Here is more probing of the background influences that incite alarmism crusades like climate alarmism, a “profoundly religious movement”. The very same mythical influences have incited, guided, and validated endless eruptions of religious violence across history, like the ISIS/Hamas crusades. The mass-death movements of Marxism, Nazism and general environmental alarmism have all been shaped by these same influences. Again, historians have detailed the influence of apocalyptic millennial ideas on Marxism, Nazism, Declinism, and environmental alarmism (see, for example, the research of Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, and David Redles, among others).
Aside from specific authors mentioned, this site draws on general “Historical Jesus/Jesus Seminar” research (with quibbles) and more specifically on “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research.
“Greatest coverup, retreat, betrayal, fraud, deception, disinformation,…. in history”, Wendell Krossa
This is an added note on the striking contrast between the theology of Jesus and Paul, detailed below in the essay “Separating Diamonds from Dung” (Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s blunt appraisal of the contradiction between Historical Jesus and Paul).
“Greatest” because of the profound outcomes in human society from the influence of these two starkly contrasting historical icons, and their messages, that are commonly used to inspire, guide, and validate human behavior. The outcomes can be contrasted as (1) one validates ongoing retaliatory cycles of “eye for eye” vengeance, and the other (2) urges liberation from such cycles that have produced endless violence and war, opting instead for the freedom to break such cycles and explore alternatives that encourage people to promote conflict resolution, peace, and cooperation with differing others/”enemies”.
The influence of these two historical icons arises from the fact that they have long functioned among the most prominent of authorities that people appeal to in shaping their thinking, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior. That recognized influence affirms the critical importance of understanding the nature of the contradicting themes that these two promoted, and the outcomes of their different gospels.
Insert:
https://clas.charlotte.edu/paul-and-jesus-how-the-apostle-transformed-christianity/
Quote from above link: “The Apostle Paul is the single most influential figure in human history, suggests UNC Charlotte Religious Studies Professor James Tabor in his latest book “Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity”. Tabor argues that Paul has done more to shape all we think about almost everything than anyone else. In terms of influence, Paul trumps even the great “founders,” whether Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, or Mohammed.”
In probing the contrast between Jesus and Paul, I hope readers will get some sense of how we have been robbed of the full potency of a critical historical insight and ideal that, more than anything comparable, presents the potential to liberate us from our worst impulses. And fortunately, despite the larger distorting, burying context of the retaliatory Christ myth, many have lasered in on the Jesus insights anyway and found the offered liberation from retaliatory ethics/responses, a liberation to engage authentically mature humanity. Both Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy understood the issues involved, as many others also have.
(Insert: For those still questioning the negative influences of the Christ myth on human personality and society, see in sections below the analysis of psychologists/theologians Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo on the impacts of “cruel God” theology.)
Here, just below, I’ve posted the two contrasting biblical passages that present the starkly opposite theologies of Jesus and Paul, both presenting their argument in relation to the long-standing human pattern of basing human behavior on similar metaphysical beliefs- i.e. that we should behave in a certain manner because that is what our God is like. Both Jesus and Paul used this “behavior based on belief” approach.
The issue here is to understand the real nature of our ultimate ideals and authorities that we appeal to (often subconsciously) for validation of our behavior and lives. “Subconscious” because primitive theologies (theories about God) have significantly influenced the deeply embedded archetypes that shape human narratives, consciousness, and subconscious.
The development of the ancient “basing behavior on similar belief” relationship originates from the natural human urge to validate our lives and behavior by appeal to the highest human ideal and authority across history- i.e. deity. Our ancestors, from the beginning, have understood that there exists a greater or ultimate Reality that is the creating Source of all things, something metaphysical or divine. And people have naturally then believed that if we have been created for some reason or purpose, then we should try to understand what that reason and purpose might be. Hence, we humans have always speculated on the nature of the metaphysical or divine.
The subconscious logic across history has been common sense reasoning- i.e. that if we are created for some reason then we should try to understand what that purpose is, in order that we don’t waste our short lives but actually fulfill something of the reason and purpose for our existence. Hence, human mythology, religion, and philosophy across the millennia. And yes, these projects have always included significant elements of speculation and projection. Much like contemporary “science” includes the same elements in its effort to understand ultimate reality and answer ultimate questions (see, for example, physicist James Baggot’s “Farewell to Reality”, and physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s “Lost in Math’).
Note first how Jesus sets forth the behavior that we should exhibit toward offenders/enemies- i.e. forgiving, loving unconditionally and generously, no matter how others respond or do not respond. He is pointing toward the authentic meaning of love, our highest and defining human ideal. He points to the highest reach of love as non-retaliatory, unconditional treatment of others, especially non-retaliation toward enemies/offenders. He is arguing for authentic human maturity, presenting the way in which we can tower in stature as heroically human, how we can fulfil the true reason for our existence as conscious persons.
He ends his argument by urging that if we act in this non-retaliatory, unconditional manner, then we will be just like God who treats all in the same non-retaliatory, unconditional manner, whether good people or bad.
Jesus presents this non-retaliatory behavioral response and similar validating non-retaliatory theology to directly contradict all historically previous understanding of justice and ethics that had been oriented to “just” retaliation, punishment, and destruction. He argues- Do not engage “eye for eye” retaliatory treatment of offenders/enemies. He says that instead we should “love our enemies because God does”. Evidence? God gives sun and rain to all alike, to both good and bad people. Exhibit this same treatment of others and you will be just like God- nonretaliatory, unconditionally loving.
Paul, some two decades later (50s CE), uses the same behavior based on belief pattern to make the exact opposite conclusion about the validating theology- i.e. God. He rejects the new (at that time) non-retaliatory theology of Jesus to re-instate the primitive theology of a retaliatory God. Paul’s God is the one that we have received in our Western tradition- a retaliatory, highly conditional deity that shapes our understanding of ethics and justice as retaliatory, punitive, and highly conditional.
First, Jesus’ statement of “behavior based on belief” in a non-retaliatory God:
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36, or Matthew 5:38-48.)
This entire message and argument can be summarized in this six-word statement: “Love your enemies because God does”.
Then, Paul’s contrasting statement of “behavior based on belief” in a retaliatory God: It is my belief that Paul knew exactly what he was doing here in confronting the core theme and message of Historical Jesus, in order to intentionally contradict and then reject it. His intent was to overturn and replace the gospel of Jesus with his entirely opposite Christ myth and message.
Here is Paul’s statement of his direct contradiction of the theology of Jesus and replacement of that with his retaliatory deity (Romans 12:17-20, also in other letters):
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head”.
Note that, at first glance, Paul appears to agree with the behavioral or ethical teaching of Jesus to be non-retaliatory in our responses to evil. But then Paul adds that our intention to not retaliate should be based on our belief that God will retaliate for us (“Vengeance is mine”). We are to be nice to our enemies in order to ensure that God will ultimately retaliate against them. Our non-retaliatory treatment of enemies/offenders is intended to “heap burning coals on their heads”, meaning- to ensure their judgment and punishment by a retaliatory, vengeful God. Hence, the ethical part of Paul’s statement is actually retaliatory in its intention, similar to the validating belief in a retaliatory God.
Paul rejected the non-retaliatory God of Jesus as well as the non-retaliatory spirit of Jesus’ ethics to re-establish retaliation as an ultimate ideal, validated by his retaliatory God.
Paul’s retaliatory theology has been significantly influential in shaping Western response to offense and Western justice as too often punitive, destructive justice (i.e. the violence of the early Councils, the mass-death destruction in the Crusades against Jews and Muslims, the horrors of the Inquisition, the torture and murder of heretics, witches, infidels, and the promotion of the death penalty in justice systems.)
That Paul rejected the entire message or gospel of the Historical Jesus is also clear in his statements to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:16) that “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer”. Paul stated that people should reject the actual historical person, and his message, for his Christ myth.
Further evidence that Paul rejected the actual message or gospel of Jesus: Note his trashing of the wisdom tradition that Jesus had belonged to and promoted. Read Paul’s arguments for rejection of that wisdom in 1 Corinthians chapters 2 and 3. Biblical scholars have discovered that Jesus was a wisdom sage and one of his disciples was Apollos, whom Paul named as belonging to the wisdom tradition that he rejected as “worldly wisdom” to be supplanted by his heavenly Christ.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/jesus/stephenjpatterson.html
Add here the Amazon blurb on Stephen Patterson’s book on Jesus as a wisdom sage: “The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins”.
“In this rigorously researched and thoughtful study, a leading Jesus Seminar scholar reveals the dramatic story behind the modern discovery of the earliest gospels, accounts that do not portray Jesus exclusively as a martyr but recover a lost ancient Christian tradition centered on Jesus as a teacher of wisdom.
