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Q. And these incendiary views are…?
A. Well, where to begin? Essentially I claim that when man received his new brain addition—-the cerebrum--which separated him from the animal kingdom, it enabled him to create abstract ideas as well as attribute cause and effect. The first thing he did with this new talent was to try to get some control over his terrible, cruel and meaningless life. He did so by trying to figure out how nature worked so as to possibly influence its random cruelty.
Where did he get the idea from that he might be able to influence nature by his own behavior? He did so logically, by following a model he--and every animal--knew very well. During childhood, he had imprinted in his emotional makeup the realization that if he obeyed his father, if he behaved, then his father was often kinder to him, might give him an occasional treat, and perhaps make him work a little less hard at his chores. He certainly knew if he disobeyed, he would be quickly and harshly disciplined.
As a child, the benefits of this submissive behavior to the alpha figure was proven rationally and emotionally to be true and effective. It did not take a new brain to learn this. Any animal would behave the same.
But now he is an adult, and an adult with a brain than can construct cause and effect. So it was a natural extension of that childhood memory to assume that perhaps, if once again he behaved properly, if he obeyed, and especially if he paid obeisance just as he had as a child, then maybe somehow he would be smiled upon and his load lightened. This must have worked often enough to convince himself, and nearly every other human in the world, that humbling yourself before the now invisible father had a net benefit. It was better than nothing, and most importantly, it seemed to give him a smidgeon of control over the otherwise implacably cruel forces of nature.
Every human society has this feature of kow-towing to an invisible alpha figure. It didn’t matter that the idea is completely false; it just matters that it seemed to give man some tiny control over his fate and—importantly—a reward for sticking it out. In a sense it was a major survival tool. Instead of throwing in the towel when the situation became impossible—only humans can commit suicide--it gave him the encouragement to continue on, to care for his offspring, so he could collect his heavenly social security benefits—a reward that he himself dreamed up!
Much folk lore arises from the mistaken attribution that some act that man has committed—say working on the Sabbath—will cause another event to occur. Earthquakes will shake, crops will fail and wives will become barren. There is no connection whatever with working on the Sabbath and these disasters, but because of his new brain’s capability, man is able to create out of whole cloth the idea that there is a connection—and then believe his idea is real, because he wants it to be. He doesn’t want to work continuously, but doesn’t want to admit to such laziness. So he conjures up that working on the Sabbath is against the all-seeing father’s wishes, to be punishable not by a cuff, but by natural disasters. And not just for himself--but for anyone working on the Sabbath. You break the rule--we all suffer.
There is a second important aspect to this newly acquired talent. As you know, man’s brain becomes wired-up as he grows up. The huge intellectual feat of learning a new language—which comes so easily to children—is much more difficult for adults, whose brains have already made their connections. In fact, if humans are not taught any language as children—the so-called “wolf children” found in the wild—they will never be able to speak any language fluently after they have reached about 15 years of age. Thus, children are most impressionable when they are young. And what is it that impresses them the most? Their parents, of course.
Father can walk into a dark room and make it light; mother can make hot food come out of a big box. Or, in cave man days, father can make a fire and warm the cave, mother can feed me from her warm breast. These are all inexplicable miracles to children. True, they quickly take them for granted, but nevertheless, fixated in their brains at childhood is the proven truth that a higher authority figure--Daddy--can work miracles. He and mom feed me, provide shelter and nurse my wounds. This powerful emotional imprint never leaves the average child. Thus, this god-sense becomes wired into the brain at an early age. (By the way, Sigmund Freud had this idea long before me.)
Q. So you’re saying that religion is a bunch of childhood hogwash…?
A. Oh, by no means. It is not historically true--a fact the orthodox find impossible to understand. But religion certainly embodies the hopes and dreams of billions of people who desperately need a fixed star by which to set their course. And who have absolutely nothing else: no money, no chances, no hope. They are the downtrodden, the chronically exploited, the uneducated, the filthy, the ill and the always-hungry. Their religion-—any religion--gives them the hope they need to carry on regardless. So it is very much mythically true, which becomes "truer" to them than their actual miserable lives. Although shielded from want, the well-to-do also need religion, the same way a compass needle needs a magnetic field.
And recognize as well, that because man wanted his own construct to be true, he did everything in his power to make it so. He acted as if it were true--this is called faith. He found ever more effective ways to explain away discrepancies. He thrilled to moments when-—by coincidence-—his prayers were answered, and he broadcast loudly this additional "proof."
Q. In other words, he invested hugely in his own creation…
A. Precisely. And he built up his system of rewards and punishments to see that this precarious construct-—which he believed shielded him from the worst effects of cruel nature-—was not tampered with by ignoramuses whose blundering might cause the protection to fail, and cast them all back into the pit. Thus, intolerance toward heretics began as a genuine safety mechanism. Only later did it become a primary method of control.
Of course, an inevitable side-effect was the creation of a priestly class to mediate your emotional well-being. They built up everywhere a myriad of ways to reinforce the salvatory message—-always to their own personal gain, and hopefully to yours, too. It’s no different than the stockbroker cult which wants to “mediate” your money to their benefit, and maybe to yours. In both cases, it is essential to believe that the system works, that it is “real.” Start to cast doubt and you risk depriving a very powerful establishment of its livelihood. This has never been a winning proposition. Neither side wants to hear it: not the peasants, not the priests.
Of course it is very painful to come to the realization that miracles contra naturum can’t and don’t, and have never happened—ever. You are left with a huge gaping hole in your life: How should you live? How do you wish to live? That is where religion so conveniently steps in, and it is a tremendous survival feature of the human mind that we were able to repeatedly create a vision of what life and the hereafter should be. Must be. Is.
Q. But what about miracles?
A. Well, miracles certainly do occur. The miracle of childbirth, the miracle of falling in love, the miracle of Ebenezer Scrooge becoming a philanthropist. All of these miracles are enjoyable. Some of these miracles may be unlikely or rare, but none of them are supernatural. And if they were supernatural, they were not real--full stop.
Q. But this realization of the essential meaninglessness of life would be less interesting to wealthy people…?
A. Yes. They are able to ameliorate much of the deprivation of living by shielding themselves from life’s fundamental physical horrors. Jesus recognized this by saying it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than to thread a rope through
the eye of a needle. If you don’t need myth to support your psyche, than you don’t need religion as we define it here. This is a greatly over-looked aspect of Jesus' teachings. We all know that the wealthy can protect themselves from the ordinary vicissitudes of life; Yet are they any happier than anyone else? Jesus has indirectly answered that question, but the orthodoxy has failed completely to even address the issue.
The biggest threat to religion is wealth, security and happiness. Thus, the enormous success of Islam, which provides a staple diet of poverty, fear and sorrow. But the chances of wealth and happiness taking over the world is still pretty slender. But where it does—in major cities and in richer sections of the US for example--it causes orthodox religions to suffocate. To survive, they must rediscover the essential Jesus.
The second biggest threat was recognized centuries ago by
Irenaeus, the Church’s most virulent heretic hunter. He decried the ability of Sophists to mimic the Church’s supernatural teachings but always turn the point around to natural causes. They had the right idea long before Jesus was born: "Heaven"--that is, peace of mind--comes from how we receive the natural world we live in.
