My daughters, many people that I love, like, respect and
even admire will find what I write to you about in this letter as offensive and
an affront on their ‘individual’ core values.
This is a result of decades-long religious indoctrination and mental conditioning. When religious indoctrination is questioned
or challenged in truth, parties involved often become ugly, vicious and, at
times, even violent. I have no choice in
the matter because you are my daughters and if I avoided the subject entirely,
or pretended that it was not important, I would be failing in my duties as a
father by possibly leaving you vulnerable (in my absence, should it ever occur) to religious indoctrination, lies allowed to subsist through ignorance, and
manipulation. The following are some of the
areas I have studied concerning Christianity.
I encourage you to verify what is written here, research and scrutinize
the historic facts available to you, and through critical thinking develop your
own opinions and ideology concerning this subject.
Looking closely at the religion of Christianity, in all
branches, there are many flaws in the foundations that comprise it,
discrepancies in the religious historic value, and bloody blemishes on its
organizational history. While the
majority of Christians are righteous people in nature and an overall caring,
passionate people, it is incredulous that the majority of followers are willing
to base utterly important decisional support, especially when it comes to community
and national interests that will impact the future of their children, solely on
the core delusional beliefs of this religion.
One of the largest ideological flaws concerning Christianity,
which will be argued vehemently by Christians, is the individualistic nature of
the religion. Perhaps the origins of the
religion were not as individualist as the Christian ideology has become in
modern times, as we can easily discern several areas of the religion that have developed
with additions and through translations over the centuries through the lips of
kings, empires and preachers. The basis of the Christian ideology centers
on individual salvation through the acceptance of Jesus, an individual who very
little written history exists on, as a person’s “Lord” and savior. Christians will often use the terms God and
Jesus in the same sentence while applying both to the same creator, while
others have grown accustom to praying directly to Jesus as God. Was this purposely planned in the creation of
this religion? According to most Christians,
Jesus, who was either God’s only begotten son or God in human form, or both, died
on the Roman cross for the sins of all mankind.
This centrist Christian ideology is termed ‘substitutionary atonement’. From a conscious and subconscious view,
individualism can be seen in the divinity of one human being among all others
who died as an individual sacrifice for every individual human’s sins. This ideology is morally damning from the
perspective that it discourages individual responsibility for individual and collective
actions. As previously mentioned, and
evidenced by many criminals on death row for crimes against humanity, the
ideology of this salvation and forgiveness is readily available and embraced in
the aftermath of transgression. A
healthier, more collective, mindset would be one that teaches our children that
they are responsible, and will be held accountable by God and peers, for their
actions toward their fellow human beings and the society that they belong to. The former slave Frederick Douglass once
remarked that the most brutal slave owners were the most devout Christians on
Sunday. It is evident by the amount of
surviving American slave narratives that slave masters would rape female
slaves, beat and murder their male slaves (if required), and exploit fellow
humans with forgiveness, and the biblical Ham justification, waiting for them
each Sunday at the pulpit. This
statement by Douglass illustrates how little the Christian substitutionary
atonement ideology has changed over a century and a half. Even today, how many Christians, lukewarm or
otherwise, transgress, on various levels, Monday through Saturday night and
then pray and ask forgiveness on Sunday morning. These transgressions can be minor in scope
such as gossiping or tiny lies, but they are still damaging to a collective community
or society, or they can be larger in scope such as adultery or criminal
transgressions against fellow human beings.
A true man or woman would not consistently seek forgiveness for their
transgressions; they would shoulder their own Roman instrument of death and
take responsibility for their deeds and actions. The following question may be conceived as
offensive to many Christians, but I ask Christians and non-Christians alike:
When was the last time you heard a Christian pray for a collective good? Is it as often as individual prayers? It is usually for individual wants or needs,
or in close proximity of the individual.
The modern Christian for the most part, especially in America, seems to
pray to God and Jesus only when they want a job, or are in some trouble, or
someone is ill, or they need some fast food forgiveness. When the waves are life are smooth and a good
sailing wind is consistent with no problems, their worship and appreciation is
usually focused elsewhere. Overall, the subconscious ideology of
Christianity is individualistic in nature.
Of course, the original scriptural examples of the substitutionary
atonement ideology derives from the New Testament, and since Paul/Saul wrote
over 50 percent of that literary collection and the authorship of the synoptic
Gospels are unverified (outside of Saul/Paul’s close affiliate Luke the
Physician who is credited with the Gospel named Luke), the original Christian
substitutionary atonement ideology should be accredited to him. Paul was quite the genius, to be
truthful. All of the NT scriptural
references to Jesus dying for the sins of mankind came out of the Pauline and
post-Jesus text (Corinthians, Galatians, Peter) and were very vague in concrete
meaning. The one example outside of the New Testament
examples is found in the Old Testament: Isaiah 53:12.
“Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he
shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes
intercession for the transgressors.”
The verse is very
symbolic and, in my opinion, could hold multiple meanings which were common
throughout the long historic line of prophet rejections throughout the Old
Testament. Remember that Isaiah was
written six to seven centuries before the time of Jesus and could be referring
to any prophet or person. It is
irrational to base individual actions on an unproven and quite irrational
substitutionary atonement ideology that may or not be referring to a man seven
hundred years in the future who may or may not be a divine God in human form.
As with several areas of Christianity, this ideology has
grown in scope throughout the centuries through over-philosophical minds such
as Irenaeus (130 CE-202 CE), Eusebius Pamphili of Caesarea (263 CE-339 CE), Athanasius
of Alexandria (296 CE-373 CE), Augustine of Hippo (354 CE-450 CE), Anselm of
Canterbury (1033 CE-1109 CE), Thomas Aquinas
(1225 CE-1274 CE), the protestant John Calvin (1509 CE-1564 CE), Hugo
Gratius (1583 CE-1645 CE), and a slew of many others between and throughout history. The individualist salvation ideology that
gained its origins from symbolic scripture in the first century of the common-era
has been molded, built on with additions and ambitions, and altered by
Christian philosophers for two thousand years.
Up until the Protestant Reformation in 16th century Europe,
the church could simply adopt the philosophical modifications on the redemption
atonement ideology when they found those modifications useful; and decline, by
labeling the modifying philosopher as a heretic, any modifications and
philosophies which conflicted with established and accepted church doctrine and
political interests.
It is incredible to truly study history and see our human
ideologies, which are widely accepted as irrefutable and divine today, developed
over time similar to a poem that is started by one writer, with stanzas added
by multiple writers, and then concluded by two new authors. These additions go further than the pen in
the white images of Jesus and Mary which emerged out of the Italian
Renaissance; Caesar Borgia (previously Duke Valentine) was the model for white
Jesus while Mary resembles Mona Lisa. These
foolish discrepancies and illusions are easy enough to verify, what is baffling
is that a good majority of intelligent people have never even though deep
enough to question the distance and ethnic diversity between Rome and Jerusalem
(at the time of Jesus).
Another example of Christian ideological philosophies
created by a human mind is the philosophical creation of the trinity
(interestingly similar to the three points of the Roman crucifix to exclude the
planted point) that matches the Christian concept of father, son and Holy
Spirit. Once again we see the ideology,
assumed divine, built upon by human philosophers throughout history:
Clement of Alexandria (150 CE-211 CE) (The Stromata, Chapter
10),Tertillian’s (160 CE – 220 CE) ‘Against Praxeas’, The Nicene Creed (325 CE
when Christianity became mandated in the original Roman Empire), the defending
arguments by Athanasius (297 CE-373 CE) against claims against the Nicene
Creed, Gregory of Nyssa (335 CE-384 CE), Gregory of Nazianzus (329 CE-390 CE),
John Chrysostom (347 CE-407 CE), Augustine (354 CE-430 CE), Boethius’ “The
Trinity is One God Not Three Gods” (480 CE-525 CE), Anselm (1033 CE-1109 CE),
Aquinas (1225 CE-1274 CE), and the Protestant Calvin (1509 CE-1564 CE).
Many of the names we see here are names previously posted
for the human philosophical development of the Christian substitutionary
atonement ideology. Just to understand
what an uncertain foundation Christianity and the trinity stands upon, the
church as late as the 5th century CE was still attempting to figure
how to best package the product. In 431 CE
the Ecumenical council at Ephesus refuted the philosophical ideology that Jesus
was two separate entities, one human and one divine while in 451 CE, an
Ecumenical council at Chalcedon declared that Christ was two distinct entities
united in a Hypostatic Union. Obviously,
my daughters, the more you look into a history and the development of religious
ideologies (through human creation and modification), it is rather easy to lose
track of what is concrete fact and what is philosophical contemplation.
In order to provide an example of the philosophical nature
of these ideologies, I had included a passage on the trinity from ‘the
Stromata’ by Clement of Alexandria:
CHAPTER X - The Stromata - Clement of Alexandria
“But who are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ
in whose midst the Lord is? Does he not by the "three" mean husband,
wife, and child? For a wife is bound to her husband by God. If, however, a man
wishes to be undistracted, and prefers to avoid begetting children because of
the business it involves, "let him remain unmarried," says the
apostle, "even as I am." They explain that what the Lord meant was
this. By the plurality he means the Creator, the God who is the cause of the
world's existence; and by the one, the elect, he meant the Savior who is Son of
another God, the good God. But this is not correct. Through his Son, God is
with those who are soberly married and have children. By the same mediation the
same God is also with the man who exercises continence on rational grounds.