“The church has long advocated the Pauline view of Jesus as deity and martyr, emphasizing his death and resurrection. But another tradition also thrived from Christianity’s beginnings, one that portrayed Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. In The Lost Way, Stephen Patterson, a leading New Testament scholar and former head of the Jesus Seminar, explores this lost ancient tradition and its significance to the faith.
“Patterson explains how scholars have uncovered a Gospel that preceded at least three of those in the Bible, which is called Q. He painstakingly demonstrates how historical evidence points to the existence of this common source in addition to Mark—recognized as the earliest Gospel—that both Matthew and Luke used to write their accounts. Q contained a collection of Jesus’s teachings without any narrative content and without accounts of the passion, though being the earliest version shared among his first followers—scripture that embodies a very different orientation to the Christian faith.
“Patterson also explores other examples of this wisdom tradition, from the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas; to the emergence of Apollos, a likely teacher of Christian wisdom; to the main authority of the church in Jerusalem, Jesus’s brother James. The Lost Way offers a profound new portrait of Jesus—one who can show us a new way to live.” ( https://www.amazon.ca/Lost-Way-Forgotten-Rewriting-Christian/dp/0062330489 )
See also, in the sections further below, the common-sense qualifiers clarifying that any humane version of love understands that non-retaliatory response and the unconditional treatment of all people is not advocacy for dogmatic pacifism as in “turn the other cheek” in the face of evil savagery. Any form of common-sense love understands the fundamental responsibility of love to protect the innocent, to restrain violence (i.e. the incarceration of violent people to protect the public), and even to engage war to end attack by those committed to extermination of differing others.
The above comments on our highest ideals (i.e. retaliatory versus non-retaliatory) are about the role of such ideals to judge us, to stir us to further progress toward achieving something better than where we are now, to point us toward the nature of authentic love, the nature of mature humanity, and how to achieve heroic stature in our stories, how to maintain our own humanity in the face of evil.
The argument here is to challenge readers to make certain that your highest ideals are authentically human or humane, not clouded, distorted, or buried with subhuman features that hold you back from the best in life. Your ideals should serve to judge you, to inspire you to reach higher, and then validate your engagement of authentic human behavior, heroic behavior as in “loving your enemies”- the ultimate in “towering in stature as maturely human”.
I am repeating some of these statements/points from Joseph Campbell’s take on the hero’s quest that all of us engage in life.
What lies beneath? (a ‘probe-the-roots’ project) Wendell Krossa
This site is about the “behind the behind” as in the deeper layers of ideas/themes that shape more surface layers of similar ideas/themes. This site probes the deeper “mythical” themes that have shaped the surface layer of so-called “secular ideological” themes that drive, for example, the climate alarmism crusade. Those deeper mythical themes have shaped climate alarmism and its decarbonization schemes as just another “profoundly religious” apocalyptic millennial crusade (not my appraisal alone). Again, Joseph Campbell nailed this in his summary that “people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world”.
This site confronts, particularly, the Christ myth of Paul as primarily responsible for embodying those deeper ideas/themes of apocalyptic millennialism in Western narratives and consciousness and thereby functioning as an ultimate validation for the primitive and destructive themes of apocalyptic millennialism.
If you want to properly and fully solve the problem of the endless historical eruptions of religious violence, and the far more destructive outcomes of environmental alarmism movements, then you have to confront the root source of the ideas that incite, guide, and validate such crusades, the “mythical archetypes” long embedded in human narratives and consciousness/subconscious.
We have the alternatives to this psychopathology, and we have had them for millennia. There is no excuse to continue avoiding these major causal and contributing factors, especially in their still highly influential religious versions. These deeply embedded mythical archetypes explain why so many people, including scientists, are not convinced by scientific evidence alone to reject the pathology of apocalyptic millennialism as in the climate alarmism crusade.
My summary, for memory purposes, abbreviates the main body of primitive myths as the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex. These incite and validate the “evil triad” of inherited animal impulses such as the impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction. The impulses and validating ideas work together to deform human consciousness, lives, and societies.
Notes: Environmental alarmism as “far more destructive than religious violence”?
Yes, the state-blockage of fossil fuel development (Net Zero decarbonization) results in higher energy costs contributing to inflation through the 6000 products that are “fossil fuel derivatives” and fundamental to our lives. Higher energy costs factor in the excess mortality associated with the rise in fuel poverty where the most vulnerable people have to choose between eating and warmth (see, for example, the “Net Zero Watch” newsletters of Global Warming Policy Forum, and other sources listed in links below). Excess mortality of the most vulnerable people has been traced in Britain, Germany, the US, and elsewhere.
Note also the Lancet study that 10 times more people die every year from cold than die from warming (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext ). Add also that blocking fossil fuels hinders the development and progress of billions of poor people (improvements in their lives and well-being). Blocking their access to inexpensive fossil fuels leads to increased mortality from varied factors in their lives.
Sample sources on excess mortality due to cold (e.g. Britain):
A ‘third person’ view of things…
The author of this site spent a few years in his twenties ‘dragged’ by family into Evangelical Christianity (yes, family traditions and pressure play a significant role in such things), subsequently graduated from an Evangelical Bible college, then went to Southeast Asia to engage ‘missionary evangelism’ programs (Mindanao). While there the author let earlier doubts resurface, and then began the process of disentangling himself from and abandoning his religion. The author, however, continued working with upland Manobo tribal groups on medical, educational, livelihood, erosion control, and infrastructure programs over a period of 11 years.
Part of his abandonment of religion was the realization that it is highly unethical to call the myths of others “demonic” when they differ only in small details from your own myths (paraphrase of comment by Jesus Seminar scholar John Dominic Crossan). Those would include myths of creation, ruin of original paradise, original sin of humanity, great flood, looming end of world/apocalypse, appeasement/atonement through blood sacrifice, redemption/salvation, and so on.
Any good research on the history of human mythology, which is really just recognizing how people have thought across the millennia, will reveal that humans have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world (Joseph Campbell).
Later, on returning to Canada, the author made a short detour in “Environmental alarmism” during a grad program at UBC (i.e. Bill Rees’ Ecological Footprint- Rees was director then of the School of Community and Regional Planning). That led to the realization that the author had not really left his religion but had just exchanged his former religious version of apocalyptic millennialism for a “secular” version of the same basic complex of ideas- the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” body of myths.
Subsequent reading of Julian Simon’s brilliant “Ultimate Resource”, and related material, led to a more thorough abandonment of the psychopathology of “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” mythology, the core themes of movements like climate alarmism, making that a “profoundly religious” crusade.
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God I am free at last”, Martin Luther King.
And… the abandonment of the “lost paradise/apocalyptic/redemption” complex of myths naturally and logically leads to the conclusion- “There is no ‘climate crisis’”.
Further, this site is not an advocacy for philosophical materialism or dogmatic atheism. More along the lines of “spiritual but not religious”, as in “independent in all areas”. Or “Self in process”, somewhat like the description of Louis Zurcher in “The Mutable Self: A Self-Concept for Social Change”.
How to introduce this material with the appraisal that it deserves and yet not slip into hyperbole of National Inquirer-type exaggeration… The outcomes in terms of historical influence for good and evil are beyond profound.
History’s “single most profound insight” was buried under Paul’s Christ myth, Wendell Krossa
Paul’s Christ myth has been called the single most influential myth in history. It is primarily responsible for perpetuating the primitive myth of apocalyptic in Western consciousness. The damage from this “most violent and destructive idea in history” has been incalculable.
And yes, there is an “anti-Christ” in Christianity (anti-sacrifice, anti-apocalyptic, anti-conditions) but its not who you think it is. Its someone dear and familiar.
What’s at stake in challenging the Christ myth? History’s single most profound insight- i.e. that God is a stunningly inexpressible “no conditions” reality. That insight of Historical Jesus has been buried for two millennia under Paul’s highly conditional Christ myth.
The Christ myth- separating diamonds from dung, Wendell Krossa
The fundamental problem with Paul’s Christ myth was framed by Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy. They stated that the Christ of Paul “buried the diamonds/pearls” of Historical Jesus (“Historical Jesus” is the title used to distinguish the actual historical person from the Christian version- known commonly as “Jesus Christ”). In his teaching Jesus emphasized the themes of unlimited forgiveness and inclusion of all (sun and rain given to both good and bad), unconditional love (no payment or sacrifice demanded before forgiving- e.g. the Prodigal Father), and non-retaliatory justice (no “eye for eye” retaliation).
