Wednesday, March 07, 2007
I don’t know how many of you watched this documentary on the Discovery Channel last Sunday but I would advise you to see it. The filmmakers think they have found the bones of Jesus and his entire family including his wife Mary Magdalene and one of their children.
The evidence, although it will never be 100%, is very compelling and the dramatizations were very good at illustrating how Jesus’ life might have looked. I really don’t want to speak for the film or try to summarize it but I would really advise you to see it.
Is this evidence the Bible was written by man and NOT God? It is very evident if you read the Bible, many of the stories just don’t make sense. If you logically think about the decisions made by the key characters or the archaic laws they followed and then apply those same ideas to people and situations today, you will realize just how ridiculous they sound.
So Jesus had to be killed to pay for OUR sins. Why? Why again must there be bloodshed to please God? If He is a loving God as people suggest, then why can't He just forgive us? Why is death always required to please Him? Imagine if my father wanted me killed because he did not like our neighbor’s lifestyle. This is the same reasoning the God in the Bible uses to sacrifice His son. Does that make sense to anybody else because I’m not seeing it?
What if Jesus never called himself a God like the Bible suggests? What if man put those words into his mouth and changed the Gospels to adhere to those ideas? I believe Jesus was a rebel trying to change the government and trying to show how ridiculous the pagan religions where. He was probably also preaching how the Jewish God in the Old Testament (then an unknown term “Old Testament God”) was just as bad as the pagan Gods. This angered the rabbi’s in the synagogues. A logical person can now conclude that Jesus was probably killed because of negative speeches about the Jewish rabbi’s (who were very powerful) God and the corrupt leadership in government.
Now let’s fast forward 400 years later. When the Council of Nicaea put the Bible together under the demands of the Emperor Constantine, they decided to only to include Gospels which detailed Jesus as a divine being and not as a man. Is it possible they created a God when one did not exist? By putting words in Jesus’ mouth they can also validate the Old Testament God and please everybody.
Constantine’s motives where to save his kingdom which was splintering because of a religious revolution. He did not care which religion reigned supreme or which God was idolized just as long as he remained the emperor and was able to control the people again. The majority of the empire was Christian so he commissioned the Council of Nicaea to end the conflicts within the Christian faith. So this Council of Nicaea dubbed Jesus a God and included only the few Gospels which supported this. They did not include the majority of Gospels which wrote about Jesus as an ordinary man with a wife and child.
No group has been more discriminated against by organized religion than women. The pre-Christ pagans believed the way to heaven was by having sex with women. So, in essence, the women held the power for gaining entry in heaven. Well the men during this time wanted to change this, so the Council did not include anything which would give women power again over men. This is probably one of the reasons why Mary Magdalene was written as a whore instead of the wife of Christ, to eliminate any power she might have brought into Christianity. It also provided a perfect cover up to eliminate her relationship with Jesus. To ensure the pagan religions were forever destroyed and woman’s power along with it, thousands of women were slaughtered, labeled as witches, when their only crime was to believe in a different God (a non Christian God). Now the pagan religion was forever dead and man can now control entry into the afterlife.
When the Council of Nicaea ended, Christianity was now the official religion of Rome. The Roman armies enforced these new Gospels with an iron fist by killing all opposition and by burning any of the opposing Gospels. Now, finally, Constantine’s country was whole again.
Recently, I began reading the New King James Version of the Bible. I am surprised at how many times evil exists but has been twisted to be good. There are also many situations which don’t make any sense to a logical, intelligent human being. I am only as far as Numbers but I have already encountered several situations of outright evil. I’m talking Saddam Hussein evil. How can you justify cutting babies out of pregnant mothers and bashing them against rocks or throwing them off cliffs? How can you justify killing people for cursing their parents or not going to church on Sunday? Why did they have to kill animals or even people to please God? Already I’m three chapters into this book and it sounds like I’m reading a book about a devil.
I challenge all Christians to read the Bible from cover to cover with an open mind. Put yourself in the shoes of the people making the decisions and try to justify them as “good” decisions. Try to bring the situations into your world and see if they still make sense. Try to find other people in the news which made similar choices and see if they are remembered as tyrants or as saviors. These revelations will change you.
Most people who claim to be staunch conservative Christians probably have never read the Bible from cover to cover. They just listen to what others tell them and accept it as ultimate truth. That’s what happened to me when I was younger. I only read the Bible through the selected passages my priest selected for me or in a Catechism class. I never knew the horrors which existed until I started reading it unedited from cover to cover.
