Christianity Uncovered
"If I were to suggest a single empowering word loaded with expressive
power, it would be a word that currently sits atop society's list of
negatively charged taboos, a word that females since the Christian
Inquisition have been indoctrinated to despise and vilify: that word
would be cunt. The English word cunt, which history implies originally
had positive connotations and which was even used as a term of
endearment during Chaucer's time, appears to have derived from the
Germanic kunton. The German prefix ku- simply suggests an unfilled or
nonsolid place, whereas the Greek kyklos or ku klux means circle.
Ku, by the way, was also the name for the famous nightclub in Ibiza. To
me, dancing is an ecstatic meditation that encourages the centering of
one's Ki or Danjun, about 9 cm below the navel. In ancient cultures,
before written languages, Ku was used to express gnowledge through
femininity and wisdom. Mayan cosmology, for example, suggests that the
Ku were the nine interconnected and interacting aspects of creation. In
the pre-Aryan cultures of Central Asia, such as that of the Naga, ku-
was the prefix of such terms as Kundalini, the "serpentine power of
life"; Kunti, who was Arjuna's mother; Kuntis, a people of ancient
India; and later, Kuan-Yin, the female logos and unperceived side of the
manifested universe.
How did the prefix ku get to Gernany? Like the biblical Abraham, who
traveled west from south-central Asia's Pakistan region (Jos 24:2-3),
many groups journeyed west. One of these is said to be the
Goddess-oriented Tuatha de Danann, the pre-Celtic Light-Bringers, who
were known as the fifth group of inhabitants of Ireland. The Tuatha de
Danann honored the goddess Danu and appear to have settled for a while
in Greece before going north through Germania and then across the
English Channel to the Emerald Isle. With them traveled many words and
the roots for new ones.
In the Asian homeland of the Tuatha de Danann, there was Kunti Devi, the
feminine essence of earth; the mother Kunti; and other personalities,
such as Kundah, Cunti, Cunda, etc., suggesting that the root of the term
cunt was a title of respect.
Many understand that people's greatest fear is the fear of their own
power or light. Without the recognition of the feminine, centrifugal
aspect of nature as a unique natural quality of its own, not merely a
byproduct of the centripetal male, an enlightened, ontosophical society
is impossible. Letting go of indoctrinated taboos and accepting the
empowering vibration of words such as cunt, currently regarded as taboo
or derogatory, would bring us closer to a birthing of human beingness on
this Earth."
In the first century of the Common Era (CE), a traveling sage taught
among the people in the Middle East. He performed numerous works and
miracles. He healed the lame and the paralyzed, raised the dead, and
cast away evil spirits. This prophet taught a way of salvation and the
laws of the only true god. This prophet was said to have been born of a
virgin, and it was said that he had walked on the Sea of Erythra (the
Red Sea). He was esteemed by many as the Son of God, although he claimed
to be only a son of man. He was arrested for inciting the people, and
after his death, it was alleged that he had risen from the dead, walked
with his followers, and then ascended to heaven.
We all know who this was, right? Of course we do. His name was
Apollonius, and his story is found in Apollonius of Tyana, by
Philostratus. However, some who are predisposed to a particular religion
and its theo-beliefs may have thought the person referred to in the
above narrative was someone else.
Religion and its theo-beliefs, for those caught up in that groupthink,
are difficult to recognize as something discordant in our lives, let
alone as a barrier that obscures the truth of who we are from ourselves
and prevents the uncovering of our light. Those of religious faith
typically cling unquestioningly and tightly to their beliefs, which are
usually reinforced through repetition of selected Bible stories, which
they come to believe as if they had actually observed them firsthand.
These believers have bought into a view that humanity is inherently
inferior, yet through religion, their sinful nature can be redeemed if
they follow its continually reinterpreted myths. The reward for
supporting their legally protected superstition is a promise of eternal
life. However, is that really the truth?
If one's roots or foundations are permeated in falsity, then even common
sense suggests that one's life will be equally as false. For truth is
not an invention, and truth is not a consensus reality born from a
fixation with self-authenticating holy books devised by our flat-earth
ancestors. Truth is not a thing to be discovered, but a reality to be
uncovered. There is no liberation until false beliefs are confronted
forthrightly and dissolved.
For me, the undoing of religious barriers and subsequent indubitable
spiritual breakthrough came by way of a continuum of the
transformational events that are being presented throughout this
discourse. The first to occur consciously happened when I was eight
years of age, a few days after an irascible cousin announced to the
neighborhood that my dad was not my biological father, which I had not
known until this paradigm-shifting announcement. This was a traumatic
revelation, but it was nothing compared with the words uttered by my
third-grade parochial school teacher, Sister Rose Kathleen, later that
week. She said, reading from Deuteronomy 23:2 during daily Bible study,
"No bastard shall enter the assembly of the Lord, not even to the tenth
generation." ("Non ingredietur mamzer hoc est de scorto natus in
ecclesiam Domini usque ad decimam generationem."). The newer translated
versions of this law, which penalizes children for their parents'
indiscretions, smooth out the wording; for example, the New American
Bible now says: "No child of an incestuous union," an expedient shift in
meaning, considering that finding a nonbastard child today is somewhat
like seeing someone who doesn't have a tattoo.
So what does a little child do when they has been denied something,
especially being included in the congregation of the Lord? Some pursue
it! At least, I did. Therefore, for the next two dozen years, I was a
major consumer of religious material, looking for a backdoor into
heaven. After all, I felt that I had no choice, for no one, not even
God, was going to save a bastard child. I had to find a way to save
myself, which is fundamentally contrary to Christian beliefs. The
New-Age idea advanced by moderates is that God the Father changed, and
now we can be saved through Jesus, the Son. This idea merely fortified
my quest for something more changeless, a more enduring truth.
Along that way towards something true and unchanging, I have collected
and read fifty-three different translations and versions of the Bible
while looking for my loophole to heaven. How amazing it is that so many
people believe that there is only one version of the Bible, especially
considering the tenets, for example in Matthew 5:18, which suggests that
"not one letter shall be changed." Each Abrahamic sect (Christian,
Muslim, and Jew) claims that its version is the correct version, just as
each says that its god and only its god created the universe, thus
insinuating that all other religions are both wrong and incomplete.
There are more than a hundred New Testament versions in English alone,
all of which were translated from one of two sources. This first source
is called the Textus Receptus, manuscripts from a Byzantine text base.
Most of the seventeenth-century King James Version uses this source,
with a sprinkling of the Latin Vulgate. The other source is known as the
Alexandrian text base, which includes the Codex Sinaiticus and the
Codex Vaticanus, which were compiled in the fourth century. All original
versions have been lost or destroyed. Can you imagine? The literature
about the most valuable thing in your life consists of thousands of
copies transcribed by thousands of scribes without one original or
close-to-original copy left. This is even more suspicious considering
what was once conveyed to me by the Religious Studies Department at
Montana State University, that of the over 200,000 early manuscripts
after the fourth century, no two are identical in content.
Over the years, the persistence of that little eight-year-old paid off,
and I uncovered a door, not so much through a study of the texts, but
moreso through what remained after I thoroughly reviewed the contents of
the texts. Like the Eastern philosophy of neti-neti, that is,
understanding what is, through uncovering what is not, what the texts
did not say put a different perspective on what they did say. The
philosophical nature of neti-neti served as my constant companion.
A religion's set of beliefs stands between you and your direct
experience of the source of who we are, a source that is not a personal
deity or deita (female gender) outside us. Theism is not even a proper
theory. Theism (or a belief in a god) is not a theory in any sense of
the term. God is a belief based on faith. Neither faith nor belief rests
on logical proof, material evidence, or common sense.
Being a good person of faith in a theo-belief system does not bring one
closer to the source. Source is not a patriarch or matriarch who only
loves those faithfully obedient to its authority, as proselytized by
various self-appointed religious agents who claim to have an exclusive
on the moral path to a heaven. Source does not need our love or
attention. Only that which sees itself as lacking has needs. Theism, as
will be shown clearly, is a human construct, an invented belief system
that keeps its faithful followers separated from the reality of source.
