature and Hebrew prophecy have in common that they are both intimately connected with the historical and social contexts in which they were produced. Like prophecy, apocalyptic was not intended to predict the distant future. In the book of Revelation there are no specifics given about exactly when Rome’s destruction will occur, nor does Revelation describe the historical circumstances immediately preceding the end of world. The problem is not with the book of Revelation but with the way in which it has been interpreted. To interpret Revelation as a prediction of the end of the world is to fail to understand the nature of apocalyptic literature.”
[Note: This author, a mortal man (anonymous), has not read this book mentioned above but what is important to understand is there are more explanations on such a complex phenomenon than we typically seek out, that can still bring more clarity or light to understand complex realities and historical mythologies (especially when we are uncertain as to how much of Christian religion is history versus invented mythology). And we should ‘not’ underestimate the ‘many’ serious controversies there are about Jesus the Christ.]
Nevertheless, it is obvious there are plenty of demagogues today, whether well-meaning or not, who are literally scaring the “hell” into people because they take their own interpretations of the Book of Revelations so seriously. And frankly what was written about Jesus shows that he too played a major role in promoting the notion of the final judgments. Read:
Jesus Said More about Hell Than Anyone in the Bible
https://www.crossway.org/articles/jesus-said-more-about-hell-than-anyone-in-the-bible/
The Uncomfortable Subject Jesus Addressed More than Anyone Else
An “eternal fire” does not sound too forgiving to many people. And it does not take a lot of seeds of doubt to effect one’s anxiety levels. Google: “fear phobia Book of Revelation” and you will get plenty interesting links. Here’s one: What is hadephobia?
https://www.gotquestions.org/hadephobia.html
Within this essay with Biblical references we get this: “Hell is a fearsome place (see Matthew 10:28). The great theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” tapped into his audience’s natural hadephobia to good effect, and many were saved as a result. … However, hadephobia should not be part of a Christian’s life. It is true that hell is a real place where the unredeemed go, but you need not worry—if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you are saved from that fate”.
We will have even more to explore on this ‘psychology’ and ‘politics’ of religion later (as a need for more academic focus). Criminologists have referred to Stockholm’s Syndrome as real. Wikipedia starts out: “Stockholm syndrome is a proposed condition or theory that tries to explain why hostages sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors. It is supposed to result from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, and abusive relationships”.
Well there certainly is a power imbalance between this Judeo-Christian God (and Trinity agent Jesus) and God’s supposed human subjects (no matter how strenuously some professors state the God of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian New Testament was a loving and caring God).
We asked in Part 1 why the fields of psychiatry and psychology have not directly addressed potential mental disorders that could be associated with believe in religious scripture, namely the Bible.
We also asked why people in government, such as those who study foreign affairs, do not spend more time trying to understand religions from both a political and psychological point of view—because up to this time there has been an unconscionable small amount of research in these areas despite their obvious import. For example, many wars in modern times are tied up to the three Abrahamic religions (often manipulated as such).
Ironically, referring again to the next sentence in the Wikipedia entry listed above says: “… it is difficult to find a large number of people who experience Stockholm syndrome to conduct studies with any sort of validity or useful sample size. This makes it hard to determine trends in the development and effects of the condition, and in fact it is a “contested illness” due to doubts about the legitimacy of the condition.”
Have you ever heard anything so naïve and moronic!? What if many of these people scared witless because of the Book of Revelation can be argued to be suffering from Stockholm’s syndrome—how can that be a goodly number of people?! The descriptions of hell by Jesus are very much like words of people suffering in a war zone.
Has no one ever argued the God of the Bible is abusive? Have not enough people even read important parts of the Bible? Are people familiar with books by Bishop John Shelby Sponge like:
The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love ?
Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture?
Why Christianity Must Change or Die (A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile) ?
As argued in Part 2—there is no reason at all why New Voices with new messages about the Divine cannot arise.
Religion is not set in stone—and maybe neither is God.
Humanity is not obligated to honor religions that existed 2 or 3 or 4 thousand years ago.