Two decades after Jesus died, Paul’s Christ buried these diamond themes of unconditional love in the “dung” (Jefferson’s term) of highly conditional salvation mythology. The main features of conditional salvation include (1) the appeasement of angry deity with the condition of a blood sacrifice as required payment (see Romans, Hebrews); (2) the discriminatory tribal exclusion of unbelievers (Paul taught in Romans and elsewhere the condition of faith in his Christ myth as necessary for inclusion in salvation); and (3) ultimate retaliation/punishment through apocalypse and hell (see Paul’s Thessalonian letters and the Revelation of John). The highly conditional religious mythology of Paul and other New Testament writers buried the unconditional message of Jesus.
Preface to “The Christian Contradiction” (Jesus versus Christ) Wendell Krossa
Across history people have appealed to deity, as humanity’s highest ideal and authority, to validate their behavior and their treatment of others, notably, to validate justice as the punishment of others for wrongs done. This is the ‘behavior based on similar belief’ relationship. People have long appealed to, for example, the features of retaliation and punishment in God as the ultimate validation for their exercise of punitive, payback justice toward offending others. Punitive theology undergirds punitive justice.
Historical Jesus reframed entirely the behavior based on belief model when he rejected retaliation as a divinely validated ethic. He stated that, contrary to Old Testament teaching, God did not retaliate (“no more eye for eye”). He argued that, instead, God generously forgave, included, and loved all people whether good or bad. Note this essential point of his in the Matthew 5 and Luke 6 statements: “Love your enemies… (because God does). Be like God who generously and freely gives sun and rain to both righteous and unrighteous”.
Conclusion? You violate and profoundly distort the central message of Historical Jesus if you try to appeal to him or his theology to validate retaliatory, punitive justice. Paul’s Christ is another matter altogether. The mythical Christ, a reality entirely opposite to Historical Jesus, validates ultimate divine retaliation.
In the Matthew 5 and Luke 6 statements Historical Jesus overturned previous millennia of all-pervasive threat theology- i.e. myths of angry gods threatening judgment, punishment, and destruction. Unfortunately, Historical Jesus is almost entirely buried under the Christ mythology in the New Testament books.
Full statement of Jesus’ central teaching:
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
This can be summarized in this single statement: “Love your enemy because God does”.
An example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.
The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.
The above statement and illustration by Jesus overturns the highly conditional Christian religion and Paul’s Christ mythology. To the contrary, Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament, preached a retaliatory God who demanded full payment and punishment of all sin through a blood sacrifice of atonement before he would forgive, accept, and ultimately love anyone.
“The great Christian Contradiction” (Historical Jesus versus Paul’s Christ myth): Wendell Krossa
The feature of ‘unconditional’ is central to an authentically humane theology (i.e. God theory or Ultimate Reality theory). I refer to elements of the Jesus tradition to establish this point. But my argument is not dependent on first establishing the actual message of the original Jesus. I do not view Jesus as an authority figure and I do not need his actual words (the “original message”) to affirm my point regarding an unconditional theology. I refer to varied useful comments in the Jesus material (e.g. “love your enemy”) to illustrate his central theme of unconditional love, something that stands on its own as authoritative.
Unconditional love is the best of being human and it possesses authority in itself as ultimate goodness without the need for validation by some religious authority. Unconditional love is “self-validating” as good or true. Unconditional love does not need validation from Jesus but I do not mind touching base with such a widely respected icon/symbol for illustrative purposes.
Unconditional love is not a religious insight or discovery. To the contrary, religious traditions across history have communicated the exact opposite in that they have all been essentially conditional traditions- promoting religious conditions of the right beliefs, proper rituals, required religious lifestyles to please religious deities, and the necessary conditions for religious salvation (i.e. sacrifices, payments). Religion, as a fundamentally conditional institution, has never communicated the stunning unconditional nature of deity to humanity. By its very nature as a conditional reality religion cannot represent/communicate unconditional reality.
I would establish the authority of unconditional love as supreme goodness by appealing to its discovery and practice by ordinary people throughout our societies- i.e. parents, spouses, friends. It is the best behavior that we can have discovered in our treatment of one another and hence it should be the basis of any authentic theory of Ultimate Good or Ultimate Love. This is to say- we should do theology by arguing from the best in humanity and then project the ‘best of being human’ out to define deity, not the other way around as religious traditions have long done. Religions begin with some holy text as authoritative ‘revealed truth’ that defines deity and establish that as the authority for human ethics/behavior.
Better, we first establish the best of being human, and then project that out to define deity, but recognize deity as transcendently better (Ultimate Good or Love). We understand deity by first understanding the best of humanity. Another way of stating this would be to take Alexander Pope’s advice, “Cease from God to scan… The proper study of mankind is man”.
This is all to say- I am not a Biblicist (i.e. dependent on the texts of religious holy books for authoritative validation of ideas or ethics). My location of ultimate authority is in common humanity and the best of common human goodness, whether exhibited by a non-religious person, an atheist, or by a religious person. I view all such common love as the expression of the God spirit, or god-likeness (that is to say- humaneness) that is present in ordinary people. We are all experts on basic human goodness and do not need affirmation from outside authorities, certainly not religious authorities.
And yes, I affirm that all people are equally incarnated with the God spirit that is inseparable and indistinguishable from what we call the human spirit. There has been no “special incarnation of deity” only in religious figures like Christian Jesus. To the contrary, I would affirm that there has been an equal incarnation of God in all people and that offers a new metaphysical basis for human equality.
What about bad behavior? Unfortunately, we all have experience with ignoring or denying our human spirit with its better angels and, instead, freely choosing to express the baser features of our inherited animal brain, its base impulses that still resides in all of us. The choice to engage bad behavior is the risk that comes with authentic freedom.
Concluding the above point… I do not base my understanding of ultimate reality on traditional religious sources- holy books- that claim to be “revealed truth” or “supreme authorities for thought and practice”. Those traditional sources of validation should be subject to the same evaluating criteria as all other areas of life- i.e. is the content good or bad, humane or inhumane? Modern sensibilities demand a radical rethinking of traditional sources of authority.
And yes, I also get it that an unconditional theology will spell the end of all religion. If God is freely accessible to all alike- not a dominating authority, not demanding salvation conditions (sacrifice/payment), not requiring a religious lifestyle or ritual, not making tribal distinctions between believer/unbeliever, not threatening future judgment/punishment/destruction… well then, who needs religion with its endless myth-based conditions? An unconditional God means that we are all free to create our own unique life stories. And your story is a valuable or good as anyone else’s. Religious or not. You possess in your own human spirit the same ability to know and define God as much as anyone else does.
The Great Christian Contradiction: A “stunning new theology” buried by Christianity
(Note: The conclusions here are based on overall Historical Jesus research, and more notably on the “Q Wisdom Sayings Gospel” research of James Robinson, John Kloppenborg, among others. I accept that Q is the closest that we have gotten to the actual teaching of Jesus. The actual content of Q is much less than the material in the New Testament Gospels that is attributed to Jesus. And the single most important statement in Q is the central theme of Jesus that is reproduced in Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:38-48.)
First, why go after Paul’s Christ myth, the highly revered icon of a major world religion? Because, even though the Christ represents varied humane ideals of the Christian community- i.e. love, forgiveness, salvation, hope- it also embodies and validates some of the worst features from an ancient past such as retaliatory vengeance (see the Thessalonian letters, Revelation), discriminatory tribal exclusion (true believers saved, unbelievers excluded), domination/subservience relationships (Lord Christ and his mediating priesthood dominating others- “Every knee shall bow”), and angry deity threatening to punish and destroy. John’s Revelation is an epitome statement of this divine retaliatory vengeance.
You cannot merge and mix contradicting opposites in some entity and make any sense- i.e. mixing humane ideals with primitive, subhuman ideas/practices. That ends with “cognitive dissonance” (see psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”). Further, the nasty elements in a merger will undermine, weaken, and distort the better features in the mix. It’s like putting new wine in old, rotten wineskins.
More critically, the Christ of Paul is mainly responsible for embedding and re-enforcing the myth of apocalypse in Western consciousness and keeping that pathological myth alive across the past two millennia. As James Tabor said, “Paul has been the most influential person in history and he has shaped practically all that we think about everything… (and) apocalyptic shaped all that Paul said and did”, (“Paul and Jesus”). Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth continues to influence contemporary myth-making as well as our ethics and justice systems.
The historical lines of descent and influence are as follows: Paul’s Christ gave apocalyptic mythology prominence in Christianity and that Christian heritage then shaped 19th Century Declinism (see Arthur Herman’s ‘The Idea of Decline in Western History’). Declinism, in turn, has shaped contemporary environmental apocalyptic or Green religion.
My argument is that to deal fully and properly with the destructive psychopathology of apocalyptic we must confront the Christ myth that validates and sustains this pathology in our narratives, consciousness and societies. Apocalyptic has been rightly exposed as “the most violent and destructive idea in history” (Arthur Mendel in ‘Vision and Violence’) that continues to wreak damage through contemporary alarmism movements like environmental alarmism. If you want to fully understand how bad ideas from a primitive past have descended down into modern human narratives and consciousness then recognize the centrality of Paul’s Christ myth in this process. (Note: Messiah mythology actually began earlier in the Jewish messiah tradition that was then continued in Christianity.)
