More “Preface” below, or “weave” into Bob Brinsmead’s coming essays…
These quotes from coming material… See new material below…
“Ponder this a bit: This world-straddling religion, that has dominated world consciousness for two millennia, is now exposed by a growing body of scholarship as a “cultic heresy”. That was the argument of the family of Jesus who most accurately represented what the man had actually taught.
“Contrary to its claim to represent Jesus and God, Christianity has profoundly distorted and buried the message of Historical Jesus and outright rejected his new insight that God was an unconditional reality. Imagine the epitome of gall in claiming that you most faithfully represent Jesus and God to humanity when your complex of onerous religious conditions contradict entirely the unconditional and anti-religion message of the man. His central insight and themes focused on unconditional ethics and unconditional validating reality.
“Think of how this colossus of a religion has influenced billions for good and bad. And oh, the bad has been so really bad.
“Before getting into more of Bob’s essays…”.
See the rest in soon to be added comment…
The most dangerous ideas/themes still protected in our meta-narratives, and the horrific outcomes in human societies, Wendell Krossa
The deformities, the psychopathologies in primitive mythology (which is to say- derangements in human thinking), were built into narratives right at the beginning. And the same core themes that the ancients constructed to shape their worldviews have continued down through history, to shape contemporary narratives, whether religious or secular. Just as Joe Campbell said, people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world- i.e. myths of an original paradise that was ruined by early people who “sinned” (original sin fallacy), fables that life was then cursed by God and subsequently declines toward something worse, toward final ending in apocalypse.
Myths stating that, consequent to ruining paradise, deity then demands some sacrifice, payment, and suffering as the punishment elements in making atonement. Myths that deity also demands true believers must heroically engage a “righteous war against evil enemies” that must be purged from the world, exterminated, whether here or in the hereafter. The tribal battle myth derives from Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism between good and evil. And once the destruction of enemies is accomplished, then deity promises renewed paradise in utopian communalism (salvation in millennialism).
See further below an outline of how this pathology begins in human history and is projected onto ultimate ideals and authorities (deities) and then becomes embedded as archetypal in human subconscious. From there it continues to emanate out to incite and guide, across history, the shaping of new narratives with the same old themes to continue to produce the same old outcomes of deforming human minds, emotions, motivations, and behavior, even to mass-death outcomes in our societies.
Focusing…
The most potently destructive of all psychopathologies is the ultimate ideal that exerts far more influence than other beliefs, the ultimate authority that functions as the cohering center of narratives- i.e. the threatening God that holds primitive mythologies and religions together, notably the God that has been defined with the primitive animal features (the “evil triad”) of tribalism, domination (i.e. lord/king), and punitive destruction of unbelievers/enemies.
That is the monster that had long dominated primitive mythologies and religions but then Historical Jesus courageously confronted and brought down that monster with his stunning new theology that God was not tribal, was not a dominating Lord/King (“true greatness is to serve others not lord over them”), and was not punitively destructive (a non-retaliatory God, no more “eye for eye”). To the absolute contrary, God was transcendent unconditional love, inclusive universal love.
But then Paul, a brief 2 decades after Jesus died (50 CEish), rejected outright that stunning new theology of Jesus and set about burying Jesus’ liberating message with his Christ myth that re-instated the monster deity to continue dominating human narratives into the present. Paul, in reviving God as tribal, dominating lord, and ultimate destroyer in apocalypse and hell, thereby re-established the totalitarian’s formula of “fear=control”. Create a monster deity (i.e. “wrathful God” of Romans) to terrorize people with and then present a salvation scheme to offer frightened people, a salvation scheme that entails onerous religious conditions to control the lives of those who become true believers.
Here is what I am getting to, this a critical point- Consider last century and the roughly 140 million people slaughtered in the Marxist revolutions and collectivist experiments (i.e. China, Russia) as well as in wars of aggression (i.e. Nazis, Japanese). Think of the horrific stories from that violence and the masses of follow-up studies and commentary on what happened and why, what lessons could be learned.
Religion as contributing factor to mass-death?
But the most stunning element of all in relation to last century’s violence and death, the element that is hardly ever discussed except among historians, the element that never gets proper and full public exposure in news, is that fundamental Christian themes drove much of that last century’s violence. Basic Christian beliefs incited, guided, and validated the leaders of the Marxist revolutions. And those same beliefs guided and validated Hitler’s madness, convincing many “good Christian people” to join the madness, to support it, or at least to not resist it (i.e. the “banality of evil” factor).
