The Jesus STORY: Fact & Myth

Searching for the Historical Jesus

Thanks to some incredible people like Bernard Ernst and Vin Gallo, among others, I have incredibly re-connected with many of the alumni of my Grammar School class at St. Sylvester’s School on Staten Island. "The Class of 1968."

St. Sylvester’s was a traditional Staten Island Catholic Parish, comprised mostly of folks of Irish and Italian descent. The Parish itself was administered by priests and the Presentation Nuns ran and taught the Grammar School.

These Nuns were tasked with controlling and teaching classrooms routinely filled with 56 to 58 students, without any teacher’s aides.

This daunting task was only accomplished because this was before the day when “discipline” and corporeal punishments were considered “abuse.”

NO school on earth today (absent the kind of discipline those Nuns had at their disposal and so freely used) could accomplish what those teaching Nuns did back then. Of course, the downside was very much like that of going to a discount dentist my Dad used to frequent with us kids (my Dad was a child of the Great Depression and it literally hurt him to spend a penny more than he absolutely had to)...the cost was kept low, but the “no frills approach” included saving money on frivolous things like Novocain or any other forms of pain reduction. Us kids had to “bite the bullet” as our teeth were drilled.

SAME thing with Catholic School, one of the costs of that no frills education was that all that educating came with some welts and not a small amount of psychological intimidation that many of us children processed as terror or torture at the time.

STILL, in re-connecting with my former classmates, I am mostly struck by the trauma those Nuns inflicted on so many of us former students. After all, I do recall that we were “lively” children, to put it most charitably and some of us were...well, more so.

I was not at all an easy child to deal with. The 1^st grade was my first excursion out “into the world,” as I did not attend Kindergarten back then. As a result, there was significant “separation anxiety,” that had me process the entire environment as alien and threatening, to begin with. I also had to forge my “social skills” (such as they were) on the fly, so to speak...and to figure out for myself when a kind word, or a punch to the beak were most appropriate...often with disastrous results.

I was also far too much of a free spirit, as well as a pretty hyperactive child - thankfully this was also before the times when every such outburst was “treated” with various pharmaceuticals.

One thing that I do very vividly recall was that I ALWAYS seemed to feel VERY bored in Church. Yes, partly because most of the Mass was still said in Latin back then, but also because I had some inner aversion to group beliefs, that while I couldn’t articulate very well, I felt very keenly. THAT has been problematic throughout much of my life...and I am thankful for it. At any rate, I spent most of the hour there in rhapsodied daydreams.

At any rate, by around the 6^th Grade, I’d read enough about the Conquistadors, the Inquisition and other historical abuses by the Roman Catholic Church, that I knew that, this religion stuff was just not for me.

By age 11, I'd asked my Dad if I could stop going to Church and he surprised me by responding, “If you really don’t get anything out of it, don’t go.”

So, from then on, I just didn’t.

I DID, however, bring various American Heritage history books into school depicting the Conquistador’s many abuses of the Indians (pouring molten gold down the throats of the "unbelievers") of South America in “converting” them to Catholicism. I didn’t see any of that as anti-Christian, or “blasphemous,” just puzzling.

WHY kill some people in order to “convert” the rest by fear and intimidation?

At school I learned that this WAS NOT mere “open-mindedness,” it WAS, to be accurate...BOTH “blasphemous” and “anti-Catholic.”

So, I was NOT a particularly “good Catholic” even back then.

Over time, I turned away from religion and I’m sure I went through a period where I despised religion, but given how all this happened so young for me, I was a child when I went through all that.

By the time, I was in my mid-teens I was merely NON-religious and NOT at all anti-religious. In fact, over the course of the rest of my life, I’ve found that the MOST close-minded, bigoted and hateful people were self-proclaimed “atheists.” A very good name for them since they too are “theists.” They BELIEVE, based solely on faith that “there is no God/Creator.”