Q. Are you saying that heresy is not the biggest threat to religion?
Oh, not at all. Some heresy is actually quite beneficial. It gives people a symbol around which to rally. Hitler really had that figured out. The German people, a warrior culture, had just suffered a horrific war (WW-1) and been humiliated on the battlefield. What better way to vent their collective spleens than by fanning an hysterical hatred of the Jewish heretic? And
on the other side, look at how important the swastika has become to the Jewish religion. It too provides a focus for them to ventilate--in this case about the unfairness of life, the evilness of man and their special place in God's eyes. Quite an astonishing symbiosis.
Q. So the Sophists would agree with your definition of "miracles?”
A. Precisely. Because the Sophists had the right idea; they believed in the simple reality of miracles, not the artificially contrived explanation so necessary to the growth of the church. Religion is a construct that, when it is not making them up, tries to explain facts in a particular light rather than relate or tell them. It uses and embodies mankind’s most intimate experiences and beliefs. Those experiences are true--they happened. But creating a particular explanation—-as religions do-—over another is a simple exercise of authoritarianism. The explanations didn’t happen. They were just made up. That there was a flood is fact. Explaining who or what caused it is always suspect.
Q. Thank you, sir, for a very forthright, if highly controversial disquisition.
A. My pleasure.
Part 2. Religious Acts vs Religious Explanations
To those with faith, no explanation is necessary. To those without faith, no explanation is sufficient. -Bernadette of Lourdes
Q. Professor, the main thread brought up by e-mailers concerning your thesis, other than the usual illiterate hate mail, is “So what?”
A. By which, I presume, they mean, what bearing does man’s natural predilection to conceive of a superior father figure have to do with proving or disproving whether there is a God?
Well, it moves the argument to a different stage. If we show that man’s rational gift automatically causes him to transmute his childhood experience with a father-figure to an adult conception of another superior power-–a power that he hopes can alter natural disasters such as storms, drought and the like–-then we have a simple, logical reason why man is “religious.” This theory then puts the ball into the supernatural religion advocates’ court. They are now obliged to show that their rationale for an actual supernatural God is at least as convincing as the simple nature argument. And this rationale has to be more than the usual insistence that their belief is so intense it must be true.
Q. But you say “rational gift.” Who is the gift-giver?
A. Hah! There is the nub of the problem. And this is once again a fault of our superb ability to create artificial realities. Language, like mathematics, is a completely man-made creation. It is an artifice. Orthodox religious believers fall in love with language, because it provides them the building blocks to create their own religious edifice unfettered by gravity. And language also has a problem of provenance. The only words we have to use are those that arose from our experiences. Since the word “gift” arose as a present given to us from someone, it suggests quite naturally that for there to be a gift, there must be a gift-giver. But part of language is to take a specific meaning and generalize from it. In other words, to alter or enlarge a word’s narrow original meaning. So we have the “gift” of musical ability, the “gift” of a perfect sweater-weather day for skiing, the “gift” of surviving a accident in which others are killed.
Q. But what is wrong with saying that the reason you survived an accident is because God wanted to preserve you for his own reasons?
A. You can say and believe that. It makes perfect sense. If there is a God, then he could have saved you instead of others. In fact it seems to makes more sense because it seems to give reason–right or wrong–to a
random factual incident. Even when there is no reason. It makes thinking about the accident easier because instead of being an entirely random event, it is now nicely fit into a story that suits human psychology. You are not just alive– you have been spared . Note that your being alive is a fact, while your having been spared is an explanation. Note with what alacrity the human mind leaps from facts to explanations. The new brain, with its survival lust to find reasons for events, always wants to leap from facts to explanations. That is the so-called “religious gene.”
But I have presented here a natural explanation of why people naturally believe in a supernatural being. Occam favors the simplest explanation. Those who wish to push a more complex explanation are obliged to show why their complication is better, or more true. And what the additional complications bring to the table–other than accreting more power to the claimants.
Q.
William of Occam ? “What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more”?
A. Yes. Occam’s Razor. Perhaps the most useful statement ever made by a philosopher.
Q. So your anti-supernatural argument rests only on the saying of a 14th Century English philosopher?
A. What would you like it to rest on? The 4th Century Roman Council of Nicea--those Bishops who were held hostage by the Emperor until they came up with a definition of Christianity that pleased him--a recent convert? Or would you prefer a mysterious hodge-podge of heavily edited codicils–-The Bible, or the imaginary Book of Q? It has to rest on something. And better something that can be examined than something that is surrounded by Palace Guards who not only don’t let you see the real thing, but insist–-demand--it can only be interpreted in one particular way. When you point out clear inconsistencies, they are not grateful for the clarification as a scientist would be; no, they describe you as a criminal heretic if they can, or mere apostate, if the law prevents them from introducing you to the Auto da fé .
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Part 3. What is Creationism?
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
--François Marie Arouet (“Voltaire”)
Q. All right, Professor, you have made the argument that religion is a carry-over of childhood awe of the father into adulthood awe of a supreme father-figure. And you have claimed that miracles are miracles only of the human spirit—not miracles contra naturum. Where does that leave the creationists and their “intelligent design” argument?
A. To answer that, let us first define what an ideologue is because, as I will claim, all orthodox religious people are ideologues, that is, untrustworthy to argue their case. An ideologue is someone who argues from a fixed conclusion—a conclusion that cannot be questioned or changed. Unlike a rational inquirer, who examines all evidence in order to find a conclusion, an ideologue "knows" the answer and is looking only for that evidence which will support it. History has continually shown that those who argue as ideologues--from fixed conclusions--have been consistently wrong about everything—from the flat earth, to the earth as center of the universe, and now to “intelligent design.”
Q. But don’t all scientists take a position and then stoutly defend it?
A. Yes; a good point. But they do that on a temporary basis. It’s like a trial where they defend their point of view and see if it passes the test. If it does not, the loser may be disappointed, but he takes the new evidence that the trial has brought forth, and hopes to fit it in with his continuing effort to explain his thesis—whatever it is. By successive trials, the truth gradually emerges. Unlike religion, scientific conclusions are never fixed in advance. Most importantly, scientists are obliged to explain exculpatory evidence. They cannot–-as ideologues always do-—ignore it. In fact, in science, a single piece of negative evidence, if it is true evidence, can sink an entire majestic theory.
Q. Well, how is the intelligent design theory wrong?
A. It is wrong on two major counts: It is completely wrong on the archeological evidence, which not only proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that man evolved over hundreds of thousand of years into what he is today, and that he evolved from some sort of lesser ape-like primate. And it is wrong on a theoretical basis, which claims that evolution cannot be--is not "powerful" enough--to have produced such a miraculous creation as man in so short a time.
The sorriest aspect of intelligent design is that creationists who espouse it either completely ignore the archeological record—which is lying by omission--or they pathetically try to pick at it in hopes that showing one tiny questionable aspect will bring the entire theory down—which is lying by innuendo.