Theo-beliefs disengage us from a conscious connection with source
reality, a connection that comes through the letting go of theo-beliefs,
not the clinging to them. Theo-beliefs do not liberate us from
suffering; they contribute to suffering. The realization of our eternal
self happens when we realize the illusion of our perceived external
self. That which is external, each manifestation of our perceptions, is a
simulation or holographic projection. By releasing our bondage to
beliefs, our sapiential mind is uncovered and assumes its position as
sovereign master of soulestial expression, instead of being always
almost satisfied in an existence of diversions to which the ego-and its
sciential mind-gives meaning.
Many consider Thomas Paine to be the most eminent of America's founding fathers. He once said,
It has often been said that anything may be proved from the Bible; but
before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself
must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth
of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority and cannot be admitted as
proof of anything.
However, only in recent centuries have we begun to discern the holy
books of our theo-belief systems critically, rather than deliberating on
them solely for display and devotion. Devotional reading is not Bible
study. Bible study is engaging in the activity of asking the same
questions that we normally ask of other books. We commonly inquire: Who
wrote this? When was it written? Why was it written? Where was it
written? For what purpose was it written? Many of us ask ourselves these
questions every time we pick up a secular book. However, such
questioning, especially in an environment of hope, fear, and
faith-driven moderatism or conservatism, is viewed as a threat.
Muslims, for example, unquestioningly accept the Shahada, that is, that
there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. To understand
the dynamics of that, simply ask a Muslim why he believes in the Qur'an,
and he will say, "Because the Qur'an is the infallible words of Allah
written by his prophet Muhammad." If you continue the inquiry and
request that he divulge how he knows that Muhammad is Allah's prophet,
the Muslim will, without the slightest pondering, respond that he knows
that Muhammad is Allah's prophet because it says so right in the Qur'an.
This is a faith-driven circular reasoning common to all three Abrahamic
religions and their hundreds of denominations.
Today's Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all sprang from the same germ:
the story of Abraham, an Aryan migrant, who was probably from south
central Asia in what is now Pakistan (see Jos. 24:2-3). Abraham (meaning
multitude) appears to have fancied himself as Brahma (the root meaning
of which is to expand). The similarities between Abraham and Brahma, the
Hindu god born from Vishnu's navel, are striking. For example, Brahma's
consort was his sister Sara, and Abraham's wife was his sister Sarah
(Gen. 20:12). It was through Sarah's mendacity that Abraham's first son,
Ishmael, father of the Arabs, was swindled out of his inheritance, a
fraud being perpetuated today by Sarah's descendants upon the
Palestinian people.
Muhammad (570-632 CE), the Abrahamic teacher who, prompted by
persecutions upon Arabs, such as those continued by Pope Gregory
(540-604 CE), the Father of the Dark Ages, invented the Arab version of
monotheism. Interestingly, this new religion supplied the pedophile
prophet with many attractive wives, the youngest of whom was a
nine-year-old. However, as I don't wish to be detained by the Mutawa-the
Islamic religious police-and I don't fancy having a fatwa issued
regarding me as it was for Salman Rushdie, perhaps readers here can
unravel for themselves the Qur'an's self-authenticating meaning, and
I'll unriddle Christianity. For when Christianity falls, and it will,
the other Abrahamic religions will soon follow.
Let's broach this subject with a question. Who is the most important
figure in what is commonly known as Christianity? If you use the same
answer that most may have thought in the beginning of this third
chapter, then we have a lot of work to do on these beliefs. Also, keep
in mind as this subject begins that the terms Christ and Christian, as
will be shown, were used hundreds of years before the Common Era. Thus I
often refer to the Christianity alluded to in the New Testament as
neo-Christianity. Neo-Christianity (today's Christianity) is synonymous
with Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy literally means "a growing belief
or opinion."
The most important figure in what Westerners understand as Christianity
was the mass murderer, Saul/Paul of Tarsus. According to eminent
theologians, such as Robert Eisenman, the Essenes called this
self-ordained apostle of the Gentiles "the Spouter of Lies." Among
scholars, the Biblical Jesus/Yeshua usually appears in about the
fourteenth place in importance. Was he an actual historical figure? Even
Paul did not appear to believe that Jesus was an historical figure; for
example, see Hebrews 8:4. That is to say, Paul never identified Jesus
apart from an entirely mystical setting. Without Paul and several other
Church fathers and aristocrats, Christianity, as known today, would not
exist.
Today's Christianity, including Catholicism and every other religious
sect that uses, in whole or in part, the so-called Christian Scripture,
was woven from a hybrid of Pauline doctrines, a few historical facts,
and various fabrications. Several early Christ sects, for example, the
Sevrians, Encratites, Ebonites, Naassenes, Nazarenes, etc., rejected
Paul's epistles. Strictly speaking, Catholics do not consider themselves
Christians. In the 1970s, I raised the point of Catholics' not being
Christians with Vatican officials in reference to Gentiles, specifically
Matthew 10:5 and Acts 10:28: that they cannot personally know Jesus.
The Vatican replied that the Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian
church, but the "One, True, Apostolic Church" and as such, can
legitimately know Jesus through the apostles. In other words,
technically speaking, only Jews can be Orthodox Christians.
That Orthodox Church, which formed as an offshoot of Paul's ministry,
had no gospels that referenced an historical Jesus. The canonical
gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were contrived later, three of
them no earlier than the second century. All tacitly supported the myths
espoused by Paul. The Pauline letters or epistles presented no
knowledge of the four canonical gospels. Even in the Dead Sea Scrolls,
compiled when today's Christianity was allegedly taking form, an
historical Jesus is literally missing, as it was from all other pre-95
CE records. What does this mean? How did this neo-Christianity crop up,
apparently without a personal founder, and then claim that a personal
founder existed? The answer is not very difficult; it even has some
interesting twists.
There remains sufficient evidence to discern the deliberate fabrication
perpetrated by the early neo-Christian movement for the idea of a Christ
and a new belief system that benefited its creators' agendas. People
such as Theophilus, the patron saint of arson, and various Christian
mobs did their best to destroy as much of the preserved wisdom as they
could. Like today's fundamentalists, the early neo-Christians had little
tolerance for anything not within the narrow predetermined view of the
zealous pre-Nicene Church fathers.
The prototype of a personified Christ was developed by Paul's followers
and aristocratic admirers from the Talmud stories of Yeshua Ben Stada,
the locally notorious Yeshua [Jesus] the Notzri [Nazarite]. This Jesus,
born in 7 BCE during a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, had a stepfather
known as Joseph and a mother named Mary. On the eve of Passover in 28
CE, he was convicted of sedition by Pontius Pilate and subsequently
hanged. His hanging was not the planned means of death, but proceeded
because those who were to stone him were late. Since the end of the day
was near, which would have postponed his burial until after Passover,
the soldiers allowed the alternative death by hanging. Following his
death, his followers dubbed him the Passover Lamb.
A Nazarite or Notzri, meaning consecrated, was a Jew who took the
ascetic vow described in Numbers 6:1-21. Among famous Nazarites was
James the Just, whom the Ebionites revered as the legitimate apostolic
successor of the Nazarites. Jesus the Nazarite (not of Nazareth or
Galilee) is probably the same Jesus whose sayings were collected by
Didymos Judas Thomas in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. This Gnostic or
cardio-centric gospel of "secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke"
appears to have been compiled in response to Paul's new cerebro-centric
religion. Both the Gospel of Thomas and the Epistles of Paul predate the
canonical gospels by at least a generation. Neither the Gospel of
Thomas nor the Q source contained a crucifixion, the concept of Jesus
dying for the sins of others; a resurrection; or a personified Christ.
Thus they conveyed nothing that would support the divinity of Jesus,
which later became one of the core beliefs of the new Christianity.