More on the “Contradiction”
Over the past three centuries, the “Search For Historical Jesus” has given us the basic outline of what happened in the Christian tradition. The latest phase of this search- the “Jesus Seminar”- offers more detail on the basic issues involved, i.e. that early Christianity was a diverse movement with major differences, for example, between Jewish Christianity (Jesus acknowledged as some sort of prophet/king but not as God) and Paul’s Gentile Christian movement (Jesus as God-man, cosmic Christ/Savior).
Further, there were numerous other gospels that were not accepted into the Christian cannon- e.g. the gospel of Philip, gospel of Mary, Gospel of James, gospel of Thomas, and so on. The victors of the early Christian theological battles, notably Paul’s version of Christianity, got to dictate what was truth and what was heresy. Emperor Constantine also stuck his nose into the truth/heresy battles among early Christians (see, for example, ‘Constantine’s Sword’ by James Carroll).
Of the numerous other gospels available when the New Testament canon was assembled, why were only Matthew, Mark, Luke and John included? Historians have noted the simple-minded reasoning behind the centuries-long selection process for the New Testament canon, such as Irenaeus’ affirmation that “there are four universal winds… animals have four legs…”, etc. Hence, the four gospels in the New Testament (NT). Such was ancient ‘theological’ reasoning. Importantly though, the gospels chosen had to affirm Paul’s theology and Christ myth.
The ‘Search For Historical Jesus’ has revealed that there was a real historical person and we believe that we have gotten close to understanding his original message. But that actual message is much less than what the New Testament gospels have attributed to Jesus. The NT gospel writers put numerous statements/sayings in Jesus’ mouth, claiming that he had said such things. But many of those added sayings contradict the man’s core theme/message.
Note, for instance, the statement of his central theme in Matthew 5 to “love your enemy”. That is the single most profound statement of ‘no-conditions love’. But then a few chapters later (Matthew 11) Jesus apparently pivots 180 degrees and threatens “unbelievers/enemies” with the single most intense statement of hatred ever uttered- that enemies should be cast into hell. Matthew claims that Jesus threatened the villages that refused to accept him and his miracles, stating that they would be “cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth”. These statements could not have come from the same person because they are statements of irreconcilable opposites.
The core teaching of Jesus has been summarized in the Q Wisdom Sayings Gospel, notably the first version- Q1. That teaching is basically Matthew 5-7 including some other comments and parables. Luke 6 is a similar summary but with a different setting- a lakeside versus Matthew’s mountaintop.
Matthew, obsessed with righteousness, tampers with the core Q Sayings Wisdom teaching in the chapter 5-7 section of his gospel. He adds his own editorial glosses, such as his condition that people’s righteousness had to exceed that of religious teachers if they wanted to get into heaven. They had to meet the impossible condition to “be perfect just as God is perfect”. That distorts entirely the main point of Jesus that it did not matter how people responded to love, because God generously included and loved all people, both good and bad. God was unconditional Love, and desired the universal, unlimited inclusion of everyone. Luke in his treatment of the very same message does a better job, summing Jesus’ point as “be unconditionally merciful just like your Father is unconditionally merciful” (Luke 6). That gets the spirit of the passage better than Matthew’s subsequent editorial changes to the original statements of Jesus.
The most central and important statement or theme in the Q Wisdom Sayings gospel material is a statement of a behavior/belief relationship. It urges a specific behavior based on a similar validating belief. Note this in the Matthew 5:38-48 section, “Don’t engage the old eye for eye justice toward your enemy/offender. Instead, love your enemy because God does. How so? God does not retaliate against and punish enemies/offenders, but instead generously gives the good gifts of life- i.e. sun and rain for crops- inclusively to both good people and bad people alike”. Jesus based a non-retaliatory behavior on a similar validating belief in a non-retaliatory God. James Robinson calls the statement of Jesus in Matthew 5 a “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”.
A critical takeaway here is that a non-retaliating God (no more eye for eye) is logically then a non-apocalyptic God because apocalyptic is the supreme act of retaliation. The great final apocalypse to destroy the world is the ultimate act of eye for eye retaliation. The God of Jesus will not engage that ultimate act of retaliation in the violent punishment and destruction of all things because his God was non-retaliatory. Further, a God that rejects eye for eye justice would not promote the pathological belief in hell which is an expression of eternal retaliation. The God of Jesus was entirely non-punitive and non-apocalyptic.
These common-sense conclusions flow from this stunning new theology, from the core theme of a non-retaliatory, no-conditions God. The God of Jesus would not ultimately judge or condemn anyone and would not ultimately exclude anyone. Again, note the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory and unconditional God in the statements- “no more eye for eye justice, but love your enemy because God does. God gives sun and rain to all, to both good and bad people”. The God of Jesus is best defined with the adjective “unconditional” and this summarizes the core theme or teaching in Matthew 5 and Luke 6.
A further logical conclusion from this core teaching would be that the God of Jesus did not demand salvation through blood sacrifice or other payment for sin. The God of Jesus would not demand sacrifice or payment before forgiving, loving, and including even the worst offenders/enemies. This is clear in the accompanying statements in Luke 6 that authentic love would “give, expecting nothing in return”. Meaning that there is no expectation of or demand for debt payment or payback of any kind. That is a rejection of atonement theology that is based on the divine demand for payment/punishment of wrong.
And this point scandalizes the religious or moral mind that is oriented to fairness and justice as proper retribution or punishment, justice as tit for tat, hurt for hurt, or demanded payment for wrong. No more eye for eye means that God’s love is not a tit for tat form of love that is dependent on some similar response from others or on the rebalancing of traditional eye for eye justice.
Most of us understand and practice this same ‘no conditions’ forgiveness and love in our interactions with family, friends, and neighbors. We learn to overlook the many imperfections in those around us and just get on with life, and hope that others will be equally merciful with our imperfections. We do not demand payback or reparations for all the wrongs done to us by others. How much more would a deity that is ultimate Goodness offer such transcendently unconditional forgiveness and love.
And as a friend says, love that is not unconditional is not authentic love.
Note also Jesus’ parables on the Vineyard workers and the Prodigal Son for illustrations of how good moral people were offended by the unconditional generosity, forgiveness, and love. The Prodigal’s Father and the vineyard owner disregarded the commonly understood norms of fair or properly retributive justice and that generosity offended the older brother and scandalized the all-day vineyard workers. Further, the unconditional inclusion of local “sinners” at meal tables offended righteous, moral Jews who were tribally minded and open to the inclusion of similarly law-abiding people, but excluded the unlawful people or “sinners” (those not practicing Jewish law). Jesus claimed that God does not view humanity as tribally divided (e.g. good people versus bad people) and does not treat some differently from others. All are the favorites of God, including our enemies. This is to say that God is a oneness God, and all people are equal members of the one human family.
There is a “thematic coherence” to the message and behavior of the Historical Jesus and that message/behavior is intensely oriented to unconditional, universal love.
The rest of the New Testament, including the gospels, contradicts and rejects this core non-retaliatory, unconditional love theme entirely. A proper setting forth of the correct chronology of the New Testament highlights this profound contradiction at the heart of Christianity.
The dating pattern (NT chronology)
Jesus taught first, around 27-36 CE. I would offer that the main statement and point in his core message, the Q Wisdom Sayings Gospel, would be the behavior/belief relationship noted above: “Do not engage eye for eye retaliation, but instead love your enemies because God does. God does not engage eye for eye justice against imperfect people but loves his enemies. We should be just like God who gives the good gifts of life- sun and rain for crops- to both good and bad people”. God is a non-retaliatory reality that loves all unconditionally and universally, expecting nothing in return.
James Robinson has correctly stated that Jesus presented “the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”. This is the single most profound teaching/insight in all human history.
Paul wrote the next material that is in the New Testament- i.e. his Thessalonian letters written around 50 CE (I am passing over the argument re the authenticity of the second Thessalonian letter). In his very first letters Paul straightforward rejects the non-retaliatory theology of Jesus and advocates for a retaliatory Christ- “Lord Jesus will return in blazing fire to punish/destroy all who do not obey my gospel”.
His other letters were also written in the 50s CE. In his Romans letter Paul contradicts Jesus directly, notably confronting the core statement and theme of Jesus in Matthew 5:38-48. Paul employs the same behavior/belief pairing that Jesus used to state his theology. But Paul then uses that same pairing (i.e. basing a behavior on a belief) to make the very opposite conclusion to the theology of Jesus. In Romans 12:17-20 he urges Christians to hold their desire for vengeance at bay because God will satisfy it eventually with ultimate eye for eye vengeance. Contrary to Jesus’ non-retaliatory God, Paul’s God is a retaliating deity.
