The Nay-Saying Founder of Christianity: Apostle Paul
“Somber
Euripides wrote many tragedies about the cruelty and misery caused by war,”
says the old fisherman to the girl, an artist and curious truth seeker. "Perhaps
Euripides was mystified that men would celebrate death when there was so much
beauty in life. I once saw an engraving showing Hector's son Astyanax being
taken from his mother Andromache to be thrown from the walls of Troy. That’s
the tragedy in life created by men. Nature may be mysterious and indifferent to
humans, but it is also a creator of life and beauty. And when it destroys, it’s
not by choice.”
“So
would you say the Greeks’ view of nature is expressed by Botticelli’s Primavera, which shows a celebration of
spring based on Greek mythology?”
“Exactly, a celebration of the beauty of the Earth-world and the fertility of nature so different from Apostle Paul’s anti-Earth, anti-nature ideology. And it’s noteworthy that it is saturated with femininity. Of course, Christians simply argue without any proof whatsoever that God created nature, though science has explained in great detail with endless evidence that nature created nature. But really, Christians can’t have it both ways—loving the Earth-world and nature while condemning them both as Paul does when he says ‘The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.’ The flesh is nature. Thus, one can live according to nature or according to God’s law as expressed in Paul’s ideology but not both. Consistent with Paul’s anti-Earth religion, the First Epistle of John says, ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.’ In other words, the world is declared to be hostile toward God and alienated from him. Love of the world and love of God are thus mutually exclusive. And the father is not a supernatural person but an ideology. The choice is either living as a creature of nature or as a creature of an ideology. Botticelli’s Primavera expresses a love for the Earthly lifeworld and nature, presenting both as enchanting, which they are. The painting glorifies nature rather than condemn it.”
The Invention of the Christ-God Jesus
“Jesus’ good deeds and many miracles
are what the writers of the Gospels claim for him. The bottom line is that they
are promoting their version of his religion. So that he would be taken
seriously as the founder of that religion, and not just the founder of a local cult,
it was necessary that he be made into a legendary figure like Buddha or Moses.
However, none of the writers ever met Jesus. All their information was
secondhand. They wrote about him thirty to eighty years after he died. Added to
that, all four gospel writers are anonymous. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are
just names. Thus, whoever they were, what they wrote was based on stories
circulating about Jesus. More important, these men were members of what is
called the Christ cult that emerged after his death. New Testament scholar
Burton Mack says in his book Who Wrote
the New Testament that the original Jesus movement consisted of followers
attracted to his innovative revision of Judaism. To me, his idea was that
living ethically is how one lives a spiritual life, which his good deeds
illustrate. And healing the sick and defending women doesn’t require God. Thus,
in a sense, he showed how people could achieve a peaceful kingdom by relying on
altruistic ethics. God becomes unnecessary and undesirable because the
God-centered ethics of the Judaisms have always led to bloodshed and
oppression.”
“I don’t follow.”
The parable of the Good Samaritan
“Do you know the parable of the Good
Samaritan?”
“Yes.”
“Is God mentioned?”
“I don’t remember that he is.”
“He’s not because he’s not needed. I
believe that parable expresses the central message of Jesus’s religion, a
message often overshadowed and corrupted by the influence of the writers of the
New Testament. The Good Samaritan parable implies that living spiritually
doesn’t require God or obeying God. In fact, religious ideology isn’t needed
and best avoided. In the story two Jewish priests avoid helping the injured man
for ideological reasons. But my point is
that the early followers of Jesus were attracted to his message, not to him as
the son of God or a divine figure. He was like John the Baptist, a preacher
offering a new perspective on Judaism. According to Mack, that movement was
later transformed into ‘a cult of a god called Jesus Christ.’ Humans who
achieved divinity status were common at the time. Jesus began as a preacher or
rabbi preaching a modified version of Judaism but then was promoted to a
prophet who superseded Moses, and eventually became the son of God. That the
priestly hierarchy found him threatening is not surprising.”
The Creation of the Christ-God
“I don’t understand. How could he go
from being a preacher to becoming God?”
“Perhaps the most important factor
was that he died. After his crucifixion the followers of Jesus no longer had a
temporal leader. But first let’s look at the Gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew
Jesus is arrested and taken before Caiaphas the high priest. The priest says to
Jesus, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the
Messiah, the Son of God.’ Jesus responds saying, ‘You have said so,’ and
continues saying, ‘But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of
Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of
heaven.’ That understandably angered Caiaphas who accused Jesus of blasphemy
and had him dragged off to Pontius Pilate. And you probably know the rest of
the story.”
