The Three Men who made Christianity

By Michael Runyan ~

If we assume that Jesus was a real person who preached the coming of a kingdom and that he was crucified by the Romans for the crime of sedition- claiming that he would rule over a new kingdom in Judea, then we can, with a measured degree of speculation, identify three men who were instrumental in the formation of the Christian religion as it currently exists. Remove any of these three and Christianity would not exist today, or else it would be a very small sect.

1. Joseph of Arimathea


Joseph must have had a personal connection to Pontius Pilate, because he was able to convince Pilate to let him take possession of Jesus’s body after only a few hours on the cross, when normally crucified people were left on their crosses for several days or even a week, long after they had died, such that the bodies decayed and were attacked by birds. He placed the body in his personal tomb and rolled the stone in place at the entrance. (The idea that a Roman guard was stationed at the tomb is pure fiction- it is mentioned only in Matthew’s gospel and was inserted to quash a rumor that Jesus’s body was stolen, which the gospel itself alludes to.)

On the second night after the crucifixion, Joseph rolled back the stone and moved the body of Jesus to either another tomb or to another burial site. He left the tomb open for the women who came to the tomb the next morning, and dressed in a white sheet, told them that Jesus was resurrected. They identified him as an angel.

Joseph’s intent was several-fold. He was close to the apostles and commiserated with them over their intense loss and wanted to do something to bring them out of their depression. Also, he didn’t want his tomb to become a shrine for pilgrims, and, frankly, wanted to use it for other purposes. And third, he was an admirer of Jesus’s message and wanted it to go forth even after the great man’s death.

The actions taken by Joseph of Arimathea set in motion the belief that Jesus had defeated death and was alive again. The remainder of this illusion was fueled by the visions, dreams, and imaginations of his followers, who were all too willing to believe anything they heard concerning sightings of the master.

2. Paul

The entire Jesus movement would have faltered and gone extinct without the actions of Paul. This is a fact of history, because we know that there were two distinct denominations of early Christianity- one led by Paul, the other by James, Jesus’s brother. The James faction was completely annihilated during the Jewish War of AD 70 and ceased to exist. Only Paul’s ‘church’ continued after that time. Thus, it can be confidently stated that without the ministry of Paul, a man who never met Jesus, Christianity would have died in the First Century.

3. Emperor Constantine

Christianity was flailing by around the year AD 300, was just a minor sect, and was losing in its competition with various pagan religions, especially Mithraism. One of the reasons for this was Jesus’s failure to return as expected. Christians became disillusioned and dispirited waiting for a big event that, according to their scriptures, should have already happened. But in AD 312, after his miraculous military victory that he superstitiously attributed to a Christian prayer, the emperor made Christianity a state religion and broadcast this fact to the entire empire. Thus, Christianity, resurrected from its ashes, rose in prominence and summarily extinguished the competing pagan faiths.

History is a fragile enterprise and when we look back it is interesting to see how things could have turned out differently. Remove any of these three men and Christianity would not exist Anchortoday.

Why Sacrifice?

By Carl S ~

What is the big deal with “sacrifice?” Why do humans believe sacrificing one's life means the sacrifice was worth more than life itself, when so many have died for what are obviously now recognized as evil systems, tyrannies, and failed isms? When did killing become sacred? What group of sadists originally came up with sacrifice as the solution for human problems?

We can understand ignorant, fearful superstitious humanoids willingly sacrificing some of their hard-won fruits and meat to appease the gods. They would be taking a gamble, and over time, if no major misfortunes happened, they'd say, “well, it worked.” When it didn't “work,” their god's reps might have thought about upping the ante: “How about if we take the very first fruits of your harvest, before you put the food into your mouths, and give them to the gods? Okay?” O.K. “Let's add more. We'll incinerate some of your veggies and herds, 'cause the gods like the aroma of burning vegetation and animal flesh.” And then somebody came up with another bright idea: “This time you're going to have to let us kill your babies.” NOW we're talking sacrifice. But the gods never did care. Because spirits don't eat. What a waste! And yet, over centuries and even today, thousands of animals are slaughtered and burnt up for sacrificial offerings. Why all the suffering, blood and guts in rituals? (We're not talking luaus here.)

