New material below on the “stunning new theology of Historical Jesus”, a theological breakthrough that was buried under Paul’s Christ myth. We have had the answer, for two millennia now, to the military guy’s urging us to deal properly with religiously-incited violence (e.g. ISIS in Syria, 2014). But the answer has to be pulled out of its “dung” context (Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s term, not mine.)
And new material on the impulse to domination corrupting liberal democracy.
Another good one from Ken Haapala on the climate file, posted also on “Wattsupwiththat.com”. This goes to the core issue in the climate debate- the now “saturated” warming effect of CO2. Meaning that CO2 is not, and has never been, the dominant influence on climate change, and climate change is not, and has never been, a looming crisis. Further meaning that CO2 is not a “pollutant” or threat to life. It is the basic food of life and over past millions of years it has been in short supply (we are in a “CO2 starvation era” according to Patrick Moore).
With CO2 rebounding to more natural, healthy, and optimal levels (for most of the Phanerozoic era of life it has been in the multiple-thousands of atmospheric ppm) CO2 has contributed to a 15-20% increase in green vegetation across the world. Why are the Greens not celebrating deliriously at such a boon to life? More food for animals and increased crop production for humanity.
All to say, we do not need to reduce our use of fossil fuels that have sustained our industrial civilization that has lifted billions out of the misery of poverty over the past century or so.
“The Week That Was: The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)” Aug. 9, 2025, Ken Haapala
https://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2023/TWTW%207-15-23.pdf
Haapala comments re the research of Professor of Physics Howard Hayden on “the Greenhouse Effect as it is currently understood by Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) physicists such as Hayden. This is in the field of Quantum Theory which is very different from classical physics. Hayden’s discussion follows the lines of the work of William van Wijingaarden and William Happer in Radiation Transfer – the study of how electromagnetic radiation (light) interacts with matter.”
He notes the research on how “greenhouse gases interfere with and block infrared radiation from the surface of Earth to space”. When CO2 levels are low it is potent in absorbing that returning radiation, blocking it if you will. But as levels rise the effect becomes “saturated” and it has little effect in absorbing and blocking that returning radiation.”
He summarizes the weakening of the CO2 warming effect with rising levels of CO2- “We see that with very small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, say, significant forcing is achieved yet the ability of CO2 to promote forcing is quickly weakening. This illustrates that the effect of CO2 is a logarithmic, a characteristic that is ignored by many promoters of the fear of carbon dioxide creating “runaway global warming.” At 50 ppmv the effect of CO2 is a little above 20 forcing units (W/m2); at 100 ppmv, it is about 25 forcing units (W/m2) and so on. At today’s level of about 400 ppmv, the effect of CO2 is 30 forcing units (W/m2). Doubling today’s level to 800 ppmv has little effect. This is what is meant by the term “saturated.” It is different from the conventional meaning that the gas cannot hold more.”
He adds that the climate models used by the IPCC produce “extreme scenarios are physically implausible.”
He then comments on another paper claiming extreme scenarios of warming from CO2 and says:
“You just proved that CO2 is a minor contributor to the temperature rise.” (The researcher of the paper) “concludes that CO2 is a major contributor of temperature rise but actually shows that CO2 is a minor contributor, was published by Science magazine (sponsored by AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science). That is the same magazine that published Westerhold et al. paper, which drew similar conclusions covering the past 66 million years from deceptively presenting evidence showing that CO2 is, at most, a minor contributor to temperature rise. In the Judd et al. paper note the wide horizontal lines in the graph for a wide range of CO2 concentrations, with no corresponding increase in temperatures.”
He adds that predictions made by climate models “invariably overestimate future temperatures”.
Further concluding comments by Haapala:
“That the UN IPCC justifies ignoring natural climate change cycles because it cannot model them demonstrates that the UN IPCC is not a scientific body trying to understand climate change and separating natural cause from human cause. Rather it is a political body trying to emphasize a few human causes and exaggerating them. It primarily exaggerates the influence of CO2.
