For Debra

Submitted by iasius (India), Nov 4, 2005 at 05:30

The watchword, Debra, is "extra-biblical sources"!

Jesus Christ (IESAPL) called himself son of god. But so has every other monarch since ancient Egypt, because the king was believed to be god-incarnate on earth. Christ (IESAPL) also called himself king of Jews, which is also correct if he wanted to fit into the Jewish definition of messiah, who had to be from the royal Davidic line. Why would the opening passages of the New Testament use so many "begats" (I counted about 40) to show how Jesus was descended from David? But Paul, when he attached the appellation of world savior, and parties to the Council of Nicaea, 325 CE, when they voted Christ (IESAPL) to ‘only sonship of god', created an enduring emabarassment. As son of god, Christ (IESAPL) couldn't be from the Davidic line and disqualified straightaway as king of Jews (unless, of course, David was an ancestor of both god and Christ!). I am sorry, Debra, but his exclusively political agenda is too obvious to brush under the rug.

Unfortunately, there ISN'T "much history" to prove historicity of Christ (IESAPL)! That is the problem. What even levelheaded people like you accept as fact is essentially faith-based and wholly from synoptic gospels, which latter are themselves too replete with contradiction, inconsistency and prevarication to be even remotely reliable. After all, they were written much after the events they narrate and for the express purpose of promoting Pauline myth. However, other writings (e.g. the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls), which were not beset with like motives, are likely to be trustworthier.

You write, "his is the only story that stuck". Obviously it would, because every other story was sought by the Church to be systematically obliterated. In spite of the happy fact that it did not wholly succeed in monopolizing human thought through cultural and literary vandalism, I am once again astonished by extensive mesmerization that seems to have been achieved by the propaganda machinery of the Church, rendering so large a section of humanity incapable of utilizing the god-given bounty of rationalism!

The "divine conception", "role as savior", etc., you mention is blatant plagiarism of older (and yes, "pagan") myths. Here's a list (and it is not exhaustive) of persons in pagan mythology that predate the one of Christ (IESAPL), which record the Church did its best to annihilate!

1. Gautama Budhha: virgin mother Maya, circa 800 BCE
2. Dionysus: Greek, born in a stable, turned water into wine
3. Quirrnus: Roman ‘savior'; born of a virgin
4. Attis: Phyrgia circa 200 BCE; virgin mother Nama
5. Adonis: Babylon; virgin mother Ishtar
6. Zoroaster: virgin mother Dugdha; circa 1,900 BCE
7. Mithra: virgin mother; born in a stable on 25th December; circa 600 BCE; resurrected around Easter

One might be tempted to look askance at the fact that so many innocent virgins were seemingly giving birth to god's children in those days! But these are myths, needing to be taken at just that and forgotten, especially in our time and at our level of intellectual development. It may be mentioned here that the Mithraic legend is particularly embarrassing for Christian theologists. The entire story of Christ (IESAPL), including last supper, is so remarkably like Mithra's that early Church ‘fathers' seem to have been in so much of a hurry that they were obviously prevented from applying their wonted plagiarizing skills to their fullest extent! The "amen" said at the end of prayers is infact invocation of Amen-Re, the Egyptian Sun god, while the haloes behind saints represents the Sun.

As for spreading "Christian Love" around the world, less said the better! People are becoming increasingly aware of precisely how it was spread and what it really means for their religious, cultural, even economic freedoms. Was it for the Christian acts of spreading ‘genuine' love and affording ‘unmotivated relief' that the late Pope John Paul II went around the world tendering apologies? No, it was because we are becoming aware of the inhumanity the Church has – and is, albeit in a cosmetically altered way – perpetrating on humankind. Giving aid and relief is not germane to Christianity; it is a policy or façade adopted for the real agenda of world domination through subjugation of human faculties. Even as saintly a soul as Gandhi had seen through the game in the last century and identified both Christian love and relief as a shrewd aid to the clandestine motive of proselytization.

With this realization, we need also to accept that all religion is ultimately based on, as you correctly state, "the interpretations of historic (sic) stories and evolve with the times based on the people of that time". Unfortunately, some religions just cannot evolve because they are stuck not on any genuinely profound thought but on what someone at some point of antiquity said was ‘the truth'. Remove that person from the scene, and what have you left? Nothing. We are sure from non-Quranic sources that Muhammad (PBUH) was a historical person, but can we honestly and objectively say the same thing about Christ (IESAPL)?

The intention here is not to offend anybody's religious sensitivities in any way. But facts need to be stated, especially in the face of self-righteous and pompous claims to exclusive and monopolistic possession of "truth" (whatever that is!), "love" and "relief".

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