The story of present-day Christianity is part of a larger mythology. The
evidence suggests that the actual principle of Christ grew out of
Memphite philosophy-literally, the Krst, the anointed ones, like the
Risen Horus/Apis. Then in the fifth century BCE, the word Christos,
referring to an "awakened one," crept into Greek subculture, and this
word can be found in the works of classical writers, such as Aeschylus
and Herodotus, the father of history. Curiously, this was the same time
in which Siddhartha Buddha, the light of Asia, realized that religion is
a man-made fabrication and a direct result or consequence of the desire
for things to be other than what they are. According to recent
research, many ideas in the New Testament were lifted from Buddhism.
In the third century BCE, through Ptolemy Soter, a lover of all things
Egyptian, a bearded, long-haired Greek image was merged with Egypt's
mystical Krst philosophy. This image, Sarapis, would become
Christendom's representative portrait of their Jesus/Yeshua. If there
was an historical Jesus/Yeshua as presented in the gospels, he would
have had short hair and a close-cut beard, as was the custom of the Jews
and the command of Paul. For example, 1 Cor. 11:14 suggests that long
hair brings shame to a man. More similar to the Sarapis model was the
link that Jesus/Yeshua was a Nazarite, like the Old Testament Samson.
Members of the religious sect of Nazarites were said not to cut their
hair. In addition to their unkempt hair, the Nazarites also vowed to
abstain from the manufacture or consumption of intoxicating beverages
and from contact with the sick or corpses. Jesus/Yeshua being a Nazarite
does not harmonize well with certain fabricated gospel tales, such as
the ritual consumption of wine and the raising of the sick and dead,
which were woven into the canonized version of the myth. This reminds me
of the fanciful story of Mason Weems, invented after the death of
George Washington, about George Washington and the cherry tree. Weems
fabricated this story to broaden the character of America's first
president and to make him seem more appealing.
The Jesus Christ myth was interwoven from many sources, including the
Egypto-Greek Sarapis, whose devotees, according to Hadrian, called
themselves Christians and bishops of Christ. Sarapians had temples in
most of the major cities of the time, including Alexandria, Rome, and
even Bithynia, where Pliny the Younger was governor at the beginning of
the second century CE. Under Trajan (who was married to Pompeia Piso),
Hadrian was governor of Syria. As every Bible hobbyist should know, as
per Matthew 4:24, Jesus' fame was said to reach throughout all of Syria,
yet the evidence shows that no one there knew Jesus' followers as
Christians until well into the second century. Why was that?
Gnosticism, the original form of Christianity, arose from a
Greco-Egyptian philosophical fusion, as mentioned above. Gnosticism was
an important part of the neo-Christian construct. Gnosis was not an
outgrowth of neo-Christianity, as revisionists suggest. Today's
Christian persuasions are a product of Gnostic Christianity, not the
other way around. We could say that Christianity was built on the DNA of
Gnosticism. This neo-Christian fabrication from Gnosis and Krst, from
gnowledge and the Anointed One, can also be substantiated through the
Book of Enoch, from which over a hundred phrases were introduced into
the New Testament. Enoch was written before 170 BCE, and several Aramaic
copies were purportedly found among the Dead Sea fragments of the
Gnostic gospels from Qumran. These Gnostics, from the time of the Julian
clan of emperors, maintained that Christ was not a man in human form,
as claimed in the gospels, but an individual goal of an initiate to
realize a Christ Consciousness, the Logos. The Logos represents a
mystical rebirth without sexual union, an awakening to a reality beyond
duality, a palingenesis from the dream of perception. Duality is
inherently a sexual reality, in which consciousness is fragmented.
Christ Consciousness is an unfragmented consciousness, in which there is
neither hope nor fear. The Jesus as defined in the gospels could not
have been a Christ.
Neither Paul nor his followers could grasp gnosis, that is, to gnow
themselves through the heart of essence. Like many today, frozen in
their conceptual experiences, Paul needed a more physical, hope-driven,
fear-based path. The ignorant respond to hope and fear. Thus, from the
expectations infused through the Pauline church, the concept of a
personified Christ grew and entered the groupthink of the anti-Gnostic
Paulines and those, like the Roman aristocrats, who wished to exploit
it.
Before 95 CE, when history suggests that Apollonius died and rose from
the dead, there is no mention of a personified Christ or the four
gospels. There is no known contemporary scriptural record of the life
and times of Jesus/Yeshua. For neo-Christians, so fond of quoting Bible
babble, what wasn't said in the first century that which is curiously
missing, is as interesting as the fabrications and contradictions of
what was said then. For example, in the writings of Clement Romanus, the
Pauline bishop of Rome circa 95 CE, there is not even a tinge of gospel
references. Yet Luke 1:1-2 specifically implies that many eyewitness
followers had already been writing. Adding to the intrigue, Clement,
whom Tertullian and Jerome suggest was the direct successor of Peter,
was also said to be a Flavian, that is, a relative of the men who were
then the emperors of the Rome.
Sciolistic Christians vaunt that the historian Josephus, in two remarks
that have been taken out of context, verifies that Jesus/Yeshua existed.
Today, however, even conservative scholars agree that those quotations
from chapters 18 and 20 of the Jewish Antiquities, a history of the
Jews, were later Christian interpolations. Such conclusions are
consistent with Origen, an ante-Nicene father, who in the third century
CE indicated that such a declaration from Josephus of a Jesus Christ did
not exist in his copy of the Jewish Antiquities. Furthermore, no one
else before the fourth century CE ever mentioned such an important
reference from this often-cited source. Another claim by neo-Christians
as to Jesus Christ's historicity comes fromTacitus' Annals 15.44, the
comment of how Emperor Nero persecuted Christians after Rome's fire of
64 CE was actually about Gnostic Christians, worshipers of Sarapis, not
followers of Jesus or Paul. It was these Christians, the original
Christians, whom the author of the second-century Gospel of Matthew
called false Christians. Neo-Christians appropriated the name
Christianity, as they lifted terms from most of the cultures that they
absorbed.
Considering a set of all knowledge for that period, not a single Jewish,
Roman, or Greek historian, scribe, or writer mentions before 95 CE the
Jesus Christ depicted in the gospels. There are no artifacts, no works
of carpentry, and no physical evidence that a Jesus Christ ever existed.
For such a famous person, professed to have been known far and wide, it
is notable that there is not a single word of him from Pliny the Elder,
Seneca, Gaius Petronius, the Syrian Mara, Philo Judaeus, Pausanias (who
traveled throughout Syria), Theon of Smyrna, Thallus of Samaria, Silius
(Consul of Asia Minor), or the Syrian-born Lucianus.
However, the word scribe(s) is mentioned at least sixty-six times in the
New Testament. Thus, repeatedly, what was not mentioned says much
regarding the history of the invention of present-day Christianity. For
instance, why was the capital of Galilee, Sepphoris, known as the
ornament of Galilee, just four miles down the hill from the
archeological site of Nazareth, not alluded to in the Gospels, although
they all mention Nazareth? Could it be that the authors of the gospels
were unaware that the city existed because Rome leveled it during the
Jewish Revolt of 66-71 CE, some forty years after the Talmud's Jesus was
hanged for sedition? It is unlikely that Nazarites lived in Galilee,
but were instead Jerusalemites.
So far, I have presented an abridged review of what was not said. Now
comes a summary of what was disclosed: the refashioning of Gnostic
mythology into a religion that advocated slavery, dependency, ignorance,
and submissive obedience. This new religion was never a threat to Rome,
but rather, it was one through which its adherents, servants of Rome's
ruling class, were morally obligated to suffer meekly what Caesar wished
or, as Titus 2:9 says, to please their masters in all things.
Christianity is a pro-Roman religion. Did not Paul say that Roman
magistrates were only a threat to evildoers or that the man who rebels
against his master is opposing God's will? What Roman would want to
persecute the philosophy that said that tax collectors are God's
ministers (Romans 13:6)? It was the Jewish zealots and Gnostic
Christians who threatened Rome, not the anti-Gnostic Paulines and
neo-Christians.