The role that Christian themes played in last century’s violence is a far more outrageous and immoral reality than the common fact that devotion to the Christ was behind the slaughter of the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the endless persecution of heretics, witches, and other infidels. What the Christ themes promoted in the 20th Century was far more violent and destructive than the more obviously public Christian movements of previous centuries (i.e. Christian Crusaders slaughtering Jewish communities on their way across Europe to slaughter Muslims in Jerusalem).
Historians have done detailed and dense research on this contributing element- i.e. the Christian beliefs/ideas/themes that drove the mass-death violence of last century. Note, for example, the research of Arthur Herman in “The Idea of Decline In Western History”, Richard Landes in “Heaven On Earth”, Arthur Mendel in “Vision And Violence”, David Redles in “Hitler’s Millennial Reich”, etc. Also, James Carrol’s “Constantine’s Sword”.
This is the real stunner of a story behind last century’s violence and destruction. Again, Christian ideas/beliefs/themes were significant contributing factors to the madness and mass-death outcomes of Marxism and Nazism, whether in straightforward Christian forms or in the more “secularized” versions that were still identical in content to the more clearly religious versions. The mass-death movements of the 20th Century were “profoundly religious” crusades. Christian crusades. There, hard as it will be for good Christian believers to comprehend, that is the unavoidable conclusion from factual evidence on the recent past.
Here are some quotes I’ve posted before from Landes research in “Heaven On Earth”: Shrinking the distance between the sacred and the secular.
He notes that many historians stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the influence of Christian ideas/beliefs on Marxism and Nazism. They refuse to admit that these movements fall into the category of “barbarian theocracies”. They recoil from admitting the significant influence of the Christian tradition, and that the leaders of Marxism, Nazism (and environmental alarmism) are little more than “medieval believers in religious sects”.
Landes has been especially helpful in focusing on the religious nature of the above so-called “secular movements”. He recognizes that his research on Marxism, Nazism and environmental alarmism is controversial “since (his research) challenges positivist notions about the clear division between secular and religious phenomena.” He states that in his research he will “illustrate how key millennial tropes- i.e. apocalyptic scenarios filled with both outrageous hopes and fears and paranoid conspiracy thinking- continue to work on allegedly modern, enlightened minds”.
Historian Landes says further that there is an “almost instinctive hostility most historians feel toward (Christian apocalyptic) millennialism”. He notes the “overwhelming resistance (he) got from modern historians to the identification of these allegedly ‘secular’ revolutionary movements (i.e. Communism, Nazism)” as religious. His point is to “challenge positivist notions about the clear division between secular and religious phenomena”.
“Millennial world histories are the mother of all grand narratives… millennialism is a… revolutionary ideology”, p.13.
“Apocalyptic conflicts are among the few religious phenomena to survive secularization, indeed, mutate into recognizable and powerful secular forms of millennialism that have dominated the history of the last century… (i.e.) communism, Nazism…”, p. 87.
He notes, for example, the case of Mikhael Bakunin to illustrate Communist apocalyptic millennialism. “Few thinkers reveal so clearly the deep connection between religious and secular apocalyptic thought” and how he saw himself as another Jesus (the messiah complex).” Landes says that rather than abandon apocalyptic millennial beliefs, modern societies have invented “new, secular variants”. (Environmental alarmism, climate alarmism, are other “secular variants” of apocalyptic millennialism.)
Landes returns to the influence of religious themes on secular society and movements throughout his book, noting that especially Judaism and Christianity, as apocalyptic millennial religious cultures, have profoundly influenced Western consciousness. So James Tabor has stressed this dominant influence on Western civilization in “Paul and Jesus”.
I would add to Landes that it was particularly the themes of the “apocalyptic Christ” of Paul that had the most potent influence on the crusades of Marxism and Nazism. Note that Hitler initially presented himself as the forerunner to the Messiah (a “John the Baptist” figure), then later identified as the Messiah, and then finally as “the violent Christ of Revelation” who must purge all his enemies in the great final Armageddon battle to “exterminate or be exterminated”. That explains Hitler’s refusal to listen to his generals and pull back his defeated troops from Russia (Operation Barbarossa in 1941). The Christian Armageddon meant that one side had to be entirely exterminated, as in Revelation.