“The Crucifixion.”
“Yes.”
“So are you saying that Jesus
eventually considered himself the son of God?”
“Personally, I doubt that he did.
The incident with Caiaphas is described by Matthew, Luke, and John a half
century or longer after Jesus’s death. So I’m saying two things. The
transformation of Jesus from a rabbi to the son of God occurred on paper, not
in Jesus’ mind, though I suppose that’s possible, but certainly not in reality.
Second, the Christ cult emerged when the dead Jesus had to be replaced, which
was the purpose of the resurrected Jesus, that is, the Christ God. Mack says
that the Jesus movement was transformed into the Christ cult, ‘where the Christ
was acclaimed as the lord of the Universe.’ That’s a big jump from rabbi to
lord of the Universe. That transformation, I believe, was made by the writers
of the New Testament, especially Apostle Paul who claimed to have had an
encounter with the resurrected Jesus. There were two judases in Jesus’s life. Judas Iscariot who killed the man and Apostle Paul who killed his message. Iscariot was the better man because he realized his crime against Jesus and humanity and killed himself. Paul never did. But Paul clearly had his own agenda,
which was to destroy the pagans of the Roman Empire by Judaizing them. It was the old intolerance of Judaism that came to define both Christianity and Islam. The
concern of the historical Jesus was the spiritual welfare of his own people. He tells his twelve
disciples, ‘Do not go among the Gentiles, that is, pagans, or enter any town of
the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.’ This wouldn’t be the
message of the lord of the Universe who one would expect to be interested in
all of humanity, not just an insignificant Jewish tribe.”
Jesus: An Imperfect Good Man
“And what about the Jesus you
disliked described by Ernest
Renan in his The Life of Jesus?”
“I believe Renan’s version of Jesus
is historical. Jesus had his own agenda and followers, but most Jews rejected
Jesus’s new religion, including his family. Understandably, that angered him,
his followers, and the writers of the New Testament. Their writings
characterize the Jews as the enemies of the son of God. They demonized the Jews
who would not join the Christ cult. So, I find both the historical and the
mythical Jesus lacking beauty.”
“With the exception of the Good
Samaritan.”
“That’s true. But the Good Samaritan
wasn’t Jesus. He was an ideal. What the attackers do in the parable is to
illustrate an action that is morally and aesthetically ugly. That is what makes
them evil. By rescuing the victim the Good Samaritan creates moral and
aesthetic beauty.”
Moral Beauty and the Ugliness of
Evil
“So evil actions are inherently ugly
actions?”
“I think so, though wanting to live in beauty need not mean simply avoiding engaging in predatory acts. Taoism
and Buddhism can help us understand how to live in such a way that preserves
beauty in one’s life.”
“Let me see if I can guess from what
you’ve told me.”
“Okay.”
“The Taoist would say act in such a
way that creates harmony or avoids creating disharmony, and the Buddhist would
say to act in such a way that eliminates suffering or at least avoids causing
suffering.”
“Very good. I believe we now have a
better understanding of how to live in beauty. And the desire for living in
beauty applies to everything, not just moral action. I’ve read many books about
Native Americans and for every aspect of their lives there was a correct and
incorrect way of acting and beauty seems to have been an unstated criterion, in which
respect played a big part—respect for family members, for other members of the
tribe, and for nature’s creatures. In addition, created objects such as tools
and clothing were made as works of art. Perhaps this respect was related to
their animistic beliefs that objects, places, and creatures all possess a
distinct spiritual essence.”
“Certainly, the old Indians believed
that everything in life was sacred. And what about Jesus? Do you think living
in beauty was a goal of his?”
“I don’t think beauty was a concept
that Jesus gave much thought to if any at all. And I don’t believe Jesus, at
least the mythical Jesus, lived up to the humane and ethical demands of the
parable.”
“Because he came to bring a war not
peace and to turn family members against one another.”