Non-denominational Deists, such as myself are NOT “A-Theists,” nor are AGNOSTICS (also, like myself), those who don’t rely upon faith, so they can acknowledge that we just DON’T KNOW whether or not a “God/Creator exists, or not.”

Most of the “atheists” I’ve met are angry, bigoted people, who often seem more angry at organized religion than in a belief in any God, but most seem unable to articulate that viewpoint very well.

I never held such anger, at least not as an adult, nor in any vivid memories that I have of my youth, so I don't really understand it.

STILL, the story of Christ and how “Christianity” came to be, fascinates me to this day.

I have also always been amazed that many prominent figures questioned Christianity and its roots throughout the West’s history.

Even Thomas Jefferson (a NON-Denominational Deist) called the Christians of his day, “Paulists,” as he claimed they DID NOT follow the philosophies of Jesus, but those of the Roman Church...and of St. Paul.

He even crafted his own Bible – The Jefferson Bible (http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Bible-Morals-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/1604591285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442149538&sr=8-1&keywords=the+jefferson+bible) consisting solely of Jesus’ words and leaving out all the editorializing, the miracles, etc. Jefferson preferred to let the words of this Jesus speak for themselves.

Over the years, I’ve done my own reading on the subject and offer some thoughts here. I DO NOT intend any offense to believers, nor succor to those who’d revile believers and harm religions that despite all the bad that PEOPLE have done in their name, themselves have done more good than any army of “A-theists” ever have. I also DO NOT look to convert anyone to think the way I do. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it.

In memory and in thanks to my formative Grade School years, I merely offer this;

There has been so much interpretation and re-interpretation of “Jesus of Nazareth’s” words (the earliest New Testament accounts were written several hundred years after Jesus’ death), that in many ways, we don’t even know who this “Jesus of Nazareth” really was.

We do know that the teachings of this Jesus were the entre into Europe of the Judaic, or Abrahamic god, the Judaic morality, which not only supplanted the existing gods and theologies of Europe but turned its warrior moral code on its head.

The early European ethos was harsh and unforgiving. It “tended to culturing people,” the very SAME way that people tended to plants in agriculture – the noble, or useable plants/people were nurtured and developed, while the weeds and bramble were torn out and discarded (marginalized). Jesus and “Christianity” brought what Nietzsche called “the curse of Christ” – CHARITY - to Europe. Christianity taught that all life was sacred. That, in effect, the weeds were as valuable as the harvested/desired plants.

In many ways, as Nietzsche noted, Christianity can be seen as a perversion of nature and an affront to the evolution of mankind.

Those who support the teachings of “Jesus” tend to cherry pick his comments, ones that invariably fit their own worldview, like “What does it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?".

Of course, this historical Jesus (whose REAL name was Joshua of Joseph) said a LOT of things, including, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword. For I am come to set man at variance against his father, and daughter against her mother, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall they be in his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-39)...BUT there is no evidence that the historical Jesus (Joshua of Joseph) said anything about "ALL life being sacred."

Jesus was put to death by Romans in the way Rome put all traitors to death (crucifixion). The Jews of that day stoned heretics to death and many of the Pharisees wanted do exactly that after Joshua of Joseph was alleged to have raised his cousin Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus was reportedly a member of a very large family. He was a cousin of John the Baptist (another anti-Roman, anti-Colonialist rebel) and brother to James, Judas, Joseph and Simon, along with a number of sisters. The “Jesus Plot” to overthrow Roman rule and return Israel to the Davidic line of Kings was a family affair. The Jesus insurrection was a forerunner of the 1^st Jewish-Roman War 66-73 AD and the Simon Bar Kokhba’s revolt of 132 – 135 AD.

Subsequently, many of the Gospels were written during that subsequent 70 year period spanning those two Jewish-Roman Wars. By the time the Gospels were written Jewish Messianic hopes had been crushed, the Second Temple had been destroyed and Judaism was on the verge of extinction. Israel was forcefully Romanized by the Roman Emperor Hadrian with the purging of massive numbers of Jews. It would’ve been suicidal for the writers of the Gospels to present Jesus as a Messianic figure of the Davidic line who led an uprising against Rome.