Q. But you just said that a single negative fact could destroy an entire argument.
A. Yes, of course. But creationists haven’t found such powerful negative evidence. They usually pull out of context some arcane interpretation, and harp on it as not proving something or other, something that rarely has anything to do with the central argument. You know for certain that if they had such a negative fact, they would be trumpeting it to the skies. Instead they pull these nits out of thin air in internet chat-room arguments where they are essentially bamboozling people who don’t know what in God's name they are talking about. By the time anyone figures out where they’re coming from, it’s too late, the chat room is already on to something else.
Q. So what is the central "intelligent design" argument?
A. It has come down to the claim—-entirely unsupported—-that humans are so complex, that they couldn’t have evolved to where they are, even in a million years. Therefore—catch the rigorous logic of this—they must have been plunked down by God in their present form 10,000 years ago.
Q. And your rebuttal is?
A. My rebuttal is quite simple. They are completely wrong. They do not understand evolution or how it works. But while the archeological record is clear, it has been difficult to prove they are theoretically wrong--until quite recently. But now they have been proven completely wrong—again—on their spurious scientific claims.
Q. Namely…?
A. The theoretical problem has been that of proving that evolution alone and without God’s intervention, could produce a creature as different from apes and as increasingly complex as a modern human. It was a good argument. Although scientists believed in their hearts that this must be so, they could not prove it. Now they have.
Scientists at the Digital Evolution Laboratory at Michigan State University have developed and are running a program called
Avida. Avida starts with the representation of a simple life-form, and then applies Darwin’s laws to it. That is, the program allows these digital life-forms to replicate, mutate, compete with one another for energy (“food”). They are then allowed to mutate. The trick is to realize that some huge percentage—let’s say 99.999%--of all mutations are neutral or harmful. They don’t add any advantage to an organism, or they add a disadvantage. Since those neutral or harmful mutations don’t confer any advantage, life-forms in which they occur don’t have any special advantage in carrying out Darwin’s laws: they don’t replicate better, they can’t get food more easily and they don’t live longer.
However, every once in a blue moon, and by absolute sheer chance, a mutation does incur an advantage. Those life-forms in which this happens now do have a survival advantage: They are better at finding food, they are stronger to prevent others from stealing their food, they are able to replicate more prolifically.
It is thus easy to visualize that the life-forms which have gained this advantage will more likely replicate than ones which have no advantage, and much more so than those who have incurred a negative advantage. And since mutations are heritable, the advantage will be passed on to the offspring.
Q. So the negative ones tend to die out, and the positive ones thrive?
A. Exactly. Darwin's thesis in a nutshell. Just as the many strains of humanoids have thrived as they improved, or died-out at the hands of superior competition—-Australopithecus, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal—to name a few. Up to the present, when there are only a few competing strains left.
Q. You mean…?
A. I mean we shall pass on that diversion which is an entirely different incendiary subject. One is quite enough for this discourse.
Q. But I’m still not sure I get the point of Avida.
A. Well, it should be clear. Avida has shown that the mechanics of evolution can, by itself, provide a race of creatures with an ever-improving gene pool. A gene-pool that slowly improves a species to a very high level. Not by divine intervention, but by simple chance as a blind, reactive responses to a hostile environment. It just takes an enormous amount of time and many, many attempts, but both the mechanics and now the theory has been shown to exist and to work as Darwin has claimed. But we don't have to argue about it. Go to the
Avida website, download the program and try it yourself.
Q. Which leaves the intelligent design theory where?
A. With one tiny off-limits section, it demolishes it. Natural Darwinian evolution has been shown by physical evidence to be correct, and now it has been shown by theoretical evidence to be correct. That does not leave much room for competing theories that have neither.
Q. By “theoretical” you mean…?
A. By theoretical I do not mean “maybe.” I mean a systematic, organized and logically rigorous explanation. Which includes exculpatory evidence. And in this case, one that is thoroughly validated by the archeological record. I also do not mean a perfect explanation, which is what the Creationists demand for all but themselves. The tiny off-limits splinter is their "watch-maker" theme. It is possible that a supreme being set the universe in motion, with its physical laws and all. But there is absolutely no way of proving, or disproving that idea. Therefore it cannot be discussed sensibly. And once watches are designed, built and set running, the watchmakers no longer intervene.
Q. Well, as a last ditch try, what about “punctuated evolution”?
A. That is, as you say, a last-ditch effort to salvage some small part of creative design. The short answer is "So what?" In fact, evolution is punctuated to some degree. Since mutations are entirely random, there is no telling when positive ones will occur, if ever. A long time can go on before positive ones occur. And they may not occur sufficiently to rescue a species whose environment is changing. That species may become extinct. We may become extinct. It is also possible that various species have reached the acme of their “design.” That is, there are no mutations that can improve upon them, given their environment. They have perfectly adapted to it, and no change will render an advantage. However, environments generally do change—look at the human environment—and so there will always be this jockeying for advantage. The evolution of the human race is not finished, by a long shot.
Q. Finally, where does this leave organized religion?
A. Yes, the $64 question. Well, the ideological elements of religions—most forms of Islam, many forms of Judaism and Christianity--will probably die out, if its adherents don’t first kill everyone who disagrees with them.
Q. And that leaves…?
A. And that leaves evolving religions. Religions that are open-ended; religions that keep asking the cosmic questions. Religions that have cast off the curse of ideology. These can be Islamic, Jewish and Christian—-altered, of course by rejecting the straightjacket of orthodoxy--but pretty much valid, none the less. In fact, they may look like recognizable sisters of today's incarnations. But adherents must realize that all religions are man-made, just as Jesus' ministry was, so we must look to inspired men for direction. Men like Jesus.
Q. Wow-—now that is an interesting statement. Care to elucidate?
A. Perhaps at another time.
Part 4. Who was Jesus?
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
--Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615, during the trial of Galileo
Q. To sum up, so far your thesis has been that man believes strongly in a god because he had one in his formative years--his own father. You've accused the churches of permitting themselves to act cruelly and in their own venal interests as long as the can loudly proclaim their faith. You’ve countered the Creationists by showing that their central claim—that humans are far too complicated to have been designed by the blind laws of evolution-—is demonstrably false. A computer program, available on the web, has shown that given the laws of nature and mutation, organisms will be dytropic-—that is become more complex--eventually leading to humans. For Christians, that leaves only two questions remaining: What about Jesus Christ, and where does that leave organized religion?
A. I mentioned earlier that I would eventually address the organized religion question. The question of who Jesus Christ was, has finally been convincingly answered by Graham Phillips in his fascinating book, The virgin Mary conspiracy: the true father of Christ and the tomb of the virgin .
Phillips’ research highlights some of the severe stumbling blocks to the orthodox description of who and what Jesus was. First, leaving the “miracles” aside, let’s look at some of the obvious rational flaws of their Christian tale:
1. We are asked to believe that a humble carpenter’s son with essentially no education was able to preach in the Temple and astound the learned rabbis. This is beyond unlikely. Of course whenever an overblown tale like this is told, it means two things: First, it is a cover-up of what would otherwise be an obvious flaw in the story--a “scripting weakness” would be the modern appellation; and secondly, the mechanism to perform the cover-up is to repeatedly invoke the power of God—deus ex machina. "God said so. End of story," is the way the Evangelicals love to put it. In other words stop thinking and shut up.