“Yes, but again words attributed to
Jesus may be the words of the writers of the Gospels rather than the words of
Jesus. As followers of Jesus they would have been angry with Jews who rejected
Jesus. Christians were as intolerant of non-Christians—be they pagans or
Jews—as traditional Jews were of pagans and Jews considered nonconformists,
like those who married pagans and worshipped the Golden Calf. The claim that
Jesus came to bring war or the sword rather than peace is found only in the
Gospel of Matthew. It appears in no other Gospel, and the gospel was written
about forty years after Jesus’ death. So maybe it was the writer who wanted war,
not Jesus. In any case, if the post-crucified Jesus was to survive, it had to
be as a supernatural being. An idea that both traditional Jews and Roman
gentiles rejected. In a way, the rejection of Jesus as Christ-God linked the
Jews and Roman gentiles in the minds of the Christ-cult writers. The hostility
toward the Jews is greatest in the Gospel of Matthew written after the
Jewish–Roman War during which the Temple was destroyed. That would have angered
all Jews, but some members of the Christ-God cult might have seen the
destruction of the Temple as a sign that the old Judaism had been replaced by
the new.”
Unlike Paul, Jesus Was
a Lover of Life, not a Hater
“The big difference between Jesus
and Yahweh is Jesus was human thus a part of the lifeworld. And no, I don’t
believe he was a hater of life as Yahweh was, a God who destroyed cities and
flooded Earth. Apostle Paul’s hatred was inherited from Judaism and philosophically refurbished
with Plato’s negative view of the material world. The hatred attributed to Jesus originated
with Apostle Paul. Like
Yahweh and traditional Jews, he hated pagans and even served for a while as a
Jewish hit man against Christians. In addition, he came under the influence of
Plato’s negative view of the material world. As a result, Paul could not but hate
Earth and the Earth-world way of life. Plato’s delusional thinking concerning
the conflict between matter and spirit is rooted in Pythagoras’s delusional thinking
about spirit and matter. Both men assumed the existence of a spiritual
substance, for which there is no evidence. Nevertheless, they assumed that
spiritual substance was superior to matter, that in fact, matter was thought to
be hostile to spirit. Thus the goal of spirit was to escape being imprisoned by
matter.”
“Which occurs when a person dies.”
“Or any creature according to
Pythagoras. He believed the soul is immortal, and it undergoes a continuous transmigration
from one body to another until, I presume, it returns to a cosmic soul or
remains free of reincarnation. Thus, in its journey a human soul could end up imprisoned
in a bean. The reason Pythagoras refused to eat beans was he believed they could contain the spirits of
dead people. Oddly because eating them caused flatulence.”
“That’s too weird!”
“It is odd that such fantastic
thinking has been called wisdom. It’s certainly not. Nevertheless, it had a
tsunamic effect on human history once adopted by Plato and passed on to Apostle
Paul who made it the foundational goal of Christianity.”
“To live in such a way that when one
dies he or she will escape the material world to live forever in the spiritual world of Heaven.”
“Except Heaven is only for Christians.
Hell was for everyone else. However, for Paul the spirit doesn't leave the physical body. Resurrected bodies are no
longer material but refurbished as spiritual bodies. In other words, the soul doesn’t escape from the body as
it does according to Pythagoras and Plato.”
“It’s amazing what people come up
with. And what about Jesus?”
“First of all. Like traditional
Jews, Jesus was Earth-clan. That’s why the homeland is so important to Jews.”
“You’re saying he wasn’t interested
in continuing to live after death.”
“It’s hard to say because we can’t
trust what he says because what he says is what the writers of the New
Testament claim he said. But I find Jesus to be an Earthy person wanting to
help people’s earthly lives, materially and spiritually, whereas Paul and the
other members of the Christ cult lived in the realm of ideas and eventually
rejected Earth-world existence as meaningful, going so far as to claim that the
Earth-world way of life was inherently evil.”
Finding the Man behind the
Christ-God
“So like Pythagoras and Plato, the Christian
goal in life is to escape the material world for the spirit world.”
“That idea came from Greek philosophers, not Jesus. And how would the writers of the New Testament really know what Jesus thought since none of them ever met Jesus. They simply took control of his thinking with their ideas.”
“Turning him into the
Christ-god.”
“That right. And it seems the man
Jesus was left out of the picture except as a figurehead. However, though we
can’t trust his words, I believe we can trust his actions. And what we know from
his actions is that Jesus cared enough about women to defend them. And he cared
about children, and he tended to the sick. And I find such behaviors reflect a feminine
sensibility, whereas traditional Judaism is a purely masculine religion. Yahweh
is the deification of masculinity, a projection of aggressive Judaism. A religion that lacks a feminine dimension that Mary, the mother of Jesus, gives to
Christianity, which unfortunately abandoned that influence. But we see it in
Jesus’s behavior. Mary may very well be the basis for his humanity, which was
probably one of the reasons for him to reject the old Judaism, which was all
about following God’s law, sacrificing animals, hating pagans, and being
circumcised.”