Historically, Jesus is the son of a Jewish anti-Roman agitator, and he was himself an anti-Roman agitator and not much more. He was NOT a teacher of any sort of religion, merely an anti-Roman, condemned to death by the Romans on the cross.

If Joshua of Joseph (Jesus) had been condemned by the Jews, according to Jewish law, on the charge of blasphemy - for calling himself God, he would not have been crucified, instead he’d have been stoned to death according to the Jewish custom of lapidation (stoning).

Of course he never called himself God. He always said things like, “the Father and I,” and “There are things I do not know but the Father knows.”

But even if he had called himself God and he were condemned by the Jews for blasphemy, he was crucified by the Romans. He was condemned by the Romans, NOT for calling himself God but for saying that he was “King of the Jews” and for his anti-Colonialist resistance activities. According to French historian Robert Ambelain, Jesus was a Jewish maquisard [guerilla fighter], as was his father and his grandfather, as well.

According to Ambelain, Paul was no insignificant follower. He was one-fourth Jewish and three-fourths Idumean (or Arab), of the dynasty of the Herods. He was, in fact, the grandson of Herod the Great by his mother Cypros and, as an adult, he was neither in the Arab camp nor the Jewish one.

He was circumcised as an adult, not as a baby, so he had no place among the Jews, as the Jews rejected him. They did not like neophytes who converted when they were older and for perhaps non-religious reasons, so he tried to found a sect of his own.

According to Ambelain, he took the personage of the crucified Jewish agitator (Jesus) and made him into a mystical figure, added to him all the characteristics of the age-old vegetation gods, Mithra, Osiris, Adonis, and others. The disciples of Jesus already had spread the rumor that he was resurrected, so half the job was done. He only had to say, “Yes, he was resurrected, and he rose up from the dead for the salvation of the world.”

St Paul made Jesus into a world figure, when in reality he wasn’t even a Jewish figure. After the spreading of Christianity, and especially after the acceptance of Christianity as a state religion by the Roman emperors after Constantine, it seems that the gospels as we know them today were written.

They weren’t the same ones as those we have today, as our “modern Gospels” have been edited and re-interpreted over the centuries. There is no manuscript of any gospel except one or two, what are today called the Apocrypha. And even then, there’s no manuscript that was written contemporary to the time of this Jesus Christ in our world.

The first ones are of the fourth century AD. Those we have, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (well, in reality, there were numerous other names), date from the fourth century AD. The gospels that the Christians used to use before that date, they were taken back to Constantinople by order of Constantine in packets of fifty and it's these packets of fifty (of the new ones) that were given to them. So it's these “new" and highly edited Gospels that are the ones we have as the “accepted Gospels” of today.

There are many contradictory things within them, for instance, in the gospel according to Matthew, Christ was born under Herod, who'd died in the year 4 BC. Therefore, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born before 4 BC. Maybe 5 or 6 or 7 BC.

According to Luke, he was born under the Magistrateship of the Roman Quirinius, but Quirinius ruled Palestine before Pilate, that is to say, in about 6 AD. That is to say, if Jesus were born in 4 BC, he’d have been at least ten years old, so which is the right date of birth?

Why does one Gospel give one date of birth and another give a different one?

Robert Ambelain researched the gospels right through, the canonical and apocryphal ones that have survived in Coptic translation, in Slavonic translation, Ethiopian translation, in all sorts of other translations as well, and together they have given a figure of Jesus that is not at all similar to the classical one, but almost certainly a more historically accurate one.

The irony today is that it’s the “Religious Right” that has fought FOR traditional Christianity, while in Europe, like in the U.S. it’s been the far-Left, the National and International Socialists who’ve fought to eradicate traditional Christianity! Of course, that’s only because the Religious Right respects and honors traditional Western morality, while the wanton and craven Left reviles it.

