0 comments/ 1292 views/ 2 favorites Blind Man's (Religious) Bluff By: wistfall1 PLEASE NOTE There will be no voting—this is for information only. However comments are welcome, as are PMs and email with any questions about this essay. However any comment which is simply "testimony" otherwise known as witnessing. by churchy people, argumentative, or preachy, will be deleted immediately. This is not a forum for debating—most of the facts are from the bible itself and speak for themselves, or from verifiably known history. The King James Version of the bible is principally used unless noted otherwise As well, I've used Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible which identifies every word in the KJV of the bible as well as where to find them. Other bibles say essentially the same basic things as the KJV, which, where needed or appropriate, I quote from. My writings were originally intended for lesbians who have been intimidated from birth, shamed, humiliated, pushed to feel guilty, and made to believe that they are an abomination in the sight of the god of the bible, that is, the Old and New Testaments of Judaism and Christianity. They have been made to feel a need to hide their true sense of who and what they are in body and mind. Many have given in and attempted to conform to that "accepted normal" life that society, culture, and especially religion, say that it is how they should live, often with disastrous consequences. This need not be, for even as the bible is said to quote Jesus: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (Gospel according to John, chapter 8, verse 32.) Chapter 1 "In the beginning...", so goes one story, there were established heavens and the earth, and the earth had nowhere to abide for there was no sun for it to keep it in it's place; at least not until a few days later—on the fourth day, to be exact, then on the sixth day, he created man. But, was that really the beginning? Let's go back a bit. Those "heavens" and the earth had to be put someplace, and that place had to have room for them. And there had to be order—rules—for things to be put into that place, too. That place could only be "nothing" which we have called "space", and that space had to have a lot of room. The major rule had to be one that held things in place, and that space that held things in it had what we call gravity. Now gravity is an odd thing, and frankly, it is still just a theory, but only because we can't find anything that says "I am gravity". If it did have something we could determine that was gravity, we'd call it "gravitons" just to give it a name (and a good one too). It sort of makes sense of the seeming nothing. However, that seeming nothing, that theory, is not to be defied by any of us. We dare not jump up out of a window and fly up and up. Nope! For the rule of gravity is to pull, and not just space, but objects in space have this strange thing we call gravity, and that gravity holds large things (like planets), in place by gravity's own property that causes it to pull on things, just as it does where we stand. Uh, we're glued to whatever is solid because gravity binds us there no matter how we may move about. This we know. We also know that the sun comes up, and the sun goes down. Or do we? No, we're just used to that being said, maybe because we've always said thought that, and maybe because after we learned better, it was how we had said it for ages, and how it seemed to still be no matter that we know better now. Yes, we know better for we still don't try to jump out of a window and hope to keep going up and up. Now let's go back to that "beginning" we started this out with. Maybe it should be: "In the beginning, the earth was made to orbit around its star—sun—so it wouldn't wildly wander about the Universe." Without a star to be a greater gravitational attractant, our planet would be as an orphan wandering through our galaxy as other bodies are thought to have been found doing so. Yes, check out the Internet for orphan planets and you'll see the possibilities. It's all very logical, and it fits with the rules of our Universe lest all heavenly bodies wander aimlessly about. [Extrapolation made from suggestion by Jacob Berkowitz, in The Stardust Revolution, Prometeus Books, 2012, that earth may have a lost sibling, p. 264-65]. So why didn't our bible say this? Maybe because it's not the holy word of any god, Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, but of men who made it all up; men who didn't know any better and thought that the earth was the center of everything we see in the skies. There is no way we could have been placed before a sun was created days later. Without a star, or body much larger than our planet, we would have been like the child's game of Whack the Mole wherein when one pops up and is whacked, it comes up elsewhere. There may or may not be a God, either personal or impersonal, and Jesus may well have existed, but may or may not have said all that is attributed to him. There are too many errors in both the Old and New Testaments for either the God as presented, or of Jesus to be divine as proposed by the bible. Certainly if there is a God, that God would not make errors such as the one above, much less "inspire" any man, or men, to make such errors in His or Her name. There are many more oddities—and oddities is a very good descriptive word to use for many things in the bible—that have come to light to refute this age old work that is supposed to be holy and true. Another is the famous: "...