The first canonical gospel, the Gospel According to Mark, began to
appear in Rome after 95 CE; however, it was probably drafted following
the First Jewish Revolt (70 CE). Contrary to allegations of Papias, as
reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, this gospel is clearly Roman
in origin and intention. Besides the use of Latin-rooted words not
found in other canonical texts, it also does not refer to Jewish law.
Authorship points to members of the aristocratic Piso family, who
according to genealogists were descendants of Herod the Great and
intermarried with the Flavians. These members of the Piso family were
the forefathers of Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, and Charlemagne. The
Pisos had strong ties to Syria in the first and second centuries, when
anti-slavery sentiments began to grow from the First Jewish Revolt. They
had firm reasons to introduce a new theo-ideology that encouraged
passive servility, thereby suppressing another costly servile war
similar to the Spartacus slave insurrection. The womb of the birth of
Christianity was Rome, not Judea. The Gospel According to Mark was
unknown before 95 CE apparently because of a contention between the
Pisos and the Emperor Domitian, who ruled between 81 and 96 CE.
Following Mark came the Gospel According to Matthew, which was probably
compiled by Ignatius, a Pauline bishop of Antioch, a town in Syria,
about 102 CE. Ignatius appears to have harmonized his gospel using some
six hundred of Mark's 661 verses. Considering the numerous references to
money, he may have also used the Ebionites' Hebrew Gospel of Matthew as
a source, the writer of which was said to have been a tax collector.
Other players in Ignatius' story include the Gospel of Thomas, the
Gnostic text of sayings, which may have been a source for the Hebrew
Matthew. Like the Gospel of Thomas, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew is
purported not to have contained a virgin birth or resurrection story.
Then, along with oral traditions, the copyist of the canonized Matthew
comported his story with the Old Covenant, contriving citations that
verified scriptural prophecy to address various questions of the times.
To me, his genealogy is more amusing than reconciling. For instance, of
the four women mentioned, Ruth was repurchased, Tamar was a prostitute,
Rahab was a harlot, and Bath-Sheba was an adulteress. I recall pondering
whether the Biblical Jesus/Yeshua was a bastard like me. Matthew's
encouragement of sexlessness is also amusing; for example Mt. 19:12
suggests that blessed is the man who has been castrated, but even more
blessed is he who cuts it off himself.
In the 1980s, a biennial gathering of Biblical scholars called the Jesus
Seminar concluded that only the word father could be traced to
Matthew's so-called Sermon on the Mount. The greater part of the sermon
consisted of words placed in Jesus' mouth by others long after he was
dead. During that same period in the 1980s, over a hundred Bible
scholars at another seminar agreed that Jesus never promised to return
and that he never had any intention of starting a religion. Commenting
on these scholars' conclusions, the Jesuit Rev. Edward Beutner said,
"These are not maverick scholars; they take a very careful approach to
how sayings were transmitted and evolved in the Bible texts."
Unlike the Epistles of Paul or the Gospel According to Mark, which say
nothing about Jesus/Yeshua's birth, the Gospel According to Matthew and
the Gospel According to Luke, which followed Matthew, constructed the
virgin birth in their attempt to corroborate that their Jesus/Yeshua
fulfilled Jewish prophecies about a messiah, for example Isaiah 7:14,
Hosea 11:1, Micah 5:2, and Luke 24:24.
The third of the synoptic gospels is my favorite. The Lucan discourses,
that is, Luke and Acts, were probably authored by a well-educated,
effeminate physician from Greece during the second century. These books,
having the most extensive vocabulary of any in the New Testament, were
obviously written through a healer's eyes, but also from the point of
view of an effeminate or homosexual life. Luke is a girl's gospel; Luke
is the only Biblical author to describe women's inner life. There are
women everywhere in Luke-Elizabeth, Herodias, Anna, Mary, Joanna,
Susanna, Jairus' daughter, the Queen of the South, the Widow of Nain,
Simon's mother-in-law, the crippled woman, a hemorrhaging woman, the
widow of Zarephath, women who prepare spices, women in parables, a
wailing woman, women grinding grain, and at least five women at the
tomb.
Although Luke and Matthew both use Mark as a source, and the author of
Luke probably read Matthew's compilation while in Antioch, these two
evangelists' accounts contradict each other in many ways. To name an
example:
Matthew 1:16 Joseph's father was Jacob.
Luke 3:23 Joseph's father was Heli.
According to the theory of the virgin birth, Joseph was not the father
of Jesus, so who cares whether Joseph was a descendant of King David?
Some Christian priests would have their faithful believe that the Luke
genealogy was of Mary, that Heli was Mary's father; however, Luke
3:23-24 actually negates such a claim.
Matthew 1:20 An angel appears to Joseph.
Luke 1:38 An angel appears to Mary.
Matthew 2:11 Jesus was born in a house.
Luke 2:7 Jesus was born in a manger.
Matthew 2:14 Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Egypt.
Luke 2:22 Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem.
Most Christmas season reenactments use Luke's manger, but Matthew's escape to Egypt.
Matthew 28:2 An angel
Luke 24:4 Two men in dazzling garments
John was the last of the canonical gospels. Theophilus of Antioch
appears to be the first person to mention its existence as a gospel
(during the later half of the second century). However, the Rylands
Papyrus, which could be part of a copy of John, has been
paleographically dated to 150 CE, fifteen years after the Bar Cochba
revolt. John's gospel resonates more with the Jesus of the Talmud than
the Jesus in the synoptic gospels. For example, John has his Jesus dying
on the eve of Passover, as the slaughtered lamb, not following the
Passover meal as the Jesus of Matthew and Luke. Actually the
documentation of the time points to the so-called crucifixion as
actually a fabricated cruci-fiction, invented along with the
resurrection story after 95 CE. Rabbinic law called for criminals to be
stoned, not to undergo a Roman-style crucifixion, although hanging was
acceptable for lesser offenses. Jesus was killed "by hanging him on a
tree" (Acts 5:30 & 10:39); Jesus was "hung on a tree" Galatians
3:13; his "body [was] on the tree" 1 Peter 2:24.
The so-called Evangelist John and the John who authored of the Book of
Revelation were surely two different persons. Unlike the Gospel
According to John, written in traditional Greek style, the Apocalypse
(Revelation) is characteristically Semitic. The Apocalypse is said to
have been written while John was in exile on Patmos, one of the
Dodecanese Islands about a hundred kilometers southwest of the city of
Ephesus.
Although evidence shows that the New Testament is a subterfuge of
zealously crafted myths, letters, and sayings, the last entry is
somewhat different. The Apocalypse or Revelation of John reportedly was
admitted into the canon of the New Testament in the late fourth century
by one vote. That one vote margin of acceptance is said to have been
attained only after the addition of the first three verses, which is
quite humorous, considering that the last verses of Revelation say, "No
man shall add unto these pages."
The Apocalypse might be considered a quite informative, multilayered
prophetic disclosure. That is not to say that the Apocalypse predicts
future calamities for humanity, but rather appears to reveal intrahuman
animating principles written through subconscious symbolism, woven
together with the messianic events associated with the forty-two-month
Bar Cochba revolt. The Bar Cochba revolt occurred circa 135 CE, when
Jewish towns and temples became Gentile, as per Rev. 11:2 & 13:5.
Coming to terms with the Apocalypse or the Book of Revelation was one of
my tremendums or direct transformational experiences that dissolved
another layer of beliefs into which I had been indoctrinated during
childhood. I came to terms with that book in Bozeman, Montana, in 1983
after a discussion on anti-Christs and the predictions of apocalyptic
catastrophes with a friend, who had been traumatized by a group of
Russellites. Russellites are followers of Charles Taze Russell, who like
to be called Jehovah's Witnesses. I was saddened by being unable to
answer her questions, so in my empathy, I withdrew to a windowless
bathroom and cried. Then, as my supplication diminished into surrender, I
realized that the story of John's Revelation was dreamlike in
composition.