“Heat Wave: At the end of June, the team of WeatherBell Analytics discussed the June heat wave. Joe D’Aleo posted their findings on his blog ICECAP. Among the findings were:
“Given the data, non-optimal temperatures are reasonably considered among the leading risk factors of mortality worldwide. A global analysis of 4.6 million deaths from cold and about 489,000 from heat, a ratio of roughly 9:1 of cold versus heat. This pattern is also consistent in regional studies.”
“Our climate changes on multi-decadal cycles. Based on past cycles we should soon return into our next cold period.”
And much more in these reports by Haapala, regularly posted on “Wattsupwiththat.com”.
All good evidence that the “climate apocalypse alarm” crusade is based more on bad mythology than credible science. So do the homework on what actually drives this climate “madness of crowds” eruption that has been terrorizing the world for over three decades now. These eruptions of hysteria push us to consider what gave apocalyptic such an enduring presence and influence in Western narratives, consciousness, and civilization. And that points directly to Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth as mainly responsible, being one of the dominant influences at the head of the Western tradition.
As James Tabor says below:
“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did.”
Then consider that, to the contrary, Historical Jesus had rejected apocalyptic mythology. He stated, in “his stunning new theology” that God did not retaliate. That was his “greatest contribution to the history of human ideas… his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God”, according to “Q Wisdom Sayings” scholar James Robinson.
Well, a non-retaliatory God will not then retaliate in the ultimate act of retaliation that is the apocalyptic destruction of the world, as per the New Testament book of Revelation. God, being non-retaliatory, is then non-apocalyptic, according to Jesus.
Rejecting retaliatory theology takes us to the core of narratives and belief systems. Non-retaliatory, non-apocalyptic deity at the core of human narratives and thought changes everything. It is the start of defusing the human tendency, under the millennia-long influence of apocalyptic mythology, to exaggerate events in the natural world, an exaggeration long used to incite alarm of looming threat to life that then pushes people to embrace irrational salvation schemes (“save the world”), like Net Zero.
Sick and tired of being lied to, Wendell Krossa
So many of us are far beyond being constantly stunned, shocked, fucking flabbergasted to the gills, and more as the revelations pour forth daily on how we have been lied to, propagandized, and manipulated by so many liars behind the scenes and in front of the scenes (in “news” media), politics, entertainment, etc.
And we wonder at what has happened to so many of our fellow citizens, once claiming status as “liberal/democratic”, now taking highly illiberal stances that embrace censorship of opponents, banning, exclusion, criminalization, ruin of reputations and loss of careers, and more. Full-frontal totalitarian bullying and cancellation from so many once committed to opposing elites abusing power.
Pay attention to actual journalists like Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Michael Shellenberger, and like-minded truth seekers and truth exposers.
See more in the examples further below on the totalitarian impulse unleashed (CIA corruption). I will post these soon.
“Russiagate releases lifting a veil on surveillance state abuses: The latest revelations in the Trump-Russia mess increasingly point toward severe systematic abuses, indicative of a true police state”, Matt Taibbi, Aug. 14, 2025
This quote from below: “The legacy press is ignoring the releases both because they paint Donald Trump as a victim of overreach and because the press played such a prominent role in the Russiagate corruption.”
https://www.racket.news/p/russiagate-releases-lifting-a-veil
Further quotes:
Taibbi begins noting, “Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office released two damning emails yesterday, the first being a letter from former DNI James Clapper to former FBI head James Comey, former CIA head John Brennan, and then-NSA chief Michael Rogers.
In the letter Clapper urges they all be on the same page “in the highest tradition of “that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.” He adds, “We may have to compromise on our “normal” modalities, since we must do this on such a compressed schedule…This is one project that has to be a team sport.”
Taibbi says, “This is a devastating exchange. It shows… that four of America’s most powerful enforcement officials said, “To hell with evidence, let’s just put out a tale and stick with it… it makes a joke of years of public narratives about Trump, Putin, and Russia.”