Equally, another ironic moral twist to Judeo-Christianity in general seldom asked—and that is the question of why Yahweh does not take responsibility for the evil things (sins as he defines them) that happened from within his creation? Why is this supposed Deity, the all-powerful and all-knowing one, blaming the creatures he supposedly created—and yet this “ego noun” called God, Adonai wanting desperately to punish, often harshly, what can be depicted as relatively naïve and temporal mortal people for what he, the imperial God himself, supposed manufactured?
This is not an abusive relationship between a supreme god and mortals? No guilt-tripping here?
Crucifixion was always a highly painful way of dying. It was known throughout the Middle East and way before the time of Jesus. It was used as a warning against rebels and also to painfully torture the despised.
Why would a loving God choose such a scapegoating ploy to supposedly “save” humanity?
Jesus in the form of a human mortal with all the nervous system and anatomy of a human (clearly not a divine and supreme force when physically harmed) was not equal to God (known as beyond the physical and temporal). Does not the very act of having this supposed divine Jesus the Christ go from being tortured in prison to being crucified as common Roman practice seem a little suspect to the more skeptical? Nevertheless we, the enculturated over the centuries, will be somehow propagandized this was God’s way of forgiving his creation?
No, it was the Romans who learned and took up this dreaded form of torture. There is nothing forgiving in this kind of suffering. Furthermore real scholarship is unclear whether this is how Jesus the Christ supposedly died—unless you unquestioningly believe everything in the canon of books that have been compiled by Bishops for Roman Emperor Constantine and three hundred years after the time of Christ.
Everything about Jesus of Nazareth has been challenged and questioned—including whether he actually even lived. Some claim the gospels that appeared later where compiled by using Old Testament prophesies to correlate with what he likely would have espoused and did.
No telling. Honest people will admit to their mortal limitations and desire and curiosity to do more research. How can anyone in the 21st century claim to know beyond doubt?
Humanity has a right and a duty to question any and all dogma, be it religious or otherwise. Humans are the moral agents of history as individuals.
People are born seemingly willy-nilly all the time, sometimes with little contemplation by parents (if the child is lucky enough to have both parents who are responsible).
No one asked to be born into any world, human or otherwise, let alone with a mythology of a soul that supposedly lives beyond death and enters into another realm. Why cannot death just be death like what Ernest Becker suggests in his book: The Denial of Death. Why are human supposedly being forced to first live in a troublesome world and then into an immortal judgement of either of two extremes paradise or hell. What kind of freedom is that? All this immortality stuff is insufferable.
What is wrong with just appreciating life for the time we have in the here and now? All the other species do not have to go through all these guilt trips and delusional high stakes rodeos.
To think any God needs to manufacture some realm as hell of eternal torture, meanwhile retaining the incongruous notion of being some kind of loving and caring God is ridiculous beyond belief. The mere thinking about it is is cruel and unusual punishment in any sense of the term.
Yes ‘scapegoating’ is Old Testament. The scapegoat is the one that runs free—let go to run wild after it supposedly has somehow magically been endowed with the sins of others (how this works is a bit credulous). The other goat is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, where a goat is cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community. Is this what the current government of Israel is expecting—to be shed of their cruel and unusual punishment of Palestinians in the 21st century?
When people think they are the equivalent to God they somehow manage to think they can do anything no matter how wicked and get away with it.
Let us be frank: no human has ever known a universal all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present supernatural Deity—let alone been able to speak for such a noun (assuming it a nous of sorts). All imaginings of such a supernatural force resides within the realm of the imagination—not a science of fact and human intelligence.
It does not matter whether people have been taught such canonized doctrines for thousands of years. It does not matter how ardently and excitedly people feel about what they believe. Such a God is a mystery.
Some of the most profound Christian scholars understood centuries ago we Homo sapiens could not, nor ever, understand a God that is all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing. From Wikipedia:
The Cloud of Unknowing “draws on the mystical tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Christian Neoplatonism, which focuses on the via negativa road to discovering God as a pure entity, beyond any capacity of mental conception and so without any definitive image or form. This tradition has reputedly inspired generations of mystics …
“The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God.”