Paul affirms his view that God is a supremely retaliatory reality by quoting an Old Testament statement, “’Vengeance is mine’, says the Lord. ‘I will repay’”. In this, Paul re-affirms eye for eye retaliatory justice and response. There is no ultimate “love your enemy” in Paul’s God or Christ.
In the Romans material Paul is arguing with the Roman Christians- restrain your longing for vengeance, not because God also restrains a lust for vengeance (rejecting eye for eye justice as Jesus did), but to the contrary, because God will unleash ultimate vengeance soon enough and satisfy your desire for eye for eye vengeance on your enemies.
I would suggest that Paul used this behavior/belief pairing in Romans 12 to intentionally contradict the same behavior/belief pairing that Jesus used in his central message. The similarities are too obvious. Paul rejects the non-retaliatory God of Jesus to fully affirm a retaliatory, punitive God, a tribal God that favors his true believers and destroys the enemies of his followers.
And while Paul appears to embrace the non-retaliatory ethic of Jesus (“Do not repay anyone evil for evil… Do not take revenge”) note that his ethic is oriented to and motivated by the hope for ultimate retaliation from God and that makes even the apparently non-retaliatory ethic actually retaliatory in intent. Basically, Paul was arguing that the Roman believers should be nice to their offenders in order that God could be really nasty to them in the future. Their being nice now was intended to “Pour coals of fire on their heads” in the future, that is, to ensure their harsh judgment at the hands of a wrathful and retaliatory God. So the apparently non-retaliatory ethic of Paul was nothing like the ‘no eye for eye’ ethic of Jesus.
Paul also, in other places (again, in contradiction to Jesus), straightforwardly embraced an apocalyptic God and Christ. Once more, note his Thessalonian letters where he states, “Lord Jesus will return in blazing fire to punish/destroy all who do not believe my gospel”. This statement of apocalyptic vengeance is the supreme act of a retaliatory, destroying God that engages ultimate eye for eye justice.
Further, Paul rejected, and trashed in general, the wisdom tradition that Jesus belonged to. See his first Corinthian letter for his detailed comments on the wisdom tradition. Stephen Patterson’s ‘The Lost Way’ deals with this anti-wisdom strain in Paul. It was a further effort to undermine the historical Jesus that contradicted Paul’s Christ myth.
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/jesus/stephenjpatterson.html
The four gospels that were later included in the New Testament all affirmed Paul’s views and his retaliatory and apocalyptic Christ myth. The NT gospels added made-up biographical material and statements that they claimed were from Jesus, material that directly contradicted his main theme and message. Mark wrote first around 70 CE. Then Matthew and Luke wrote around 80 CE, John later around 100 CE.
The other gospels affirmed Paul’s retaliatory, apocalyptic Christ myth as well as Paul’s gospel of the Christ as a great cosmic sacrifice to pay for all sin (i.e. a supremely conditional love).
Paul and his apocalyptic Christ myth- the most influential person and myth in history- has since profoundly shaped Western consciousness. His Christ myth also shaped Western justice as punitive and retaliatory- eye for eye justice, or punishment in return for harm caused (i.e. pain for pain, hurt for hurt). Paul’s Christ, and his God, are supremely retaliatory realities.
Fortunately, the inclusion of the original Jesus material in the New Testament (the Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6 sections) has served as a moderating force in the Christian tradition and history, countering the harsher elements with appeals for unconditional mercy. But the mixing and merging of such profound opposites has resulted in the ‘cognitive dissonance’ of a “diamonds-in-dung” situation which was the conclusion of Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy. The better material- the core Jesus message and his stunning new unconditional theology- has been distorted and weakened by the more prominent Christ myth in the mix. Again, much like new wine put into old, rotten wine-skins.
(See Zenon Lotufo’s ‘Cruel God, Kind God’ for a psychotherapist’s view of the cognitive dissonance resulting from mixed-feature God theories, and the damaging impact of including subhuman features in the gods of religious traditions.)
Contrary to the unconditional and all-inclusive love that Jesus advocated, Christian love is a tribally-limited love, reserved more specially for fellow true believers in the Christ myth. Paul advocated such tribal love. Also, note his intolerant rage, in varied places, at his fellow apostles that did not submit to his Christ myth. He cursed them with eternal damnation (e.g. Galatians 1:8-9). John in the early chapters of Revelation similarly curses “lukewarm” Christians with threats of exclusion and eternal destruction. And then how about those later chapters of Revelation?
After the core Q Wisdom Sayings message of Historical Jesus there is nothing of the scandalous generosity of unconditional love in the rest of the New Testament.
The unconditional God of Jesus, and the supremely conditional God/Christ of Paul that dominates the New Testament (demand for cosmic sacrifice before forgiving), are two entirely opposite realities.
Ah, such contradictions at the very heart of Christianity.
Here is the main contradiction summarized again:
Jesus’ ethic and the theology or belief that it is based on: “Do not engage eye for eye retaliation but instead love your enemy because God does, giving the beneficial gifts of life, sun and rain for crops, to all alike, to both good and bad people”. Behave like that because God is like that. Non-retaliatory, universally inclusive, unconditionally generous and loving.
Then Paul’s ethic and the theology or belief that it is based upon: Paul copies the pattern that Jesus used of an ethic/behavior that is based upon a similar theology/belief. Again, I argue that it appears Paul set this pattern up deliberately to directly contradict the central theme of Jesus and his stunning new theology. Paul’s argument and reasoning in Romans 12:17-20, “Be nice now to your offenders. Hold your desire for retaliatory justice at bay because my God states (he quotes an Old Testament statement to affirm his theology of a retaliatory God)- ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’”. Which is to say- God shall satisfy your longing for vengeance soon enough.
That is the profound contradiction in the New Testament between Jesus and Paul, between the non-retaliatory theology of Jesus and the entirely opposite retaliatory theology of Paul. Theology, or God theory, is the highest ideal and authority in human narratives. The reality that is God influences and shapes all else in religious belief systems.
Takeaway? The central theme/message of Historical Jesus is buried by Paul’s Christ myth. Again, the central teaching of Jesus: “You must not engage ‘eye for eye’ retaliatory justice. Instead, love your enemies/offenders because God does. How so? God does not retaliate and punish God’s enemies. Instead, God gives the good gifts of life- sun and rain for crops- universally and inclusively to both good and bad people”.
Christianity has never taken this stunning new theology of Jesus seriously. It opted instead for the retaliatory and tribally-excluding God of Paul. Unbelievers are excluded from Paul’s salvation scheme and face the threat of ultimate retaliation in apocalypse and hell. Note Paul’s repeated use in his varied letters of the threatening term “destruction” in relation to people who refuse to believe his God or Christ.
Another version of the Christian contradiction: Or, “How history’s single most profound insight was subsequently buried in a major religious tradition”, Wendell Krossa
History’s single greatest contradiction? My candidate: The contradiction between the central message of Historical Jesus, and the central meaning and message of Paul’s Christ myth (his Christology).
A side consideration: Think of the liberation that could have been promoted and enjoyed over the last two millennia if some movement had taken Jesus seriously (i.e. mental and emotional liberation from the unnecessary fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence that are the outcomes of harsh and threatening God theories- “Cruel God theories”, Zenon Lotufo). But no one, not even Jesus’ closest companions/disciples, took his scandalous and offensive insights seriously.
The contradiction at the core of Christianity has to do with the following profound opposites- i.e. (1) non-retaliatory behavior versus retaliation, (2) the non-punitive treatment of offenders versus a punitive justice approach, (3) no conditions versus a supreme condition (sacrifice, Salvationism), (4) unlimited love versus limited tribal love, (5) the universal embrace of humanity versus the discriminatory and restricted inclusion of only true believers, and (6) non-apocalyptic versus total apocalyptic destruction. You can’t get more contrary or contradictory than these entirely opposite themes/realities.
Psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo (“Cruel God, Kind God”), and others, point to the “cognitive dissonance” that arises when you try to hold opposites in some larger merger.
“Greatest contradiction?” How so? Because of the historical and current world-wide influence of the Christian religion, and notably the influence of Paul’s Christ myth. This myth has shaped the version of Christianity that has descended down into our contemporary world while the prominent Jewish Christianity of the first century CE- i.e. Ebionism- eventually became absorbed into Islam (see Joseph Azzi’s “The Priest and the Prophet: The Christian Priest, Waraqa Ibn Nawfal’s Profound Influence Upon Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam”).