He notes other documents assert that senior Justice Department officials squashed Hillary Clinton corruption investigations. Other corruption actions by the top intelligence agency officials reveal further “how years of Russia mania were built on fraud.”
For all of us sick of being lied to, also this, “The legacy press is ignoring the releases both because they paint Donald Trump as a victim of overreach and because the press played such a prominent role in the Russiagate corruption.”
Moving on…
Reform or total transformation? What properly responds to the military guy’s warning? Wendell Krossa
(Don’t be too triggered by my Trump-like weave throughout the comment below, sometimes with explanatory or illustrating inserts and side-line comments. I eventually return on-topic.)
Many, who are affiliated with a world religious tradition, will admit to the need for reform in their religion, but it appears they will only tolerate a reformism that is tinkering at the periphery. If you look at the state of world religions after centuries of reform efforts, they remain essentially the same as before with mainly reinterpretations of the core themes and that results in just new versions of the same old religious belief systems and traditions. Superficial rehashing.
This from AI Overview in response to “reform of major world religions” query:
“Reformers may reinterpret core religious beliefs and teachings to align with changing social norms or intellectual understandings…
“These reforms often involve challenging established doctrines, hierarchies, and traditions, leading to the emergence of new denominations or interpretations.”
Example- The “Protestant Reformation” in the 16th Century, that challenged the Catholic Church, resulted in the emergence of Protestantism that is indistinguishable, in terms of core beliefs, from the original Catholic Christianity.
True believers of any given tradition tend to leave the dominant themes in place, perhaps shifting to new interpretations such as the modern-era fad to view the harsher passages in religious holy books as more “metaphorical” and less literal (e.g. a common one is to describe hell as a state of mind, not an actual place). This fad to “metaphorize” holy books, has become a regular practice in traditions like Christianity and Islam. As always, I would affirm the point made by an Islamic writer in HuffPost years ago, who stated- “Metaphor or literal? The content is still the same”. Nasty stuff is still nasty stuff. For example- The threat of throwing unbelievers into the fires of hell is still ugly content and an inhumane expressed sentiment.
True believers especially do not like to countenance any serious poking at the core theology- i.e. the God at the center of their systems.
Few want to embrace the courage of Historical Jesus and go right to the core of the problem- i.e. the dominant historical image of God.
Jesus was put to death for rejecting the God of his Jewish religion, the God who affirmed justice as retaliatory vengeance and destruction against enemies. He replaced that with “the stunning new theology” of an unconditionally loving deity who (1) nontribally included all- both good and bad people, who (2) did not dominate as Lord/King, and (3) who did not vengefully destroy enemies.
Jesus’ earliest recorded statement of his stunning new theology was made during his first public speaking engagement in a local synagogue. He read from Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…”
Giving the emphasis to his new theology, he left off the very next part of that Isaiah passage- “the day of vengeance of our God”. That stunned his audience. No vengeance from a God angry at his enemies?
Then he pushed his point, agitating the audience further. The non-vengeful, non-retaliatory God was nontribally inclusive, treating all equally with the same non-discriminatory love:
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed— only Naaman the Syrian.”
That rejection of the traditional image of God as vengeful destroyer of enemies for this new deity of mercy, inclusion, and unconditional love, so enraged his listeners that they tried to murder him.
“All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff”, (Luke 4).
Then about a year later, unable to restrain his own rage at the sacrifice industry, Jesus protested at the main Jerusalem temple. That was more than just a challenge to the sacrifice industry and ruling priesthood. It was also a direct challenge to the primitive mythology of angry deity demanding appeasement through violent sacrifice, rectifying offended honor with a demand for justice via blood payment, through the barbarity of human sacrifice.
Both his synagogue reading and his temple protest were challenges to the theology/image of a retaliatory, destroying deity. His challenge was to the basic understanding of “justice”, across previous millennia, as some form of “eye for eye” retaliation against offenders. And it was a challenge to the common belief in salvation through murder and destruction, through extermination of satanic/demonic enemies (Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism of a good God “Ahura Mazda” fighting the evil spirit “Mainyu”). The view of divine justice as retaliatory destruction/extermination had long been a core theme of religion.