Yet even today 2000 years later, with all the new information modern societies now possess about ancient times, we still have professors teaching revised ‘dogmas’ about God (cause that is what humans like to do).
Christine Hayes is one such person with a series of lectures on the Hebrew Bible (note: Christians could learn a great deal from her lectures—definitely are worth one’s time). Google: “Yale courses Hebrew Bible” and you will get the YouTube channel with here lectures. Lecture one link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo-YL-lv3RY
She starts off with a very interesting reality—that our knowledge of the earliest stages of civilization were quite limited … until the great archeological discoveries of the 19thand 20th centuries.
The fact is the world did not evolve around little old Canaan, and more importantly there are important themes in the Hebrew bible that were actually taken from other earlies religions, such as the Creation story, Noah flood story and the Garden of Eden. In another words, the Hebrew Bible was not born of unadulterated unique stories.
So instead, according to her, we are now to recognize what set the Israelites apart was an “idea: the Israelites broke from other powerful Middle Eastern religions in the sense that their God was not only a monolithic monotheistic God but their God was not limited in any way (but outside and beyond nature). Yahweh transcended nature and was truly all powerful.
One can almost feel sorry for this Hebrew Bible apologist, Christine Hayes, trying to convince modernity of how so radically different was the evolution of the Israelite religion compared to its neighbors’ religions. Was the God of the Hebrew Bible so loving and caring to mere human mortals?
Granted surrounding kingdoms treated average people as slaves. There deities did not have much concern for mortal creatures. She says it was the other prior neighbor religions that had capricious Gods, but don’t worry it was only the editors of the Bible that make her claims somewhat questionable.
Well capricious is probably not a good word to describe a God who demands the slaughter of thousands of neighboring tribes and the taking of their material goods and animals. All the cruel punishment back them is certainly not reflective of really being humane about the human condition even if it is true that punishment is required to control societies.
Christine Hayes is quick to decide the Hebrew God that we have come to know as a God of Punishment was really a more universal God who cares about mortals. This sounds very much like a wishful opinion rather than any kind of established fact. It especially sounds hollow now with the right-wing Zionist massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank today.
If her claim of the Hebrew Bible being a revolution of new ideas, well then there certainly needs to be a far greater revolution today—given how very much Israelis’ Bible and other literature has justified so much racism and oppression against other peoples historically.
Yes Zionism as a political movement is grounded in the Old Testament. One of our great contemporary historians of the West, Laurent Guyenot, wrote this article (and plenty related others):
Fear of the Jews and the Jewish God of Terror
https://www.unz.com/article/fear-of-the-jews-and-the-jewish-god-of-terror/
Read also his article: The Constantine Hoax and the Forgery of Western History
[Note: No one will ever get anything like unadulterated truth from any human being—no matter how learned or seemingly objective. We all have blindsiding blinkers on and operate from within our biases, and frankly some inevitable brainwashes. All of us can learn only from other unperfected humans—even while some may wish some people could have created a major religion with human-like values but less contradictions. Both Laurent Guyenot’s writings and Christine Hayes’ lectures are worthy of any Christian believer’s or atheist’s time—that is if a potential reader is not afraid to realize the future and present is not cemented in the stone-past.]
[Note: It’s not that Christians, per se, are afraid to feel fear. They feel plenty of fear when they listen to hell and brimstone preachers. Rather it can be hypothesized many are afraid of anything that could possibly put them into an eternal hell of damnation, so they are programmed to be afraid of anyone questioning the Bible and especially the book of Revelation. Fear is one reason why this religion has mesmerized so many millions of people. Fear of a God they are told is a loving God but unconsciously they cannot reconcile the drastic, tyrannical punishments that normally come from a dictator. Look up traits of a totalitarian and you will see the connection of such traits in totalitarian religions.]
