Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels

The Christian religion has had a few thousand years now to make a case for the fundamental concepts it pushes upon our world.  It has failed spectacularly to show ANY evidence for supernatural or magical forces, the existence of angels or demons or Satan, the efficacy of any ones prayers, the infallibility of heavens emissaries on earth (the Popes). It has failed horribly, and has never done what it claims it can do.

Of course I am not, by any means, the only person to understand this and note the inconsistencies and illogic that runs rampant throughout their beliefs.  Despite this several thousand years of apologetics and trying to clean up their Bible of the many mistakes it continues to be an unproven hypothesis.

“Many people– then and now– have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as “letters of Paul.” Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen “Pauline” letters now included in the New Testament collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus– letters written in a style different from Paul’s and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul’s own letters. About the authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the “deutero-Pauline”– literally, secondarily Pauline– letters.”
Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University

“When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up”.   Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

“All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.”
Steve Mason, professor of religious studies, York University,  Toronto

“A generation after Jesus’ death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large numbers of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E.”
Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College

“Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing.”
Jeffery L. Sheler,“ Who Wrote the Bible,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)

“The clerical confessions of lies and frauds in the ponderous volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia alone suffice …to wreck the Church and to destroy utterly the Christian religion…. The Church exists mostly for wealth and self-aggrandizement; to quit paying money to the priests would kill the whole scheme in a couple of years. This is the sovereign remedy.” Joseph Wheless, Forgery in Christianity

“Enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no motive other than that of a Pious Fraud.”  Catholic Encyclopedia

“The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ deception and fraud.” “The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them infected with this leprosy.” Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, “Ecclesiastical History”, Vol. I, p. 347

Many scholars think that Eusebius interpolated his writings. In Ecclesiastical History, he writes, “We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwords to posterity.” (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, “How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived” (Vol. 12, chapter 32).

There is not the slightest bit of physical evidence that supports a historical Jesus; there are no artifacts or dwellings, no works of carpentry, no written manuscripts (by Jesus), nothing.  All we have are writings from other people and there is no contemporary recording of the man/God nothing written while he was alive.  All documents about Jesus came well after his supposed life on earth from people who had never even met him, from unknown authors, or from fraudulent mythical /allegorical writings.  There are no Roman Records that show Pontius Pilate executed a man named Jesus.

“The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates.” Those who concocted some of the hundreds of “alternative” gospels and epistles that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents.”  Joseph Wheless, Forgery in Christianity

“Pauline/Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centers of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was.”  Vexen Crabtree, Types of Christianity: Who were the original Christians? (2006)

According to the Gospels several things happened around the time that Jesus died on the cross.
His death was supposedly accompanied by a three hour blackout of the sun, earthquakes, and the rising of the dead. No record of these events can be found anywhere outside the Bible.

So what is a person to do? It seems to me that  anyone searching for something greater than oneself, a belief to offer hope and help, a God who’s always there to comfort and relieve stress is out of luck.  There are a little over 2.2 billion believers in the Christian God and only 1.1 billion non-believers, but those non-believers actually took the time to research their position and beliefs.  They didn’t come to that conclusion as a result of what they were born into. Of the 2.2 billion Christians in the world the vast majority have never researched one little bit of religion.  Their fathers and mothers were Christians…so they are too. They believe in some nebulous creator God who made the world 6,000 or so years ago and listens to their prayers and somehow watches over all of them.

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Human Rights vs. Government Rights

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.” Abraham Lincoln, 1864

Down through time, during man’s ascendancy on this earth, we have had people who wielded power over us. It probably started out with the biggest and strongest of the group defying anyone in his tribe to stop him from telling them what to do, and backing it up with muscle and a big club.

Over time, as the tribes got bigger, there was probably some kind of system to pick the person who was discerned as the best candidate for the Job. The strongest, the most intelligent, or the one with the most backers, wife’s, or any combination of the above.

At some point in our history…our leaders came to believe that they were picked by ‘God’ or ‘the gods’ to fill the role of leader, and of course this was followed by some leaders thinking they were gods, and they started to picked their own successors. At any rate most of the leaders of humankind have had problems with the power they wielded. Hell, even Solomon was selling his people into slavery to enrich the treasury.

From the written history we have of the Middle Eastern world of Biblical times we know that the Kings and leaders of the time were always going to war to either overthrow another tribe and take their animals, crops, women, gold, tactical location, for sport, or they were defending themselves from bloodthirsty Kings trying to do the same to them. These leaders, almost to the man, turned out to be wicked and corrupt. They had no sense of respect for the rights of humans they purported to represent and guide. The common man has always been cannon fodder for Kings and leaders throughout our human history. Used up and discarded.

As our recorded history continued through the Greeks, Romans, Catholic Popes, Kings in France, England, and elsewhere on the European and Asian continents, Kings and other unelected leaders have consistently taxed and starved and caused their subjects to die in any manner of ghastly ways while they go about spending tax money on and for themselves and their supporters. This has never changed.

Our leaders today; Kings, princes, presidents, military juntas, what have you; continue in this fine tradition even now. Some are more sophisticated than others. The military juntas say they had to take over from freely elected presidents because the president was leading the country the wrong way. So in the ‘interest of the people’ they take over the power.