2. Leaving aside the simple mistranslation of the “virgin” who gave birth—we know the correct translation is “young girl”—Jesus’ mother is venerated in the huge role as “co-redeemer” with Christ of mankind’s sins. Why? This for a person who plays no theological role in Jesus’ philosophy whatever. Indeed, Jesus fell out with his mother over his teaching. Why? Other than being present at his birth, his wedding and his death she plays no role in the scriptures at all. In fact, her entire theological stature was constructed centuries after the fact.
3. Incredibly, in a religion so fixated on “the Father,” Jesus’ scriptural father—Joseph--is even more invisible, having done nothing except—presumably--teach Jesus to hew wood. In a real Jewish family, the father is responsible for teaching the child religion, yet we hear not a word about this or any other influence whatsoever. Why? That these questions are not even raised, much less answered, points to the acute discomfort Christian theologians have in probing the fragility of their religious construct. They are terrified of what would happen if they learned anything new about a father, because his actions would be the most obvious ones to cast doubt on their virgin birth claim. Without the virgin birth, the entire structure of their Christian argument would come tumbling down. Jesus would be just another radical itinerant preacher.
4. Finally, what is the meaning of the scenario of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on an ass but blatant stage-managing? It cannot possibly mean he is deliberately reenacting prophecies to an audience in order to be crowned King of the Jews. Jewish law is very strict in this regard. The only way to be seriously considered King of the Jews is by paternity—not by Hollywood enactment. Without a clear line of hereditary succession, all the play-acting in the world won’t carry the weight. Only with a provable line of succession do the reenactments then become necessary prophetic fulfillments. Thus, the only reason Jesus bothered to reenacted the prophecies was because he could prove his lineage.
Q. You said “his wedding”?
A. Possibly. There was no reason for Jesus not to have been married except it doesn't fit in with the revised versions of Christianity which doesn't like any form of sexual activity to blemish its leaders. The bible is a lot like an ambitious businessman's resume; over the years the blemishes have been airbrushed out, and positive accomplishments burnished to a fine luster. Jesus was in his 30’s after all, well past the age when a Jewish rabbi would have been expected to get married. One historical clue is the wedding scene in Luke where he rebukes his mother for haranguing the servants. A guest to a wedding is not likely to do that, but the mother of the groom is.
[Ed note: See: http://www.jesuspolice.com/common_error.php?id=14] But to continue. What Graham Phillips posits is very exciting. He shows convincingly that Jesus must have been the (biological) son of Antipater, who himself was the son of the real King of the Jews--Herod.
Q. Herod? The same guy who tried to kill Jesus along with all the other newborns of Bethlehem?
A. The same. Herod really was the official King of the Jews, so anointed by no less than the emperor Augustus. After his death, Augustus was then promoted to being a god; thus this decree could not be revoked. Antipater was Herod’s eldest son and next in line to succeed his father. (BTW, Antipater’s wife was named Miriamne—-Greek for Mary.) But Salome, Herod’s sister, began to plot to eliminate Antipater in the line of succession in favor of a younger son of Herod’s, Phillip. Phillip was a pliable lad, easy for Salome to control and through him, she hoped, the Kingdom of Palestine.
Salome inflamed Herod’s already slipping sanity against Antipater by falsifying a plot by Antipater to kill Herod in order to speed up the accession.
Because this newly discovered paternity of Jesus changes the story of Herod to his hunting down of possible legal usurpers to his throne (as opposed to spiritual usurpers), the story of Herod killing all newborns in Bethlehem finally makes sense. There are only two candidates that could usurp Herod: Antipater, and Antipater’s yet to be first born son. The warning to Herod that Antipater’s pregnant wife was on her way to Bethlehem was all the evidence Herod needed to confirm in his mind that a plot to replace him was afoot. Thus, the paranoid Herod ordered his own son Antipater and his family arrested. Herod had Antipater killed in his cell, but his wife, the pregnant Mary, escaped.
This royal lineage puts the story of Jesus’ life in an entirely different—and finally believable--light. Not a humble carpenter’s son picked by God out of the blue, Jesus was of royal blood and in direct line to accession of the throne by Roman decree. Mary knew full well that her son by Antipater was legally in line to take on the title of King of the Jews. But to rule effectively, he could not do so as an untutored youth. His mother, Mary, also high-born, clearly had big plans for her son. (This is a discovery that Phillips does not pursue adequately. That Jesus was essentially of royal blood has profound implications for the entire Jesus legend. But Phillips was on a different spur. He wanted to find out what happened to Mary after the
crucifixion of her son.)
How did Phillips glean Jesus’ paternity with such certitude? By a careful reading of the Gospels. When Pontius Pilate directly asks Jesus, “Art thou the King of the Jews?”, Jesus hems and haws and eventually answers: “To this end I was born.” Instead of crucifying Jesus immediately for making the false claim of being a direct descendant of Herod, Pilate--amazingly--finds “in him no fault in him at all.” Such a judgment can only be a result of Jesus
indeed being a direct descendent of Herod, and that is only possible if he is Antipater’s first son. Case closed. Of course the orthodoxy jump through hoops to spin this answer differently. If you really want to see some dizzying spin, look at some of the incredible, completely nonsensical genealogies proposed for Jesus.
Escaping from Herod’s grasp, Mary married Joseph to help raise the young Jesus as the next in line to succession. Since the prophets foretold (i.e., required) that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem (forget the “census” ploy--Mary's home was Nazareth, not Bethlehem). Mary and Joseph traveled there not by angelic instruction, but specifically in order to fulfill that Old Testament requirement, to set Jesus up for his secular role. Warned of his infanticidal decree by Essene elders, the new family once again escaped Herod’s grasp--this time with the infant Jesus--by fleeing out of reach to Egypt. Herod died soon thereafter making it safe for the family to return to their actual home town of Nazareth.
Once an adolescent, Jesus was inducted into the rigorously orthodox Jewish Essene sect. Located at Qumran on the banks of the Dead Sea, this was
supposedly the spiritual West Point of Jewish orthodoxy. It is here that he received his extensive theological training, all part of an upbringing designed to let him reign successfully when he was ready to claim his rightful title. He may at this time have impressed some rabbis at the Temple with his theological precocity. His life and study at this strict religious commune accounts for the so-called “missing years” of Jesus’ life. These years are “missing” only insofar as they the orthodoxy doesn't want to know about them. They offend the regnant fairy tale that Jesus was a humble lamb, designated by God to fulfill the forthcoming Christian mission, instead of a highly trained rabbi, endowed by royal lineage to succeed Herod’s reign. One major unanswered question: Could Joseph, Jesus' step father, have been Joseph of Arimathea?)
Q. This is all so fantastic…
A. Oh, come now, not at all. Herod’s vicious behavior was standard fare for all the many internecine plots amongst royals of every nation state since as long as history has been recorded. Look at the way the English kings murdered their wives and family members to gain advantage. It was routine fare. What is fantastic—that is, a fantasy—is the improbable concoction the orthodoxy asks us to believe about Jesus. No motives, no real people fighting savagely for dominance, no authentic historicity. Just a bunch of extras without a script, standing around waiting for the hero to speak his lines. And then there are all the large holes in Jesus’ official biography--the so-called missing years, the fates of his mother and father—-which no Christians seem to care enough about to find out what happened.