Normally, to decipher one's own dreams is formidable enough, yet
interpreting the vision of this eighteen-hundred-year-ago dead guy was
not that difficult. I simply put myself in his sandals, that is, into
the first half of the second century CE, when Ephesus was the capital of
the Roman province of Asia Minor, which historians say was founded by
Ionian settlers in the eleventh century BCE.
As a center of mysticism, Ephesus was famous for its great metaphysical
colleges, where Gnostic and Platonic philosophies like the Logos were
expounded and where priests at the Temple of Diana were said to recite
the mystic words Aki Kataki Haix Tetrax Damnameneus Aision. Even
Apollonius of Tyana, the ardent Pythagorean, had an esoteric school in
cosmopolitan Ephesus. One could imagine this city as something like
present-day New-Age towns of Sedona, Santa Fe, or Tepoztlan, where a
variety of philosophies converge, but in Ephesus, perhaps this occurred
on a grander scale.
Serpent or Kundalini worship is prevalent in the records of the era.
There were Naasenians, a serpent-worshipping Gnostic sect, the
Ophis-Christos, the Serpent Christ, the Nabians and Nabatheans, a sect
almost identical with the Sabeans, whose secret rite of baptism,
according to the 1918 Theosophical Glossary, was taught by the Buddhist
Boodhasp. In fact, Buddhists and Nagas, or Tibeto-Burmese wise men, had
already been traveling into the area for a few hundred years along the
Egypt-India trade route.
Naga, meaning wise serpent, is one of the few words that span both
centuries and continents. For instance, Nargals were Chaldean chiefs of
the Magi, and Naguals were and are brujos of some tribes of Mexican
Indians, dating back at least to Quetzlcoatl, the Plumed Serpent. The
Nagualist community, at least until a few years ago, had an annual
gathering at Lake Catemaca, where intimate discussions of duality's
multifaceted reality were held.
Ephesus was indeed a happening place. John must have had a grand time
there. At least he probably did before the ante-Nicene Fathers may have
instigated his arrest and exile. Polycarp of Smyrna and perhaps Irenaeus
were irritated by any dialogues with Gnostic sages or spiritual
travelers, like the Buddhists or Tantrics. Just imagine the likes of
today's faith-driven evangelists hearing of John learning how to raise
Kundalini, unsealing the chakras, and discussing the old-style spiritual
vortices count. The Kundalini vortices were described as petaled
flowers. In the old-style, the first six chakra flowers, or energy
wheels, had petals that added up to one hundred and forty-four. When
those were combined with the thousand-petal lotus of the crown chakra,
it was endearingly called the 144,000, a number known to readers of the
Bible as the number of the elect (those who shall be saved because their
names are written in the Book of Life).
Once the circumstances of John's life before the Revelation narrative
can be seen, the Apocalypse is no longer viewed as a scripture of
eschatology (end times). When viewed as a dream-inspired discourse, the
clarity of the symbolism, interlaced with the ominous Bar Cochba period,
the Book of Revelation is a guide for personal awakening through the
Tantric practice of Kundalini.
In the Kundalini model of Revelation, the seven churches denote the
seven chakras that are associated with the seven human endocrine glands.
The seven seals, angels, candlesticks, head and crown, lamps,
mountains, spirits, etc., have to do with the various levels in our
continuum of awakening. In Tantric philosophy, the chakras are commonly
discussed as being sealed or unopened. The mark of the beast represents
the ego expressing itself through the physicalness of the hands or the
mental activity of the forehead. This is to say, 666 on the hands
symbolizes a physical self-centeredness, whereas the 666 on the forehead
symbolizes a mental self-absorption. These are common Buddhist/Gnostic
ideas, filtered through dream metaphor. If the ante-Nicene or subsequent
church fathers had any idea of the Gnostic nature of John's vatical
writing, it would have been consigned to the flames, like the other
compositions that they felt threatened their neo-Christian viewpoints.
Any relationship of the Book of Revelation with an anti-Christ is in
regards to those like Bar Cochba, the Jews' messiah and "prince of
Israel," whom the new Christian leadership rejected as the their
"messiah returned." To the neo-Christian leadership at the time, Bar
Cochba was an anti-Christ. As for the false Christ of Matthew 24:24,
that, as noted above, seems to be in connection with the Gnostic Christ,
whose followers Hadrian (71-138 CE) called "bishops of Christ" in his
letter to the Consul Servianus. A false Christ or anti-Christ was anyone
at that time not chained to the new orthodoxy. Where and when the
author of the Gospel According to John has his Jesus say, "I am the way
and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except by me" is
in response to the Bar Cochba period.
The Gospel According to John commences with, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He [Jesus] was
with God in the beginning." Although some argue that this was a later,
fourth century interpolation, the idea of the Word or Logos is not a
Christian conception. The Western idea of Logos can be found among the
fifth century BCE writings of Heraclitus of Ephesus. At the time of the
Jewish Messiah's revolt (132 -135 CE), Buddhists were known to be
traveling the region, and those visitors would surely have been queried
about the Logos or inherent order in the universe. In response, they
would have presented the principle of Sabda, the Unmanifested Logos.
Pinda Kacha, Sabda Sacha - the Body is Perishable, the Word is Eternal.
From a different perspective, the Hindu, in accordance with Sabda
Brahman, would say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with Brahman, and the Word was Brahman." Or the Tibetans of the time may
have said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
Padmapani (the first divine ancestor of the Tibetans), and the Word (the
Unmanifested) was with Padmapani (the manifested). The author of John
however, wanted his Jesus, his messiah, to be the first manifested from
the Unmanifested, so that his fellow faithful would not follow the
followers of Simon Bar Cochba, the Prince of Israel.
In addition to the influences of Eastern and the Greco-Egyptian Sarapic
philosophies, neo-Christianity integrated other cults into its new myth
as well, just as Romans meshed the beliefs of those they subjugated. The
Christmas story, for instance, is closely related to Mithraism, which
Plutarch said was practiced in Asia Minor during the first century BCE.
Mithras, who was also called Chrestos, was born of a virgin in a cave at
the winter solstice, and his birth was celebrated during the festival
of Dies Natalis Solis Invictos. The tradition of giving Christmas gifts
appears to have been partially adapted from the Pasque Epiphany, the
goddess cult of Bari. On the other hand, Easter and the resurrection
story are another neo-Christian modification, in this case an
appropriation of the spring Eostar celebration of the death of Attis,
who, three days following Black Friday, was resurrected. Attis, the
savior, was often represented with a shepherd's staff. One traditional
theme of the Attis cult is said to have been "as our Lord was saved, so
we shall be saved." Salvation is, ironically, a belief that leads to
disempowerment because it places the idea of redemption outside the
self.
The cult of Attis, whose priests were called Gallaens, strongly
influenced the invention of modern Christianity. In fact, the Vatican,
named for mons vaticanus or Vatican Hill, which antedates Christianity,
was the place of worship of Cybele, and her fertility rites with her
youthful lover Attis were performed on Vatican Hill. In other words,
Vatican City sits atop the most sacred place of the Phrygian religion.
Today's Christianity, the Christianity founded in the second century CE,
did not arise from the teachings of an historic Jesus/Yeshua. In fact,
many contemporary scholars suggest that the majority of the words
attributed to Jesus/Yeshua in the gospels could not possibly have been
said by him, even if he did exist. Neo-Christianity was formed through
the schemes of Roman aristocrats, along with the ante-Nicene and latter
Church fathers, who rejected gnowledge, Gnothi Seauton, that is, to
"gnow thyself." Instead, they opted for a conditional cerebral process
dependent upon, and serving, the human ego, that is, to "know thyself".
The salvation cults that make up neo-Christianity, whose hideous cross
became their symbol in the third century CE, was designed to perpetuate
control of the masses. Christianity is a religion that separates us from
our direct experience with the source of who we are. Christianity is a
religion contrary to gnosis and understanding through sapience, in that
it neither contains, nor points to authentic love, through which our
true mystery is understood.