Russian socialists just don’t seem to die out…they go away for awhile, but they keep sneaking back in, after all the ‘people’ don’t know how to rule themselves…only the party can realize the dream of equality for you. The Chinese, as always, copied and then morph into something hardly recognizable as communism any more.

America started out with high hopes and a radically new form of Government…where the ‘people’ actually had the power to vote out of office those they didn’t like. But, as always, the twin drugs of power and practically unlimited money took over, and men schemed and manipulated the unwritten rules, the laws, and the national parties and the common folk. Propaganda, misdirection, and manipulation of news or information access have been honed into highly effective tools to control people’s thoughts, actions and even thinking processes.

The political parties in America almost totally control the way our people think and act nowadays. They control every bit of money, all transactions of a monetary nature, in practically the whole world, are either now under their control or observation…or the politicians, and the flunky’s that work for them, are actively seeking the means to bring them under their control or observation in the near future.

Nowadays it’s a common practice to award No-Bid contracts worth billions of dollars to your campaign supporters or ex-employer, where in the past this was illegal. Actually this is still illegal, but the politicians just ignore the laws…and we let them get away with it…after all its unpatriotic to question or challenge our leaders. If you were to get too vocal in your protests then you might find yourself on a terrorist watch list, as some anti-war protesters in Maryland found out. Go Here for more.

Our leaders in the last seven years have managed to take away the right to petition a judge for a hearing if you’re arrested. This is a principle of law that goes back hundreds of years, in most countries the world over, and our leaders have decided that we don’t have that right anymore…they didn’t ask…they just took it away. It used to be that those in power had to go before a judge and show cause and ask for permission to search our homes or personal papers or computer…that was also taken away…this was a part of the constitutional law our ancestors fought the American Revolution over, and our leaders swear an oath to uphold.  No matter, we don’t need this protection any more…the poor outgunned federal government needs the power now.

This leader we all suffer under now has even promoted unlisted laws that they can’t tell us about. They are secret laws that you can be prosecuted on…but they can’t tell us exactly what they are and why we need them. We as a people had no input on this; we were not represented in their passing. Again people are put in the place of having no protection from the Kings.

Now some people will say we get the government we deserve, and that’s true to a certain degree. However I posit that the whole political process in American has been totally subverted and is mostly used to the advantage of the very, very rich and very, very powerful and to the detriment of the common people. America, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China are the most spied upon, politically controlled, and manipulated people in the world now. This is not just my perception, go here for more information

All of our electronic communications (emails, blogs, websites, cell phones and land line phones) are diverted to supercomputers that search and scan for anything out of the ordinary in our thoughts as expressed in our communications. As I’ve already mentioned all monetary transactions are now monitored so the government can get their unfair share of taxes. Billions, even Trillions of dollars of tax money have just disappeared with no explanations to us poor people who work really hard to succeed and pay their taxes. If we use too much cash money…the government suspects us of being drug dealers, money launderers, arms dealers or some such crap, and they promptly investigate. Even ex-Senator Bob Dole was caught up in this silliness.

Our government is inexorably moving to a kind of democratic dictatorship. Where we vote for those that would totally control our whole life…in all respects. They just slowly add things that enslave us. You don’t even notice them sneaking up on you.

Nothing ever truly changes in Kings and politics…it’s all about control, power, and money…always was.

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Did God Help the Hebrews?

“I’ve often thought that the Bible should have a disclaimer in front saying this is fiction” Ian McKellen

The Jewish people claim that Yahweh, Elohim, or God, pick whichever name you like, was the creator of the world …and humanity…and made himself known to Abraham as a God and protector of the Hebrew race. Not the human race, which was flourishing at the time, but the Jewish race.

Taking the numbers from the Bible, describing Huge battles involving thousands or hundreds of thousands of warriors, the population of earth had to be tremendous…in the millions and millions. ‘God’ picks Hebrews as ‘His’ people???

Now if you know anything about the history of the Middle East, Hebrews, Jews, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Judea, or any of the various tribal groups roaming around the Holy Land area, you know that the Hebrew tribes never were very successful as a country, or military power, or race for that matter.

They had three kings, all of three of which were hugely flawed. They were constantly revising their theology and beliefs. Many of them converted to other religions when they were dispersed at different times during their history. Now if you KNEW that your God was the only true one…how could you change your religion?

Time after time they go into battle and lose. They are conquered time and again, they are dispersed and exiled many times and finally the Romans conquer and destroy Jerusalem and what’s left of the Jews spread all over the world.

There is no real evidence of a ‘God’ helping them or being advantageous to their existence.

Do any of you ‘out there’ see some evidence of an omnipotent, omniscient being helping the Jews? I sure don’t.

Why would anybody want to carry on the worship of a God that so obviouly had no power over our world? Who would want to be associated with a ‘God’ that never helped it’s subjects? Why would you want to buy into that whole guilt and sin fantasy?

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Original Sin

The idea of Original Sin is based on Paul’s supposition that all humans are born sinful. It is not a theological concept that is brought up or mentioned in the original text of the Old Testament.