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." People are not dust! We, and all that we call living, are atoms (at the most common level we normally express matter without going into what constitutes an atom). We are mostly made of hydrogen atoms, then oxygen, and lastly carbon—mostly, that is. We also have other atoms, or elements. Those atoms came together to form various molecules, and molecules formed into cells, and each human body is said to contain trillions of cells (from Life Evolving, by Christian de Duve, Nobel Laureate, p. 10, Oxford University Press, 2002). Again, cells are made of molecules and molecules are made of atoms, therefore we are not "dust", but atoms. So why these errors? Simple. The bible was made up by men at various times, and like the Pope scaring Galileo and many others, and Fundamentalist preachers still scaring people, those men wrote what they thought, to the best of their known knowledge, what it was that a god would do, or make us up with. They had no idea of atoms, or that the sun exerted sufficient gravitational pull to keep the earth in its orbit. They most likely just wanted to keep their people together as a nation that they'd grown used to. See the books of Ezra, and more, Nehemiah to learn about how the intelligentsia of the Jewish people put together a way of life for that became commonly called Jews. In other words, without knowing it, they were blind to the verities we now take for granted, namely gravity and atoms, as well as the sun being the center of our solar system. Eventually, there weren't any Jews who knew the truth of the lies that the learned Jews made up, and it grew into an everlasting Zeitgeist, then remade by later "Christians" to be the present Zeitgeist. In between the times of the creation of the Jewish Laws and other books, and the time of the Christian creation of what Jesus was supposed to have said, was the addition of the Book of Daniel. This book purported to be the writing of a prophet, Daniel, who may or may not have existed during the time of the Babylonian captivity, and into the time of the Persian conquest of Babylon. A not so close study of this book reveals significant errors more than indicating that it is but a historical novel being passed off as autobiographical of the said prophet, Daniel. The give away(s) are the lack of accuracy of the kings of Babylon, just who was the last king of Babylon, and which King of Persia conquered Babylon, and against which king. This book, Daniel, is the largest bridge connecting Judaism and Jesus to Christianity, and that by Jesus' words, perhaps put in his mouth by writers of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, concerning a resurrection. They have Jesus often quoting the so-called prophet, Daniel, and his new theme of a resurrection of the dead. This "resurrection" was never believed by Jews before Daniel, and was propagated by the Pharisees, and the apostle Paul proclaimed that he was a Pharisee, as well as the end times that Jesus had said quite a few times in the gospels that would occur before his generation passed away. We can only conclude that this addition to Jewish belief—though not believed by most of the Sadducees and many other Jews—was false since Jesus' coming to power in the time of his generation as he is said to have proclaimed, and as Paul proclaimed also, never occurred as he was quoted as saying that it would. Chapter 2 Uh, the genealogy, or pedigree of Jesus? I mentioned before that the genealogy in Matthew and Luke conflict. More, according to Giza Vermes in The Nativity (Penguin Books, 2006), there are more than simply disagreements on the line of ancestors, but a very sharp one. Compare the two in Matthew, chapter 1, to Luke, chapter 3, verses 1 through 23, and you'll find a huge difference. More, Matthew begins with Abraham and goes through Joseph, the husband of Mary who was the mother of Jesus. In verse 17, he states that there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, then fourteen generations from David to the carrying away to Babylon, and fourteen more generations from there to Jesus. There aren't forty-two, but rather forty-one itemized. Beside some other discrepancies, in Luke's genealogy it works back from Jesus to Adam and God, and includes many others by far who are not listed in Matthew's gospel. Not only is Solomon given in Matthew, but in Luke, a different son of David, Solomon's brother Nathan, is given as a part of the lineage of Jesus. There is another genealogy given in I Chronicles, chapter 3 from verse 10 on, that itemizes from Solomon which also gives a differing set of ancestors, but frankly, other than mildly going through it, I opted to end my headache after trying to decipher it for some semblance of order as compared to Matthew and Luke for the Old Testament fathers and sons. Suffice to say that there are differences there too, but interested parties of those will be invited to get their own headaches. Matthew and Luke are bad enough for me. While we're on Jesus' pedigree, let's look at the nativity again. As above, Matthew's account is far different from Luke's. Aside from all the differences of what did or didn't occur, and when Jesus was born, the one early and indisputable fact is that contrary to Luke's saying in chapter 2 in the earliest verses, that there was a world wide decree that all should be taxed, and Cyrenius [Quirinius] was governor of Syria at this time. While it seems to be historically verifiable that there was a tax and that it involved Cryrenius [Quirinius], that was true only for the province of Judea which had been taken away from Herod Archelaus and brought under direct rule of Rome. Joseph, however, was not a citizen of Judea, as it is said in verse 4, but of Galilee. Galilee was under the tetrarch Herod Anitpas, and thus not taxed directly by Rome (poll tax: tributum capitis, A History of Israel from Alexander the Great to Bar Kochba, by Henk Jagersma, page 119, Fortress Press, 1986) since it wasn't under Rome's direct control. Further, this census was in 6-7 CE, and Herod the Great died 4 BCE. All of this points to the gospels of Matthew and Luke to be very spurious, and not fact filled at all. When we consider