Even as a shaky & sick nonagenarian, I try to help out hungry, afflicted & terrified souls without calling that charity. I don't care what religion or "irreligion" oppressed beings, especially young ones, confess. Justice & fairness is my own faith. I want to be considered a Liberal, a tolerant, a progressive communicant of the old school of humanism & humanitarianism. Why do born-again conservatives of orthodox dogmas hate us Liberals so much?
If their dogma remains that faith alone will reward them with a kind of Heaven in their afterlife, I can live with that sacramental doctrine. But I have to hate it as an inducement to crime without punishment because the god, half-god or idol they worship has forgiven all their sins by his death on the cross. Yet, doesn't it seem absurd that in an addendum to this doctrine, they declared every child as born in sin which they wash away with a vessel of water or submersion in the cool drink. Why do they dishonor the Old Bible they include in their sacred Scriptures which proclaims that children may not be punished for the sins of their fathers (or mothers)?
Likewise inconsistent with their confessed "religion" is their love for war, defence and offence, & the right & duty to execute erring souls who had been dehumanized by anti-educational prejudice & practice, by the drug lobbies & ads, by prescription of expensive & addictive drugs, so readily ordered by pharmaceutical monopolice, their medical collaborators & licensed violators of the once sacred Hippocratic Oath.
If we hear the daily slander of their betters in politics, in social, economic & cultural living, we must wonder why those contra - characters want everyone to be daily exposed to old Moses's Ten Commandments which directly outlaw the "false witness" slander of neighbors & all humans regardless of their irritating also-dogmas. No doctrines & dogmas for me. Believe what you want to believe - it's a free country - but don't force everyone else to assume that burden of which our Constitution & our Great Forefathers relieved us when they adopted a clear & clean separation of Church from State. Yet, the oldest slander against the now oldest people is kept alive by Popes, Mel Gibson & all true-believing Christians & is continued to be backed up & explained by numerous old & renewed lies.
We are told that the New Testament was created within a generation of the supposed crucifiction & ascension to Heaven of the Christ. How can anyone believe it when none of the known contemporaries of the first 150 years of this great legend mentioned this name, his peregrinations with 12 young men, his many miracles & moving speeches & many clever words & his drawing huge crowds?
We are told that a few known Romans mentioned in a few lines just this. But these supposed mentionings at the end of a page in Plinus, Flavius Josephus & possibly some others can not be inspected by scholars & scientists. I recently mentioned that the greatest Greek-Roman, Plutarch, who wrote great lines, good chapters & serious ideas to everyone's admiration. He touched upon everything of some significance but, apparently, never heard of the great presence of Jesus of Nazareth or Saul-Paul & the Christians.
Plutarch accepted the persecution of Jews because they dared to rebel against Roman culture & pious cults which Herod, Pilate, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan & Hadrian so rigorously applauded. Hillel, the greatest contemporary of Jesus, pronounced many phrases later attributed to the Christ. He, too, was not aware of a Jesus while he & other Jews, Syrians, Egyptians & even Greeks & Romans had heard of a number of other Joshuas but no Jesus. Romans would have loved to execute the Roman way (crucifixion) or any other way as long as freedom-lovers would be dead & no longer a present danger to the powerful empire. If there is no historic proof of the existence of the initiators of Christianity from A.D. 0 to approx. 150, this pious 2nd creation was later invented by anti-Jewish slanderers who were as much interested in destroying Judaism & what survived of ancient Israel as founding a new Roman empire based on their new creed.
Old liars never die, they only smell as if dead. Many scholars remember the impact of the dug-up "Dead Sea Scrolls" which the Rockefeller Institute entrusted to an English & a French pious worshipper of religion. They didn't publish the text because they couldn't put the torn & faded pieces together & didn't learn that ancient lingo. Yet, they maintained that these excavated cave treasures proved that Jesus & his disciples were real. Their lies died with them. The defeats of Arabs by a reborn Israel surrendered the secreted ancient scripts to the true experts & to the research of anyone who was interested in the truth. I had 2 good looks at them & decided that I could trust great scholars with this not biblical evidence - of what?
Here were descriptions of a monkish kind of Jews, an "Essene" - like sect that had escaped from the Romans & lived in caves near the Dead Sea. Much ado about rites, prayers & daily work. No mentioning of a Christ, no slander, only painful life & anticipation of a cruel death. No heaven, no hell, because their lives were all hell on earth in the hottest of salt deserts.
In recent days we heard also a lot about the Christ's image (face!) on his "actual" loin cloth in Turin, so often exported & exploited. The Church finally fell silent when even Catholic scientists decided this was of more modern vintage.
Still, the old slander is daily revived & so-called Bible scholars keep digging for some evidence to their truth. How interesting that Mel Gibson has a namesake, Simon Gibson, who said that he discovered all that was necessary to see John the Baptist come alive. If the New Testament spoke the truth, this Jewish Joe, a remote relative of Jesus, was born near Jerusalem. Yet, all Shimon had in his hands were a few potsherds, supposedly from a cave in a Kibbutz. Maybe the good digger can charge admission for this proof of the existence of the wild man who couldn't have baptized anyone in this dry limestone. The Gospels say that this hairy ape washed some sick souls in the Jordan & forsaw the coming of his relative as a Messiah like all Jews who suffered from hunger, lack of potable water, clothing but were slandered, beaten or killed as only Romans would treat the defeated but stubborn believer in a deliverer. Their word for our Messiah is "anointed" (like a king). The Greek translation is Christos. And there we are.
Beliefs are toll-free. I would be most tolerant of anyone who would use religious dogmas to tame brutish youngsters, but I mustn't tolerate doctrines of brutal slanders which perpetuate persecutions & holocausts. I would love Christians who believe in Hillel's love of peace & love of love as "Jesus" imitated Rabbi Hillel in his great Sermon of the Mount. For this tolerance of mine I'm happy to find my name inscribed on the "Wall of Tolerance" of the Southern Poverty Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
Late Addendum: On 3 visits within 60 years to Capernaum, these 3 groups of mine had guides each of a different religion. But all declared that this big Roman garrison, commercial & custom's center was the haunting ground of Jesus & his 12 boy friends. The big synagogue, completely excavated, was attractive & peculiar then as now.
Neither the Muslim, Christian or Jewish guide pointed out that that was no Jewish Temple but a Greco-Roman Church, perhaps one of the first. And archaeologists of either religion or none had declared it a creation of the 3rd century. Did the Christ perhaps live in these surroundings with Publicans, Jewish & Greek whores of the Romans over 2 centuries after his birth? Who can fathom the true origin of Christianity according to the historic truth? And were there any Christians in Emperor Nero's time to persecute & throw them to the lions? One thing we know for sure - religious cults prosper the most when magic, myths & motility motivate fertile minds like the Martians, UFO's & visions of teenage girls & bewitch primitive brains.
To this ancient historian it now appears that the beginnings of a little prosperity of some freed Jewish traders & tinkerers in the Roman maladministration produced the envy & enmity of Greek slaves of trained but perverted minds which conspired to advance beyond the other competitor for favors by using death-bringing slanders to manufacture their own cult, based on the Moses commandment to "love" their neighbor as themselves.
Therefore, I must insist that well-organized basic lies & ethnic slanders which continue to threaten millions of good lives don't deserve to be termed religion. Its mission makes it a savage cult of worldwide terrorism.
Week 50- September 1, 2004 - Our Best Friends & Perpetual Allies