Q. But why not?
A. Because the natural answers, the historical answers, are not palatable. They leave the Walt Disney God out of the equation. They make the Jesus story mere history instead of a physical singularity. But when you do find out what really happened, you realize instantly that that Phillips’ historical scenario makes eminent sense. It shows up the sham that is orthodox Christianity like the close examination of a Hollywood set.
Q. So once again you come back to the claim that modern Christianity is a fraud.
A. Well, I come back to the fact that modern Christianity has lost its way-—almost from the beginning. Certainly no one can any longer claim with a straight face that Jesus’ biography, as told in the gospels is historical. But–and this really is The Great Betrayal of the Christian orthodoxy--instead of taking the genius behind these heavily edited stories of Jesus into both hands, and trying to discover what it was that Jesus actually meant, and who he actually was, the usual corporate mentality took over. Today's orthodox Christianity is a huge failure of the imagination. The result is a watered-down confabulation that serves only its grasping creators and bears little if any relationship to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
The amount of bafflegab that has been used to try to smooth over clearly contrary facts in the bible to fit current "infallibility" theology, the intellectual fraud necessary to twist ideas around to make them fit modern concepts, all this just kept building up over the centuries, encrusting Jesus’ teachings with everything from anti-female sexism to murderous intolerance and torture in the name of Christ, to ingrained pedophilia. How much farther from Christ’s teachings could orthodox religions possibly have traveled? Where are the modern Martin Luther's to say, "Now just a bloody minute"?
Ask your self how much practical research about Jesus has been conducted by the Church? Nearly all useful information about early Christianity is recent and stems from historians and archeologists, with the orthodoxy fighting an ever weaker rear-guard action. Of late, the orthodoxy has just given up. They don’t even bother to answer new research issues and have retreated to the sanctity of a complete religious fantasy. The creationists and the biblical literalists have joined the orthodox Catholics in that pastime--as has the supine media.
See this site for a
capsule antidote .
Q. Yet you keep defending Christianity? Why? What should your brand of neo-Christians do?
A. Yes, that’s the $64 question. I am working on an answer.
[Ed note: See exculpatory evidence at end of article.]
Part 5. What should Christians do? [Ed note: See also The Metaphysicians--Christian Atheists.]
"Who is your friend when all friends are gone?"
--Ray Charles
Q. To recap, in the last part, you claim that, according to Graham Phillips, Jesus was an historical figure of royal blood, the issue of Herod’s first son Antipater and Mary, and in direct line of succession to Herod’s title of King (and ruler) of the Jews, a title bestowed on him by the Roman Emperor, Augustus. Therefore all the rigmarole about virgin birth, a humble maid and husband returning to a town they never lived in for a census count, forced to give birth in a manger, the star of Bethlehem, all these things are pure fiction.
A. Yes, except for the Star of Bethlehem, which was surely a super supernova, visible even in daylight for a few winter months in 4-5 BC, according to the meticulous records of Chinese astronomers. That pretty much sets the time of Jesus’ birth.
Q. If all the miraculous elements of Jesus’ life are nonsense, what is left for Christians to believe?
A. Well, not all the miracles. Only the supernatural miracles. They cannot be true. If there is a God, he would not allow it. I have been struggling with how best to answer this. Here is a try.
First, the words of the four Gospels are clear about what the religion of Jesus was—and it was certainly not a huge corporate edifice with layers of priests, cardinals, bishops and a pope/king. Nor did Jesus envision the need for an intermediary to facilitate a person's relationship with God. The religion of Jesus was a simple one of
living and preaching poverty, helping the poor, loving your neighbors, and spreading
this message which he called the word of God. The “lifestyle” of his group was one of renouncing all worldly goods, and taking to the road to cure the spiritual ills of the countryside. They sponged-off the people they preached to. They lived in communes and shared everything. They undoubtedly married and their
wives probably accompanied their itinerate preacher husbands on their missions. Not a very glamorous life, and an extraordinary path for a real king to take. This is one fact that makes the story of Jesus so astonishing--and so full of hope.
The rich do not qualify. Jesus said it is easier to thread a rope through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Thus he renounced his high social standing, much to the consternation of his family and the Essene community. This again is an unexamined aspect of his teachings that cries for further explication. It is also certain that Jesus was able to effect many “miraculous” cures of the then common afflictions-—disfiguring skin ailments, hysteria and the like. The power of the placebo effect, particularly with skin ailments, while scientifically well-documented, is even today not at all understood. The ability of some people to trigger such cures is also quite remarkable, but Jesus was not alone in that gift. Numerous countryside preachers of the times had similar abilities. Their many historical accounts—-also including virgin births, healing the disfigured, raising people from the dead, etc.--are carefully left out of Christian orthodox history, because they make Jesus seem like just one of many charismatic preachers, which is what he was. The orthodoxy, fearful that Jesus' radical message is not enough--which is what is so remarkable about the man--and one they themselves barely understand, ignore it in order to pile on the social-security aspect of a heavenly retirement community.
But, if Jesus' type of Christianity is what you wish to pursue, there are still a few options. Jewish communes still exist, but they are generally not the hippy life of love, peace and joy that Jesus’ group also did not experience. Rather, too many of them degenerated into snake pits of rivalries, jealousies, intolerance and hatred—and failed to sustain themselves as businesses, dissolving in acrimonious bankruptcy. They gave the early Christianity life-style a bad name. The ones that still exist are strictly regulated by long lists of petty rules. Bitter complaints about the other guy malingering, are part of everyday life.
I have imagined a modern version of the early Christian community that might be closer to Jesus’ idea, and one that might work today. As an assemblage of traveling preachers, Jesus' group didn’t exist long enough—only about 1-1/2 years--with him as leader, to indicate whether it possessed a stable framework to hold together by anything other than the force of his personality. In fact, almost immediately after his death, the Jesus group morphed into several different variations. His half-brother James--a brother presumably sired by Joseph and Mary—-was a high priest of the Jerusalem Temple (more evidence of Mary’s highborn standing), and led the initially strongest Jesus movement. But it was solely open to Jews. Paul (who never met Jesus) picked up the gauntlet and opened Christianity up to gentiles. As such, he--not Peter--is the real father of the modern Christian orthodoxy.
I call this hypothetical self-governing form of Ur-Christianity The Followers of Jesus, or simply “Followers.” Here it is:
- Followers are obliged to join professions that help their fellow man, especially in such jobs as nurses, doctors, teachers, the ministry, policemen and the like. They might join Doctors without Borders, or the Salvation Army. They could teach in prisons. They might work in hospitals for the poor or in mental institutions. If you want to live a glamorous life, try a later version of Christianity.
- Wherever they work, Followers have their paychecks deposited directly into a central Followers’ accounts.
- Followers are themselves paid a living wage which is based on a sliding scale. The lowest paid Followers receive nearly all of what they would have taken home. As they earn more, an ever greater portion of their earnings is retained by the administration. A successful surgeon might receive only 25% of his net pay back. This engenders an appreciation of poverty and discourages those joining who lust to accumulate wealth and earthly power. No Follower drives a BMW. Followers who pay-in 75% or more of their earnings are highly esteemed and play a special role in the community.