“Was the last a joke?”
“I find performing genital
mutilation on infants cruel. I don’t know if they had anesthesia then. But
Jesus was willing to give up hurtful behaviors. His religious philosophy was
strict but humane.”
“Okay, but the Jews hated the
Canaanites because they were like the Greeks, Earth worshipers. What about
Jesus?”
Hegel’s Jesus
“The historical Jesus wasn’t about
hating or converting pagans to his neoJudaism. Hegel says in his Early Theological Writings that ‘Jesus himself was scarified to the hatred of
the priesthood,’ a thoroughly masculine institution, and that was because
the priests were totally brainwashed by the hatred that defined Jewish
ideology. Unlike the priests, says Hegel, ‘He
urged not a virtue grounded on authority but a free virtue springing from man’s
own being.’ His goal was ‘to raise
religion and virtue to morality.’ That’s why I believe Jesus equated
spirituality with a form of morality that was more about the about self-realization
than about obeying laws. The idea of self-realization from within wasn’t new
with Jesus. Such spiritual philosophies existed in the Far East centuries
before him.”
“Buddhism?”
“Yes, and Taoism. They also existed
in the West, in particular Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism. All
these psychological philosophies were about self-control and morality-based
self-realization. It seems that Pythagoras introduced the idea that the ideal
life is one lived in a state of harmony, both within the individual and without
in his or her relationship to the world. It is here that Pythagoras offers
wisdom. And it should be noted that his school accepted both men and women. His
wife, Theano, ruled his school for a time. His acceptance of women might have influenced
Plato who also believed women were as intelligent as men and capable of
becoming political rulers. Of course, this acceptance of women as equals to men
came to an end when Christianity and Islam overthrew paganism.
“Again under the influenced of
Pythagoras, Plato believed harmony within the individual is achieved by the
emotions and appetites being control by reason. Self-control was a central
theme in Greek culture, which Jesus might have picked up since Greek culture deeply
influenced Jewish thinking for three centuries during the Hellenistic period
that led up to the time of Jesus. So, this way of living one’s life was not new
with Jesus, but like Jesus’s philosophy it was contrary to the masculine authoritarianism
of traditional Judaism and later Christianity and Islam. ”
“Okay, but what was the difference?”
“Traditional Judaism was all about
obeying God’s laws and the religious ideology, which was enforced by priests
and religious watchdogs such as the Pharisees. It was all about maintaining
control of the population based on an artificial morality.”
“You mean morality based on an
ideology of some kind.”
“One invented by men for the purpose
of controlling people’s thinking and behavior. Such a morality contradicts a genuine
morality that...”
“Wait, I know. That allows people
freedom of self-realization as long as their freedom doesn’t interfere with
other people’s free pursuit of self-realization. Kant’s principle of autonomy.”
“Yes. But there is something else
implied by Kant’s principle. Requiring people to live according to religious or
secular ideologies is not only artificial but ignores the complexity and
diversity of human cultures and ways of living. Ideological moralities are
boilerplate moralities.”
“Boilerplate moralities? I have no
idea of what that means.”
“One size fits all morality. The
fact is moralities are the product of different cultures, different
philosophies, and different points of view. The morality of Judaism is rooted
in Jewish culture, religion, and myth. It is different and even incompatible
with the moralities of pagan societies, such as those of the Canaanites, the
Greeks and Romans, and Native Americans. Gene Weltfish, author of The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture,
tells us something interesting about way of life of the Pawnee. That their way
of living was not determined by rules. She says, ‘No orders were ever issued. No assignments for work were ever made nor
were over-al plans discussed. There was no code of rules of conduct nor
punishment for infractions. There were no commandments nor moralizing proverbs.’
“She was mystified by the absence of
an authoritarian structure based on a set of rules and enforced by authorities.
She was Jewish and that might have contributed to her mystification. About the
Jews of Jesus’s day Hegel says, they were ‘overwhelmed
by a burden of statutory commands which pedantically prescribe a rule for every
casual action of daily life and gave the whole people the look of a monastic
order’ that the rules for living were ‘compressed
in dead formulas’ and that they took pride in their ‘slavish obedience to laws not laid down by themselves.’ As a result
they became ‘lifeless machines.’”
“Automatons programmed by their
religious ideology.”
“Exactly. Thus, they lived in an
ideological prison.”