In the fifth chapter of Romans, according to Paul, humanity was cursed because Adam and Eve sinned when they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As Paul puts it:

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Rom. 5:12

…or as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Cor. 15:22

17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Rom. 5:17-19

Now we have to remember that Paul saw Jesus in a beam of light on the road to Damascus. He never studied with him or listened to him, though he was alive at the same time. And Jesus, when he was alive, was preaching a pro-Hebrew apocalyptic message. Paul saw fit to subtly change the thrust of Jesus’ teaching to what we have now, one-size-fits-all, believe in us or die.

At no point in the OT do we see anything that might qualify as a curse of “Original Sin” to be handed down to all of Adam and Eve’s descendants. Yes, their lives are supposed to become more difficult than they had heretofore experienced; but where is all of that is the “Sin” being passed along?

Perhaps more importantly, there is no indication that this sin must be “redeemed” eventually by Jesus? Christianity is anxious to portray itself as the logical and theological offspring of Judaism, but if Paul simply invents a concept and tacks it on to Jewish stories, it’s hard to see how that makes it true. If I went around claiming that Jesus spoke to me in a ‘beam of light’ and he conveyed new theological concepts to be accepted by all Christianity…how far would I get before being locked up in the funny farm?

In Genesis and all of the way through to the ending of Malachi, there isn’t the slightest hint of there being any sort of Original Sin inherited by all humans through Adam and Eve. There are stories of God getting angry at humanity in general…and at the Jews in particular…offering many opportunities for God to point out how everyone is “sinful” because of Adam and Eve. Yet we find nothing about that.

Also, there is nothing about how everyone who isn’t “right” with God will go to hell and be tormented… another staple of Christian theology connected to Original Sin. You would think that God would have the civility to mention something this important to us.

Not even Jesus is quoted as having been concerned with Adam and Original Sin. Paul’s interpretation is not really warranted by the actual story. This is a big problem. If this interpretation is not right, the whole Christian scheme of salvation falls apart.

Just as the Trinity is made up by later ‘Christians’, so too is ‘Original Sin’.

Christians however, have a uncommon ability to ignore facts.

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Did God Give US Free Will?

Do we REALLY have free will?

Some of the best known Christians in history have taught there is no free will, including St. Augustine , Martin Luther, and John Calvin. The Christian Bible states in many places that God creates our future and decides our fates. It constantly denies that we have free will. If God knows exactly what will happen, (Being omnipotent and omniscient of course) the status of choices as free, is questionable.

“Praise be to [God], who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Ephesians 1:4-6 NIV

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:4-10 NIV

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” Romans 8:29-30 NIV

“Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad – in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls – she was told “The older will serve the younger”. Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” Romans 9:10-15 NIV

“It does not therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed on all the earth.” [Exodus 9:16] Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” ” Romans 9:16-19

“[God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, ” 2 Timothy 1:9 NASB

“All people living on the Earth will worship [The Devil], except those whose names were written before the creation of the world in the book of the living which belongs to [Jesus].” Revelations 13:8 NIV Pretty much the whole thing

Schopenhauer talks of free will and moral responsibility thusly:

“Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life. … But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns….”

So what is one to make of all this? Christians, today tell me that I have free will and it is by my own choice whether I go to heaven or hell. But, then you read Revelations 13:8 (above). Of course this is just one of MANY inconsistencies to be found in that confounding book; the Bible.

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Do you Believe in a Trinity?

It seems all of the evidence for a trinity in the Bible…is man’s interpretation, as the Bible does not state this in certain, terms. It is not established beyond doubt or question. Well some sect’s believe they have, but they haven’t.

However, in the matter of the Son/Jesus being a separate entity of the God/Father, the Bible is perfectly clear. It minces no words and flat-out says, many times, that Jesus is the SON of God. Occam’s razor needs to be applied here. Stop going through all of the theological nonsense and read the words that ARE there, not what someone is interpolating = “Insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby”

Mat 3:17 and lo a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Mat 27:43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

John 3:35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.

1 John 4:9 Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

John 5:18 On this account, indeed, the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

John 5:19 Therefore, in answer, Jesus went on to say to them: “Most truly I say to YOU, The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing. For whatever things that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

John 5:20 For the Father has affection for the Son and shows him all the things he himself does, and he will show him works greater than these, in order that YOU may marvel.

John 5:21 For just as the Father raises the dead up and makes them alive, so the Son also makes those alive whom he wants to.

John 5:22 For the Father judges no one at all, but he has committed all the judging to the Son

John 5:23 in order that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

John 5:25 Most truly I say to YOU, The hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who have given heed will live.

John 5:26 for just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself.

John 5:30 I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative; just as I hear, I judge; and the judgment that I render is righteous, because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

John 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

John 8:58 “…. (Jesus) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus meant he existed in heaven with the Father before Abraham was born.

John 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

John 17:1 These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

2 John 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

Proverbs 30:4 Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?

When Christians pray, they pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, by the grace of the son, while acknowledging that the Father is God.

Everyday Christian prayer evidences that there is no Trinity.