these gospel beginnings, if we look at it with an objective eye, we have to wonder how they could have gotten those few items very wrong. Perhaps it was because the gospels were written by those who tried to inspire those who couldn't read or write, and who needed some hope for anything better than the life they were leading. Were these writers so concerned for others as it may seem? We have no idea, but we do know from what we do have before us that they weren't looking to be questioned objectively, or seriously compared the one to the other. This is why the title of this essay: Blind Man's (Religious) Bluff—the writers, for whatever reason or reasons, weren't actually Matthew or Luke (or either of the other so-called writers of the other gospels), nor were they "inspired" authors as the Catholic Family Connections Bible would have you believe. The question to be asked here is whether the God of the bible, or any god, have inspired men to write so many falsehoods, so many erroneous words? Doubtful, to say the least. The next question is how it is that Fundamentalists can say with a straight face that the bible is the error free (inerrant) word of God. They either have to be blind or have some hidden agenda that they're not letting people in on. Is it perhaps position, or power, or even money and the easy life it affords. There are many who are profiting more than handsomely from these religious lies. There is a website that gives us the ability to find out just how much some of these preachers have amassed in wealth and just how lavishly they may be living. No, I can't publish a web site's URL as it is against Literotica's rules, but you should be able to easily find it in a web search. This desire for religious power is a thing of old from the days of ancient Egypt and even before. Superstition and the need to believe in a higher power gave rise to many gods. Even the idea of only one god may have preceded Yahweh from the Old Testament, and that is Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrian belief. This may indeed have been the origin of the Jewish idea of one god for Zoroastrianism was known and popular in Babylon, having been birthed in nearby eastern Persia. So much is unknown, even, as we can see, the date of Jesus' birth. Even the Hebrew meaning of words is unsure. According to Dr. Joel M. Hoffman in his book, And God Said (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2010): "If we have a guess about what an ancient Hebrew word means, in the end it will always be a guess. Hopefully it will be an educated guess—one in which we have a lot of confidence, one that is almost certainly correct—but as with any other endeavor, it's hard to know with absolute certainty that we have not made a mistake." He gives many examples of wrong interpretations and why, but we need no longer digress, though it does lead into more about what all really may have been, though not properly reported. Going back to Jesus' birth, and the surrounding so-called facts: though we now have seen that a few very important facts were improperly given (out of ignorance or intentionally, such as Herod and Cyrenius [Quirinius] were living at the same time, there comes the question of just how Herod was considered a Jew. Herod was an Idumaean, and back in the time of the Maccabees, when they did finally rule, John Hyrcanus, in his reigh from 135/34 to 104 BCE, according to Henk Jagersma in his book mentioned above, states: "Great emphasis must be placed here on two of John Hyrcanus' conquests, because they made an important mark on later history. First, Hyrcanus conquered Idumea with its district capital, Marisa. He compelled the Idumaeans to be to be circumcised and to observe Jewish laws, as he did the inhabitants of other conquered areas. As a consequence of this the Idumaeans later thought of themselves as Jews. So the Idumaean Herod could claim to be a Jew, though we know that the Jews themselves, above all the leading circles in Jerusalem, regarded him as inferior." * * * * This Jewishness of Herod, and many others who were forced to become Jews is another ticklish thing in the bible. Genesis, chapter 12, is where the whole thing about Jews and Jewishness began. The god of the bible calls out to Abram (later to have his name changed by his god to Abraham), and tells him that he will make a great nation out of him. As part of his promise to Abram, in verse 7, the bible says: And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. To Abram's (Abraham's) seed, it said. Again in chapter 15, verse 18, the above promise is repeated, once more using the word "seed". In chapter 17, verse 10, the above promise is made a covenant: This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. Here again, thy seed is used; not someone else's seed, but those directly from Abram's (Abraham's) lineage. In Leviticus, chapter 26, verse 12, we're told that their god said: And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. Since this is part of the Law of Moses, Leviticus, god is talking to his Jews. They, from the seed of Abraham, are to be his people. In Deuteronomy, chapter 4, verse 37, Moses is supposed to be saying to the Jews of the Exodus: And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt: Chose their seed, it says, so the Jews can rightly say that they are god's chosen people according to the Old Testament. And now it gets even more interesting. In chapter 7, verse 3 in Deuteronomyl, which says: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them: [the nations of Canaan] thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. A separate people, that is, and later enforced by Ezra as we shall see soon. This separateness is further stated in Deuteronomy, chapter 14, verses 1 and 2, which say: Ye are the children of the Lord your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all the nations