Continuing with Jesus’ stunning new theology of a universally merciful and generous God…
Merciful response toward offenders/enemies, or humane follow-up treatment of offenders, still pisses people off today as “too mushy and weak in the face of evil”. I would suggest that it is the very opposite. Such response defuses the endless misery, violence, and suffering of continuing eye for eye cycles.
Weak in the face of evil? Nothing requires more courage than to forgive and to respond humanely when it feels most natural to hate and want to hurt back, to give an offender “what they rightly deserve”. Like the courage of a Mandela coming out of prison, and in his words, “I intentionally set my hate aside and went out to work for an inclusive South Africa”. Meaning, include his former apartheid oppressors.
He even welcomed his former prison guards into his security detail. And he denied the calls of millions of angry young black South African men to lead them in taking vengeance on their former oppressors (Richard Stengel in “Mandela’s Way: Lessons in Life, Love, and Courage”). Yes, hold offenders responsible for their behavior (“Truth and Reconciliation Commission”), restrain and incarcerate the violent in order to protect others, but then where possible, treat them humanely with restorative justice programs.
My point here (weaving back to the reformism topic) is to do what the wisdom sage Historical Jesus did and embrace full-on transformation, not just some tinkering at the periphery reformism of narratives or traditions/institutions. Go to the core of problems, like ongoing eruptions of violence, and understand all that incites and validates such bad behavior, all the main contributing factors. The sage Historical Jesus understood that nothing was more core to this issue of what influences human behavior than the ultimate embodiment of human ideals- i.e. deity images.
So he rejected the retaliatory, vengeful deity that dominated all previous historical religious traditions and replaced it with “the stunning new theology of an unconditional God”. He gutted the very core of conditional religion and replaced it with unconditional reality. He knew that an unconditional core would undermine all the conditions of any religious tradition. It spelled the end of religion, and the priesthood of his day knew the threat that he and his message posed to their authority and livelihood. They had him put to death.
Protecting the theology, the God that centers historical religious grand narratives, is to protect and keep alive the core inciting and validating ideal, the highest embodiment of human ideals. Traditional images of religious deity still highlight the features of (1) tribal exclusion (favoring true believers, damning unbelievers to hells), (2) defeat and domination of enemies (epitomized in the capstone New Testament book of Revelation), and (3) the retaliatory vengeance and destruction of enemies (justice as punitive destruction).
The validation of the pathological feature of “domination” always gets me. Nothing has caused such misery and suffering across history than some dominating and controlling others, thereby abusing weaker others. That is psychopathy epitomized. The lack of awareness of how you harm others by dominating and controlling them, not respecting their freedom, their self-determination that is critical to their mental/emotional wellbeing. And not getting how ideals and authorities that embody domination and control are essentially evil and inhumane for inciting and validating such animal-like behavior.
The human impulse to dominate is supported by myths such as “humans were created to serve the gods”. Hence, the unrelenting toleration of slavery and servitude across history and still today. The perverse impulse to domination is evident not just in the thugs ruling entire countries, but throughout societies in the little dictators who exercise domination in varied local situations- i.e. bosses from hell in business situations, and parents who don’t understand the need for children to develop their independence, freedom of choice, and control over their own lives and destinies. We see domination defended by overly-protective parents who don’t know when to back off and let the child develop into an independent adult.
Note– Historical Jesus rejected domination in God when he argued for true greatness (“God is great”) that rejected lording over others, for the greatness in serving others. Taking Jesus’ point, re-imagine God as most authentically manifest in people in service industries and jobs, not as the Greeks argued, divinity uniquely manifested in special people doing great public deeds of heroism and domination (i.e. slaughtering enemies in great battles, exhibiting special talents in philosophy, arts, etc.). Taking Jesus’ insight on true greatness in serving, God would be most manifest in commoners, not in elites still benefitting from the residual influence of the primitive myth of the “divine right of kings/rulers”- i.e. politicians/leaders, academics, religious authorities/priesthoods, sports and entertainment superstars, etc. as especially “blessed by God”.