Is it possible one day we will soon have evidence proving how the religions of today are false and how we have not even begun to find God? If we have overwhelming evidence then what will happen? Will the religions try to save themselves by killing people again? I am still hoping to find God before I die but the outlook is grim with people believing in ancient traditions without questioning anything no matter how ridiculous. Traditions built on the motives of one man trying to protect his dictatorship.
How can we ever find the truth when religion is woven into our culture so tightly that even an atheist believes (without realizing) many religious traditions? We are baptized at birth and taught, even before we can think for ourselves, that Jesus is God. We are not given a chance to debate anything. What can you debate if everyone within your family circle is a devout Christian? They will surely threaten you for challenging the authority of the church. You are raised to conform, even though no one knows exactly what they are conforming with.
When a devout Christian actually reads the Bible they are usually so convinced it is the ultimate truth that their powers of observation and critical thinking are forever gone. So they convince themselves that killing non believers in the Old Testament days was a good thing. They will use ridiculous phrases like “God works in mysterious ways” or some other gibberish to justify the slaughtering and torturing of entire towns and villages. Who does the Old Testament God think he is anyway…….George Bush?
The evidence, although it will never be 100%, is very compelling and the dramatizations were very good at illustrating how Jesus’ life might have looked. I really don’t want to speak for the film or try to summarize it but I would really advise you to see it.
Is this evidence the Bible was written by man and NOT God? It is very evident if you read the Bible, many of the stories just don’t make sense. If you logically think about the decisions made by the key characters or the archaic laws they followed and then apply those same ideas to people and situations today, you will realize just how ridiculous they sound.
So Jesus had to be killed to pay for OUR sins. Why? Why again must there be bloodshed to please God? If He is a loving God as people suggest, then why can't He just forgive us? Why is death always required to please Him? Imagine if my father wanted me killed because he did not like our neighbor’s lifestyle. This is the same reasoning the God in the Bible uses to sacrifice His son. Does that make sense to anybody else because I’m not seeing it?
What if Jesus never called himself a God like the Bible suggests? What if man put those words into his mouth and changed the Gospels to adhere to those ideas? I believe Jesus was a rebel trying to change the government and trying to show how ridiculous the pagan religions where. He was probably also preaching how the Jewish God in the Old Testament (then an unknown term “Old Testament God”) was just as bad as the pagan Gods. This angered the rabbi’s in the synagogues. A logical person can now conclude that Jesus was probably killed because of negative speeches about the Jewish rabbi’s (who were very powerful) God and the corrupt leadership in government.
Now let’s fast forward 400 years later. When the Council of Nicaea put the Bible together under the demands of the Emperor Constantine, they decided to only to include Gospels which detailed Jesus as a divine being and not as a man. Is it possible they created a God when one did not exist? By putting words in Jesus’ mouth they can also validate the Old Testament God and please everybody.
Constantine’s motives where to save his kingdom which was splintering because of a religious revolution. He did not care which religion reigned supreme or which God was idolized just as long as he remained the emperor and was able to control the people again. The majority of the empire was Christian so he commissioned the Council of Nicaea to end the conflicts within the Christian faith. So this Council of Nicaea dubbed Jesus a God and included only the few Gospels which supported this. They did not include the majority of Gospels which wrote about Jesus as an ordinary man with a wife and child.
No group has been more discriminated against by organized religion than women. The pre-Christ pagans believed the way to heaven was by having sex with women. So, in essence, the women held the power for gaining entry in heaven. Well the men during this time wanted to change this, so the Council did not include anything which would give women power again over men. This is probably one of the reasons why Mary Magdalene was written as a whore instead of the wife of Christ, to eliminate any power she might have brought into Christianity. It also provided a perfect cover up to eliminate her relationship with Jesus. To ensure the pagan religions were forever destroyed and woman’s power along with it, thousands of women were slaughtered, labeled as witches, when their only crime was to believe in a different God (a non Christian God). Now the pagan religion was forever dead and man can now control entry into the afterlife.
When the Council of Nicaea ended, Christianity was now the official religion of Rome. The Roman armies enforced these new Gospels with an iron fist by killing all opposition and by burning any of the opposing Gospels. Now, finally, Constantine’s country was whole again.
Recently, I began reading the New King James Version of the Bible. I am surprised at how many times evil exists but has been twisted to be good. There are also many situations which don’t make any sense to a logical, intelligent human being. I am only as far as Numbers but I have already encountered several situations of outright evil. I’m talking Saddam Hussein evil. How can you justify cutting babies out of pregnant mothers and bashing them against rocks or throwing them off cliffs? How can you justify killing people for cursing their parents or not going to church on Sunday? Why did they have to kill animals or even people to please God? Already I’m three chapters into this book and it sounds like I’m reading a book about a devil.