that are upon the earth. There it is again: chosen plus they are the children of the Lord, as well as a peculiar people. It doesn't say a separate people...or does it. Let's look at Ezra, chapter 10, verse 11 which says: Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Here Ezra is bringing the Law to the people, and he is saying to not only separate themselves from the people of the land, but also from their foreign—"strange"—wives. Yet they not only took Idumaea, and other lands such as Ituraea (Jagersma's History mentioned above, page 87), but made them Jews, at least it's assumed in Ituraea's case, and known in Idumaea''s. Now how can they be a separate, chosen people and be making Jews out of other peoples? And if Ezra quotes the Law of separation, how is it that Deuteronomy, chapter 21, verses 10 through 13 can say give a how—to to do otherwise? See for yourself: When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. I just checked the Catholic Family Connections Bible, and it says the same thing. Now I ask how it is that the Jews are to be a separate people chosen by their god as above, made by Ezra to put away their foreign wives, yet be instructed on how to take a foreign captive to a wive to a Jew? Blind Man's (Religious) Bluff A long story on Jewishness and foreign wives, but it shows the contradictions in the bible that Fundamentalists say is without error, or inerrant, as they say. It is more, as I have stated, a mishmash obviously written, edited-redacted, by several different people or groups over different periods of time. One does literally have to be blind not to see all of these errors, and the many more I have previously itemized in my other essays and stories. Or maybe willfully blind as some are known to be. As Bill Maher was recently quoted as saying, "These people really believe [what they say]" More, it has been revealed that a person in Iowa sent a letter in late March of this year to a gay bar, also in Iowa, and said something to the effect that he hoped the anthrax in the letter did a lot of harm to them. He's admitted it and been arrested. We all have heard about the Evangelical preacher who tried to order a cake that said something to the effect that he was against gays. Is it any wonder that these things are happening? Senator Cruz of Texas and Senator McConnell of Kentucky have both signed letter with others telling the Supreme Court that same-sex marriage is not a good thing. These men are not blind, they're not ignorant persons, but they are blinded by their faith in a religion that is full of errors such that it couldn't be from any god. They only follow rules that are like pet projects to them, and not all of those rules that set forth that they shouldn't do this or that or face death by stoning. Uh-uh, that's reserved for lesbians and gays only. My, my, how they love to cherry pick then verbally assault others for not believing as they do. Then there''s the new Catholic pope who said "Who am I to [say]" with regard to homosexuality, but is stalling giving his okay to an ambassador to the Vatican who is a homosexual. Talk about hypocrisy, but they're famous for it, as are the many other churches who say homosexuality is against the bible's dictates no matter how error filled the bible is. Do they know that the bible is error filled? It's hard to believe that they don't, but then they're in the faith business, and faith doesn't need facts, only blind followers. Religion is good for them—it keeps the followers from asking questions via the logic of just believing. * * * * Okay, enough of this for now. On to an oddity. Ms. Lesley Hazleton, a former psychologist, has written an interesting book entitled Jezebel, The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen (Doubleday, 2007). In it, she paints a very different picture of Jezebel, and shockingly, cites the bible often for proof. She cites Psalm 45, which my King James Version of the bible says is To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, for the sons of Korah, Maschil, A Song of loves. A couple of Internet sites call it a musical direction to the leader of the temple choir, presumably a Jewish temple. A couple of others say it is unknown other than in the bible. On the other hand, Korah was one of those with Dathan, who rebelled against Moses. He is also mentioned as being from the line of Esau. Maschil is said to denote a song enforcing some lesson of wisdom, etc. But what does all of this have to do with Jezebel. Maybe nothing, maybe something. Judge for yourself as you read verses 10 through 17: Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worshi8p thou him. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favor. The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold, She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king's palace. Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever. Daughter of Tyre? Jezebel? Sounds like it. I kings, chapter 18, verse 19 further states: Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. Prophets of Baal and the prophets of the groves? Jezebel had many maids, or so we are commonly told, but who are these prophets of the grove? Jezebel's virgin maids who serve her? Some of this may be said to be far fetched, but the daughter of Tyre is not far fetched in any way, nor is the king's desire of her. Her name to be remembered in all generations? Indeed! The daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, Athaliah, married Jehoram, king of Judah (II Kings, chapter 8, verses 16-18). Chapter 11 of II Kings, tells of Ahaliah's reign over Judah. Warning: these chapters of II kings, can be very confusing what with Joram and Jehoram mentioned at different times (please try it and see what I mean). What is not confusing is that Athaliah became q queen of Judah for about seven years. Another remembrance of Jezebel is the