Given the fact that tens of thousands of people are being killed unjustly in Gaza, and also the fact many Zionist Christians are behind this massacre, it is then fair to ask again: “What kind of all-knowing God would strictly blame his subjects ‘he’ supposedly created and then he solely condemns them to such unforgiveable punishment as eternal pain as hell (when he was supposedly all knowing)?”
The idea of “moral freedom” coming from having choice that supposedly explains evil in the world, that professor Christine Hayes and other theologians refers to, just does not cut it—because humans by nature are weak, as are their genetics varied. Not to mention the enormous naiveté of born creatures with many appetites and vicissitudes. Why is an all-knowing and all-powerful supernatural deity holding his creatures to ‘his’ decisive standards when the consequences are so profoundly harsh?
Equally an important question we need to address ourselves today revolves around a seemingly “non-Christian-like” reality: “Why Christian Zionists are giving Israel a free pass to engage in a genocide against the Palestinians—because they expect this all to be part of The Second Coming?”
Seven-year Tribulation & The Second Coming | Guest Speaker : Dr. Mark Hitchcock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqUvGsc4IeA
We have an huge anomaly herein: Apocalyptic events were supposed to have happened to redeem Jerusalem even before Christ, then they were expected to happen shortly after Christ’s death, and now roughly two thousand years later, these events are still expected with just as much fervor and delirium as might have been so much earlier of times. Nothing open to question here.
Again we question the professional fields of psychology and psychiatry as to why they do not do more to question the sanity of the Book of Revelation, and consequently the religious right’s (not solely but especially) willingness to support political policies that promote wars and mass death, such as what is currently going on in the Middle East.
[Note: The Conservative Right is divided but to not recognize the enormity of the Christian Right and their support of people like Zionist Donald Trump would be mistake of the greatest degree. Donald Trump changed his religion to being Jewish. He is not a Christian or he would have stayed as one. Nor is he a Christian in any deep philosophical sense. He’s a player and a playboy. He and his financiers only care about Israel’s material well-being. He certainly should have the moral sense to know what is going on there is not just in any sense.]
Why are so many OK with two corrupt political parties that have no candidates that can accomplish anything worthy of true survival and freedom? Why can they not see that even Donald Trump is not so much a false Messiah (which he is) but more so just another fake man-of-the-people huckster? Why can they not see much of his trials and tribulations were likely a wag-the-dog series of theatrics pulled off by the inside hucksters in the news, intel, and celebrity industries?
Why has there been a long-held, de facto, taboo against declaring those Revelation prophesies by John of Patmos delusional and impracticable (especially given they were initially expected to have happened in the first centuries of the Common Era shortly after Jesus’ death)?
Meanwhile a minority who are politically awake think the majority of the West is sleep-walking into disasters (plural). Why are so many people asleep or distracted?
Many people are vexed by things related to Masonic Orders and their secret handshakes. Most of these people, although relatively intelligent, talented and attractive (journalists, media, Hollywood, etc.) are really nothing too worldly-wise. Secret societies can far easier engage in all manner of the criminal and degenerate—after all are not criminal gangs and Intelligence Agencies secret societies?
Many people who work for the mainstream media are seemingly light-weight intellectuals (or at least degenerate morally). They think they are important because they still deceive some people—including plenty college graduates and professors. Whereas ninety-nine percent of the Masons don’t know much more than the next guy. Sure, they study all manner of the ancient pagan gods and goddesses and corresponding rites found in Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogmas. So what! Even having some familiarity of other religious ways seems to put Christians into a tizzy (learning of symbols and idols of past eras that sound too exotic—almost satanic! Be afraid!).
Most people in the Masonic Orders do not wield the real money that makes things happen. If you have enough money you do not have to belong to any lineage of nobility or hierarchy to be an insider to make the corrupt stuff happen. Surely some relatively few within their ranks do in fact become real movers and shakers such as a President (Donald Trump being such a candidate).
However, many of those same movers who are selected were also forcibly coerced (or the potential existed) into violating their oaths through blackmail and intimidation. Still follow the money since that alone works well enough.
The end of Part 3