I challenge all Christians to read the Bible from cover to cover with an open mind. Put yourself in the shoes of the people making the decisions and try to justify them as “good” decisions. Try to bring the situations into your world and see if they still make sense. Try to find other people in the news which made similar choices and see if they are remembered as tyrants or as saviors. These revelations will change you.
Most people who claim to be staunch conservative Christians probably have never read the Bible from cover to cover. They just listen to what others tell them and accept it as ultimate truth. That’s what happened to me when I was younger. I only read the Bible through the selected passages my priest selected for me or in a Catechism class. I never knew the horrors which existed until I started reading it unedited from cover to cover.
Is it possible one day we will soon have evidence proving how the religions of today are false and how we have not even begun to find God? If we have overwhelming evidence then what will happen? Will the religions try to save themselves by killing people again? I am still hoping to find God before I die but the outlook is grim with people believing in ancient traditions without questioning anything no matter how ridiculous. Traditions built on the motives of one man trying to protect his dictatorship.
How can we ever find the truth when religion is woven into our culture so tightly that even an atheist believes (without realizing) many religious traditions? We are baptized at birth and taught, even before we can think for ourselves, that Jesus is God. We are not given a chance to debate anything. What can you debate if everyone within your family circle is a devout Christian? They will surely threaten you for challenging the authority of the church. You are raised to conform, even though no one knows exactly what they are conforming with.
When a devout Christian actually reads the Bible they are usually so convinced it is the ultimate truth that their powers of observation and critical thinking are forever gone. So they convince themselves that killing non believers in the Old Testament days was a good thing. They will use ridiculous phrases like “God works in mysterious ways” or some other gibberish to justify the slaughtering and torturing of entire towns and villages. Who does the Old Testament God think he is anyway…….George Bush?
Labels: Movie Review, Religion
posted by DarthImmortal at 10:27 AM
7 Comments:
I saw the preview for the show but did not watch it. I think the bible was written by man and that things that were meant to be in it were left out. I believe in GOD and I think the bible has the right overall message, if you can read between the lines and not be scared. But I personally do not care for the bible much. I think God is much more understanding, loving, and not nearly as vengeful as the bible portrays. I am a gnostic christian. I do not like the idea of being tied down to certain beliefs by a religious label. I just love GOD and try to show that by how I live. I have not read the bible cover to cover as you suggest. I have tried several times. But everytime I do it either makes me angry or terrified.
I have to disagree that the pagan beliefs gave women any real power... people try to use this argument all the time, how women have this magical "sex appeal" that we withhold from men (what evil vixens/teases/etc. we are for wanting basic bodily integrity!). This is just another form of plain old sexism. In AIDS-ridden Africa they tell the young men that having sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS. And guess what? Virgins in Africa sure as hell aren't powerful. Many of them are raped and contract AIDS.
Labeling a woman's control over her own body as "power" as though it is some unique thing that we get because it's special treatment (though of course, a man's right to control his body is sacrosanct -- nothing "special" or "privileged" about that) is horrifically disrespectful of women.
I'm not saying Christianity has a great track record of protecting women's rights (as someone who was raised Fundamentalist, BOY do I know how bad that track record is), but it is a pet peeve of mine when people try to pin the blame for sexism on religion. Sexism exists, with or without religion. Religion is just an excuse. Hell, Larry Summers tries to use "science" to justify his.
As for the Bible, my mom came up with a neat way of putting it -- a lot of right-wing conservative Christians make the Bible into, essentially, an idol. The mindset that the Bible is all you need is a spiritually bankrupting mindset. The Bible is one of many useful pieces of equipment God gave us. Among others: tradition, divine revelation (which can and does still occur) and, importantly, our own minds. This is why I love balanced churches like my good old Episcopal church :)
Lawfairy,
Not all, but many of the pagan religions were feminine and the women were the leaders. The Bible speaks of one in particular in which there were weekly sex rituals. This particular pagan religion believed the key to entering heaven was through a woman’s vagina. Thus sex rituals were required if you wanted to go to heaven. These were the people Moses had to slaughter because they were so evil. All of that sex damned these people to be slaughtered in the name of God, and their babies had to be cut from the womb and bashed against rocks. Sex is so evil!!