- In return for this sliding scale of pre-take-home tithes, the central administration provides its own network of churches, medical care, schools and a retirement fund.
- Local congregations are formed with ministers chosen by election. Ministers serve 5-year renewable terms, but can be recalled by a 2/3rds vote of their congregation. These ministers form the board of directors of the
Executive Committee.
- The board of directors oversee the Executive Committee, which runs the show. The Committee directs the prudent investment of the accumulating capital which is used to fund the creation and operation of hospitals and schools, and the cost of medical care for the flock as well as the funding of their retirement benefits. Retirement communities are created and maintained. And, of course, they fund their extensive good works.
- To avoid complaints of elitism, the Followers’ hospitals and schools operated as "profit centers," open on a minority basis to non-Followers. Instruction follows the Catholic school model, i.e., strict, non-union, and secular with an added religious component.
- All Followers not directly involved in care-giving careers must perform some sort of on-going community service.
- A strange rite is required of all those who form the Executive Committee: they must all be medically castrated! This has been found to reduce the testosterone-fuelled lust for power, and is certainly a bar to anyone who seeks the honor for the wrong reason. In one sense, selective castration of the executive leaders replaces the Jewish custom of universal male circumcision.
- Intermarriage of a Follower and a non-follower is not discouraged, but the non-Follower partner must abide by the rules of the Group—although he or she is not obligated to join or “believe.” A non-member can attend services but may not become a minister unless she does convert.
- Finally, the rules of the Followers cannot over-ride the democratic laws of the land in which they dwell. There is no higher earthly authority than the democratic law of the land. This is always a bitter pill to swallow when abortion comes up, or polygamy, etc. As a follower, you may
chose personally not to have an abortion; you may counsel others not to have an abortion; but you may not
force or try to force anyone not to have an abortion if the law allows it.
What do the Followers believe? Religious beliefs are not really taught;
only religious behavior is. Act out the ten Commandments. Some of the habits Jesus and his disciples had were to eat communal meals as part of their religious fellowship. This is carried over into the informal services held by the churches. A Mid-day dinner is the focus of the Sunday service. The essence of this group’s beliefs is that they must act correctly in God’s eyes. Switching good actions in favor of good beliefs was the greatest perversion of Jesus’ teachings that can be imagined. It permitted the orthodoxy to do anything as long as could claim to be doing it "in the name of the Lord." The result was the Inquisition.
And, or course, the biggest problem facing these Ur-Christians is the same one that faced the Bolsheviks--how do you prevent a socialistic system like this from
turning into an out-of-control dictatorship? The Bolshies quickly consolidated power among a small clique by eliminating democracy--and brutally eliminating the slightest competition. Because they were decisive, they were very effective in the short term. But, because they were anti-democratic they could not compete in the long term. Any elections were complete frauds. Elections amongst the Followers are a very serious business. Everyone must vote; the voting is supervised by an outside agency--many agencies, actually, and the outcome is quickly enforced: losers are cast out of office the next week.
Recalcitrants are dealt with harshly...
To be considered “Followers of Jesus,” adherents must act according to Jesus’ commands, and attempt to follow his example. This thesis has been well-explicated by Robert Funk, founder of the
Jesus Seminar .
Essentially, Funk realized that in spite of the vocabulary later used to describe it, Jesus’ heaven was right here on Earth. Jesus’ view of the committed life was so different, so outside the box, that there exists no vocabulary to describe it. Those like Jesus, who have glimpsed it, are pushed into using what words they have, a vocabulary that offends normal sensibilities. Listen to born-again Christians rant. But, instead of an earthly here-and-now filled with grace, the disciples thought they heard a description of another physical place. Instead of the suffering the slings and arrows of this cruel world full of ugliness, temptation, and hatred, Christian acolytes understood a celestial haven, free from these sins and especially free of Roman persecution. You can imagine why: Proselytizers quickly picked up on the fact that it is easier to pitch a heavenly eternal spa than a mere different way of looking at ugly life here on earth. They began the ionization of Christ--failing to see, to appreciate, his hard, down-to-earth message in favor of a glistening Disney World.
But, the self-abnegation and personal sacrifice the Followers demand would be a difficult religion for most people to practice today—-as it surely was in Christ’s time. So most of us must find a different way to serve Him.
Q. But wait. You mean there are “Followers,” and there are “Followers-Lite”?
A. Of course. Being entirely man-made, people create and live the religion they want. Today’s’ Christians religions are glorified social clubs with faint religious overtones. The Salvation Army is one terrific response to keeping Jesus' mission alive. Except that they are universally liberal--religion and politics shouldn't mix-- the Quakers are a modest attempt to keep the faith. Even the Masons, the Shiners and the Rotary Clubs do as much for the poor as organized religions—perhaps more--and
at least they don't kill anyone. They are churches without religion, that help the poor. They are the direction all religions must head.
Q. You used the term “to serve Christ.” What exactly do you mean by that?
A. Surely that is the central core of Christianity. If you believe Jesus was the Son of God--which is marvelous simile--then the question each Christian must answer for himself is this: To what extant can I obey the dictates of Jesus? There is nothing else to think about. Of course everyone provides his own answer on a sliding scale. We will leave for later his commands to believe any particular thing. His commands of action are what count--the action to love your neighbors, the act of turning the other cheek to your enemies. To actually honor your mother and father in deed and not merely in thought. And most of all—in my opinion--to give of yourself—not just money--to your spouse and children, to your parents and neighbors, to your fellow man in general, and and especially to those less well-off than you.
Q. That’s all?
A. That’s a lot.
Q. But what about all the religious imagery, the rituals, the hymns of praise, the prayers of thanksgiving, the glorification of the saints…?
A. Well, those make you feel good, but how does all that help the poor?
Q. That’s it? You’ve reduced “Christianity-Lite” to helping the poor?
A. That’s not a bad reduction. As to hymns of praise, they serve to make us feel good about ourselves, which is a large part of what religion is there for.
Q. And where does God fit in?
A. God doesn't "fit in." God is unknowable. However, we know what he isn’t. He isn’t a heavenly Santa Claus that makes exceptions to his own house rules just because some one spends a lot of time on bended knee. If prayer worked at all, its advantages would show up statistically. Devout Christians would suffer less cancer, have fewer heart attacks, and lose fewer children in accidents. If prayer worked at all, theologians would have a thousand studies to prove that being a Christian is healthier than being a Muslim or an atheist. But they don’t even do those studies, which means they don’t even believe in the efficacy of that kind of prayer themselves.
And we do have some idea of what God is. Imagine you are in an airliner. You just locked yourself into the rear loo when suddenly the plan starts twisting and turning violently. You can’t get back to your seat. The plane crash lands; the tail section with you in it, breaks off. Dazed, but unhurt, you jump to the ground, only to see the fuselage--200 yards down the field--burning fiercely. None of the emergency exits are open. Everybody has been burned alive—-except you. What do you do now? What do you think? Most people would drop to their knees, burst out in tears, and blurt out: “Thank God I’m alive.”