In this advocacy of Jesus for serving, not lording over others, you see the incredible deformity of him in Paul’s “Lord Jesus”, making him into the very opposite of what he taught, just as the features of tribalism (favoring true believers, excluding and damning unbelievers) and punitive destruction (“It will be worse for you in the day of judgment than for Sodom and Gomorrah”) were a distortion of the man.
But back to theological ideals (monster gods) created to validate this pathology of domination and control of others…
The traditional religious image of deity has long validated the idea of deity as “Lord, King, Ruler”. That ultimate ideal then validates elites dominating commoners which has been a curse from the beginning when the earliest shaman elevated themselves over fellow tribals. They did so by claiming affiliation with deities, claiming to represent the gods, to know what angered them and how to appease/please them. They posed themselves as authorities in the place of the gods, enforcing the elite/commoner divide in human society that destroys the freedom, rights, and equality of all others.
Back to the reform of religion point: As Richard Landes has said regarding Marxism and Nazism- If you just deal with the bad characters leading apocalyptic millennial movements, figures like Marx and Hitler, then you have not recognized how the ideas that drove them- e.g. the “apocalyptic millennialism” of Paul’s Christ- can carry societies into mass-death crusades and you will only repeat those mass-death outcomes.
Well, what about “Net Zero decarbonization?
Start with your own worldview and do some personal forensic work uncovering the psychopathological themes there. Engage transformation there first, as in Solzhenitsyn’s urging that we give priority to winning the real battle of good against evil that takes place inside each of us. I frame that as the personal fight with our inherited animal impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive justice toward offenders/enemies. If we win that inner personal battle first then we are more qualified to go out and engage the larger public battles of life.
And this added note on the domination thing:
This is where I puzzle at the distortion and lying about Trump. I am not a fan of personality flaws like his petty vindictiveness, but he does the opposite of a dictator, fascist, or Hitler. He gives power back to people by giving them more free choice over their personal assets (i.e. by lowering taxes). And he returns “power to the people” by lessening state control and meddling in citizen’s lives, a common Democratic approach promoted through expanded state and government regulations. Trump decreases the size of the state and that is giving power and control back to people. The very opposite of what dictators do. The framing of Trump as “fascist, dictator, Hitler, etc. is such a distortion and lie.
Scattered points on a common theme here… Wendell Krossa
Qualifier: I don’t view Historical Jesus as a special divine authority. But because he is so well known, it’s good to touch base with him as iconic of goodness and a historical figure who is familiar to so many.
And if it’s true that he actually presented his insight on deity as non-retaliatory and unconditional, and it seems that there is, arguably, a thematic coherence around that insight throughout his wisdom sayings and in some parables and in his behavior/treatment of others (Prodigal father, vineyard owner, God sending prophets to help outsiders to Jewish people, inclusion of social outcasts at meals, healing inclusively, etc.). And if you cut away the other stuff attributed to him that contradicts the central theme of unconditional love then the thematic coherence argument holds.
But we don’t need him for validation because there is an inherent humaneness to the ideal of unconditional love and most of us get this from our experience in the cauldron of daily life with our families, with our spouses, kids, and friends that are imperfect humans just like us.
The family is where we learn that unconditional is the best and highest form of love, as in limitless forgiving, universal toleration and inclusion, restorative treatment of offenders, and so much more, hoping for the same such treatment in return for our own fuckups.
Such no conditions behavior points to what ultimate goodness and love would be at its best and purest. So, if we take as true that “God is love” then this unconditional would define God as ultimate love and goodness. It’s the best of human behavior pointing to the truest theology- “behavior based on similar validating belief”.
Insert: Those “throwing rocks from the outside” sometimes help the understanding of one’s own tradition.