It was Savitri Devi (born Maximiani Portas), the Greek-French writer who became named “Hitler’s High Priestess,” who wrote, “The Jews are the ones behind the institution of Christianity. I’m quite sure of that. It was a means to emasculate the race. There is a contradiction between the principles of Christianity and warrior behavior. They can’t go together. If you have to love your enemy like yourself, you can’t fight. And the first Christians did not fight for the Romans. But there was a compromise. When Constantine wanted Christianity to be the state religion, he said, “Call all the bishops.” The bishops said, “All right, we accept it, but we have to accept to fight for you. It will no longer be an offense to fight for the Roman Empire.” That was a compromise, an unhealthy compromise. All compromises are unhealthy. You can’t have them, can’t have them...”

“The gentle Jesus of the Christians, the classic gentle Jesus never existed. I believe in Ambelain’s theory. The real Jesus was a Jew fighting for his own race, a very respectable man. I have nothing against him. I much prefer him to the classical image of Jesus, in fact. He didn’t want the salvation of the whole world. He wanted his country to be out of the Roman Empire. I understand that. I quite understand his struggle. But that struggle doesn’t interest mankind. It interests the Jews. And the Jews found out, of course, that the best way to put him onto mankind was to give him sort of a mystical personality, a personality of peace and what mankind wanted, and to assimilate his qualities with the qualities of the already existing gods...”

“...Now 1,400 years BC, there was a religion, existing still in Christ’s days, the religion of Mithra, the Iranian god. In fact, in the very words that are attributed to Christ at the moment of the consecration of the bread and wine, “He who does not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no eternal life,” we have the exact replica in the cult of Mithra fourteen hundred years before: “He who does not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no eternal life.” And this was discovered by Tertullian, the Christian father of the Latin church in the second century. And Tertullian, of course, found an explanation. He had to find an explanation. How is it that Christ and Mithra speak the same language? He said, “Oh, no, that’s not the fact. Christ is right, but the devil put these words into the cult of Mithra fourteen hundred years before out of mockery of what was going to be one day Christianity.” The devil did it. That’s an explanation. It’s no explanation in my eyes, anyhow. In reality, it’s the Christians who took these words and applied them to their own master. Without that, their own master wouldn’t be a god. He would just be a human being. And the crucifixion would have a quite different meaning. Crucifixion: he was condemned for rebellion against the Romans, that’s all. The Christians made him into a sacrificial scapegoat. He was taking on the sins of the world.”

Today there is a perceptual schism – in Europe it remains primarily the Socialists (especially the National Socialists) who’ve most vehemently sought to replace Christianity with their perceived “original pagan and Norse gods,” while in the U.S. it’s the “Progressives,” the Nazi Corporatist’s first cousins who most vehemently oppose Christianity.

I am a Democrat and so while I revile socialism, national or otherwise, I am inclined to side with the eugenic pro-abortionists, the pro-contraception forces. All I need do is listen, even for a moment to the “Black Genocide” complaints from the anti-abortion whackos (while blacks at 13% of the population are indeed having 36% of the abortions nationally, it is NOT “genocide” when a people readily engage in an act of their own volition). As I’ve said, I’d personally prefer a more humane policy, like mandated contraception for ALL those dependent on public assistance.

Still, St. Paul was very shrewd to have linked Jesus to Gnostic  Mithraism. It was THIS “Roman version” of the “Jesus Myth” that would ultimately sweep through the Roman Empire, creating the hybrid faith that ultimately held sway over developing Europe – ROMAN Catholicism/Christianity.

December 25^th is, ironically enough, the birthday of Mithras, Sol Invictus (the Emperor Constantine was a follower of Sol Invictus a pagan god closely associated with Mithras) and Lucifer, as well.

Until the Council of Nicea (in 325AD) Jesus’ birthday was April 16^th, 6 B.C. and he was born an Arab to an Arabic family that practiced Judaism (there were no Arab Muslims at the time, because Islam didn’t exist until 600 AD).

