Depending on where one searches, there are on this planet, Earth, well over 4,000 religions, most of
which believe themselves to be the ONLY true one. Many have only a few adherents,
while others have very many, but if we averaged them all out (assuming only 4,000), it would be about
1,750,000 adherents per religion. So for example, with a membership (as of Jun2013) of
17,994,000, SDA’s may be above the average, but are still way below the
big-bullies-on-the-block who weigh-in @ Billion+. So what exactly guarantees that any Judeo-Christian-sect is more “in-the-truth” than the other 3,999 who
also claim to be the ONLY ones “in-the-truth”?
An interesting dynamic happens to most persons who hang-out exclusively with one kind of people. If one hangs-out only with thieves, chances are good that he’ll become a thief. If one hangs-out only with Heaven’s-Gate believers, chances are good that he’ll also want to stop living in-the-flesh and live in-the-spirit (through suicide). If one hangs-out only with Islamist-extremists, chances are good that suicide-bombing in order to get 72 virgins in paradise, starts to make good sense.
What goes by the name of “Christianity” today, has very, VERY little resemblance to the Enlightenment (Awakening, Illumination, born-again-new-creation) that Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς taught. That name (“Christians”) wasn’t even used until about 10 yrs after Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς left the scene. A more appropriate name may be:
Don’t have time here to annotate & footnote all my sources studied for well over 1/2-a-century, but I invite you, reader, to research it for yourself if you find this hard to swallow.
1) During the “missing-years”, Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς traveled, lived, studied & taught in Buddhist lands where he was known (like among Muslim peoples) as Teacher-Isa. Besides archaeological evidence of his life there, comparing his teachings to the teachings of Shakya-Muni-Buddha (Awakened-Sage of the Shakya-clan), one can see that one quoted the other. And since one lived 500 yrs after the other one, it’s clear who quoted whom.
2) When Saul-Paul (who NEVER met Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς) finally Awakened to the beautiful simplicity of Teacher-Isa’s Enlightened teachings, meaning well, he tried every approach possible to tweak those teachings so that 1st Jews & later Gentiles, could relate to them and accept them. To Jews, Paul presented Yeshua as a Jewish puritan who just wanted to re-awaken the pure religion of Moses & the–prophets unburdened by the burdensome requirements piled-on by subsequent generations of well-meaning religious teachers. And to Gentiles who were already familiar with the concept of divinity dying for the people, Paul presented Ἰησοῦς (Iesous ≈ Isou) as divinity dying for the people.
NIV 1 Corinthians 9:
"20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law, so as to win those under the law.21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law, so as to win those not having the law. 22 I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some."
4) By 312CE, in-spite of all the persecutions designed to keep Paulist-Christians from becoming too numerous, Constantine realized that if he made them his power-base he’d be more established with them than with any other weaker polytheist group. The many different gospels-&-epistles in circulation presented a bit of an obstacle in consolidating his power-base, so in 325CE he convened a council which made his choice (Flavian version) of gospels-&-epistles the one & ONLY true Scripture (while destroying almost all of the others). Once Christianity was the state religion, every opportunist in the Roman empire jumped on the band-wagon, politicked himself into leadership, and that’s the way we got the Roman-Universal-Christian dictatorship, trinitarian-polytheism, exterminations of all who had a different opinion, Holy-Roman-Inquisition, Crusader genocides, unimaginable tortures, burning people ALIVE, etc. Christianity is the #1 biggest faith on Earth only because Christians were the most successful & brutal in exterminating those who didn’t submit.
Ever since 325CE people have been living-killing-&-dying for this “infallible” 325CE-Flavian-Constantinian-version of
And how did the “Old-Testament” get carried over & attached to the “New-Testament”? Simple. In the beginning, most Paulist-Christians were ethnic & convert Jews steeped in the TaNaKh (canon of Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nevi'im & Ketuvim). To bring them into Awakening, Paul used the TaNaKh to convince Jews that Yeshua’s teachings were just a pure form of their own “ol’-time-religion” and not something totally different from gentile, uncircumcised Nepal in northern-India.
An interesting dynamic happens to most persons who hang-out exclusively with one kind of people. If one hangs-out only with thieves, chances are good that he’ll become a thief. If one hangs-out only with Heaven’s-Gate believers, chances are good that he’ll also want to stop living in-the-flesh and live in-the-spirit (through suicide). If one hangs-out only with Islamist-extremists, chances are good that suicide-bombing in order to get 72 virgins in paradise, starts to make good sense.
What goes by the name of “Christianity” today, has very, VERY little resemblance to the Enlightenment (Awakening, Illumination, born-again-new-creation) that Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς taught. That name (“Christians”) wasn’t even used until about 10 yrs after Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς left the scene. A more appropriate name may be:
Flavian-Constantinianity.
Don’t have time here to annotate & footnote all my sources studied for well over 1/2-a-century, but I invite you, reader, to research it for yourself if you find this hard to swallow.
1) During the “missing-years”, Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς traveled, lived, studied & taught in Buddhist lands where he was known (like among Muslim peoples) as Teacher-Isa. Besides archaeological evidence of his life there, comparing his teachings to the teachings of Shakya-Muni-Buddha (Awakened-Sage of the Shakya-clan), one can see that one quoted the other. And since one lived 500 yrs after the other one, it’s clear who quoted whom.