Most of today's Christians believe that their religion is one of love.
Nevertheless, their scripture says that Jesus came with a sword to bring
dissension, as in Matthew 10:34 and Luke 14:26. Their scripture says,
"Abandon your family" (Matthew 19:24; Luke 14:26). Their Jesus not only
promotes slavery, but also instructs how slaves should be punished, as
in Luke 12:47-48. In fact, the idea that their God is love was not
introduced until the late second century apology of 1 John, specifically
4:8 and 4:16. However, neo-Christians do aspire to agape love, a love
described in the first letter to the Corinthians. For example, "Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things" (1 Cor. 13:7). However, the love depicted in that description is
not authentic love. Bearing, believing, hoping and enduring are not
love. Those are conditions based on object-ive indoctrination, not on
unconditional love. In other words, Christendom's great chapter on love
is merely a discourse on past limitations and future hopes, a love that
strives to sustain conditions of conflict, separation, and limitation.
Conditional love is born of belief, and as such, it can only be
experienced through the conditions of those beliefs. If we ponder that,
it is rather amusing. Their god, as other gods, is clearly a conditional
god.
Today's Christianity, as a whole, is quite amusing, that is, from a
full-spectrum-consciousness point of view. I often ask Christians why
they go to church. This is both a joke and a superb litmus test for
estimating someone's self-built barriers to love. Why do Christians go
to church? Because they have faith. Get it? Faith is the unquestioning
acceptance of something in the absence of reason. Hebrews 11:1 says that
faith is a thing that is hoped for without evidence that it exists.
Faith is an unsupported belief. Faith is a hope, a belief in an
expectation that arises from the perception of lack. Beliefs, especially
religious beliefs, are hilarious because they are not true and could
not possibly be true. If something were true, we would not have to
believe it. said, "It is always better to have no ideas than false
ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong."
There is humor woven throughout Judeo-Christian literature. In Genesis,
the Elohim (a plural for God) create "male and female" in Gen. 1:26-27.
Then in Gen. 2:21-25, the second creation story, the into a profound
sleep to make out of him a faithful, subservient companion called Eve.
This Eve was not "created" or equal, as the female in the first creation
story. The deeper comedy, however, is that nowhere does it say that
they ever woke Adam up. Perhaps this ties in with the Awakened Ones, the
Bodhisattvas of the East, who have been suggesting through recorded
history that we wake up. Interestingly, the events of the two Abrahamic
creation stories do accommodate a different explanation of how the
serpent got into the Garden of Eden in chapter two of the Book of
Genesis. It never did; for what happened after Adam was put into a deep
sleep is just a dream. Even the "no boundary" quantum theory could
support that view; that is to say, if there is no time, how could there
have been a creation, except in our brains, which are, as
neuroscientists say, what connects us with the perceived universe?
The concept of a created man and a "made" woman "fashioned out of a rib"
in chapter two of Genesis repeats over and over in the literature of
the Abrahamic religions. The sons of the Elohim took the daughters of
men as they chose (Gen. 6:2). The woman's husband shall rule over her
(Gen. 3:16). The didactics are not limited to the Old Law and the
impositions of the God of Jacob. In Ephesians 5:22, wives are instructed
to submit to their husbands; in 1 Cor. 11:9, we learn that woman was
made for man. Again, in Col. 3:18 and Titus 2:11-12, "let women learn in
silence and be completely submissive, for no woman shall be permitted
to teach or have authority over men." The Malleus Maleficarum, a
fifteenth-century Catholic text, summed up women by saying that women,
being formed from man's rib, are only imperfect animals, whereas man
belongs to the privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged. And to
give equal time to the Protestants, Martin Luther, in the sixteenth
century, reportedly said, "Girls begin to talk and to stand on their
feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than
good crops." However, my favorite Martin Luther quotation is: "Reason
should be destroyed in all Christians." Hey! That makes sense, for
without reason, no one would challenge his hollow, faith-based reality.
Perhaps that last quotation, about destroying reason, explains why
today's roughly 500 million Christian women concede to the loathsome
view of them taken by their Bible and Christian leadership. In the early
twentieth century, they seemed to have displayed enough reason to
effect an emancipation through women's suffrage. They questioned
political authority, but why not religious authority? Do women honestly
feel that they can play "pick-and-chose" with these theo-beliefs by
saying yes, I like that verse, it's true, or no, that verse is no longer
relevant? Do they really feel that they can change their god into a
more loving god/goddess version, and somehow that will make the reality
of their ridiculous and intolerant religion, and their submission to it,
more palatable? Why do they give patronage to a reality that demands
its adherents to be unquestioningly attached to beliefs through faith,
thus the nonacceptance of truth, honesty, or a life that pivots upon
unconditional love? If they would simply allow the Bible to speak for
itself, they would see the intolerance that the scripture demands, and
they would clearly recognize their error. Yet do Christian women ever
ponder the teachings advanced by the three Abrahamic holy books? The
theologian Clement of Alexandria summed up the Abrahamic teachings
perfectly when he said, "Every woman should be filled with shame by the
thought that she is a woman."
As mentioned above, the word woman, that is "of and for man" is a
disempowering word. References from various Samarian and Mesopotamian
texts suggest that the feminine entity in the first of the two Bible
creation stories was Lilith. Later, Lilith was demonized by the Hebrews,
and subsequently by the Christians, for leaving Adam in Eden's garden.
She was labeled a dark goddess. However, when viewed in context with the
whole of various creation stories, Lilith was the quintessence of
femininity. The second feminine entity in chapter 2 of Genesis is Eve.
Eve was a wo-man, the subservient partner of Adam, a feminine parallel
to man, made out of his flesh. Lilith, on the other hand (for those who
recall chapter one of this book), was a cunt, a freethought goddess
without original sin, a feminine parallel to nature.
Why do people engage in such an absurdity as present-day Christianity?
It does not take a degree in religious studies to see how this new
Christianity got its deep grip on society. History is quite clear
regarding the roots of this deception, which was firmly grounded by the
end of the sixth century. Theodosian laws, for example, condemned all
non-Christians, thus promoting ardent persecutions of freethinkers,
deists, pantheists, polytheists, pagans, and others whose confiscated
property enriched the new church. Then came the barbaric reign of
Justinian, which barred anyone outside specific neo-Christian beliefs
from civil service, and whose forced baptisms upon Arabs encouraged the
way for the establishment of Islam. Christianity was spread through
violence and now propagates its faith through the fortune raised from
that violence. In the United States that is a serious felony, and their
propagators are nothing less than accessory felons.
However, what has kept neo-Christians ignorant of their complicity
during two millennia of treachery and crimes against humanity and
nature? What is the expected value that they hope to realize by the
acceptance of this unquestioning belief through faith in their
scripture? Is it because of their fear of death? Is it because of hope
and the anticipation of heaven? Perhaps their fear and insecurity is
perceived to be reduced through the hope that the meek will inherit the
earth. Maybe their fear of not being good enough is tranquilized by the
hope of salvation. The truth is that today's Christianity offers no
wisdom about reality or how to trigger direct, authentic experiences
with the source of who we are. Christianity only desires to feed and
sustain faith in its beliefs, a faith that steps between both individual
and collective, and their direct experience, so that what is false
continues to perpetuate itself.
There is indeed a source, which will become clear as we unveil who we
are. However, before this source can be grasped, first we must uncover
the false as the false, that is, what source is not. Sabdana's, those
who venture beyond beliefs, call this the process of neti-neti. Through
neti-neti, the true is recognized by realizing what is not false. As the
false is seen, it dissolves, and the real is revealed. To paraphrase an
idea known to first-century Gnostics, when you disrobe without being
ashamed and take up your garments [beliefs] and place them under your
feet like little children and tread on them, then you will no longer be
afraid. That is the process to an unobscured heart and the source of who
we are. Without fear, there is no hope; without hope, there is no fear.