When the Christians came along they were the originators of sexism by devaluing women. They burned women alive if they were too powerful or very intelligent as witches. Thus the age of sexism was born from bloodshed. This negative trend against women continued until women finally took a stand and got the right to vote. This is why I cannot believe women would be staunch conservative Christians. It just goes to show how ignorant many of them actually are. I’m not talking about you here, so please don’t think I am.
What is happening in Africa has nothing to do with Christianity. It is another in the unending list of human tragedies but has nothing to do with the Christian beginning of sexism in 400 AD. That is unless the religions are spreading these rumors of sex with a virgin will cure AIDs. I don’t think this is the case.
Thanks for your comments.
I agree that the AIDS thing in Africa has nothing to do with Christianity -- that was kind of my point. I don't think Christianity is the author of sexism. I think sexism pre-existed Christianity. Non-reform Judaism is just as sexist as conservative Christianity. Interestingly, of the three Abrahamic religions, Islam (from what I understand) is the most inherently respectful of women by its texts alone (but look how that works out in practice).
See, when I hear about mandatory orgies and things like that, I'm just troubled. Let's say that my religion said that the key to heaven was by having sex with me. That doesn't make me POWERFUL. Hell, that puts me at risk of rape and denigration of my personhood. If my vagina holds the key to heaven, then what right do I have to withhold heaven from the masses? I'd have to be pretty selfish to insist on bodily autonomy and to restrict my sex partners to those men in whom I was interested. I can guarantee you that the governing body of that religion would exercise eminent domain over my vagina and declare it public property. That's seriously fucked up. I just don't see those sorts of beliefs being at ALL empowering for women.
But, of course, I'm a hundred percent with you on the conservative Christian women. I used to be one of them... it's incredible what a bang-up job they do of fooling women into thinking they get special "protections" etc. that are "good" for them. I'll take equality over chivalry any day. I also agree that the puritanical nature of Christianity is wrong on a lot of levels, including the manner in which it demeans women in particular. But I don't think that the answer to sexism is simply "sex" -- I think the answer is a lot more complicated than that.
Law Fairy,
I understand exactly the point you are trying to make and I agree completely with it.
As I have matured, it has been more difficult for me to accept the teachings in the Bible for some of the reasons we have discussed. If the Bible is from a loving and responsible God then I would think he would highlight equality for all people and would have specifically added a Commandment about abolishing slavery and ending racism and sexism. Both were real problems back in this time. But men wrote the Bible so it is evident these important ideas were not even considered or probably not even contemplated.
Certainly the issues of abolishing slavery and ending racism were more important than many of the existing Commandments. They also would have saved more lives and given happiness to millions of people throughout history.
Thanks again for your comments.
Dude...you're going waaay off the deep end!
Check out Kloha's article:
www.concordiatheology.org
I listened to Kloha on 91.7; he did an amazing job. I am not sure if this tomb of Jesus is the actual tomb of Jesus but I believe it is possible. I believe just admitting this I have taken an incredible leap forward to possibly finding God. It is possible man created Christianity, so that means the true God might still be waiting for us to discover Him; at least this possibility exists. I cannot bury my head in the sand and just ignore science, my intelligence, or other people’s intelligence just because these new ideas clash with unproven theories or writings of men over 2,000 years ago.
Since August, 2005 I have been on a mission to find the ultimate truth through the most intelligent minds and research of our time. The only way to do this is to wipe the slate clean and relearn everything. I have read selected works by Stephen Hawkins (very hard to read this guy) and Carl Sagan, and watched many documentaries about a host of topics. This research has proven one thing to me; we cannot give up our search for God just yet.
There are many inaccuracies in the Bible but I am not a fundamentalist, so I can still give merit while accepting these inaccuracies. For example, do I believe the universe was created in seven days? No way and I find it hard to believe there are people who still do. But this does not tarnish Jesus’ image for me. I don’t cut the entire tree down because of a bad branch. I cut the bad branch and likewise will just disregard this bad text as an oversight by ignorant men.
When I read the Old Testament, I see men of power struggling to control other people and using fear as a weapon to gain control. It’s obvious. So I struggle with my own intelligence telling me this versus my conservative upbringing. Every day I give less validity to the roots of my upbringing because those are not based on fact but on tradition. I am searching for the truth even though it might break many paradigms within my life. It is very difficult to start with a clean slate but this is what I must do in order to obtain my goal of ultimate truth.
I am not sure where this will lead me but I am willing to take the journey and follow the road in which the evidence leads regardless of the conflicts with old traditions. When I finally reach my destination, I will post again on my findings.
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