Oh sure, most of us get teed off from time to time with certain people who do us and others no harm. And sometimes, we feel like we’d prefer to have them out of our lives forever. Some make it happen; but for the vast majority, murder is not an option, no matter what the consequences may be personally. And let's face it: even if you could eradicate practically everybody, it wouldn't change a thing. Some claim this has already been tried. Remember “Noah and the Flood?”

Religions tapped into and magnified normal human hate, envy, resentment, and other natural negative feelings to justify sacrificing the lives of innocent humans, using labels such as “blasphemers, heretics, witches, unbelievers,” or just plain “different.” If it ain't the pagans, it's the Catholics or Protestants, Blacks, Jews, intellectuals, gays, whoever, and so on. It's always somebody “other.” It figures. After all, the god- people are the ones who came up with the “ultimate solution” of killng “them.” No discussion of, or reasonable handling of, the “problems” those individuals caused. They were merely sacrificial offerings for “sacred” purposes. A huge pile of bodies, there. As General George Patton said about German soldiers his men killed, “What a waste.”

Of all the STUPID things the gods and their representatives have invented, human sacrifice has to be at the number one position.Of all the STUPID things the gods and their representatives have invented, human sacrifice has to be at the number one position. Why? It’s because so many lives were and are wasted. We can look back and conclude all the sacrifices to all the gods have not made any positive change to our environment, or betterment for our relationships in getting along together. All the slaughtering, all that suffering aimed at pleasing, wishfully expecting blessings from, and appeasing a god or gods and their anointed priests, could have been avoided.

The immorality of human sacrifice is praised as the ultimate symbol of love and devotion! Why? Because, “they” claimed, it was what the god or gods wanted. One religion did a 180 degree: Its god sacrificed his son for humans, not the other way around. Or so “they” say. (If you call a state of suspended animation for less than forty-eight hours a “sacrificial death,” that is). If you accept this perversity as “love,” then you're gullible enough to accept what “they” say follows it: everybody owes his/her conscience to this deity, offered in the spirit of grateful self-sacrifice. This isn't only stupid and insulting to our humanity. . . it's way beyond bizarre.

Big horrible, tormented, sadistic, friggin' deal. I won't waste another second of my life in “sacrifice” to anyone's adoration of wishful thinking for invisible hopes. I'm headed out to my house of hedonism worship, where I'll sacrifice a few ice cream cones for my friends and me. No one gets hurt.

Was Jesus a Real Person?

By Karen Garst ~

A few years ago at a secular conference, I met the author Richard Carrier who wrote On the Historicity of Jesus. He introduced himself as one of seven people who did not believe Jesus was a real person. I was curious and I ended up reading his very lengthy and thorough analysis of the question. Some of those seven include David Fitzgerald (Nailed: Then Christian Myths that Show Jesus Never Existed at All) and Robert Price (The Case Against the Case for Christ).

First, it is important to remember that any story that gets embedded in a culture started out as an oral one. Literacy was very limited in the distant past. These oral stories got handed down over and over again. It’s a bit like the game where you say a phrase to the first person in line and then they repeat it to the next person. If you have ever played this game, you know how distorted the initial saying can become. The first stories about Jesus did not get written down until at least two decades after his death – these are the letters of Paul. The other first editions of the gospels were probably written toward the end of the first century. Every transcription likely included some changes, however minor. This expanse of time leaves much room for interpretation. And remember that there is no credible account of Jesus in the literature of the time. Carrier observes that St. Augustine (an early Christian theologian) had a hard time explaining the writings of Seneca the Younger, a Roman stoic. In Seneca’s treatise On Superstition, he wrote (in a negative manner) about every known cult in Rome. But he never mentioned Christianity or a Jesus group. Given that he was writing in the middle of the first century CE, it shows how little was known about this new religion by the writers of the day. Early Christians were well aware of this and even inserted a phrase in one of Josephus’ work to validate their claims.