Source is not a god of death, nor would source prescribe death for
cursing one's parents (Lev. 20:9), death for adultery (Lev. 20:10),
death for blasphemy (Lev. 24:16), death if the tokens of virginity could
not be found at the time of marriage (Deut. 22:20), or death for not
being good enough in God's eye (Gen. 38:7). How about death to Anamias
and Sapphira for not tithing enough to the Apostles' satisfaction (Acts
5:1-10)? Neither is source interested in the perpetuation of the
institution of slavery, like being subject to a master with all fear (1
Peter 2:18), obey your masters in all things (Col. 2:22), slaves both
male and female, thou shalt have (Lev. 25:44), and slaves shall be
submissive to their masters and please them (Titus 2:19). Christianity
is a religion designed for Roman world domination, not the birthing of
human beingness, or co-creating peace on earth.
Although some of today's Christians see their god as a loving father,
the Bible clearly shows that their patriarch is a murderous,
pro-slavery, vacillating, petty, racist, conditional god. They say their
god is omnipotent, yet if we have "free will," how can that be? How can
their god do whatever he likes, regardless of whatever we like? Why was
I, and all bastard children, denied access to heaven (Deut. 23:2)? How
can God's omnipotence and human free will exist at the same time? They
claim that their god has causal powers, yet source, as will be shown, is
causeless. Their god is outside themselves in some sort of multiple
dimensionality, whereas source is dimensionless. Their god is a
reflection of fear and hope, yet source's presence is changelessly in
the now. Their scriptures say that sin is real; however, source's
reality is one of peace; thus sin is not even considered. Their god
demands worship, obedience, and prayers. Yet for those who genuinely
seek peace, the notion of such attributes in a god does not exist.
The Abrahamic-rooted Christian god is, by all evidence, a supernatural
concept invented and reinvented within the evolution of our ancestors.
Simply looking at the progressive names for God gives an idea of how
this pernicious myth developed. The first Hebrew god was Elohim, a
plural word, meaning gods. In the Bible, it is used roughly 2,570 times.
For example, "Elohim said, 'Let us make man in our image' " (Gen.
1:26); "Elohim said, 'Behold, man has become one of us' " (Gen 3:22)"Let
us go down and confound them" (Gen 11:17); "Who will go for us?"
(Isaiah 6:8). The singular of Elohim, which is El or Eloah, appears 226
and 57 times, respectively. The first time a singular god is revealed in
the Bible is in Exodus 6:2-8.
Evangelical apologists come up with interesting reasons why the word god
is plural hundreds of times in the Bible, for example, by suggesting
that the verbs nearby are singular. What these apologists seldom care to
share is that what they call the Old Testament was oral tradition until
the Common Era, and it wasn't included in their canonized Bible until
the tenth century CE, during the Church-sponsored Dark Ages. In other
words, singular-thinking writers transcribed those singular verbs after
hundreds of years of oral tradition.
Religion and its accompanying beliefs are too important for Humanity to
blindly submit to in such lockstep. Could there possibly be one thing
regarding what someone so intimately pivots his or her life upon that
shouldn't be honestly questioned? When will we admit that truth is not
created or invented; it's uncovered. If a god were true, it would have
been uncovered and clearly understood in our daily lives. No Bodhisattva
who has uncovered enlightenment has ever uncovered a god with it. No
Bodhisattva who has uncovered enlightenment ever hid the truth from
those seeking it. But because God was invented, and thus not true,
god(s) can only be defined through the condition of faith. Like
Christian love, the Christian god is founded on conditions. The
Christian god is a cause-and-effect-driven creator, yet the source of
who we are does not create, for creation implies that time-a before and
an after, a past and a future, fear and hope-is real. Source is in the
now, the present instant. There is no instant in time, conditions, or
beliefs. Source is timeless. The time of duality is forever changing:
energy, neither created nor destroyed, being manifested into something
else. Quantumly speaking, creation is simply a perception of a
projection. From the now's point of view, source travels no distance in
no time, thus has no need of space or time. No god is required for the
universe's perceived existence. Natural laws arising from the
nine-planed optic matrix within which this dream continues is enough to
explain the illusion of our world.
I clung to an indoctrinated monotheistic viewpoint in various forms
until the summer solstice of 1999, when unexpectedly, through a fuller
realization of light, came the awareness that there is no god beyond
belief. In other words, understanding light is the evidence and proof
that no god(s), as presented in the Abrahamic religions and defined in
English language dictionaries, exist(s). By light, I am not speaking of 1
John's apology that says that the Christian "God is light, and in him
is no darkness." I am also not speaking of the duality of photon
particles and their waves, which are merely manifestations of the
simulated, divided light projected from the still, causeless fulcrum
through which duality effects its motion upon the holographic-like
screen that we call reality. Understanding light exposes the source of
us. From the point of view of source, there is no god(s). Like the
conceptual attributes of God, there is no energy in, or of, source.
Energy, as you will also see below, is a product of the perceived
separation from source. When scientists stop glorifying the illusion of
energy and creation, perhaps they will come to realize what light really
is. Yes, in duality, E = mc2, but to realize enlightenment, we must
understand that mc2 < c.
Belief in a god is one of the last barriers to awareness, and this
belief is a significant obstacle to peace. The last emancipation will be
a letting go of the "one-based" monotheistic philosophy of our
ancestors. The idea of a supernatural Supreme Being needs to fade away
onto some back walls of local museums as soon as possible, if humanity
is going to take its next step in evolution. To realize that reality
quickly, we must begin as soon as possible to divest religion's words
from our vocabulary. Religion and its propagators use words to
disempower, distract, and disconnect us from the now. By now, I mean
that which is neither in the past nor in an anticipated future. We can
indeed cease feeding the distraction and disempowerment of those
religion-based words. Words such as faith and those associated with
faith have dense vibrational patterns that limites both our sapiential
and sciential capacity to discern wholly. Consequently, the use of these
words suppresses our direct relationship with source. Remember, the
people whom we encounter are reflections of the vibrational pattern that
we radiate. By using and identifying with religious words, we maintain
barriers through which our life force must filter through, so our true
self is not reflected back to us because it was not clearly given or
expressed from us to begin with. By using and identifying with religious
words, what is presented in the mirror is the reflection of religious
beliefs, the veils that cover us, not our authentic selves. For example,
put a flashlight to the palm of your hand. Filtered through the hand,
the light is no longer bright, but merely dim and reddish. When we
present this hand to a mirror, it has no choice but to reflect back to
us that very same dimness. Yet our unveiled selves are more brilliant
than a thousand stars.
In 1995, at Stanford University, physicists made two particles of matter
by supercharging a trillion-watt laser through a linear accelerator. If
they had access to all of our sun's power in one spot, there might have
been enough power to make one ounce of matter. Thus, it would take more
than a thousand stars to make the physical mass of a person. Even then,
we are much grander than our physical vehicles.
Identifying and letting go of the language that fosters religions'
deleterious agendas is intrinsically a pro-freedom activity. In the
West, freethinkers such as Thomas Paine, the father of the North
American Revolution with the British, and the person who coined the term
United States of America, often spoke of the insidiousness of Christian
scripture. Thomas Jefferson, another U.S. founding father, said, "The
day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus will be classed with
other fables." Jefferson insisted, "Religion is a matter that lies
solely between man and his belief." Both of these gentleman and many
others have encouraged a primacy of a very high wall of separation
between any religious faith and a Constitutional sectarian government.
The American Revolution guerrilla leader Ethan Allen was even said to
have stopped his own wedding until the presiding judge affirmed that
"God" referred to Nature and not to the god of the Bible.
However, since the Joseph McCarthy Era, during the post-World War II
years, Christianity has infiltrated nearly every aspect of the United
States government, trimming that wall of separation into a small hedge,
which now, inescapably, allows their beliefs to pollute our everyday
environment with its virulent, theocratic moralistic views. These views
may have all the good intentions of its faithful, yet that does not
reduce the irrationality of the superstition or diminish the threat to
the nation of my birth from that faith's agenda for a monotheistic,
theocratic government.