Hitler believed that “Providence” was guiding him as he fought the final Armageddon battle against the evil Jewish Bolsheviks, and that explains why he was so obsessed with the Eastern front as the real Armageddon battle (he viewed the Western Front as a nuisance war).
My point- Hitler’s use of Christian themes in his writing and speeches resonated with the essentially Christian worldview of most Germans and that convinced many “good Christian people” to support him in his mass-death madness. As Landes argues, Hitler’s religiosity is “a major problem for historians who want to view him through a secular prism… The Nazi episode represents one of the most powerful connections between religious leader and following of the faithful in recorded history.”
Arthur Herman (“The Idea of Decline In Western History”), also notes the Christian themes driving contemporary secular apocalyptic narratives and ideologies like Declinism (“the most dominant and influential theme in the modern world”). Themes such as “an original paradise that has been lost”, and “the divine demand for violent purging of evil enemies” (i.e. again, the Christ of Revelation will destroy all enemies and purge evil entirely from the world). Landes notes that Marxist and Nazi leaders believed that “only by destroying the world can you save it”, only by purging the old order through violent revolution (coercive purification) can you make way for the installation of the new utopian millennium (i.e. “You have to break eggs to make an omelette”).
It is astonishing that these themes of apocalyptic millennialism/salvation are still honored and worshipped today in a great world religion and that the solution to this destructive pathology has been there all along in the same Christian holy book, the Jesus message that Paul dismissed, discredited, rejected, and successfully buried with his Christ religion. And despite the history of destructive outcomes, the themes of Paul’s apocalyptic destroyer- the Christ- are still permitted to deform, distort, and undermine the contrary message of Jesus.
We are all responsible for what we believe and the outcomes of beliefs that we hold/promote:
Try to get some sense of the scale of the scandal in all this- i.e. that common Christian themes, the basic features of the Christ myth of Paul, were prominently involved in stirring mass-death madness just decades ago.
And to add to the sense of egregious irresponsibility and culpability for that madness and death, we have had the powerful counter narrative, for two millennia, to the very ideas/themes that incited and validated such horror- i.e. the teaching of Historical Jesus.
In regard to “egregious irresponsibility and culpability” I am talking about Paul’s denial and outright rejection of what Jesus contributed in his “stunning new non-retaliatory theology” (James Robinson). Then followed the subsequent two millennia of Christian blindness, ignorance, or carelessness, to the outcomes of their devotion to the Christ myth, an almost “criminal” form of irresponsibility. The subsequent widespread inability or refusal to make connections between themes and destructive outcomes, or to not care, is a denial of the universal, non-retaliatory, unconditional love that centered the teaching of Jesus.
The denial of Jesus’ teaching, and to the contrary, pledging loyalty and devotion to the Christ (with horrific outcomes) was illustrated in John Calvin as he refused the pleas of fellow Christians in Geneva to heed the message of Jesus and “love his enemy”. Instead, Calvin pushed ahead to have fellow Christian theologian Servetus put to horrible death by burning at the stake because Calvin stubbornly insisted that he must honor the Christ, fulfill his devotion to the Christ of Paul and thereby protect the honor of God (i.e. put the false prophet to death as commanded in the Christian holy book).
For two millennia Christians have pledged loyalty to the themes of Paul’s Christ in contradiction to the message of Jesus, with now some 2 billion believers bowing to honor and worship the Christ every week.
It has been some egregious failure, even intentional denial, to refuse to distinguish the difference between the messages of Jesus and Paul and to admit the horrific outcomes across history from Paul’s promotion of devotion to his Christ. Again, Sowell’s “test of facts.” The historical evidence is far beyond undeniable now. Whether “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar”, or “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel research, we know today the profound difference between Paul and Jesus, and it is irresponsibly inexcusable to deny the differing outcomes from these two contrasting narratives (i.e. the evidence on the outcomes of devotion to the Christ myth).
Until we recognize these fundamental contributing factors, their deforming influence on human personality, the consequent outcomes of such themes in entire societies like Germany, and then make radical changes, until we responsibly acknowledge such facts, we will only continue to repeat eruptions of violence that stained the 20th Century.
Richard Landes, among others, has warned that if you dismiss monsters like Hitler as just further examples of historical madmen and do not understand how apocalyptic millennial ideas (the basic features of Paul’s Christ gospel) can carry societies into mass-death, then you have learned nothing from the Nazi phenomenon. And, not learning from history, you will only repeat such episodes of madness.