And also “greatest” due to the very nature of the contradiction itself. It is hard to find a more stark contrast between entirely opposite realities than that between the main message of Jesus and the contrary Christ message of Paul. I use the term “the main message of Jesus” in reference to the Q Wisdom Sayings Gospel, specifically the Q1 version, and the most important statement in that Q gospel- the cohering central theme- as now found in Matthew 5:38-48 and Luke 6:27-36.
Historical Jesus stated that, for him, the era of “eye for eye justice” was over. He rejected retaliatory justice and, instead, he urged the restorative justice of “love your enemies” (Matthew 5). Why? Because that was what God did. It was what God was like. The God of Jesus was love of a stunning new variety never before seen in the long history of God theories. His God did not retaliate with eye for eye justice but instead loved God’s enemies. And the evidence? Jesus illustrated his point with the main features of the natural world. God gave the good gifts of life- i.e. sun and rain for crops- to all, to both good and bad people. There was no discrimination, no exclusion of anyone.
God’s love and generosity was inclusive, universal, and unconditional. Jesus used a behavior/belief pairing to make this point. “Do this… because God does it”. He based his behavior on a similar validating belief. Do this- treat all others with unconditional love- and you will be just like God (you will be acting like the children of God) who treats all with unconditional love.
The God of Jesus was non-retaliatory, non-vengeful, non-punitive, non-excluding, non-destroying and therefore non-apocalyptic. Non-apocalyptic? Yes. A non-retaliatory God is not an apocalyptic God. Apocalyptic is the ultimate act of ‘eye for eye’ retaliation, vengeance, punishment, and destruction.
Further, such a God would not demand payment or punishment for wrong. He would not demand a sacrifice for sin. The God of Jesus would generously give to all, including those who do not pay back or respond in a similar manner (tit for tat response). His God would not just love those who loved him in return (limited tribal love) but would love all universally. His God was authentically universal and no conditions love toward all, without exception.
No sacrifice? Yes, this is intimated clearly in statements such as “Lend, expecting nothing in return (i.e. no payback)”. Expect no payment of debt or reparations. Just love and give anyway. Freely. Unconditionally. That is authentic love.
Try to get the “spirit” of the overall section and the central point of the message of the man (i.e. Matthew 5:38-48 and Luke 6:27-36). Too many get sidetracked in what they believe are qualifying details that undermine the core ‘no conditions’ point that Jesus was making. Remember Matthew, obsessed with righteousness, and as the editor of the material from Jesus that he included in his gospel, added his own distorting qualifications such as “Be perfect as your Father is perfect”. Luke did a better job with this very same material, getting the spirit of Jesus in stating, “Be unconditionally merciful as your Father is unconditionally merciful” (my paraphrase of Luke’s concluding point).
Note the same unconditional generosity and forgiveness in other Jesus material such as the Prodigal parable and the Vineyard workers story, and in statements on forgiving “seventy times seven” (unlimited). Also, in his inclusion of everyone at meal tables, including local “sinners” or lawbreakers.
But Paul…
Paul outrightly rejected the central non-retaliatory, unconditional theme of Jesus and shamefully retreated to the retaliatory, punitive theology of all past mythology and religion. His used the same behavior/belief pairing that Jesus had used, but Paul used that pairing to straightforwardly contradict the central theme of Jesus. I think Paul did that intentionally as he knew he was confronting the central statement and theme of Jesus. Hence, Paul similarly based his behavior on a validating belief.
Further, in his Corinthians letters Paul more generally trashed and rejected the wisdom tradition that Jesus, as a wisdom sage, belonged to.
At first glance, it appears that Paul embraced the behavioral standard of Jesus in stating that it was wrong to repay evil with evil, to retaliate (Romans 12:17-20). But then he contradicted the new non-retaliatory theology of Jesus and stated that, to the contrary, his God was retaliatory. Paul quoted an Old Testament statement to make his point, “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”. Paul re-affirmed eye for eye justice as the basis of his belief system. And His God would punish and destroy all in the epitome act of retaliatory punishment and destruction- an apocalypse. “Lord Jesus (Christ) will return in blazing fire to punish and destroy all who do not obey/believe my gospel of the Christ” (Thessalonians). See his other letters for similar statements of the punishment/destruction of unbelievers.
And a closer look at Paul’s ethic in that Romans 12 section shows that his advocacy for non-retaliatory behavior was actually retaliatory in intent. You were supposed to engage such behavior in order to ensure that God would take vengeance on your offenders/enemies. Don’t retaliate, he said, but be nice to your enemies in order to “heap coals of fire on them”- i.e. to ensure that God punishes them harshly. Both the theology and the related ethic of Paul are oriented to retaliation. The ethic is retaliatory in intent.
There is no greater contradiction in religious history than this one between the God of Jesus and Paul’s Christ. It is the contradiction between non-retaliation and retaliation in deity. Between Jesus’ inclusion of all (sun and rain on all), and Paul’s discriminatory exclusion and destruction of unbelievers. This is a contradiction between Jesus’ advocacy for no conditions love and Paul’s advocacy for love based on a supreme condition- the demand for a supreme sacrifice to pay for all sin (i.e. the sacrifice of a god-man to pay for the sins of all humanity- see Paul’s letter to the Romans).
Paul’s term “Jesus Christ” is then the epitome expression of a grand oxymoron. You cannot mix and merge these two entire opposites. Jesus is not Christ. He was against Christology or Christ mythology (see “Rethink Paul’s Christ Myth” in sections below). Note, for example, Matthew 20:25-28, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” Jesus condemned the desire to “lord over others” and told his followers that true greatness was to serve others, and that was what he was about. Paul’s “Lord Christ”, to the contrary, is about absolute domination over others (“Every knee shall bow”). Jesus was against that vision of a lording ruler or Lord Christ. Meaning- He is the anti-Christ at the very heart of Christianity.
Paul shaped the version of Christianity that we have today. Christianity is the religion of Paul’s Christ (“Christ-ianity”). It is not the religion of Jesus. It is not “Jesus-ianity”. Christianity does not properly represent Jesus to the world. As Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy stated so bluntly, “The diamonds/pearls of Jesus have been buried in the subhuman context of the New Testament”. I’ve paraphrased their actual statements to soften the harsh bluntness of their terms to describe Paul’s Christ.
Added notes on the Christ: Religious icons and myths still exert an outsize influence on modern human thought and behavior. Note the 85% of humanity that are still affiliated with a major world religion as per the World Religion Survey. Most of the remaining 15% also embrace diverse forms of “spiritual” beliefs.
A close examination of the major world religions reveals that significantly subhuman/inhuman features still prominently define those religious versions of God. That exposes a major problem with religious theology or God theories. Once something has been projected onto a religious deity, even if it was projected back in the era of human immaturity and primitive thought, such features have become part of the “immutability of deity”- i.e. the belief that religious gods do not change over time and hence must not be tampered with. This immutability feature is protected with threats of damnation for unbelievers guilty of blasphemy and heresy.
My argument is that religious reformism has to move beyond peripheral tinkering at the edges (changing this custom or that ritual) to thoroughly and properly tackle the core reality- the nature of religious deity. This is a project that involves fully humanizing our highest ideals and authorities with our ever-developing and progressing understanding of what is truly humane.
Fortunately, developing human insight into the true nature of love as unconditional now points us toward a stunning new understanding of the true nature of Ultimate Reality or God. Parents, spouses, and friends all know, from daily relating to imperfect family/people all around them, that love at its best is unconditional. We ought to now project this highest form of love out to define deity properly as Ultimate Love and Goodness.
The best in humanity, as we understand it in terms of our common modern sensibilities, should define what is assumed to be transcendently better in deity. Yes, this is an “audacious” new way of doing theology. But it points to a more humane understanding of deity than what we have inherited from religious traditions and their holy books, the old sources of authority that are still rooted in primitive views of right and wrong (e.g. punitive justice, exclusion of unbelievers, discrimination of minorities, domination/submission relationships, etc.).
Note on the general tone or spirit of Jesus’ teaching:
Historical Jesus repeatedly upset good, moral, righteous people who believed that justice meant retribution as in the “fairness” of proper eye for eye payback- i.e. that good should be rewarded and the bad should be punished. Jesus overturned that view of justice, scandalizing and offending people with his teaching on unconditional, universal love. Examples: “Forgive seventy times seven… which is to say- endlessly, without limit… sun and rain on all, both good and bad”). And he argued that his new view of God embodied this ‘no conditions love’ to transcendent or infinite degree. Everyone would get the same ultimate bliss in the end.