To Constantine, like many Romans, there was little difference nor distinction between Sol Invictus, Mithras or Christ.

At the core of this mythos is “the virgin birth.” That’s why the Paulist “Jesus myth” and the Church that sprang from that sought to eradicate the references to Joshua of Joseph’s (Jesus) rather large immediate family. STILL, Jesus’ family lines are made very clear in the Gospels! In Matthew 6:3 & John 2:11) “And when he came into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said , Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?”

Another inconvenient legacy of Jesus had to be hidden and that was the fact that Joshua of Joseph (Jesus of Nazareth) was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi of Arabic blood, a pariah to the Jews of the Palestine of his day and an anti-Colonial activist who told others, including the Samaritans and Canaanites that his message WAS NOT for them, but ONLY for the Jews.

Indeed ONLY the Jews would have a stake in wanting to end Roman rule. In Matthew (10:7 he tells a woman in Canaan, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” With that remark he made very clear his message was ONLY for the Jews!

In John (4:22) he told a Samaritan woman, “You worship you know not what: WE know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.”

One thing is certain, Joshua of Joseph (Jesus) did NOT extol poverty as noble, nor did he live an ascetic life. He was friends with tax collectors (at the time such people lived very well by skimming “their share” off the top of the taxes collected) and prostitutes. Many early accounts claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene (a prostitute) were husband and wife.

When Mary Magdalene anointed his hair and feet with expensive oils, Joshua of Joseph rebuked those who scolded her that the money spent on those expensive oils should’ve gone to help the poor.

Still, the irony of the Jesus mythology is that a failed coup or anti-Roman plot was transformed, by Paul (also a Rabbinical follower of Joshua of Joseph, who later came to embrace Mithraism), to make “Christianity” palatable to the Romans and the other pagans to the north and West.

It wasn’t until 325 AD that the divinity of Jesus was set by the Council of Nicea. For all those centuries the idea of Jesus as God was debated fiercely within a much more broad and amorphous “Christianity!”

As noted, one reason is certainly that the Gospels were all written many years after Jesus’ death and many in what appears to be a fictional style (using the omniscient narrator throughout) and even when you look at the Gospels the story of Jesus post-crucifixion looks more like a REINCARNATION account than a RESURRECTION account.

In John 20: 14-16 Mary Magdalene is weeping at Jesus’ tomb and [Mary] saw Jesus standing: “...and she knew NOT that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her, ‘Woman why weepest thou? Whom sleekest thous?’ She, thinking it was the gardener, saith to him: “Sir, if thou hast taken him hence tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus saith to her, “Mary.” She turning, saith to him, Rabboni” (Rabbinical master)...in that account Mary (his wife) only recognizes his mode of speaking and mannerisms and not his physical appearance.

Later he came upon other followers who also did NOT recognize his appearance. Mark 16:12 “And after that he appeared in another shape to two of them walking, as they were going into the country.” (another unrecognizable shape...is a different body – REINCARNATION).

Luke 24: 15-16 “And it came to pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know him.”

John 21:12 “Jesus saith to them, “Come dine.” And none of them who were at meal, durst ask him, “Who art thou,” knowing it was the Lord.”

Why would they need to ask Jesus, whom they all knew well, “Who are you?” Why would those who knew him and spent their lives with him not recognize him?

Because his body at that time did not look like the one they recognized.

The Gospels describe a reincarnation account and NOT a resurrection one! OR perhaps give credence to the view that the historical Jesus survived the Crucifixion!

An interesting take on what that could possibly mean was posited by British historian Richard Denton in a documentary that aired on the BBC back in 2003, which suggested that Jesus survived the crucifixion and returned to India (where he's alleged to have spent his "lost years," between 12 and 33 y/o)/

In 2003 the BBC also aired an interview with Richard Denton:

BBC Four: Your central question is, did Jesus die on the cross, rather than did Jesus die at all.