As the author of “God’s Chosen Peoples” concluded, devotion to religious ideas (I would emphasize especially devotion to the Christ themes of apocalyptic millennialism) has made Christ-ianity the bloodiest movement in history. Add here the violence from other major religious traditions that share the same basic narrative themes.
For two millennia we have had the potent and liberating alternative from Jesus but that stunning new theology has been largely ignored, distorted by larger New Testament Christology context, and buried. If the leaders of Marxism and Nazism, even though many were Christians, had held to Jesus’ “love your enemy”, without the deforming context of the violent apocalyptic Christ myth, then there never would have been that violence of the past century, or at least not the divine validation for such barbarity. If, as Christians, they had known that Jesus was nothing like what Paul presented in his tribal, dominating, punitive destroyer- the Christ- then historical outcomes may have been very different.
The factual history of how dangerous devotion to Christ themes have been, is why Bob Brinsmead and me, along with many others, work to distinguish between Historical Jesus and Paul, and expend endless effort to restore the actual message of Jesus to its rightful place, no longer profoundly distorted by Paul’s Christology. With others we work to “pull the Jesus diamonds out of the dung of Paul’s Christ mythology” (to quote Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy).
Moving on to my intro comments to Bob Brinsmead’s essays that will eventually be linked here…
The strongest available terms don’t communicate the horrific outcomes that Paul’s Christology contributed to across subsequent history in the mass-death movements that were shaped and validated by his Christ themes, notably shaping Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. Historians, repeatedly sourced here, have traced the Christian ideas, the basic Christ themes, that contributed to driving these crusades.
What happened? With his Christ myth, Paul unleashed another version of threat theology on humanity that continued the horrific deforming of human personalities and lives, just as that same old divine threat had darkened and corrupted human minds over previous millennia.
As psychologist Harold Ellens said, “Sick Gods make people sick”. Threatening deity makes people sick with fear, anxiety, despair, depression, fatalism, nihilism, and violence. The subsequent Christian endeavor to merge the diamonds of Jesus with the Christ mythology in the New Testament only created ongoing cognitive dissonance confusion. Paul’s cloaking of his Christ with features like love, mercy, forgiveness furthered the confusion over the actual barbarity of what Paul promoted.
However, the Jesus teaching did moderate somewhat the harsher influence of Paul’s Christ. Despite the presence of the remnant message of Jesus in the New Testament, and despite dressing the Christ with a few humane features, the more dominant elements of the Christ doctrine- i.e. tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction- resulted in devotion to the Christ still inciting endless brutality across the history of Christianity.
Harold Ellens has isolated the core issue involved with the merging of Jesus with Christ better than anyone else. When you promote a version of monster deity, that image incites “the deep structure of our unconscious motivations”, and people will embrace “ultimate solutions… that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence… If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
This illustrates the age-old human pattern of basing behavior on similar validating belief. Hence, the destructive outcomes in what is termed “religiously inspired violence”.
Repeating Zenon Lotufo’s quotes of Ellens (“Cruel God, Kind God”):
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (Romans, Revelation)… 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’”.
Further…
Good scholarship has revealed how Paul created his Christ myth, resulting in the Christ-ianity that eventually dominated the Western world. Bob Brinsmead has summarized that scholarship and added his great summarizing commentary to the scholars (see below). I have also repeatedly posted the historical research of Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, and David Redles on the impact of Paul and his Christ influencing violence and destruction in the “secular/ideological” crusades noted above.
This is problem-solving at its most fundamental- thorough, and long term. What Landes warned, for example, in stating that if you dismiss Hitler as just another madman and don’t understand how apocalyptic millennial ideas can carry a society of good people into mass-death, then you have not learned the real lesson of the Nazis and you will only repeat such eruptions of violence.
The same can be said of ISIS-type crusades that are incited and validated by the very same core complex of themes that we see in Paul’s Christ- i.e. tribalism (true believers favored, unbelievers damned), domination (human subservience to divine domination- i.e. deity as Lords/Kings, a domination mediated through priesthoods/religious authorities), and punitive destruction of “enemies”. These are common themes found across all religions and are now repeated throughout secular/ideological movements, rendering them also “profoundly religious” crusades (think “climate apocalypse” here).