According to another view the three may be passion, desire, and thought;
another interpretation makes them flesh, soul, and spirit.
Perhaps the triad mentioned refers to the called, and in the
second place to the chosen, and in the third place to the race appointed to
receive the greatest honour . With them is the power of God watching over all
things which is indivisibly divided among them. He, then, who uses the soul's
natural powers as is right, desires those things which are appropriate, and
hates what is harmful, as the commandments prescribe: "Thou shalt bless
him who blesses thee and curse him who curses thee." But when he has risen
above these, passion and desire, and in very deed has begun to love the
creation of the God and Creator of all things, then he will live a gnostic
life, as he has become like the Saviour and has attained to a state of
continence no longer maintained with difficulty. He has united knowledge,
faith, and love. Thenceforth he is one in his judgment and truly spiritual,
wholly incapable of thoughts arising from passion and desire, one who is to be
made perfect after the image of the Lord by the artist himself, a perfect man,
already worthy to be called a brother to the Lord as well as his friend and
son. Thus the "two" and the "three" come together into one
and the same thing -- a gnostic man.
The agreement of many, which is indicated by the number
"three," with whom the Lord is present, might also be the one Church,
the one man, and the one race. Or could it mean this? The Lord when he gave the
law was with the one, that is the Jew. Later when he inspired the prophets and
sent Jeremiah to Babylon and, moreover, called believers from the Gentiles by
the teaching of the prophets, he brought the two peoples together. And was not
the third the one which is made out of the two into a new man in which he walks
and dwells, in the Church itself? And the law, the prophets, and also the
gospel were brought together in Christ's name into a single knowledge.
Accordingly, those who from hatred do not marry or from desire use the flesh as
if it were not a matter of right and wrong,6 are not in the number of the saved
with whom the Lord is present. “- Clement of Alexandria
Is this not mere philosophical contemplation and
babble? Please, I encourage you to read
more of these church philosophers in chronological order and watch these
Christian ideologies collect more and more addendums.
Another noteworthy element of Christian belief that is often
deemed irrefutable, and divine fact, is the virgin birthing account of Mary,
another individualized character, a virgin void of all sin. The first thing that must be noted about this
New Testament account is that the virgin birth myth in the gospel of Luke was
not the first virgin myth. We see
similar virgin birth stories that predate Pauline Christianity in the accounts
of Mut-em-ua, the virgin Queen of Egypt (approx. 1700 before Jesus) who gave
birth to Amenkept III, and we see it with the Egyptian sun god Ra, we it with Attis,
the Phrygian god, who was supposedly born of a virgin named Nana, and is
claimed to have died three days before being brought back to life, we see it
with Dionysos, and we see it with Mithra (Persian God). We know today through technological
advancements that artificial insemination and cloning is possible, but was it
possible over 2000 years ago? Most
realistically, they probably did not possess that technology unless there was
some technologically advanced alien race in the sky above. Can this phenomenon of human birth without
physical reproduction occur naturally? Is
not natural childbirth the most incredible miracle to ever be witnessed? The
Earth and the life on it are indeed an incredible miracle with many extraordinary
elements that, as human beings, we have not gained insight or technology to,
yet the human mind, in all its greatness and fallacies, has historically sought
to create more and more miracles by creating them throughout their flat,
monster filled earth.
Continuing with the theme of inaccuracy based on philosophy,
we encounter the man-made phenomenon of Christmas, now regarded after centuries
as irrefutable in divinity by a majority of Christians (who lack self-education
and research), and the winter solstice birth of Jesus, God in human form, or
God’s son…who is considered part of one God, only in a different distinct portion
(just trying to track all the philosophies), as argued by Boethius, Gregory of
Nazianzus and the other philosophers.
Even Christian scholars, using the approximated dating of the historical
records for the Herodian tax consensus mentioned in the synoptic Gospels and
the argument that shepherds would not be flocking at that time of year,
acknowledge that the date of December 25 is probably not accurate. An interesting fact that I have uncovered in
my research is that even in 200 CE, within the philosophers of the early
church, there was debate concerning the birthdate of Jesus. A notable written contemplation on the
birthdate of Jesus was by Clement of Alexandria (150 CE-211 CE), whose philosophical
writings are interesting as well as extensive.
Another philosopher, who actually argued in support of a December 25th
date, was Hippolytus (165 CE-235 CE). In any case, it appears that the holiday of
Christmas, and the widespread belief that Jesus was born at the Solstice, was correlated
with the annual winter solstice festivals that actually predate Pauline
Christianity and the holiday known today as Christmas was formalized as
December 25th by the Catholic Church around the end of the 17th
century. Even many of the modern
traditions of the holiday, such as the yule log, tree and mistletoe customs
were pagan in origins. Yet, many
American Christians walk around in December blindly thinking God was born on
December 25th in the year zero and many others, outside of storming
Wal-Mart on Black Friday, give no thoughts to the historical development at
all.