There were many stories that were known by the people in the Roman Empire that had elements similar to the depiction of Jesus. One of the oldest of those stories was about Romulus and Remus who were the two boys raised by a wolf that were responsible for creating the city of Rome. Romulus was supposedly murdered by a conspiracy of the Senate (for Jesus, it was the Jewish Sanhedrin). In addition, the sun went dark, his body vanished, and the Senate told the people he had risen to join the gods. Hmm, doesn’t make the story of Jesus sound very original does it?

Mystery religions that were numerous at the time all had a central savior deity - a son or daughter of a god - who underwent some kind of suffering in order to secure eternal life for those that followed the particular cult. There was often a death or trial called a passion with a resurrection like Osiris or a terrible event defeating the forces of death like Mithra. Osiris was the son of the god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. The kings of Egypt were associated with him because Osiris rose from the dead so they would inherit eternal life. Mithraism was practiced in Rome starting in the first century CE. I once visited a temple to Mithra two floors under the Basilica of San Clemente very near the coliseum in Rome. It was amazing to go down the stairs and find first the remains of an older church and then at the bottom a chamber with all the accoutrements of Mithraism. How better to supplant one religion than by just building over its sacred places? Mystery religions also had an initiation ritual which resembled the baptism of Christianity. In addition, they all involved a ritual meal that united people with their god, very much like the Christian communion. Carrier goes on to list twenty similarities between the story of Romulus and Jesus including a virgin birth! (page 227)

Even if Jesus were a real person, he wasn’t the messiah portrayed in the Old Testament. Various authors, in particular Matthew, tried to tie Jesus to the predictions of the OT. Remember, the followers of Jesus were at the beginning very Jewish. It was only later that the outreach expanded to the Gentiles. However, there is no reference to a messiah in the Old Testament that comes to the people except at the end of times.

25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. (Daniel Chapter 9)

Thus, while the writers of the New Testament tried to tie him to various verses in the Old Testament, they had a tough time. I find it interesting that the Christian church did not jettison the Old Testament, claim it was not true, and then use the New Testament to proclaim the one true religion. Anyone who has read the Bible has a tough time reconciling Yahweh, the god of the OT, with the god of the NT. They are almost polar opposites. The gospel of Matthew, for example, is the one that tries the hardest to link the story of Jesus to the OT. Matthew took an early version of a gospel, Mark, and added bits and pieces to make it more congruent with the Jewish faith. And in Paul’s letters, it seems as if Jesus is simply a spirit, not a real person. He never discusses a ministry, a trial, any miracles, where he was from, etc. As Paul is the earliest writer in the NT, it begs the question of whether the idea of a real person, Jesus, was even part of the early tradition.

If you have parallel stories that people believed in at the time, it clearly points to not having a clear idea of who this person might have been. Doesn’t it seem odd that if Jesus were real and truly the son of god, he would have been sure that his sayings were written down accurately? Was he even literate himself?

In sum, Christianity is no different from the other myths that have come and gone in the long history of humankind. We have attempted to understand ourselves and the universe that we live in probably since we began to think. Even at the time of the Neanderthals, there are graves of humans that look like they have been made on purpose – red ocher on the bones, artefacts laid next to the body, etc. But isn’t it time to jettison these beliefs? Isn’t it time to acknowledge we will likely never know what came before the Big Bang? And whether there is truly any “purpose” at all to the universe? Finally, if any god were real, why wouldn’t he (and it has been a “he” for a very long time) reappear to tell us, once again, why he is the one true god?