“Thank God I’m alive.” The same person who five minutes ago, in the process of explaining to his seat-mate that “God is Dead” is struck with diarrhea and is now on his knees thanking the Lord for sparing him. So, in spite of all our learned cerebration, this idea of a supreme deity is firmly anchored in the mind of man. We use his name repeatedly--he permeates our language: “For God’s sake;” “God dammit;” “God forsaken;” God is such a necessary idea; his teachings are the focal point of the diffuse light of our lives, and he is the lens.
But man, the thinking animal, never gives up trying to define God, or pigeon-hole him, or appropriate him. The latter is especially true of the theocrats who claim an exclusive knowledge of God, and suggest that they alone control his appointment book.
In the final analysis, it is nearly useless to try to talk about God, to try to define him or explain who or what he is. Let’s go back to the radical idea that religion is kind deeds, not any belief; and what you believe about God—-or anything—-is entirely your own business—-and not that of the Church or the State. Then each person can work out for himself who and what his or her God is. You needn’t look further; if there is a God for you, He--not a priest or some unnamed university professor--will help you come to terms with Him. Amen.
Part 6. God & Man
I've been so wrong, for so long.
I thought I could live without the love that you give.
--Patsy Cline
Q. Professor Woolsley, this is the last section of this essay. You talked briefly of God in the last section. I know the question interests our readers. Can you sum up the religious situation today? Can you answer–as Stephen Hawkins would not--“the God question”?
A. I will go a little further than he, a wise man, but not much further. But let us first set the scene. While not yet clear to everyone, the battle lines about the place of God and man in today’s society have been drawn and the fight is on in earnest. To see what it is that the two sides are fighting about, let us review the reason for any battle. It is not to place God in or out of our lives–it is to obtain and exercise Earthly power.
According to their scriptures, the God of Judaism, of Christianity and of Islam is the ruler of the universe and the source of all power, Earthly and Celestial. And we also know that throughout history, many (Greek & Roman) gods were replaced by a single God, who was slowly replaced by a mortal god, e.g., Louis XIV, the Emperor of Japan, Mao Tse-tung, Stalin, Hitler, etc. Now, in advanced nations, it is “Power to the People”–democracy--that rules the roost. So the idea of where ultimate power lies has devolved downward from many heavenly gods to a single heavenly god to a single god-like person on earth, and thence, to many people on Earth--to everyman. In a democracy, no matter what your religion is, all human actions are subject to the will of the people and, in that sense, “God is dead.”
Q. But of course he lives?
A. Of course. He lives where he must--in people’s hearts. And as long as that’s where he remains, there is no problem. The Great Battle will be over where ideologues insist he is supposed to live–right here on earth and in full control of everything. That was the Catholic and Jewish position until governments silenced them on that issue; that is the extreme (and not so extreme) Islamic position.
Many people harbor the sentiment that a stern but beneficent human “monarch” (dictator) is still the most efficient form of government. Think of the residual love for Stalin (still so rarely criticized by American leftists), Mussolini, who kept the trains running on time, and Sung Il of North Korea–our only remaining living god.
But as James Surowiecki so aptly put it in his book The Wisdom of Crowds, in today’s complex world, “the many are smarter than the few.” (At least over time.) Smarter means better able to accrete power and exercise it justly. This is just the reason that capitalism--decisions by the many--is so much more efficient in producing goods than communism. This is why, just as capitalism has resoundingly won the production battle, so democracies are likely to win the Great Battle–except for one critical fly in the ointment. Liberal democracies have not forgotten that it take power to win; but they have forgotten that you only have power if you use it , and the exercise of power means the use of force.
Q. Force? You mean as in killing people?
A. Yes. Somehow, in America, and especially in England, the realization has been lost that the exercise of brute force is often the most economical way to achieve desired change. Sometimes, in a gridlock, brute force must be used to accomplish anything at all.
Q. Brute force meaning some one gets hurt?
A. Yes. But more people are saved. Look at Iraq. A bunch of shoeless Joes are stalemating the most technologically advanced nation in the world.
Q. Well what do you expect the Americans to do? Bomb Iraq back into the stone age?
A. That is one possibility, and possibly the cheapest effective solution. Say a few air bursts of conventional super bombs to kill all the inhabitants of a hotbed of insurgency--Innocent and guilty alike. The next town that offers shelter to insurgents is then also leveled. It will not take long, nor many lives, before Iraqis realize that they are better off forming a democratic government at gunpoint than continually sniping at each other from the sidelines.
Q. But you would be killing thousands of innocent people….
A. Yes, innocent and guilty people, all at once. Instead of thousands more people, innocent and guilty over a much longer period of time. Is there no useful difference? Of course there is: We lose a lot fewer innocent people and fewer of our own troops. Note I did not say no innocent people--the search for perfection is always the road to failure, and the great stumbling block of liberal ideologues. By acting decisively and brutally and crudely, we save lives and time. Then, once democracy is installed and operating for a year or two, its advantages will become blindingly obvious–-and your petty tyrants will no longer be able to galvanize the downtrodden faithful. They’d be unwilling to give up their cell phones, their internet cafes, their indoor plumbing…
Q. But everyone knows you can't force people to embrace democracy at gun point.
A. Everyone except the Japanese.
Q. Professor Woolsley, up ‘til now you’ve been the modicum of reasonability. All at once you’ve turned into an Übermonster, willing to slaughter thousands just to make some political point.
A. Oh come now. I said you don’t understand the calculus of force. Try to understand it. Understand that the result you are looking for is one that causes the least amount of destruction in order to achieve your goal. The rapid application of overwhelming force is usually the cheapest way to get there. If you aren’t ready to apply maximum force to achieve a difficult result–democracy to replace a cruel theocracy--then don’t even get started in the first place. And doing nothing is almost always more expensive than avoiding regrettably “cruel” action now in hopes that something gentler and kinder will appear on the horizon. Indeed, the use of overwhelming force is the backbone of the U.S. Armed Forces Military Doctrine–except that it’s never used by them any more–and that’s why the American can’t make any progress in Iraq. If you can get over the moral issue, the Germans in WW-II understood the correct use of force. They practiced then what the American military preaches now. Of course Americans have such trouble getting over the moral issue, as opposed to the technical issue. But Vietnam certainly showed the world that it doesn’t matter how powerful you are; if you aren’t willing to use as much force as necessary to get the job done, you might as well stay home and polish your weaponry for the parade ground.
Q. So eliminate morality?
A. Anything that impedes the necessary use of force to result in justice for the people is not "morality"--it is bathos--or politics. Let me give you the classic American dilemma: A man must chose between losing his wife to a murderer, or betraying, say, a busload of people–strangers--who will be killed in exchange for release of his wife. What is the American response?
A. To save the wife?
Q. Of course. And to expect a miracle to also save the others. That’s the dead hand of moral bathos stepping in. Now in reality, any husband would be expected to try to save his wife. But what if you were the commander of a SWAT team negotiating with those same criminals. Would you agree to a swap of one woman for the deaths of the 35 others? Even of the woman was the wife of one of your men? Hollywood preaches that losing proposition every day. Triage is never permitted expression.
Q. So your point is…?
A. My point is democratic institutions must learn to recognize and practice triage without scruples because that is always the best--the least expensive--solution. But they just cannot manage it, at least not the liberal section of the political spectrum. Thus we have all these maudlin interventions, the U.N...