More coming… Especially critical in the commentary here is to point to the alternative to the brutal features of Paul’s Christology, an alternative that was offered by Historical Jesus in his profoundly humane insight into Ultimate Reality that rejected entirely the threat theology that had dominated human mythology and religion across previous history. It is essentially the contrast between unconditional and highly conditional, among varied related contrasts. The difference between anti-religion and traditional religion.
This is world-transforming stuff. The egregious shame is that we were offered this two thousand years ago but Paul’s “Christ-ianity” buried it.
More Trump “weave” before getting to Bob’s essays. “Weave” in religious terms- a John the Baptist preparatory thing, Wendell Krossa
The point in all this is that humanity has created narratives, stories, ideas, systems of beliefs across history that embody human explanations of reality and life, that provide the guiding ideals that validate how we live, for good and bad. And, our contention here, too many of the bad ideas of our primitive past still dominate our contemporary meta-narratives, both religious and secular/ideological, and hence still incite and validate too much bad behavior.
If we are going to properly and for the long-term future solve the problem of bad behavior then we must go to the roots of the problem and clean up the mess of the archetypes long embedded in human subconscious, archetypes that have been molded by the bad ideas that framed the earliest narratives (i.e. primitive mythologies, religions). The influence of those archetypes, and the themes they lead to in human narratives, has been immeasurably damaging in human lives and societies.
Again, this is not about picking on or trashing any particular religion- i.e. Christianity. Its about looking at our narratives, our grand stories, and making basic distinctions between good and bad. That is the fundamental responsibility of all of us, from childhood on throughout life. Discerning good from bad is essential to human development and maturing and must include going after things that for too long have been protected under the “canopy of the sacred” as untouchable, divine, immutable truths. No, they are human constructed. Created at a time when human understanding was still primitive and barbaric, barely above the level of animal reality, things that today are understood as clearly wrong.
And we get it that people in positions of power and control over narratives, i.e. religious authorities and the priesthoods who live off this, people who benefit most from religious systems, these people are most vociferous in defensively refusing to permit any rethinking of their religious traditions, except for allowing some minor tinkering at the periphery.
In a huff of survival panic the authorities smear and vilify all serious investigation and exposure of any corruption in their systems. Interestingly, the chief heretics of these heretical systems (see the quotes of the scholars in Bob’s essays) project the smear of “heresy” onto the dissenters to their systems. That sounds familiar, eh. What Woke Progressives have been doing to all dissenters over the past decade- smearing as “threats to democracy, fascists, racists, etc.”
So, I get the sense of threat to one’s survival, the desperation to protect something that is obviously in decline, even the resort at times to the phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. If we start to take Jesus seriously- i.e. his unconditional insight and teaching- then yes, that spells the end of all conditional religion, meaning the end of all religion. That is an “existential” threat to the power and control of elites/experts.
More Intro to new Brinsmead Material
Our ancestors did the best that they knew at the time of their residence on Earth. They projected the worst features of their still animal-like existence out onto their highest ideals and authorities (their gods) and that psychopathology became the religions and laws that would then guide and validate their lives. Their belief systems assured them that they were obeying the “law of God, the will of God”, that they were fulfilling the imagined purpose of their God for creating them. Unfortunately, their thinking was deformed by the primitive mythology that dominated their era.
We now understand their mistakes better from our hindsight perspective, looking back from a more sensitive and humane era. And that makes it egregiously irresponsible for us today to let their fallacies continue in our contemporary narratives, religious or secular. Fallacies or psychopathologies that psychologist Harold Ellens calls “sick God” theology. I use the term “threat theology” for the same mythology.
It is beyond irresponsible of us to let their psychopathologies continue with dominant place in our narratives, irresponsible for us to refuse to expose the real nature of that primitive mythology, and then to refuse to clean up the mess. Most egregious, too many of us are content to let the barbaric nature our ancestor’s mythology continue to define our highest ideals and authorities- i.e. deity. That is inexcusable because we know the nature of true humanity better now, the nature of authentically humane reality. I am pointing to true “wokeness” here.
Our primitive ancestors, with their mythical fallacies, short-circuited the human exodus out of animal existence to become fully human. The grand meta-story of humanity is an “exodus” story, the great project to reject our animal past and to learn to become truly human, to tower in stature as maturely humane persons.