Karen Garst

The Faithless Feminist

Let’s blame it on St. Augustine

By Karen Garst ~

Karen Armstrong is a well-known and respected historical author regarding the Bible and early Christian traditions. I find her work easy to read and quite fascinating. I am going to build this essay on one of the more striking points in her analysis – the doctrine of original sin and St. Augustine’s role in it contained in her book The Bible. One could say that there would be no Christianity without the prophet Jesus, whether he was a real person (most would say probably) or mostly myth (his character shows a lot of similarity to other mythical persons). Assuming Jesus was a real person, early Christianity could still have died out as many other mystery religions did. However, there were key people that made a significant contribution to the continuation of Christianity and the form we see it in today. Obviously, the role of Constantine in decriminalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313 (The Edit of Milan) was crucial. However, Constantine didn’t have as much influence on the doctrines that the church espoused and some are not even clear which vein of Christianity he adopted. Doctrine was left up to the bishops and, of course, eventually to the popes. One of the major contributors to church doctrine was Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, who later came to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint.

Augustine was born in 352 CE in Thagaste, Numidia (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) although throughout his life he lived in Rome, Milan and other cities of the Roman Empire. He died in 430 CE at the age of 75. He played a crucial role in interpreting tradition and biblical writings in his works - The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions. While I have read snippets of some of these, I never was able to read an entire work of his – my stomach would turn every time he mentioned something about women. It is interesting that he was not celibate his entire life. His mother arranged a marriage for him, but that meant he had to give up his concubine. He describes this loss as follows:

My mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding.

He converted to Christianity in 386 at the ripe age of 34 and eventually became bishop of Hippo Regius (now Annaba), in Algeria. Many of his sermons, along with books and other writings, have been preserved.

The point that Karen Armstrong makes is that the fall of the Roman Empire convinced Augustine that original sin - by Adam and Eve – had damned the world. This guilt of original sin was transmitted to Adam’s descendants through the sexual act.

It must have been devastating for Augustine to witness the fall of Rome. How could one of the greatest civilizations with immense power and reach fall to infidel vandals? It must have been similar to the take-over of Judah by the Babylonians in 568 BCE. I have written before about the impact the Babylonian myths had on the Jews. They thought – how could we have lost? We believe in Yahweh and he is all powerful. The exiles, mostly priests, scribes, etc. that were taken to Babylon for about four decades, learned that their conqueror had a male god, Marduk. This solidified their belief in a male monotheism. St. Augustine probably had the same kind of angst. He had spent a great deal of his life promoting and explaining Christianity as the one true faith. Yet his powerful kingdom was literally destroyed.

The belief in original sin is not present in the Jewish interpretation of Genesis. Neither is it a part of Greek Orthodoxy. Yet the interpretation of St. Augustine has shaped the view of Western Christianity, and the church’s view toward women, for over 1600 years.

While some scholars have shown that the notion of original sin probably did not originate with St. Augustine, most agree that he had the most impact on propagating it. After St. Augustine, the doctrine became canonized church doctrine as a result of the II Council of Orange, held in Gaul in 519. While Adam is the person from whom we inherited this original sin, sex was determined to be at the base of it.

Augustine is clear: “The concupiscence of the flesh is indeed blameworthy and defective and is nothing but the desire for sin.” Elsewhere, he also writes of “concupiscence, that is, the sin dwelling in our flesh.” Saying that carnal concupiscence is both sin and worthy of guilt, and the cause of further sin and guilt can summarize Augustine’s view.

Unfortunately, while the transgression in the Garden of Eve involved both Adam and Eve, Eve came to symbolize this sin because she was the one who “tempted” Adam. Obviously, he had no will of his own. As I have written elsewhere, the tableau of this temptation is filled with symbols of the goddess and thus is partly an attempt to put down any notion of a feminine divine. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a 19th century suffragist who wrote The Women’s Bible, sums it up nicely.

Take the snake, the fruit-tree and the woman from the tableau, and we have no fall, nor frowning Judge, no Inferno, no everlasting punishment—hence no need of a Savior. Thus the bottom falls out of the whole Christian theology. Here is the reason why in all the Biblical researches and high criticisms, the scholars never touch the position of women.