Based on the theology of Jesus we can affirm ultimate safety for all, both good and bad, and this should shape how we treat all in this life (i.e. with restorative justice). But in this life there are also natural and social consequences to behavior and we accept that as part of healthy human development. However, despite the natural consequences for behavior we can also freely choose to do the Mandela thing and generously forgive and pardon our oppressors/offenders and take a restorative approach toward them. Much like the US did, generally, with Japan and Germany after the Second World War. Or as the mother of the murdered daughter did in ‘The Forgiven’. Simon Wiesenthal, also chose to avoid retaliatory vengeance and forgive while seeking to hold Nazis responsible for their crimes (see his book “Justice, not Vengeance”).
Added note
All across history people have appealed to deities to validate their behavior and their treatment of others, notably, to validate the punishment of others for wrongs. People have long used the features of retaliation and punishment in divinity as the ultimate validation for punitive, payback justice toward others. But Historical Jesus swept away that basis of divine validation by stating that God did not retaliate (no more eye for eye) but, to the contrary, generously forgave, included, and loved all people the same, whether good or bad (sun and rain on both good and bad). You violate the central message of Historical Jesus if you try to use him or his theology to validate retaliatory, punitive justice. Christian Jesus (Paul’s “Jesus Christ”), of course, is another matter altogether. But that is something entirely opposite to Historical Jesus.
Nonretaliation in a violent world of attackers committed to extermination of others is very much about the attitude that defenders maintain when engaging the insanity that is war.
It seems almost lacking in common sense to not retaliate defensively when others are committed to your eradication, elimination. How then do we maintain humanity in the face of extermination savagery? No one seriously questions the right to defense. Military and police action to stop the violent.
But at the same time, don’t dismiss outright the historical insights on non-retaliation, love of enemy, forgiveness, etc. They were offered for a reason, to help us find ways to end the ‘eye for eye’ cycles of retaliatory violence that have resulted in endless wars and destruction.
A lot depends on how we frame non-retaliation, as related to personal intention and actual practise.
Cautioned by the sage advice of ancients like Laotzi, we must engage war to defeat our attackers. But after we defeat our attackers Laotzi urges us to not gloat over their defeat. Don’t engage triumphalism, he says. But then seek their restoration much like the Allies did with Germany and Japan after WW2. Or as Nelson Mandela did with his oppressors after attaining his freedom.
And check your attitude as you engage defensive force- Is it to hurt your “enemies” badly? To engage “hurt for hurt, pain for pain, humiliation for humiliation”? That is when you find people crossing the boundaries of humaneness to punitively destroy their opponents.
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Joseph Campbell, “Myths To Live By”).
Here’s another take on Jefferson and Tolstoy’s point that the Jesus insight was buried in Paul’s Christ myth. Theological, philosophical, and just street-level speculation suggests that we cannot know good except in contrast with its opposite- evil. Hence, the fact of evil in life. There would be no knowledge or experience of good if not for the contrast with evil.
And hence, the function of the Christ myth in providing a contrasting context to make the Jesus insight appear all the brighter for what it is- the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God. This profound insight is contrasted with the worst of primitive retaliatory, punitive mythology in Paul’s Christ.
So is the New Testament context that provides the above contrast a divine plan? Or just free-will consequence? As in Paul’s free-will choice to reject the Jesus insight and retreat to retaliatory, conditional theology. Perhaps, unknowingly, Paul provided the context where something good only presents in its true goodness when contrasted with something bad. Because again, we don’t know good except as contrasted with bad.
This speculation offers a new possible take on the context of the New Testament as providing a proper contrast for the Jesus breakthrough insights.
The Christ as necessary foil for Jesus, the anti-Christ? The Christology of Paul showing just how opposite Jesus was. The contrast “brightens” what the good is that you want to know. Just musing.
Note: The author of this site has aggressive metastatic prostate cancer, just discovered in 2022. While not fearing death, the author now finds his mind more wonderfully concentrated with the prospect of looming demise (better- death as transition, liberation) just ahead in the future (Samuel Johnson). But there is so much more to do to reassure people that there is no ultimate monster to fear.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Single most profound insight ever? Wendell Krossa
Is that too over-the-top superlative, hyperbolic, exaggerated? Not even close. Because the central insight of Historical Jesus, that shaped all his teaching and his own behavior, is about something transcendent, as with all theological insight. His main insight/theme is better understood in terms of Joseph Campbell’s comment that the term “God” points to something infinitely beyond, the “God infinitely beyond God” as in something inexpressible by language, by categories, terms, definitions. Something infinitely better than the best that can be imagined.
The Near-Death Experience people offer some of the best comment on the unconditional Love that is God in their efforts to communicate its transcendent nature. They state that they are frustrated by human language and unable to find words to describe that love. Language only limits and distorts the inexpressible wonder of what they actually experienced.
So most profound? Yes.
Consider the potency of the Jesus discovery to liberate our consciousness from the millennia-long history of enslavement to and suffering under the psychic torments from the threat theology that has shaped human mythology from our beginnings in prehistory. Threat theology as in deity that is angry with human imperfection, that punishes people through the harsher features of the natural world. And threat theology as in deity that promises ultimate violent destruction in apocalypse and hell.
That very same threat theology then moved on to dominate the great religious traditions, and now continues to also shape contemporary “secular, ideological” systems of belief with the threats from “secularized” versions of deity- i.e. “vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, punitive Universe, payback karma, random Natural Law, etc.”.
Threat theology, from the earliest emergence of human consciousness, has unnecessarily burdened people with additional fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair, depression, fatalism/resignation, nihilism, and violence, all incited by entirely false ideas of metaphysical reality. The psychopathology of threat theology has enslaved human consciousness by adding psychic misery to already unbearable physical suffering.
Threat theology is constructed, significantly, on the fallacy that natural world threats (i.e. natural disasters, disease, predatory violence, accident, etc.) are evidence that the gods are punishing people for their sins/imperfection. Early shaman/priests then intensified the burden of fear and anxiety with further threats of the looming ending of the world in the great divine punishment of apocalypse. Note the Sumerian Flood version of this fallacy, or the Christian book of Revelation.
The early priests/shaman further added threats of after-life judgment, condemnation, exclusion, and punitive destruction in myths of religious hells (threats of after-life harm added to threats of this-life harm). Threat theology has long deformed human consciousness, personality, and consequently entire societies. Most egregious, it has even incited and validated violence as people justify their own lust for retaliatory vengeance in the name of their retaliatory God.
How does this happen? A God that threatens retaliation, punishment, and violent destruction functions as the supreme motivator, as the ultimate ideal and authority for people to do the same. Across history people have based their behavior on their beliefs believing that they must serve the gods, they must act according to the will or law of their gods. Hence, “we become just like the God that we believe in”.
These quotes on the potent influence of threat theology from psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo’s Cruel God, Kind God, quoting psychologist Harold Ellens (both Christians):
“… the pathological nature of mainstream orthodox theology and popular religious ideation”.
“One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image…
“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
“As Harold Ellens says, ‘If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your enemies’”. (End of Lotufo quotes)
The Jesus insight goes right to heart of human narratives to overturn the central governing ideal that is threatening deity and declare that there is no such reality as a retaliatory, punishing God, a God threatening violence. There never has been any such God. That was always just a fiction of primitive human imaginations possessed with their own impulse to retaliate against enemy others/offenders, early primitives given to creating gods as their highest ideals and authorities to validate such base animal impulses.
Historical Jesus went right to the core of the matter, directly to the God theory that most powerfully shapes all else in human narratives. He rejected the entire previous history of speculation that deity was a retaliatory, destroying reality. He countered that with an entirely contrary insight that radically overturned all previous mythical and religious theology. He stated that there is no such thing as a retributive, punitive, or violent deity. He stated, to the contrary, that God was a stunningly inexpressible love that forgives all, does not employ ‘eye for eye’ retributive justice against offenders/enemies (i.e. reward good, punish bad), does not punish offenders, but instead scandalously forgives all and showers all with the good things of life- i.e. sun and rain as the two most critical goods of life for agrarian people. These most important gifts of life are given without tribal discrimination to both good and bad people (see Matthew 5 and Luke 6 summaries of the core teaching of Historical Jesus).
Here again is my paraphrased summary of Jesus’ core message on an unconditional, universally loving God:
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (Paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
Jesus argued that authentically humane love is far more than just love for those who are good to you and love you in return. No. Authentically humane love also loves the unloving, the enemies. Love in “tit for tat” relationships is easy love, and even criminals do that. Easy peasy stuff. But try loving your enemies, those who don’t love you in return for the love that you show them. By loving your enemies/offenders you are reaching for heroic status, you are towering in stature as maturely human, you are conquering your inner monster that urges you to retaliate when offended. You are overcoming the real enemy that is your animal passions/impulses to tribalism and punitive response. That makes you a real hero of your story.
Jesus further illustrated his new insight on God in the short story parable of the Prodigal father who brushed aside the wasteful son’s effort to apologize as unnecessary. He wanted no reparations, restitution, or repentance. Just celebration. All was forgiven and the son fully accepted back again. The older brother was quite pissed with the unconditional forgiveness and generous spirit of the father (Luke 15).