fact that Elitha, her grandniece, was the queen of Carthage who is best known and remembered by her Greek name, Dido. This grandniece also founded Qart Hadath, or Carthage. Yes, it is odd that this queen is seen in a Psalm, and as Ms. Hazleton suggests, may be sung in Jewish temple. Chapter 3 Having long left the Catholic church, I still yearned to find a church that really lived Christianity as Jesus was said to want us to live. Said was the operative word. Did he really say that? I may have longed for such a church, but I didn't know much about the bible and what it said. I had been to a couple of Baptist services, but some of the members seemed unsure of their church. While still young, I thought I'd found a church that would surely fit the bill for my desires and perhaps teach me what the bible did say. I stayed with it for a several years, but I'd gotten wind of "The Church Fathers". Who were the church fathers? They were said to have come directly after the Apostles, first one, so to speak, then others. Why were they called church fathers. I didn't find out at that time. Some years went by, and suffice to say, churches that looked promising eventually turned out to not be as advertised. There were lots of good people in them, but they were satisfied with the little they had. The little they had was a faith, but they could say only what everyone else was mouthing. It was all too robotic, not "living" as they say. Again, some years went by and lo and behold, my work took me to a bible college that served churches that were based on "The Church Fathers", and nothing else. With an expectant heart, I went there and looked at The Church Fathers they featured. They were men of the 1800s. Hmm! Not even close to any real, original church fathers. I was subsequently introduced to a country preacher via the mail service. I read his pamphlets, and though he spoke funny, he was the most sincere preacher I had ever come across. He preached simplicity, but he also did his own putting together of what the bible really meant. He was good for an uneducated man, and as I said, quite sincere, but as I studied his words, I found that he was sincerely wrong. What he preached as the word of God didn't match up with the intricacies of books of the bible like Daniel. I hadn't yet learned to make sense out of all that predicting that the book of Daniel made, but it sure was scary. In time that led me to listen to some charismatic preachers who preached the "end times". That was both exciting and scary, and it was the rage among many Christians. My mind was into it, but it all still didn't give me any understanding. I think that is how many of today's Christians are: very excited, and very much into believing, but they also have no understanding, just that belief and excitement as the preachers emotionally pushed at them. Hands raised and "Hallelujahs" galore rang out with a chorus of "Amen"s. Many spoke in tongues too, and every now and then, in services, a "prophet" interpreted what was supposedly said while speaking in tongues. Questioning anything though, brought very little in the way of accurate, and properly connecting scriptures—but their answers didn't hold up, though enthusiastically given. Some Isaiah was used, but there was Daniel along with some of what were supposed to be Jesus' words. For a long time, I stayed away, my hungering becoming as a bad taste in my mouth, a taste of dissatisfaction. And then I lucked up on some serious books that questioned not only as I did, but also with knowledge of how to question, where to question, and what was wrong. More, I learned something about those very first Church Fathers that came after the Apostles. Needless to say, with existence taking up too much of my time in providing all the things necessary to keep on breathing and be in good health, I slowly devoured some of those books. You'll find some of them in my last essay, as well as in my first story, "The Devil's Gateway". The big question, apart from working to understand the scriptures, became : Why didn't anyone in the churches preach the original Church Fathers? In time, I found out; slowly but surely, and quite incompletely I admit, but I did find out. There's a book that I haven't mentioned as yet, "The Deepening Darkness" (Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards, 2009, Cambridge University Press) that pretty much tells the tale of much of the patriarchy that found its way into Christianity at a very early date, much as it shows in the Old Testament. Here, let's take a stroll through the past. Not much is known about Jesus. The gospels muddle up when his birth was, who he was descended, what he actually said and when, as well as what he did and when. Lastly, his date of dying is unknown with a certainty. According to all the information available, which is little, we can round out for the sake of ease, that he died about 35 C.E. We're told what he supposedly said and did, but there's no accuracy one gospel to the other, some parts badly differing. One of the biggest and easiest differences is when he was supposed to have run amok through the Temple and given the money changers what for. In John, it's almost at the start of his ministry, and elsewhere, it's just before his last time in Jerusalem and his crucifixion. This can all be attributed to the writers of the gospels who were of a certainty not the Apostles or Mark or Luke, but others supposedly writing in their name. More, if Jesus died at about 35 C.E., we pretty much know that the gospel of Mark was most likely, according to textual critics, written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Matthew came a little later as well as Luke, and John, about 90 C.E. or later. Also, the gospel according to Thomas may have been written anywhere from 90 C.E. to about 110 C.E. One of the things that really matters here is the time