St. Augustine’s pronouncements on women are numerous. Here are just a few. And he was not alone. Many other early Christian theologians joined him.

What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the

temptress that we must beware of in any woman. I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.

Woman was merely man's helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.

So, for example, a husband cannot deliberately stimulate the genital organs of his wife in order to give her sexual pleasure, for such an action is defined within the Catechism as a type of sexual act which is “intrinsically and gravely disordered.”

If you think that these views toward women are outdated, just read this recent quote from Courtland Sykes, a 37-year-old military veteran in Missouri, hoping to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill.

“I want to come home to a home cooked dinner at six every night. One that [my fiancée] fixes and one that I expect one day to have my daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives.” Referring to his daughters, he further clarifies, “I don’t want them to grow up into career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils.”

Sigh.

Karen Garst

The Faithless Feminist

Christian to Jew

By Jshirls ~

I was baptized in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) as an infant and introduced to the Bible by my parents as a toddler. Both sides of my family have been Christians for centuries including pastors, elders, deacons, and missionaries in my family. I made a profession of faith when I was 7 years old with an elder (who I thought was God at one point). One time I asked my parents if god was made up just like santa claus. I remember being bored at church much of the time but I tried to absorb the teaching and started reading the Bible and praying at age 7. I enjoyed fellowship with most of the members of the church. As a boy I attended a rally in which a charismatic preacher came in and did an altar call and asked teens to come up and pray a 10 second prayer to instantly become a Christian.

As a teenager I learned that both of my grandfathers grew up with widowed mothers and their church did nothing to help them; I became somewhat rebellious and vacillated between strict devotion and intense questioning of Christianity. Interestingly, one of the pastors at the church I was a member of said he was not concerned about my faith in God anyway or whether or not I believed in evolution.

By the time I was 18 I saw how politicized the conservative Protestantism was that I grew up with and I liked it and was proud of my heritage.

I know I never would have joined a church, except for the fact that I grew up with it and had adjusted to it. I probably would have left the church as a college student, but I went to Geneva, a Christian college and then the Reformed Presbyterian Theological seminary, so I stuck with the church out of duty, habit, and because I had many friends in my denomination.

I had a lot of bad experiences with folks in the reformed college and church; the arrogant, cruel women and some men who brutalized & harassed me for sport because I am autistic, bi polar and have a different dialect than they do. They always want to do 80% of the talking during "conversations" with me, to police my speech, and try to manipulate me--they seem to think it is their right and care more about their own reputation and position than my mental health which they were damaging and driving me toward suicide. I realized later that some of these folks acted this way toward me because they were sexually attracted to me ["faggot pedophiles"] (pedophilic tendencies in the cases of older men/women) and some were jealous of my youth, good-nature, etc.

The more I studied Christianity I saw how it was not even internally consistent.The more I studied Christianity I saw how it was not even internally consistent. When I was studying with ministers I saw how truly hypocritical and perverse the clergy are, although I still think most laypeople are good. I became very zealous, opposing birth control/contraception, believing in head coverings for women (and was appalled at the pastor's wife who contradicted and undermined her husband's authority). I learned that pastors twist Scriptures like Micah 3:10 and take it out of context to extort money out of the congregation through the false doctrine of tithing instead of preaching what Micah and the other prophets were really saying (that it was the religious leaders who steal from God and the people!) I also learned from surveys that 90% of pastors have narcissistic personality disorder from studies done in Canada/Netherlands. And it is cowardly that the pastors shout at people for not confronting them directly over pastoral sins, but then go behind the backs of other pastors, the civil magistrates, doctors, etc and slander them instead of debating them in person with decency and good order.

Pastors are masters of doubletalk and prey on blue collar working class people and bully them verbally since they are not professional speakers like ministers. Ministers refused to lift a finger to help me when I was sick/injured and had crimes committed against me; they have victims and blame them in order to justify their own spiritual violence against those less fortunate than them.