So also, the vineyard owner (Matthew 20) gives expression to a love that is unconditional and dumbfoundingly generous toward all, even toward the latecomers who did not deserve it according to conventional standards of fairness. The owner chose to express equal generosity toward all, deserving and undeserving. The all-day workers were incensed at his scandalous generosity toward the undeserving.
That scandalous generosity offends good moral, righteous people and their sense of justice as long-established retribution (proper reward and punishment). If we are not offended by Jesus’ teaching, if our sense of “Justice” and fairness are not provoked, then we have not fully understood the scandalous, offensive nature of the unconditional love that he was advocating. “Offensive” to minds that are oriented to “tit for tat, hurt for hurt, pain for pain” responses to bad behavior.
Note also the incident where Jesus entered a synagogue and read the Isaiah 61 passage affirming the liberation and favor of God. He refused to continue reading to include the following sentence “(to proclaim) the day of vengeance of our God”. Later, after interacting with local Jews who had attended his reading, he added that God had shown inclusive mercy to traditional enemies of Jews, like the Syrians. That refusal to affirm divine retaliatory vengeance and instead to affirm inclusive love for enemies, offended those Jews to the point they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff. Once again, the message of unconditional generosity incited rage in good, moral people oriented to conventional understanding of justice as some form of vengeance.
Get Jesus central theme and message clear- There never has been any such God as the tribal, vengeful, punitive deity of all previous mythology and religion. There is no divine threat. No eye for eye retribution as in all previous human understanding of fair justice as reward the good, punish the bad. No- the reality that humanity has always understood as God, gives the good gifts of life to both good and bad people. With the God of Jesus there is no discrimination, no tribal exclusion, no punitive justice, no promised destruction.
The ultimate validating ideal and authority, that so many victimized and oppressed people across history have hoped exists to fulfill their desire for some form of ultimate vengeance against their enemies and offenders, has never existed. This truth proclaimed by Jesus drains the common hope of many offended people that their offenders will “Go to hell”.
With this stunning new theology of an unconditional God, how do we then respond to the age-old practise of humanity to “base behavior on belief” as in basing human ethics on theology? Well, starting with a negative- We cannot validate punitive, retaliatory justice with theology anymore. There is no punitive God backing us up. We are on our own with any argument for retributive justice responses that include an element of “pain returned for pain caused, harm for harm, tit for tat”. We cannot drag God into validating such justice, such response to enemies/offenders. We now have an entirely new ultimate ideal and authority to wrestle with. An entirely new God as ultimate ideal and authority for ethics, behavior.
Let this stunning new theology marinate in your mind. Common sense intrudes immediately to qualify our understanding. The unconditional theology that would inspire unconditional treatment of enemies does not mean dogmatic pacifism as in “turn other cheek” in the face of evil. Any common sense position on love understands that it will never mean ignoring criminal behavior or laying down before violent people. Common sense will act, even with force, to restrain violent people, to incarcerate and to keep incarcerated the repeatedly violent in order to protect the innocent. That is the fundamental responsibility of love. Common sense will also carefully engage war to prevent and end aggressive violence from others.
Add that proper human development requires all of us to take full responsibility for our behavior and all outcomes. That involves apology, restitution, and imprisonment where violence is involved. If we cannot or will not control our worst impulses then we must be removed from the public in order to protect the freedom of others. This is all basic to human development and maturity.
Further, the generous love advocated by Jesus is not a prescription for business or economic policy. People in business supply chains are obligated to pay their debts in order for creditor businesses to continue functioning. It is entirely up to business owners if and how they freely choose to respond to debtors. It is not up to debtors or outsiders to demand such response.
I suggest that the Jesus insight presents a critical element to understand in terms of properly defining ultimate human ideals and authorities. It is critical to getting human meta-narratives right as in setting forth fully humane ideals and themes to shape human thinking, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior. That insight goes to the root of what is wrong in correcting the long-standing core ideas that have validated the worst behavior among people to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of others (offenders, enemies).
The core Jesus insight and theme offers a potent alternative, showing us how to break the endless cycles of eye for eye retaliatory vengeance and violence that have too often reduced us to the insanity and destructiveness of war. It reminds us of the better angels of our nature that urge forgiveness of the worst, that remind us that even our enemies are still family (the non-tribal oneness of all humanity) and that after their defeat we are obligated to treat them with restorative justice just as the Allies re-embraced Germany and Japan after WW2.
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Joseph Campbell, “Myths To Live By”).
Additionally, our ideals should be something higher than what we have achieved so far in life. They should judge us and challenge us to even higher reaches of our defining ideal of love, to experience truly heroic stature as maturely human, like a Mandela. “Love your enemy” takes us to such heights.
The leaders of world religions, like Christianity, have a responsibility to acknowledge the actual nature of the central insight and theme of Historical Jesus and then replace their old deity theories with his stunning new theology. They have the obligation (by virtue of claiming to represent Jesus) to embrace and promote Jesus-ianity, not Paul’s entirely opposite theology of Christ-ianity, that is simply a re-affirmation of the primitive threat theology that Jesus rejected. Admittedly, religious leaders will resist such fundamental change because it spells the end of their religious authority over others. Even more threatening, the new theology of Jesus means the end of religion itself as the conditional institution that has always promoted the onerous conditions of right beliefs, correct rituals, demands for sacrifice/payment, and religious lifestyle as the identity marker of tribal affiliation with some “true religion”. All core features of religion that are entirely contrary to the unconditional, universal love taught by Jesus.
Unconditional deity also spells the end of secular narratives using the same primitive themes to validate their varied crusades, like the climate alarmism movement based on angry Nature/Mother Earth demanding the sacrifice of decarbonization, de-industrialization, de-development. These “secular/ideological” pathologies are no different in essential themes from religious threat theologies.
There, once again, I have fulfilled my Daddy thing- reassuring the kids that there is no monster. There is nothing to ultimately fear. You are all safe in love, in the end.
I hope to be somewhat like the wise man in the hero’s quest who gives others a weapon to slay their monster, and there is no greater monster in life than the threatening gods of religious traditions. No historical religion has ever communicated to people the wonder of an unconditionally loving God, the God of Historical Jesus. None of them.
And I am just doing my job, fulfilling the reason for why I came here to Earth. Just wiping the “dung off the diamond” to re-expose to the light the most profound insight ever offered to humanity. This is about the most profound liberation of human consciousness and human spirits at the deepest levels of our subconscious.
More on apocalyptic millennial crusades and their outcomes that “destroy the world to save the world”
The destructive outcomes of climate alarmism “salvation” schemes- destroying the world to save the world. Note again what happened in Sri Lanka (2021-22) with the disastrous collapse of their agricultural sector, and almost happened in Holland and Ireland (thank God for commoner/populism pushback), and is proposed for Canadian agriculture by our green-zealot prime minister Justin Trudeau….
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/11/eu-farmers-protest-green-policies-threat-to-greenest-lands/
“EU Farmers Protest Green Policies’ Threat to Greenest Lands
“By Vijay Jayaraj Feb. 11, 2024
“Tractor convoys, road blockades, and impassioned speeches reflect the agricultural community’s deep frustration with attempts to reduce farmlands and ban fertilizer use.
“The primary policy target of farmers is a so-called Farm to Fork program that seeks to halve pesticide use, reduce fertilizer use, cut by at least 10% agricultural areas and mandate a conversion of 25% of the European Union’s agricultural land to “organic-only” farming….
“Farmers argue that all these policies jeopardize food security and undermine the rich agricultural heritage that has defined European societies for centuries.
“Behind all this is the EU’s climate change agenda’s obsession with reducing harmless industrial and agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases, which include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane….
“France’s largest farm union, FNSEA, says it wants a change in the “very philosophy of the Green Deal which assumes degrowth.”
“French farmers are united in their opposition to absurd, extreme and unworkable environmental policies,” said the president of Coordination Rurale, a French farming group. “Those in power do not spare a thought for the impact of these policies on the livelihoods of farmers, the food security of the nation and the cost-of-living crisis facing ordinary people.”…
“Reducing the use of fertilizers would require employing more land for agriculture, but the EU’s green policies intend to decrease the amount of farmland. This amounts to forced agricultural suicide that threatens hunger, death, and societal collapse….
“The European agricultural crisis is a warning to citizens of other governments planning to adopt similar policies for agricultural production to avert a nonexistent climate crisis.
“So called green policies would kill the greenest parts of our world as they destroy ordinary people’s dream of a decent life with access to basic necessities for living.”
“Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.”
See also https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/12/the-deindustrialization-of-europe-in-five-charts/