Richard Denton: It is, really. I originally wanted to call it, 'The Body of Christ,' because that seems to me to be the crucial question. Obviously, he died at some point, but when and how is the question.

BBC Four: How do you think he might have survived crucifixion?

RD: Crucifixion took up to three days; the maximum he was on the cross for was nine hours, it might even have been six. And even if you read the gospels, Pontius Pilate is clearly surprised that he's already dead, and wants to be reassured by the centurion that he really is dead. My personal take on it would be that he goes into a shock induced coma, and probably they thought he was dead.

BBC Four: If he did survive, why do you think it's not related in that way in the gospels?

RD: First of all, they would think it was a miraculous resurrection. You don't have to think of that as a conspiracy theory, or a lie, it's just a mistake. What you then have to do is get him out of the way. The real question doesn't hang over the resurrection, which I think is explicable. The real question hangs over him ascending into heaven.

BBC Four: You make the point that the Ascension isn't actually mentioned in the gospels.

RD: It's not in any of the original versions of the gospels, which is astonishing. It was in the last 16 verses of Mark, which were put in 300 years after, and it's inserted in a sentence, into some versions of Luke, because he was assumed to have written the Acts, and it's mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. That, I think is the lie, the cover story, to get him out of the country.

BBC Four: If Jesus was revived in this way, where then did he go?

RD: One story is that he gets out and goes to the South of France with Mary Magdalene, there is a certain amount of evidence that she went there. And the other is that he goes to India, and there are a number of versions of this. One of which, suggests that in fact, he had already been to India during the missing years, between 12 and 29.

BBC Four: It was very interesting, the parallel between the story of the three kings, and the search for a reincarnated Lama …

RD: Absolutely, we explore that and the similarities between the miracles and the teachings of the Buddha and Jesus in the program. And of course Buddha pre-dates Jesus by about 500 years, so it's not unreasonable that he may have gone to India, learned Buddhist teaching, and brought it back. Then, when he returns to India, after the crucifixion, he carries on the ministry in Kashmir until he dies at the age of 80.

BBC Four: What actually prompted you to start exploring this topic?

RD: I was intrigued because most academic theologians and intelligent churchmen, or a very significant number of them, do not believe that the resurrection is the literal truth. It's a metaphor to tell us that there is hope. Whilst not saying that it's a literal truth, they don't actually say it's a lie, but if you're saying something's not literal truth, then you are saying it's a lie. I was shocked that none of the people we interviewed, with the exception of the Cannon of Westminster, believed it was true. Yet if they don't think it's true, what on earth do they think is the motivation behind writing the story in the Bible?

BBC Four: You say that the resurrection and the literal truth of the Gospel, have in the past, been the cornerstone of Christianity.

RD: Exactly. And the idea that you can go on preaching this to the ordinary faithful, while not believing it yourself, seemed to me truly offensive. So what I was looking for was another version of the story that had the possibility of being historically true, that could have been misinterpreted by the people at the time, so that what they said was not a lie, it was the way they understood it.

BBC Four: And in the end, have you found that to be the most credible account?

RD: Yes, I think so. On the other hand, I am a person who does not find the idea of rising from the dead and ascending into heaven credible. I'm faced with the choice, do I believe that the gospel writers were cunning liars, or do I think that they were simple men who misunderstood things, and were amazed by this man.

BBC Four: And did these feet, in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green?

RD: I personally don't think they did walk upon England's mountains green. I think they walked upon Kashmir's mountains green. They may have walked in France, for all I know.

This film investigates the variety of stories surrounding the New Testament account of the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, by interviewing historians, theologians and historical researchers. This exploration of the latest theories about what really happened to Jesus 2000 years ago uncovers some surprising possibilities.

At the heart of Denton's mystery is the suspicion that Jesus might not actually have died on the cross. The film concludes that it was perfectly possible to survive crucifixion in the 1st Century - there are records of people who did. But if Jesus survived, what happened to him afterwards? (http://www.harisingh.com/news2C16.htm)

One of the most remarkable stories concerns the charismatic preacher Jus Asaf (Leader of the Healed) who arrived in Kashmir in around 30 AD. Before he died at the age of 80, Jus Asaf claimed that he was, in fact, Jesus, the Christ, and the program shows his alleged tomb, next to which are his carved footprints which bear the scars of crucifixion.