The U.S. Constitution is not a body of laws that evolves at the whim of
the majority. Many Christians, however, in their pursuit of a Christian
theocracy, not only preach that religion plays a vital role in holding
society together, but also that the nations founding fathers would have
wanted God in the public square. The facts are clearly the opposite.
Most of the U.S. founders had a deep disgust for Christianity and its
god. Their creator, although not specifically defined, was certainly not
the god of the Bible. If Charles Darwin had been born in 1709 instead
of 1809, the word creator probably would not have appeared in the
Declaration of Independence.
In my American nation, the symbols of Christianity are being forced upon
its citizens everywhere. "In God We Trust" was adopted as the new
national motto and added to currency in 1956. Could there be a more
irreverent homage to the portraits of Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln and
Washington than putting an invocation to the Christian god next to them
on coins and currency? Every dollar I use is an advertisement for the
Judeo-Christian religion. Other offensive pseudo-patriotic slogans
exclaim "God Bless America" on public mass-transit vehicles and even in
post offices. These signs further erode any semblance of a separation
between church and state, promoting instead the propaganda of a
theocratic government. The majority of the U.S. citizenry, who are
inflicted with the Christian meme, not only think that the government's
endorsement of their monotheistic religion is acceptable, but also that
it's honorable for them to inhibit and deprive freethinkers, pantheists,
atheists, spiritual nontheists, deists, polytheists, Wiccan, etc., of
their liberty and full membership in this American nation. Most of these
Christians even think that their majority status gives them the right
to oppress and offend nonadherents to their faith.
They espouse public
prayer, the election of politicians who claim that God called them,
annoyingly express their "God bless"-ing of everything, and advocate an
evangelical agenda to legalize what is Constitutionally illegal. They
believe that it is their Christian duty and mission to indoctrinate
others with the falsities to which they cling. In that process, what has
become lost is the reality that the United States of America is one
nation under a Constitution, not under a god and certainly not under
their neo-Christian groupthink.
The fact is, "The Government of the United States of America is not, in
any sense, founded upon the Christian religion." That declaration was
drafted in 1796 under George Washington, unanimously ratified by the
U.S. Senate, and signed into law by President John Adams on June 10,
1797. And even though that document, less than two pages long, was read
aloud in Congress without dissension and well-publicized at the time,
there were no complaints, and there was no public outcry, as would be
media-ted today. Before the testimonium clause is this paragraph of
ratification and proclamation, published in several national newspapers
of the time:
"Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of
America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same,
and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said
Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the
United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do
hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military
within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants
thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every
clause and article thereof" (p. 383).
The people of that era knew well that Article VI of the U.S.
Constitution said: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be
the supreme Law the Land." The people of that time wrote Article VI of
the Constitution. Despite that indisputable event, Christian
revisionists continue to media-te their faithful towards the reactionary
side or the far right of even an appearance of religious neutrality.
The past sixty years have shown that they have been quite successful in
forcing their theo-beliefs on the common citizenry. They cleverly
removed the original national motto, E Pluribus Unum, "out of many,
one," which was coined by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John
Adams, from U.S. currency and public places. They successfully
proselytize that the U.S. was founded as "One Nation under [their] God"
and one nation under their religion. However, the historic truth is,
according to people such Herman C. Weber, DD, an expert in religious
censuses and statistics, that few early Americans were members of a
Christian church. In the 1933 Yearbook of American Churches, for
instance, it says that just 6.9% of U.S. citizens belonged to a church
in 1800. By 1850, religious membership had risen to 15.5%. By 1900,
Christians had doubled their percentage to 37%. However, not until 1942
did Christian affiliation exceed 50% of the U.S. population.
Few people realize that in 1850, only about one percent of
Irish-Americans attended church. But as anti-Catholic bias grew and the
Anglos tormented the new Irish immigrants, the Vatican ordered all
parishes to provide schools so that Irish-Americans would have a sense
of community. By the late 1880s, church attendance among the Irish is
said to have grown six-fold. In nineteenth-century North America, an
Irishman was treated less favorably than a Negro. Hate is religions
favorite fuel.
In 1954, the U.S. Congress, in direct violation of the First Amendment,
began to secure the presence of Christianity's monotheistic God in
government. For example, pressured by McCarthy-era hysteria and
Christian groups such as the Knights of Columbus, the Pledge of
Allegiance went from a patriotic oath declaring liberty and justice for
all, to a religious invocation through the insertion of the words "under
God." This made the Pledge of Allegiance into a Judeo-Christian prayer
advocating, as the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court ruled in 2002, "an
impermissible government endorsement of religion [that] sends a message
to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the
political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they
are insiders, favored members of the political community." What was
America's response to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court? Kill those liberal
judges!
It is now time to get religion out of the state. It is time for
Christians to start rendering to the United States of America what is
the United States of America's, in compliance with Matthew 22:21. It is
time to remove "In God We Trust" from currency, and public places. It's
time to remove me, and other pro-Constitution Americans, from this "We"
that these Christians promote. As long as a nation allows its government
to endorse monotheism, that nation will be a divided nation, and the
world as a whole will be suppressed, disempowered, and disconnected.
The United States was established through common law. On February 10, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote that common law is that system of law, which was introduced by the Saxons on their
settlement in England . . . about the middle of the fifth century. But
Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century. . . We may
safely affirm that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the
common law.
Christian values are not American values. Christian values are not
nature's values. Christian values can never lead the world towards an
era of peace.
The United States is a secular nation, a nation whose founding
principles arose from freethought and deism, not evangelism and theism.
The U.S. was designed to be a guiding model for the world. Yet
Christians (with their legally protected and privileged superstition)
fail to realize that their First Commandment is in direct opposition to
the United States Constitution's First Amendment. In fact, for the most
part, their Ten Commandments are everything that the U.S. Constitution
is not. Christian values are inherently un-American and unnatural
values. Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its
addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and
pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in
or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single
religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt one's,
that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs
of hollowness.
Wherever we see Christians polluting our environment through burning
Harry Potter books and other literature, we should gather for huge Bible
collections to compost their un-American literature. Wherever we see
their crosses of suffering polluting our environmental landscape, we
should send letters asking for its removal. The need for suffering is a
delusion. We need to employ constructive, creative tension to produce an
environment that nurtures peace and the liberation from suffering.
To alter the division that has become the United States and which this
theocratic agenda has perpetrated upon the world, we need to explore
immediate redress. At the top of the list should be the swift reversal
of the current constitutionally illegal Christianized national motto,
"In God We Trust," which replaced "E Pluribus Unum." In its place could
be the motto "In Love We Trust." As Christians think that their god is
love, it shouldn't be too difficult to persuade them that it's in the
best interest of the U.S. and the world to change the national motto to a
less offensive, more inclusive wording. Whenever they hear or say
"love," they can think of their god. That's much more palatable than to
have pro-Constitutional Americans, many whom are not Christian, being
forced to hear, say, or swear to monotheistic concepts, which Thomas
Paine would say was an outrage to common sense. Fortunately, I have
never had to be a witness in a courtroom. However, if I were, and if I
were asked to swear to their god on their Bible, the presiding judge
might declare me in contempt because of my laughter. It would be like
swearing to Bobby Henderson's Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The U.S. Founding Fathers, including George Washington, abhorred the
"age of Ignorance and Superstition" imposed upon humanity by
Christianity. However, the time has arrived to for the U.S. to realize
the ideal of Annuit coeptis, Novis ordo seclorum, by finishing the
pyramid on the Great Seal, as seen on the one dollar bill, both before
and after its desecration by "In God We Trust." It is time for my nation
to ascend, and lead a new order beyond ignorance and superstition, into
an era of human beingness, peace and love. Time for an emancipated
United States of America to be first nation in history to "Trust in
Love."
by J.V. Marco