Interestingly, it was the Christian college I went to that first introduced me to Astrology and the age of Aquarius which I began researching. And studying Astrology and the occult is what finally led me to Judaism. Judaism is more historic and more practical as Jews have put into practice the good teachings of Jesus far better than Christians have, and Jews have the highest life expectancy, wealth, and lowest crime rate and lowest divorce rate. The Jewish concept of "Repairing the World" fits much better with my conscience than "dominion theology," or 'Christianity, Conquest, and Commerce.'

Doctrine of Original Sin

By Al Wm Johnson ~

The history of most early religions formulated a dualistic split between spirit and body. This split put us above the Animal Kingdom. It made us superior to other creatures in Nature.

This superiority of humans led to an anthropocentric view of humans.

This dualistic split lead to the natural bodily instincts of humans as being inferior.

This horrendous vilification, desecration, denigration, and contamination stance against human nature is due to a religious fear of human instincts. This anathematic fear led to the demonization and dehumanization of us as being sinners.

For some virulent inflammatory religions there is the ugliness, cruelty, and abomination of the Doctrine of Original Sin ---> humans are corrupted by sin at birth. Isn’t there something unthinkable, repugnant, and drastically wrong to sanctimoniously preach babies are born sinful? Please, for one minute think about this ----> original sin is based on Adam and Eve disobeying God and eating an apple. And, now the 108,000,000,000 people who have ever lived are born with original sin ----> incomprehensible.

The number is based on a 2017 population estimate by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB).

Many religions are dismissive towards science, learning, and women's rights. They employ obscurantism in their opposition to any intellectual advancement that remotely interferes with their beliefs. Fearful religions create troublesome inconvenient unpalatable truths that contradict scientific established facts (eg. Creationism in place of Darwinism). Invective religions antipathetic indoctrination infringement against Nature has sadly done a lot to throw humans off balance ---> often permanently.

#Balanceology.blog

Not Super, Just Natural

By Tim Sledge ~

The Christian faith is supposed to be supernatural.

Experiencing a new birth through Jesus is supernatural.

Being made a new person by having Jesus and the Holy Spirit living inside you is supernatural.

Talking to the creator of the universe and believing he hears, answers, guides, and changes things is supernatural.

Accepting the Bible’s teaching that we are surrounded by an unseen spiritual world involved in a spiritual battle is supernatural.

Having faith that God will show you the special plan he has for your life is supernatural.

Believing that everything happens for a reason is supernatural.

After living and leading in the church for decades, I saw no consistent evidence of an ongoing supernatural presence—and I wanted to see that evidence with all that was in me.

I found a rather simple test for the presence of supernatural power in church congregations. One of the predominant characteristics of any non-supernatural volunteer organization is expressed by the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20 Rule holds that roughly 20% of the people will accomplish about 80% of the work. As it turns out, this 80/20 estimate works well for any Christian congregation. Ask any minister from any denomination.

A faithful few do most of the work and give most of the money. If the church were truly a supernatural organization, shouldn’t we expect a different standard—a dramatically higher percentage of hard-working and involved members than the norm for any other volunteer organization, religious or not? Otherwise, churches are not super, just natural.

Observing the behavior of church members led me to stop believing that Christians are supernaturally changed by a new birth experience when they pray the commitment prayer to Jesus.

An oft memorized verse from the New Testament states, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (1 Corinthians 5:17, King James Version). Conversion is a point-in-time rebirth that, by its very nature, is supposed to instigate dramatic, supernatural change. Otherwise, what does “new creature” mean?

Another hint that nothing supernatural is happening can be seen in the consistent failures of congregations to agree on how God is leading them. Born-again believers can talk to God and sense his leadership. A large aspect of prayer is “seeking an answer from the Lord.”

Now take a group of these born-again, new creatures in Christ—to whom God is giving directions and guidance for day-to-day life—put them in a small church and wait. Eventually, they will get into a disagreement about something. Sometimes, they will work it out, but often, no matter how much prayer has taken place, one group will get angry and leave to start another congregation. Wait a little longer, and the process will repeat—over and over and over—that’s why there are thousands of Christian denominations.