Virtually every Abrahamic religion (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) was refined to be able to be partnered seamlessly with government. Even the Judaism of Jesus’ day was linked with Israel’s colonial occupiers – the Pharisees conspired with and profited through Roman rule.

When Paul’s paganized version of the “Christ Myth” swept through the Roman Empire it lent itself very comfortably to “Theocratic Rule” by Rome, ergo the formation of the ROMAN Catholic Church.

Yes, some of the teachings of the philosopher Jesus are powerful. Many impractical ideals are very attractive and very powerful, as they inspire us to try to be better tomorrow than we are today. It’s NOT Joshua of Joseph, the historical and real Jesus’ anti-Roman/anti-Colonial message that is the primary problem. As with Corporatism, as it is with Theocracies, it’s ALWAYS been government that has corrupted and poisoned everything it touches (religion and the market), NOT the reverse.

The modern naïve and simplistic view of Jesus as some sort of hippie communist who saw nobility in poverty is not even in keeping with “accepted Christianity.” It’s in line with the cult of “Liberation Theology.” (http://www.landreform.org/boff2.htm)

The ROMAN Catholic Church was the official transport of Judaism (the so-called “Judeo-Christian” ethos) into pagan Europe. The Roman Church did this by, in effect, paganizing Christianity!

As an example, December 25th, is actually the birthday of Horus and Osiris, hence of Cain, whose also been identified as Lucifer

http://petragrail.tripod.com/codes.html

ALL of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) teach that ONLY theirs is “the way to heaven.”

Most Christian sects believe that if you’re not “baptized in Christ” you’re doomed to hell, the others have held very similar exclusionary beliefs and that has led to a tremendous amount of hatred and conflict.

ALL those organized religions were utilized by government to guilt the people into living in squalor while their “betters” (the nobles, or today “the politically connected”) live opulently off the fruits of their labors, while occasionally throwing, like cannon fodder into various wars over territory and/or economics.

In that regard, ALL of the Abrahamic religions have been utilized by various governments to oppress the people. That’s done much more effectively today with the partnership of business and government using paid/accepted “researchers/scientists” as their “high priests.”

The teachings of most religions are NOT, in and of themselves, bad things, it’s just that those who “worship” are often led by “ministers” who are primarily political agents and much less “doers of good works,” or even “practitioners of any faith.”

Religions have been, for the most part, ill-used.

They’re no longer necessary for population control given the “new improved methodologies” used by today’s Corporatist states. Religion plays a very minor role today and their existence is only vital because there’s simply no way for the state apparatus to eradicate them from outside. It’s simply more effective and less threatening to let them die of their own accord. For instance, a recent poll showed that 68% of Roman Catholics used or supported the use of contraception. More and more people from all faiths are no longer in accord with the strictures of their own professed faiths.

But whether its shamans, or religious leaders or paid shills for Corporatism with scientific credentials, the people’s views and perceptions are still being manipulated and controlled to a certain extent.

And that is not a knock on the modern Corporatist state. It IS, by far, more humane than ancient theocracies...and besides, many, if not most people don’t really want to think for themselves, regardless of how passionately they may claim otherwise.

So, today, we have replaced a primary faith in religion with a primary faith in the Corporate entity. In this age, light, and warmth and food are all provided by the Corporation and our work, our lives are all enmeshed in the Corporate structure. Yes, even those who work in government, work in a government paid for, run by and managed by and for Corporate interests.

For us today to think of ourselves as less “faith-based” than the devoutly religious of a previous age, or the fiercely superstitious of an earlier age, is to be mistake technological advancement for self-reflection.

We are NOT “better people,” and NOT much more “advanced,” if more advanced at all.