frame: at least 35 years passed before the first gospel was written. Other than that, Paul's ministry is thought to have started at least a decade later. His known letters were to churches, and numbered about seven for sure (Ehrman, Forged, Harper Collins, 2011, page 93), and the rest are known forgeries. The gospels don't mention Paul at all, nor his letters. Were they unknown to the gospel writers? Or were they just not necessary? Probably both as information was slow in being passed around. Remember, there wasn't even a Pony Express in those days, and more, the letters were to specific churches for their purpose and instruction. This lapse in time for information to be spread around is crucial. If any of Paul's letters came to be known outside of the specific church, they couldn't have been widely disseminated. For many years Paul wasn't accepted as an apostle of any sort, and after he was somewhat accepted, there were still problems. That only had to mean that the sporadic letters couldn't have been widely known. Paul states in Galatians (chapter 1, verse 18) (one of his accepted letters) that after his conversion he was three years in Arabia, then Damascus). He is said to have died in the time of Nero, possibly 67 C. E. The Temple was destroyed in 70 C. E. by the Roman army. With only seven of his letters extant, him dying before the Temple was destroyed, and the first gospel most likely written shortly thereafter, and no way to copy and disseminate it widely within any short time frame, we have a lapse of over thirty-five years after the death of Jesus, give or take a couple of years. Follow the above time frames of the other gospels, and you have a longer period with no way to widely develop many churches and converts to Christianity. If any think so, consider Nero blaming Christians for burning Rome during his reign, and the death of many of the known Christians that ensued, as well as the fear of becoming a Christian. Now here's another thing that really matters. Jesus is quoted several times in the gospels as returning and "...some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." (Matthew, chapter 16, verse 18), as well as again in Matthew, and again in Mark and Luke. Paul also expected Jesus to return from the dead (I Thessalonians, Chapter 4, verses 16 though 17. One author, I can't recall which, said that Paul must have been very confused when he died for Jesus had not returned. His faith must have taken a hit, and that is another thing that leads to something else that matters. Paul preached faith and believing. This is where we find one heck of a glitch in Christianity right from it's nascent days before Constantine. Jesus didn't come, but enough kept the "faith" alive, at least long enough for some to begin anew. They just wouldn't, couldn't, believe that Jesus hadn't come. Someone other than Paul wrote a II Thessalonians an epistle meant solely to prop up the faith, and they did so in the second chapter, verses 1 and 2. "Don't be shaken..." it said, and don't be deceived. Along with the lynch pin of putting the resurrection from the book of Daniel in Jesus' mouth, as well as other verses associating him with Daniel, and changing the Old Testament god from a jealous, vengeful, capricious, and genocidal god to a "heavenly Father", the pushed having faith just as Paul did before the truth must have settled on him as he died. The early, post apostolic fathers decided to accept how it was possible for there to be only one god, and man needing salvation, per the Old Testament's sin by Eve, then Adam, and they ran with it. The "popes" of Rome, formerly called bishops, decided that they should have overlordship of the new church though most of the brains were out of North Africa, Alexandria, and the Middle East. They put on airs saying that Peter, having the "keys to the kingdom", and having been the first pope of Rome meant that the succession of pope-ship should be from the bishop of Rome—er, pope. Peter, though, was considered the bishop of Antioch. Maybe the pope should have been the bishop of Antioch. No, none of this is factually known—not Peter in Rome, nor his death there, or even that he held the title of bishop of Antioch—it's all just what has always been believed. That kind of belief is not fact. However, as I said, the real theologians of the early church were Ignatius of Antioch (supposed successor to Peter as bishop), whose claim to fame was being the first martyr to happily go to his death in the Roman arena, and espousing loyalty by Christians to their local bishop. He died somewhere in the neighborhood of 108 C. E. One Rome bishop, Clement of Rome died about 99 C. E. He is known for some letters that were thought to have been canonical, but were omitted in the end. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was widely known in his day. He died about 155 C. E. Justin Martyr died 165 C. E. He penned a defense of Christianity and sent his composition to the emperor and senate. His last name says it all. He died in 165 C. E. Irenaeus became bishop of Lyon and died about 200 C. E. He was the first to write extensively, and his multi volume text on heretics is available on the Internet. He claimed the four gospels we now have to be canonical. Tertullian was said to be considered the Father of Christianity, or the Founder of Western Theology. He wrote a lot too, and some of his works can also be found on the Internet. It is he who truly began the idea of the Trinity; said that the world was made of nothing; called women The Devil's Gateway according to one translation (and the title of my first story on Lit). However, he is not considered a saint; maybe that's because he switched from Christianity to Montanism for its practice of asceticism. I think that must have upset them. Was Tertullian a misogynist? How can he be called anything else? Along with those last