The narrative themes of the ancestors, the belief systems that they constructed, slowed and derailed our grand exodus with primitive ideas to shape narratives that then continued to incite the worst impulses in people. For example, their framing of deities as tribal, dominating Lords/Kings, and judges that executed punitive destruction of enemies/unbelievers, did not inspire the better angels of people. Hence, those deformed narratives helped to short-circuit progress and that stalling effect continued over subsequent millennia.
Then in a historical apex, some 2 millennia ago, Paul probably did arguably the worst damage possible to human progress with his re-enforcing of primitive threat theology in a potent new version that was his Christ myth. He wrapped his Christ with the worst features of previous threat theology- i.e. the tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction themes. He then reached for new heights of influence by presenting his Christ as a universal reality, a Savior for all humanity across all history. Paul’s Christ was not just another local deity but was to be the new monotheist “Supergod” for the entirety of humanity across the millennia.
He framed his Christ with ultimate and eternal status above all others- i.e. the Judge of all judges, the eternal reigning Lord of all lords, the Savior above all other messiahs, and the ultimate apocalyptic destroyer exhibiting a scale of violence never before imagined (i.e. destroying the world and then continuing eternal violence in hell).
Revelation, summarizing Paul’s Christology, states the Christ as “Lord of lords” and “King of kings” (chapter 17:14, 19:16). Also, on Jesus as the savior of the world-
https://www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/magazine/documents/ju_mag_01101998_p-18_en.html
That is entirely contrary to Jesus’ teaching that true greatness is to not lord over others but to serve others. Why is Paul rejecting that teaching of Jesus to reconstruct the ideal of domination and dragging Jesus into that, to validate that, in his “Jesus Christ” merger of opposites?
Paul also included what were recognized, even during his time, as humane features, the varied nicer features of his Christ- i.e. themes of forgiveness, mercy, and love. But it was impossible to clearly apprehend and appreciate the authentic nature of such ideals because they were framed in terms of the more dominant elements of threat theology in the Christ, and the harshly barbaric conditions of atonement mythology. Hence, the best of Jesus was distorted and buried by the Christ. The good elements were deformed by the larger context of Christology.
Again, as Ellens said, Christians, beginning with the originator of Christ-ianity- Paul, have reframed the crucifixion of Jesus, “a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice”, by disguising that barbarity as a “remarkable act of grace.”
Also, note that humane concepts/ideals like “universal, unconditional love” are limited and deformed by the supreme tribal element in the Christ- i.e. true believers are favored and included while unbelievers are damned. So also, the non-violence of Jesus is deformed/transformed into the affirmation of ultimate violence in the Christ- i.e. the destruction of the world in apocalypse and then eternal violence in hell.
And the “exodus” thing….
Paul, with his Christ myth, had a major impact on derailing our grand exodus to freedom from past barbarity and helped keep us enslaved to the consciousness-darkening beliefs of the old threat theology, angry, punitive deity myths (what Ellens and Lotufo term “Cruel God” theology) that have a long history of deforming and sickening human minds, personality, and lives.
The exodus out of Africa was the physical manifestation of humanity’s “mental/emotional/psychological” exodus out of animal-like existence and behavior. But the real human exodus has to take place most critically on the individual level, an inside exodus in our thinking, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior. The exodus from the animal has also been expressed in terms of the shamanic experience of “a disintegration of the old and a re-integration around the new”. Or a “death to the old and rebirth to new life”.
The comments here are about which ideas/beliefs enhance our exodus toward a more human future and which ideas/beliefs hinder our exodus. Paul’s Christ re-affirmed some of the worst features of our animal past- i.e. tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others/enemies. There is no enhancing human development effect from those.
Our inner triumph over our animal inheritance, our personal liberation from the animal, then enables us to better express our essential goodness. The triumph of the human over the animal has manifested across history in our curiously exploring this planet and its abundant resources and, as careful stewards of the planet, using Earth’s resources to improve life endlessly across the millennia, creating an ever-improving civilization that exhibits the best of our creative humanity.
Critical to the improvement of the human condition has been the amazing decline in human violence (James Payne in “History of Force”), promoting a security among populations that has enabled the spread of Classic Liberal democracy that protects the rights and freedoms of every individual, equally. As Julian Simon said, “Overall we are more creators than destroyers”. See, for example, “Humanprogress.org”.
More on the exodus as the grand story of humanity…
From Retaliation to Unconditional love– the story of humanity’s exodus/liberation from animal existence to become human.