“That eventually became a
bureaucratic prison. And such prisons exist today in Islamic and communist
nations.”
“Yes. Hegel says that Jesus’s goal
was to free the Jews from the cultural inertia caused by the restrictive
legalism of their religion. He sought ‘to
raise religion and virtue to morality.’ In other words, like Buddha Jesus
thought religion should not be about God but about morality, most importantly
morality ‘springing from man’s own being.’
Morality shouldn’t be about serving God but about benefitting humans, that a
human-centered morality rather than a God-centered morality. And for that to be
possible, morality has to be organically grown in humanity’s cultural gardens.
What Weltfish discovered from the Pawnee Indians was that their customs and
ways of behaving grew organically from their experience in the lifeworld. They
were not decided by priests or prophets who interpreted how they thought a masculine God
wanted humans to live. There was and is no universal morality because moral
norms varied from tribe to tribe.”
Is
Kant’s principle of autonomy a Universal Moral Principle?
“But what about Kant’s principle of
autonomy? Isn’t it universal?”
“That’s a very good question. I
believe that depends on the moral expectations of a culture. In small family
like tribes, the rules of behavior would be different from those of a big city
like San Diego. Pawnee life was challenging, often very difficult and
dangerous, so people had to work together. According to Weltfish villages were
small, three to five hundred people. The entire tribe consisted of only about
twelve thousand people. The Sioux Indians were their enemies and numbered about
thirty thousand. Thus, the possibilities for self-realization were limited to
roles played within the tribe. I doubt individuals ever felt a conflict between
their obligations to the tribe and the need for personal self-realization.”
“They were satisfied with the roles needed
by the tribe.”
“Clearly so. And to me they were
profoundly meaningful because they were organic and primordial.”
“Whereas the followers of an
ideology aren’t.”
“Ideology and technology are the two
ways people cut themselves off from the primordial lifeworld.”
“It’s pretty clear that by
surrendering themselves to a book, the Old Testament for the Jews and New
Testament for Christians. The book defines reality for them. But you believe
that wasn’t true for the Indians.”
“Conformity among Indians was
motivated by the conditions of their lifeworld and their commitment to one
another. During a buffalo hunt the entire tribe played a role in killing the
buffalo and drying and packaging of meat that would sustain them for the year.
Importantly, it wasn’t enforced but came naturally. Equally important was that
every member of the tribe felt himself or herself fully and profoundly realized
a as a human being. And there was plenty room for self-expression in the
various tasks performed such as in craftsmanship and hunting. Though in both
Indian and Jewish tribal life, survival was the underlying motivation. It’s
just to me the Jewish tribe evolved into an artificial society defined by an
ideology rather than by the lifeworld.”
“And where does Jesus fit in to all
this?”
“Spiritual self-realization through
morality—both for the individual and for society.”
“A spiritual society could be
achieved if people lived spiritual lives. Is that it?”
“Yes. Holy war, on the hand, that resulted
in the deaths of thousands and the wiping out of countless cultures arrived
with the Jews and their religion of hatred that was passed on to Christianity
and Islam. There is nothing ethical or spiritual about such behavior. One of
the fundamental corruptions of Jesus’s spiritual religion was to interpret it
as being intolerant of other religions. He certainly believed his ethics-based religion
was superior to others, but as Hegel claims, he was a teacher of morality, not
a religious fanatic on the warpath, which would have been inconsistent with his
teachings.”
The Ideal Society
Based
on Kant’s Rational Morality
“So for you what the ideal society
has to be based on Kant’s principle of autonomy or toleration and Jesus’s
spiritual ethics. So what exactly does Jesus add to Kant’s ethics?”
“Without Kant’s principle of
autonomy there can be no humanitarian ethics. It is the fundamental principle
of all truly ethical systems. Ironically, many ethical systems are unethical. However, Jesus offers a principle of morality
that transforms morality into a spiritual way of life. This principle even goes
beyond Buddha’s, though Buddha adds something to Kant’s purely rational moral
philosophy that explains it purpose...”
“Not to cause suffering.”
“Yes. Kant wanted the basic
principles of morality to valid in themselves, in the way two plus two equals
four is valid. But moral principles are not logical axioms, and treating them
as such only leads to intolerance. For Jesus and Buddha the purpose of morality
is to lessen suffering. Kant’s emphasis was on freedom, though the denial of
freedom does result in suffering.”