two, came Origen, the boy genius who also wrote extensively, principally "Against Celsus", a pagan who wrote derogatorily about Christians, but we only know of Celsus because of Origen mentioning the points he was defending against. Origen, though, took a supposed saying of Jesus literally and made himself a eunoch "...for the kingdom of heaven's sake." (Matthew, chapter 19, verse 12). He was said to later have regretted doing that, but it was obviously too late to rectify it. Some things you only get to do once. Origen's star later failed within the church hierarchy that was developing for his stated belief that human souls existed before taking human form; that Christ's sacrifice would be repeated in future worlds; and most importantly that Jesus was subordinate to the Father—that, those who fashioned themselves to be in charge of the nascent church, deemed heretical (Heretics, Jonathan Wright, hmhbooks, 2011). The Nicene creed made sure of it. Speaking of the Nicene creed, the above mentioned book states that the Nicene Council was ill attended by Rome, the momentous decisions being made mostly by bishops of the eastern end of the Mediterranean (Heretics, page 69). The last theologian of note is Augustine (354-430 C. E.), bishop of Hippo (North Africa). How he comes to light initially is a matter of posturing by opposing sides. When the new Catholic church took one side, it was still opposed by the other side. From this, Augustine said it was entirely legitimate to use coercion if all else failed. That became de rigur for the new religion. It was bad enough that Priscillian, bishop of Avila, Spain, was executed for heresy in about 386 C. E., but to have "coercion" ratified as proper when needed to induce compliance was to open the door to many needless slaughters of peoples everywhere: supposed heretics, Jews, Moslems, Cathars, etc.. Augustine was also he who developed the idea of "original sin" that was adopted by the Catholic church along with other ideas that had been set forth by other "theologians" of the new church over several years. Pelagius, a British monk said people weren't born with sin, but he was hooted down. Of course, he wasn't made a saint. He was a strong force in the new church writing a couple of books that are still popular in our day, but what was he like, what drove him? He was definitely troubled; he had a common law wife for many years, as we would call their togetherness today, and a child, but he left both. He was, as were the other church fathers I've mentioned, a highly intelligent person, but like the others, he was driven by his need to believe, and to be a force for the church whose doctrines and beginnings he apparently never investigated objectively. But was he a misogynist as Tertullian was? Blind Man's (Religious) Bluff From The Deepening Darkness, Patriarchy, Resistance, & Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards (Cambridge University Press, 2009), we are given this quote on page 106 attributed to Augustine: "If God had wanted Adam to have a partner in scintillating conversation he would have created another man; the fact that God created a woman showed that he had in mind the survival of the human race." (From his Confessions) In other words, the only value of a woman is to have babies and no mind is needed for that little chore. Was he a misogynist? Many of these ideas were finalized as proper, or where deemed appropriate, canonical, after the Council of Nicaea and the next two centuries. It took that long to formalize most of the beliefs that were deemed proper—about five hundred years after Jesus' death. You see, Jesus wasn't said to give any rules for any church, or what rituals to follow other than by his disciples such as the Passover meal. All the rest was made up, mostly by these church fathers and the egotistical, power hungry popes. Jesus had two commandments, or so they say, and that was to love God with all you... (this is mistranslated according to Joel Hoffman in his book, And God Said, and should be rendered: "...love the Lord your God with all your mind and body..." (Page 123), as well as to love your neighbor as yourself. No mass, no vestments, no incense. The biggest things that I took from learning about all of this was that almost none of these church fathers read the known scriptures objectively, and didn't see all of the errors that I have pointed out in my essays. They were too busy fighting each other for dominance and position theologically, as well as posturing for primacy, and fighting Gnostics. So much was obviously wrong in how they saw things, what they willy-nilly came up with that they said had to be simply because they thought it was so. No wonder that I never heard anything about the Church Fathers, that none of the preachers spoke of them. They would have had to face the fact that the final "church" that was created was a literal creation without substance. The lynchpin that Jesus hooked onto from the book of Daniel, or so they put in his mouth if not really spoken of by Jesus, never came to pass—he, Jesus, never returned as he was supposed to have declared he would about five different times. This the early church never looked at. What the early church did do was to substitute belief and faith in an obvious lie for the lack of the fact that it never occurred as stated—Jesus never came back as he said he would, or as Paul believed he would. Worse, for about fifteen hundred years, anywhere the church ruled, people were forced to believe in what they were told to believe. Even the schismatic Protestant movement never questioned the scriptures objectively, nor spoke of the fact that Jesus' return had never happened as he was supposed to have stated that he would. Every book in the Protestant bible is exactly as in the Catholic bible. Yes, they didn't use all of the books of the Catholic bible, but they had