Q. And this–pardon me for saying it–“rant,” connects to God in what manner?
A. God is the supreme spiritual being. He controls you the individual, whether you like it or not. But He must remain an internal spiritual being and not be permitted–through his disciples–to control anything else. Therein lies the inevitable madness of religious excess. “The People” in their entirety must control the earthly world–hopefully motivated by their internal God.
This practical difficulties of the split between heaven and earth–between the legal and the moral--is well described in Marci A. Hamilton’s book God vs the Gavel. This separation is, of course a very bitter pill for the religiously intense to swallow and, indeed, they will never swallow it voluntarily. If allowed to come to power, they will do everything in their power to replace democratic institutions with undemocratic religious institutions. Today Catholics and Jews would, if they could, reinstall God as the Central Authority, with the priests and Rabbis as
interlocutors. That is, they will steal power from the people and accrete it for themselves. All in the name of God. That is why (coming back to the force issue) religious ideologues–the orthodoxy--every one of them--must be forced to swallow their theology when it comes to running the Earth. They must all be forced by law to play second fiddle to democracy.
Q. I feel we keep going around in circles. I keep asking about God, and you keep talking about worldly power.
A. No. You keep wanting to hear a fairy-tale about God, and then are disappointed when I refuse to read you a nursery rhyme. There are plenty of fairy tales, but God is not among them. What I am trying to do is to tell you who God isn’t. I can’t tell you who God is. That is something you will find out for yourself-–in yourself.
Q. Not a big help…
A. You mean, I’m not making it any easier for you. Well, Real Life is real tough...
Q. ...and so is God?
A. Ah-ha! You see. You’re making progress already.
*********************************************************************
[Ed note, 14 Nov 05, Exculpatory evidence. While orthodox theologians have been deliberating, dissecting and heavily embellishing the scanty accounts of Jesus' life, modern independent theologians have been slowly coming to a different conclusion. The most recent hypotheses suggest that nothing was written about Jesus before about 90 AD
(See
capsule antidote), and that the strongest evidence of his existence--the
~50 AD letters of St. Paul--are mid 2nd Century forgeries ("pseudoipigraphs"). Jewish elders, worried about the influence of Julius Caesar, created Jesus as a theological counter-weight. This deliberate legend was tried out in various versions, each new edition modifying and "purifying" the tale a bit further, until a group of stories came together that told roughly the same story--which became the synoptic
gospels. Thus, the Jesus Myth was designed by Jews to give Jews a super-hero around which to rally. They did too good a job. Christ-ianity was then pre-empted by Roman leaders as a very handy framework around which to construct--over many centuries--the official Roman religion--Catholicism. Objecting to the resulting Italian theological (and military) dictatorship, democratically-inclined German theists wanted their own version, and split with the mother church to create it. Thus was born a third major variation of the Jesus Myth--Protestantism. (Others broke off from Roman Catholicism, too--the Greeks, the Armenians, etc.) All proving, modern theologians point out, that religion is essential man-made, and nothing will stop the people from creating the religion they want.
Why is this important to any but the Christians themselves? After all, in free countries, people can believe whatever they want (as long as they do not act against the democratic laws of the land). It matters because if there was no super-natural event (A here-and-now God, the insemination by God of a virgin, etc.), then the claim by Christians to certain "inalienable rights"--such as a prohibition against abortion--becomes just another special pleading by just another pressure group, and cannot automatically supersede as "higher law" the secular law of the land. (This does not mean Christians cannot agitate against abortion, and try to reverse the legal rulings that allow it. But those are then merely self-serving political acts, and not a defense of "God's will.")
Two excellent sources on this subject are: Bart D. Ehrman's fine book, The orthodox corruption of scripture, (1993), and Hermann Detering's work (much of it available on the web) entitled
The Falsified Paul - Early Christianity in the Twilight.
Scroll down past the German text to the English writing. An English language
review of Detering's book is available, also below the German text..
*******************************************************************************************************************
Reader Commentary:
A.K. , Montclair, NJ. You seem to slam the door shut on creationists, yet you then leave open a very wide crack when you admit that a watchmaker God could exist.
Prof W. Not really. There are two aspects to this belief. First, science concerns itself with things that can be proven or
disproved. Since there is no test (not even a theoretical test) that can prove or disprove the "God as Watchmaker" belief, it is not a subject that scientists can discuss as scientists. So they shouldn't.
And secondly, let's say there was a way to prove that God did set the universe in motion in the same way a watchmaker starts his newly created watch. This type of God is not the type that Creationists want to believe in. Creationists want to believe in a God that is caring, that is present in the here and now, that watches over every sparrow, and that can and does intervene when it suits him. So one strongly suspects that Creationists are merely using the Watchmaker idea as the camel's nose under the tent--a way to stay in the science game so that later, when they are no longer scrutinized, they can "expand" the Watchmaker theory to include their literal biblical interpretations. This is a devious tactic of which Creationists should be ashamed. But, as ideologues, they believe that any tactic that forwards God's work as they see it, is permissible as the lesser of two evils.
S.E.H., Bloomfield, NJ . You make rational arguments against a supernatural God; Creationists make emotional arguments for his existence. Emotion has been around a lot longer than ration. Why gives you the right to adjudicate these two points of view any more than they can adjudicate away your point of view?
Prof W. A good question. And if a world-wide vote were taken on the question, we rationalists would surely lose. So even democracy is against us! But we are not voting on the subject. We are talking about what to teach in science classes--AND NOTHING MORE. Teach what you want in Sunday School. Teach what you want in religion classes. But keep your unscientific hands off what is taught in science classes.
The problem with Creationism is that not that they are trying to teach their credo--it is that they are actively trying to prevent the teaching of opposing ideas--and that is religious censorship, pure and simple. Scientists do not invade the churches and demand that priests stop teaching Creationism. Yet priests are invading the schools and demanding that science teachers stop teaching Darwinism--and forcibly insert the teaching of their brand of religion. That is what is wrong with Creationism. They pretend that their un-testable religious beliefs are scientific. And that is why Creationists are such devious liars. But it's OK, they tell themselves, because it's being done in the name of God. So was the Inquisition.
T.M.H., Boston. Why all the beating around the bush? Why don't you just start reading the bible all over again with the proviso held firmly in view: "NO MIRACLES." Then every time you come up against an apparent miracle, you would have to stop and say--OK, if any aspect of this vignette was real, what might actually have happened and what could it have meant? [Ed note: On this subject, see: The Metaphysicians--Christian Atheists.]
Prof W. Perfect. That is exactly what the orthodoxy of all religions should be doing. But they are far too lazy, much too comfortable and set in their ways. Their intellectuals are too frightened and too timid to do their theological job, which is to interpret what their founding fathers--real humans all--thought and believed about man's ultimate destiny. Such a pity. The job will eventually get done, but it means it will be left to social scientists who will probably be atheists. What a scandal--theologians are too oafish to explain
themselves, so outsiders will have to do the job for them. See Hermann
Detering's work for an example of how far off the mark the Orthodoxy has blundered.
However, Bishop John Shelby Spong has done a remarkable job of trying to cajole
the Episcopal church around into a modern direction. Of course he is being
excommunicated for his efforts!
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