“That people’s autonomy should be
respected as long as it respects other people’s autonomy.”
“Yes. So, denying the freedom of
people who deny other people’s autonomy is morally justified.”
“And prisons do that.”
“Yes.”
Based
on Jesus’s Spiritual-Love Morality
“Yet you believe Jesus went
further.”
“He did by offering a moral system that
made possible a society that was not only orderly but humane. And such a
society would achieve moral beauty.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Give me an example of a good deed
that in a way achieves beauty?”
“I don’t know. I find that any act
of kindness possesses beauty. To me helping an elderly person to cross a street
or giving a homeless person money to buy something to eat possesses beauty.”
“Are such acts spiritual?”
“In a way they are, but don’t ask me
to explain how.”
“They are not motivated by personal
gain but by concern for another person. It’s that element of concern that I
find spiritual. And the goodness comes from within. It could be called love,
and that’s okay.”
“Like caring for someone or even a
plant or animal is a form of love? And such behavior is spiritual?”
“Its value is non-tangible. Though
Jesus’s concern was for people, I suppose because unlike other creatures,
people are the one creature really good at causing harm. And the age in which
Jesus lived was an age of oppression, exploitation, and warfare. Thus, it
lacked beauty.”
“Much like our own because he was
ignored.”
Wisdom Ignored by Alpha Males
“He was ignored and his message was
corrupted by being made into an instrument of hatred and aggression.”
“Why? Because humans are naturally
intolerant?”
“They weren’t during the pagan era
which was polytheistic and tolerant of other cultures. I don’t believe that self-interest
must override morality and altruistic love. It was the hatred and intolerance
inherent in Judaism, a purely masculine religion that crucified Jesus’s
religion of spiritual love and tolerance just as it did Jesus.”
“But why prefer hatred and
intolerance to love and tolerance?”
“Good question, and I’m not sure I
have a good answer. But I suspect that hatred and intolerance serves the
masculine will to power, in other words, will to dominance. One can see the
masculine will to power at work in all three of the Abrahamic religions, all which
are under the control of men. My guess is that the masculine will to dominance
has a Darwinian explanation. That Judaism is ideologically similar to male gorillas
beating their chest to express their dominance. Alpha males seek control of a
troop or band. In the Old Testament Moses is the alpha male.”
“But not Jesus?”
“No, though he was made into a
chest-beating alpha male by the writers of the New Testament whose roots were
Old Testament Judaism. Clearly his death illustrates that his motivation wasn’t
self-interest. His crucifixion was a rejection of his altruistic morality
inspired by love for his people, for all people perhaps. This made him
radically different from his own people who were obsessed with a God who boosted
their ego by declaring them the most important people in the world. The Jewish prophet Isaiah says,
‘And
Israel will take possession of the nations and make them male and female
servants in the Lord’s land,’
that is Israel. And, he continues, ‘They
will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors.” The
irony is that the Jews and their offspring were always the oppressors. Increasingly,
Judaism sought global dominance. Which would require all the world’s cultures
to be Judaized or eradicated. The goal of global dominance is a central theme
of all Jewish ideologies, including Christianity, Islam, and Marxism.”
“That’s scary because that’s what is
going on in the world today.”
Corruption of the Spiritus Mundi
“Yes. When I think of the birth of
Judaism I always think of Yeats’ poem The
Second Coming where it says,
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in
sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head
of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the
sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all
about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert
birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I
know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking
cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come
round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be
born?
“What is Spiritus Mundi?”
“It’s a culture worldview based on a
religious or secular ideology.”
“So it’s invented.”
“Always, however, its moral value is
based on whether it causes more suffering or less suffering. Thus, the ethical
worldviews of Jesus, Buddha, and Lao Tzu are superior to those of Moses,
Apostle Paul, and Karl Marx.”
The Gift of Wisdom Rejected
“It’s sad about Jesus. I mean he
offered a way of living that benefitted everyone by creating a peaceful society,
a society that encourages helping rather than hurting. But he was ignored.”
“Wisdom often is. Men like Jesus are rare, and too
often their wisdom is ignored. Like other wise men such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, the
poet Matsuo Bashō, and spiritual philosopher Thoreau, his wisdom transcended
nationality. It was a gift to humanity.”
“But it was ignored, and that’s why the
world is the way it is today—afflicted by endless violence and cruelty.”
“Yes.”
Kudos to the Good
Samaritans
who have enabled you
to courageously endure
against the evil forces that seek to destroy you
and us.