no original or different books. They only shook off some of the rituals of Catholicism. To make matters worse, they also adopted the right to "coerce" those in their purview to accept their new teachings, few though they were. Even wars were fought between Catholic and Protestant believers. All for a church that was "created" out of almost whole cloth. And now those that still adhere to the false teachings of those churches are still trying to coerce the public in our United States and say that same-sex marriage is not to be allowed because if it against their created-by-men belief in a bible that is error filled. They are continuing the same mistakes that the early church fathers committed in trying to force their own ideas of what God is supposed to be, and what God is supposed to want for us all, and their god of the bible is wholly man-made. Putting belief aside, there is none that can refute these words. That being the case, there is no reason why any should say that there is a god that prohibits same-sex marriage, or love between two women being wrong. In the days of old as I've stated here, they fought over personal ideas of what God was and what God was to be. Today they fight over whether evolution is true, some even that the world is not spherical but flat, or that the world is only six to then thousand years old because that's what they think the bible says. The Fundamentalists are making the same errors as those early church fathers: they're not looking at whether or not the scriptures they are true or if they have errors in them, they just blindly believe and try to make everyone else believe without checking them out objectively. Some things never change. It's still blind men, though willfully so, trying to coerce others to follow their blind lead. If they're so blinded, what does that say about other religions. Extrapolate that for yourselves. As the words that Jesus is supposed to have said: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (Gospel according to John, chapter 8, verse 32) This can be so if you will accept facts and refuse to believe what is told that is not fact. * * * * From the book, "And God Said" by Dr. Joel M. Hoffman (Thomas Dunne books, St. Martin's Press, 2010) wherein he talks about the difficulty of translating Hebrew scriptures into English, we are told in part: "...Hebrew goes something like this: The language was spoken in and around Jerusalem during the first millennium B.C. and for the first seventy years of the first millennium A.D. ... Aramaic and other languages quickly replaced Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews." (Page 26) Previously he had also said (page 19): "If we have a guess about what an ancient Hebrew word means, in the end it will always be a guess. Hopefully it will be an educated guess—one in which we have a lot of confidence, and that is almost certainly correct—but as with any other endeavor, it's hard to know with any absolute certainty that we have not made a mistake." * * * * Lynchpins! Out of a people whose leaders were desperate to hold together their sense of being a people unto themselves and not fall into the oblivion that is the fate of extinction as so many other peoples have succumbed, they created a religion. Out of that religion came a zealousness that soon had them again needing a lynchpin to hold them together came the book of Daniel and the new idea of a resurrection to give the Jews a new hope for something special to keep them together—they were god's chosen people, weren't they? And he would not forget or forsake them, would he? Of course not. But what the Seleucid rule couldn't force on them, the Romans did, and they were dispersed once and for all. Out of that came a new person who was thrust into the mix though he was dead, and they conflated him with the resurrection promised by the book of Daniel. They hooked him, Jesus, to Daniel and the resurrection of the dead, but it went awry. He promised many times to return before his generation was out. That didn't happen. Not to be deterred, a new group of Jews took up the call for the modified religion of the Jews, and kept the lynchpin of the resurrection, but altered it to come sometime in the future, never mind what Jesus promised—yet what else he supposedly promised was used to create a new religion based on salvation and their altered promise of a resurrection. Now the lies have come home to roost in our day and on our society. Will their enforced "kindness" and "coercion" where needed continue to rule our society? They can't burn us "heretics" here, but... * * * * Patriarchy is alive and well in most of our Christian churches, as well as in other religions. The bastion of equality has been America, then Europe joined in too, and maybe surpassed us in so many ways. This month, April, 2015, our Supreme Court is to take up whether we are really equal, at least enough to marry whatever person we say we love regardless of what the bigoted churches and politicians say. Only the truth of the lies coming to the fore can alter their misguided ways. Fundamentalists, many of them politicians, and even Supreme Court justices, are still blind to the errors of their belief and continue to try to bluff and bluster their beliefs onto the rest of us. May the Supreme Court choose to follow the Constitution and vote that all are equal under the law, and marriage is a lawful contract insofar as our Constitution goes. Our Constitution is not a religious pact, but in fact calls for the separation of religion from state. Peace, and much love to those who would love no matter the gender of the one that is loved. w PS: "Belongingness is mattering to someone to someone who matters to you." (From Evolving God, by Barbara J. King, Doubleday, 2007) It is the heart that dictates who matters to you enough to want to be with forever, not the churches, and not the state.