How can individuals who are supposedly connected to the same God—changed by him, talking and listening to him, and using the same book he has provided for guidance—be so at odds with each other so often?

Ironically, over time, as a pastor, I became most uncomfortable with church members who were absolutely certain that God was speaking directly to them—people who believed God regularly guided them to an open parking space at the mall or occasionally heard God whisper some snippet of special insight they were supposed to share with me so I could act on it. Too often these individuals seemed to be a little off-kilter, while those who didn’t take the concept of God speaking to them quite so seriously—and who typically practiced faith with a measure of moderation—seemed more normal, sane, and safe. Faith was supposed to function in direct proportion to how much of it you exercised, but too much “faith” could backfire and cause someone to seem “a little off.”

It was in noting patterns like these that I ceased believing that Jesus and the Holy Spirit inhabit Christians as a supernatural source of spiritual power. And, I wasn’t just looking at the lives of the people I served, I was also looking at myself—painfully aware of my own failures.

What I saw in churches over the years required no supernatural explanation. Yes, good things happened. Yes, a healthy church is an excellent place to find people who are working hard to be good, to do good, and to help others. But you don’t need anything supernatural to explain it.

I had to admit to myself that most of the Christians I knew, like everyone else, were shaped by genes, childhood experiences and training, education, mental health issues, and cultural norms more than by praying to receive Jesus as lord and savior. In addition, if I appraised the church without the supernatural component, everything fell into place more easily and made more sense than it did when I had—repeatedly—worked to view it as something driven by supernatural power from God.

I had spent more than five decades trying to impose a primitive, oversimplified view of existence on a very complicated world. Ironically, life became simpler when I let go of my faith-driven perspective, and with a rational mindset, embraced life’s complexity.

I now understood that sometimes movements and organizations work, but not for the stated reasons. In the church, positive acts and positive feelings are powered by the energy and mutual support of the church’s human members, not by a supernatural force.

-- Tim Sledge in
Goodbye Jesus: An Evangelical Preacher's Journey Beyond Faith  Copyright © 2018 by Tim Sledge. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.

The Holy Ghost and Donald Trump

By Carl S ~

Betty Alexander, 85, holds the flag quilt she made and 
wants to send to President Donald Trump."The Holy Spirit
just told me it should be for President Trump," she said.   
Story LINK. 

Picked up my wife after her church service. There were still a lot of cars in the lot. So I asked her what's happening? She said a missionary from Oregon, clear across this country, on the opposite coast, was speaking. So I asked, “What's the subject matter? She said, “The Holy Ghost.” I held my tongue. (Come on; nobody travels clear across the country to talk about the “Holy Ghost.” He's there to raise money.)

My immediate thought was to ask her if another member of the congregation, Rev. Sullivan, was present. You see, some time ago, it was Rev. Sullivan, a retired pastor, who said something I still remember from a lunch attended by several church members, his wife, my wife, and me. There was a theological discussion which included the “Holy Ghost.” I, the lone sane voice, became ill at ease when having to listen to religion b.s. I vacated the restaurant, but not before I brought up the fact that the Holy Ghost god, declared co-equal to a father and son god, was created at the Council of Nicea. A short time after, my wife came out and asked me to rejoin the others. She added, “He told me the Holy Ghost was created at the Council of Nicea.” So, with this background, you understand my temptation, at her church, to ask if the Rev. Sullivan stood up to tell the missionary this information.

In case you haven't noticed, the “Nicene” Holy Ghost differs from the gospel versions. Nicea created a third god who, unlike the father and son gods, doesn't have a body. Also notice that Jesus, Paul, and the apostles portray this Ghost as a kind of arch-angel or sprite. He might be a positive hallucinogenic experience. Then, as today, “feeling the Spirit” often means having an LSD experience without the LSD. This “gift” of the Spirit is said to impart understanding of dogma in a manner akin to an “Aha!” Buddhist insight. (Why “he” wasn't around when Jesus had to patiently explain his nutty parables to those of “little understanding” has never been addressed.)