Watch
this video from 38:33 =
“Jesus Was A Buddhist Monk BBC Documentary” =
Also
see:
Jesus
and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings by Marcus Borg
2) When Saul-Paul (who NEVER met Yeshua-Ἰησοῦς) finally Awakened to the beautiful simplicity of Teacher-Isa’s Enlightened teachings, meaning well, he tried every approach possible to tweak those teachings so that 1st Jews & later Gentiles, could relate to them and accept them. To Jews, Paul presented Yeshua as a Jewish puritan who just wanted to re-awaken the pure religion of Moses & the–prophets unburdened by the burdensome requirements piled-on by subsequent generations of well-meaning religious teachers. And to Gentiles who were already familiar with the concept of divinity dying for the people, Paul presented Ἰησοῦς (Iesous ≈ Isou) as divinity dying for the people.
NIV 1 Corinthians 9:
"20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law, so as to win those under the law.21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law, so as to win those not having the law. 22 I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some."
3) Jewish
religion was actually pretty popular along with all other religions in Rome, so-much-so
that at one point 10% of Romans were adherents of Judaism (most of them,
converts, of course). Paul influenced many of those to become Enlightened-Jews
as per Yeshua’s teachings. A thorn in the flesh of the Flavians (Roman emperors
69-96CE) was this irksome concept Jews were stuck-on, that a messiah will come
and become their Earthly king. That belief kept fueling rebellions every time some
schmuck would
proclaim himself the messiah. So they concocted a plan to have Josephus do some
editing for them of the many gospels & epistles floating around, and then
pass them around un-noticeably into circulation just like counterfeiters pass counterfeit
bills into circulation. That editing was to show that The-Messiah had already been
here, went to heaven, and that his kingdom was NOT of this world of-the-flesh. The
Flavian scheme worked well, and as more & more Jewish adherents became adherents
of Paulism, rebellions decreased and the believers shifted their focus upon “life-in-the-spirit”
and reward for it after death. The only problem was that these Paulist-Christians
were becoming too numerous, and any group becoming too numerous is suspect by
the rulers.
4) By 312CE, in-spite of all the persecutions designed to keep Paulist-Christians from becoming too numerous, Constantine realized that if he made them his power-base he’d be more established with them than with any other weaker polytheist group. The many different gospels-&-epistles in circulation presented a bit of an obstacle in consolidating his power-base, so in 325CE he convened a council which made his choice (Flavian version) of gospels-&-epistles the one & ONLY true Scripture (while destroying almost all of the others). Once Christianity was the state religion, every opportunist in the Roman empire jumped on the band-wagon, politicked himself into leadership, and that’s the way we got the Roman-Universal-Christian dictatorship, trinitarian-polytheism, exterminations of all who had a different opinion, Holy-Roman-Inquisition, Crusader genocides, unimaginable tortures, burning people ALIVE, etc. Christianity is the #1 biggest faith on Earth only because Christians were the most successful & brutal in exterminating those who didn’t submit.
Ever since 325CE people have been living-killing-&-dying for this “infallible” 325CE-Flavian-Constantinian-version of
“the-infallible-Word-of-God”.
And there is your nut-shell history of “Christianity”.
What if the book Constantine chose for “infallible-Word-of-God” Sacred-Scripture
was some other book, like Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey? Today theologians would be
debating, discussing, & basing the whole existence of humanity upon those
books.
And how did the “Old-Testament” get carried over & attached to the “New-Testament”? Simple. In the beginning, most Paulist-Christians were ethnic & convert Jews steeped in the TaNaKh (canon of Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nevi'im & Ketuvim). To bring them into Awakening, Paul used the TaNaKh to convince Jews that Yeshua’s teachings were just a pure form of their own “ol’-time-religion” and not something totally different from gentile, uncircumcised Nepal in northern-India.
To be
totally honest & fair, if one was going to subscribe to certain references
(e.g. those which seem to speak negatively about the Gay lifestyle), one would
ALSO have to accept a lot of horrific murderous-genocidal instructions listed
in that SAME Bible. See these verses which are routinely omitted in most
sermons: http://www.EvilBible.com,
and check out this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSXJzybEeJM
How about Jephthah killing his own daughter, Adah, with a sword as a sacrificial-gift to god because she came out excited to welcome him home?!? Read all the rest of the verses listed in http://www.EvilBible.com and then see if one can really continue to claim that it is the “word-of-a-loving-god”. If we say that the verses commanding genocide no longer apply, then why not also say that verses which seem to speak negatively about Gay-people also no longer apply? Or is genocide still the righteous thing to do? Are Islamo-Fascist-Extremists right after-all?
and check out this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSXJzybEeJM
How about Jephthah killing his own daughter, Adah, with a sword as a sacrificial-gift to god because she came out excited to welcome him home?!? Read all the rest of the verses listed in http://www.EvilBible.com and then see if one can really continue to claim that it is the “word-of-a-loving-god”. If we say that the verses commanding genocide no longer apply, then why not also say that verses which seem to speak negatively about Gay-people also no longer apply? Or is genocide still the righteous thing to do? Are Islamo-Fascist-Extremists right after-all?