Finally, looking at ideologies, we come to the ethnical
inferiority philosophy of Christianity, another individualistic aspect, aimed
toward an individual ethnic group in this case, as Christians are taught early
in childhood that God has chosen a special group of people, similar to how God
chose a single son, that are God’s people above all other human beings even
though God created all life. Oddly, the
mass majority of Christians are not ethnic members of this chosen ethnic group that
they are ingrained to almost worship, while the main scriptural doctrines of
the Christian religion were written by orthodox-raised members of the
identified exalted and chosen ethnic groups, such as Saul/Paul of Tarsus and
his affiliates who were children of the Sanhedrin (priesthood). Just how did this philosophy of division
among humanity develop? Of course, the
Old Testament chronology of original tribes of Jacob (Israel) and, later, the
Hebrew flight from Egypt, with God’s covenant and promise through Moses, and
the ideology was enhanced through literature of unknown authorship that emerged
during the era of the Kingdom of Judah, where the Jewish identity was
solidified, despite the conversion of many gentiles during the kingdom’s existence,
under that name. Since the original
establishment of the gentile church was based on the Old Testament teachings,
and built upon by the New Testament writings of Saul, who was raised under the
orthodox Jewish priesthood, with changes to distinguish (or divide) original
Jewish law from the new gentile laws of Pauline Christianity, we understand
that the elevated distinction of the esteemed ethnic group was already in place
at the beginning of the early Christian church network, and began taking wider regional roots (away
from Jerusalem) when the early church branched out to Antioch (present day
Turkey), Alexandria and Rome.
On top of the deep rooted reverence of the Old Testament
text in Christian ideology, I would have to consider two other smaller elements
that occurred to assist with this inferiority worship of a small group of
humans by a larger group of humans.
Those two events were the Jewish diaspora after the destruction of the
temple in 70 CE, which spread the element of Judaic ethnicity throughout the
gentile realms of the Roman Empire, which would soon after adopt Christianity
as an official religion (but exempt Jews from the mandate), and the expansion
of land occupation by the Christian Roman Empire. We can see the importance of the Promised
Land in the Old Testament text and the Christian empire certainly wanted to
maintain control of that land throughout the centuries. The Crusades was about religion, but it was
more about the land. Was the feverish,
and often bloody, fixation with this land always based on Old Testament
religious ideologies that Christians had strengthened over the centuries? Or was it a combination of the two? The area of Jerusalem, and modern day Israel
and Palestine, certainly was a valuable tract of land. Even before Jesus, the area was a major
crossroad for trade with trade routes stemming out to Europe, South to Egypt
and Africa, and Eastward. As the world
expanded, the Mediterranean was the center of trade and empire, and even during
the bi-polar hegemony of the 20th century World and Cold Wars, the
area was a strategic asset for the Christian capitalist West. Today, Christian Zionist preachers, such as
Hagee, who claim that the establishment and defense of a Jewish state, Israel,
plays into the biblical return of Jesus and the establishment of the kingdom of
God on Earth, and even less conservative Christians regard the modern
nation-state of Israel as essential to their core religious ideologies, but
why? From a rational, political
perspective today, I ask what is so pertinent about providing that nation-state
with over 3 billion dollars in U.S. economic and military aid at the cost of
one’s own national economic, military and political well-being, and damaging the
future of their Christian gentile children.
Has the original religious ideology of Christians toward the Jewish
people and the Promised Land become so ingrained that it no longer requires
political relevance, or protecting one’s own practical interests first before
others, for rational decision making?
In closing this letter, I acknowledge that there is still
the issue of history concerning Christianity.
In two thousand years, many things have happened and I truly encourage
you to devour the history books during your lifetime. Hey, your father is a realist. Five pages of reading and contemplation a day
is better than no reading and contemplation at all. The largest historical blemishes on
Christianity that come to my mind, after working all day, are obviously the
Crusades, which I consider a land conflict guised in religion (which are
everywhere throughout history and still exist on the modern international
stage), the Spanish Inquisition, Papal Bull Dum Diversas in 1452 from Pope
Nicholas V to King Alfonso of Portugal which authorized the capturing and enslavement
of non-Christians (beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade), and an
interesting American account of the Salem Witch Trials in late 1600s (which EJ
is currently doing a paper on).
Why do I point these areas of Christianity out to you? Because in the larger scope of our world,
religious ideologies impact the way people reason, behave, act, segregate, vote,
and react (among many other things).
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