The Holy Spirit of scriptures is an imp who confuses minds with the “alternative wisdom” of God, which is “foolishness” to the world. He's the “explainer,” the press agent, for the other two. He's the damage controller who eases doubts with feel-good assurances that are good enough to keep objectors pacified. You can bet, most of the time whenever the “Holy Ghost” is mentioned, it's implied the audience should shut up and listen. But usually, the testifier is talking about his or her personal feelings more than anything else!

But not saying anything at the time she mentioned “the Holy Ghost” led me to thinking about something else: There's a connection between a gathering of fundamentalists who voted for, and still support Donald Trump 20 months after his election, and their listening to a man speaking about the Holy Ghost. It has to do with the indoctrination ingrained in them. Those keep-the-faith believers are blithely unaware of knowing they absorbed it. Habitually, for over two thousand years, believers have accepted the “alternative truths and fake news” of their religion as the only important realities, and have rejected evidence to the contrary outright, without thinking and certainly without reflection. So...

The president will say one thing today and contradict what he said the next day. This should be acceptable to Christians, who listen to their clergy using the same “surreal” practice. They've been taught to habitually overlook and/or forgive the faults and lies of authority figures they've been raised to revere and trust. It should come as no surprise they'd elect someone like Mr. Trump (“anointed by God,” according to some leading evangelicals.) Other-realities have been familiar to them for centuries.

Scared, sincere believers have followed their feelings and backed whoever or whatever the clergy recommends, to counter what they feel are threats to their faith. (Even when they know better, are they afraid to believe differently?) Faith is a slippery tightrope to be walking on, in a world of solid evidence contradicting and diluting it; one is in “danger” of merely landing on one's feet in a world of everyone else's everyday existence.

“Slippery” is a word I find myself using often these days. My wife and I, “at our age,” have to move cautiously, since slipping and falling down can mean broken bones. But “slippery” is something we should all be aware of, especially when it comes to religion, politics, philosophies, or even psychology. It's so easy to slip if you aren't careful to find what's true and what isn't! For a prominent example, notice how easily Christian politicians come out speaking God this and God that. Beware. “God” is a useful platitude with different slippery meanings to different hearers. Those politicos are dragging out a slippery slope for the trusting to slide down, on their way to being caught in a religio-politico web. Those politicians, like their pastors, are in the business of selling a product they themselves don't have faith in. Only the gullible assume they sincerely believe what they claim to. Depending on faith is easier than thinking, if it's in a group. It's much easier to slide rather than think.

Religion is infiltrating civil governments toward the end of taking them over. Religions bring slippery, slimy, dogmas which are dangerous not only to societies, but to themselves. * All theologies are slippery slopes. * Think of how fast the slide will be if genocide, justified by the command of a god figure, is already the first step on it, and the next step is war on civil rights. The slippery slide can begin by taking the first step of declaring abortion “murder,” to executing abortionists. Then, how fast will it be before women are sentenced and jailed for having miscarriages? If one can accept and worship a god whose ends justify the means, then one is in danger of sliding into all manner of atrocities oneself. Think of how quickly and easily it will be to suddenly go from revering a name to executing a man for blasphemy.

It's slippery to maintain dogmas based on the belief in words of unknowable men who believed in a plethora of invisible beings. One's emotional bearings can become unbalanced due to not watching every step, though the distance between the clouds one is walking the tightrope on, and the ground of reality beneath, is less that one's height. It’s fear of falling that keeps the believer trying to balance. Faith requires minds, when challenged, to grab for what one has been told is solid while thrashing against obvious truths, instead of accepting them.

And so we have believers who believed, and will continue to believe, Mr. Trump. His lies and denials and alternative realities are of the same material woven into the very fabric of Christianity they've grown up with. Those who listen raptly as a clergyman talks about the “Holy Ghost,” are open to accepting ridiculous and contradictory fabrications.