It helps when others (outsiders to a tradition, “unbelievers”) reframe commonly held religious beliefs in terms of the barbarity that they actually represent, even though those beliefs have long been venerated in religious belief systems and traditions.
Example: Charles Templeton in “Farewell To God: My reasons for rejecting the Christian faith”. He was the former colleague of Billy Graham and he committed the unpardonable sin of starting to rethink and question his Christian beliefs and practices. That resulted in a re-evaluation of his Christian beliefs. I would not take that to the conclusion of atheism, but that was his choice.
He described the Old Testament deity (also true of the New Testament God) who demanded to be the center of attention and demanded constant praise of his greatness, on pain of death for refusal to do so. Templeton rightly stated that was how the totalitarian monster Idi Amin acted. That threatening self-centeredness has nothing to do with any common-sense understanding of love. It is a monstrous deformity projected onto God.
So also Alex Garcia in “Alpha God: The psychology of religious violence and oppression” notes that people bowing their heads in prayer are exhibiting the inherited patterns of weaker animals showing appeasement behavior in the presence of threatening alpha predators.
Harold Ellens made the following exposing comments regarding the Christian worship of human sacrifice in the crucifixion of Jesus- “a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice”. That reframing and disguising of brutal infanticide in terms of love and goodness began with the Abraham story as an account of “great faith”. Paul reframed it in this manner in letters like Galatians and Romans where he disguised such barbarity as something to be honored and worshipped.
No. Recognize at the heart of such material the barbarity and cruelty of a monster deity demanding the murder of a child. It demands our revulsion and the same protest that Historical Jesus made in the Jerusalem temple against the sacrifice industry built on the psychopathology of an angry deity demanding such brutality.
Here is Ellens on this religious disguising of brutality/barbarity as something honorable and good:
“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’…
Other examples of reframing barbarity as something noble, good, to be honored and worshipped as divine:
The God in the book of Job who permits the destruction of Job’s family and all his possessions, letting the man suffer the worst disasters just to test and be able to boast about his subservient loyalty before an opponent- Satan. This is a monstrously inhumane deity portrayed through this primitive barbarity.
This is the same God, who through Moses, permitted his male followers to slaughter all their enemy males (including children) but keep the captive young women as sex slaves, just as ISIS did. There is no difference between that Jewish deity and the God of ISIS. And please, don’t defensively argue that God changed to become something nicer in the New Testament. OT temporal barbarity became eternal barbarity (eternal torment in hell) in the NT.
And due to millennia of indoctrination under threat theology (“knowing the terror of the Lord”), people believe that they are damned if they don’t believe, and they are subject to smearing as “heretical, blasphemous”, followed by threats of exclusion and even hellfire.
Some of humanity’s worst ideas have long been protected under “the canopy of the sacred” as untouchable, unquestionable dogma, divinely inspired. And people have been convinced that their eternal status depends on mindlessly accepting and believing such ideas. The resulting cognitive dissonance amounts to a form of insanity in worshipping barbarity of worst kind. No wonder psychologists/psychotherapists like Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo (“Cruel God, Kind God”) state how such ideas deform human personality and life, leading people to become just like the God that they believe and worship.
I hit all this repeatedly to make the point that Historical Jesus presented a stunningly new and entirely contrasting image of deity in his insight on unconditional love. But embrace of that new theology requires embrace of a radical death and rebirth in thinking, in narrative, belief system, and worldview. It requires the entire disintegration of the old and re-integration around the entirely new, as in the cohering central themes that shape our stories.
Fortunate for us the monster God of historical religion has never existed. It was always a great lie and fraud pushed by religious elites across history. Historical Jesus finally cut through the veil of lies to reveal the true nature of God as unconditional love. And he was hated and murdered for doing so.
Intention matters: Wendell Krossa
The primary motivation and intention here is not to unnecessarily upset religious people and deny them the comfort that they take from their traditions. The intention here is to focus awareness on the bad elements in the mix of religious belief systems, and the consequent horrifically damaging outcomes (see, for example, Richard Landes research in “Heaven On Earth” on how “apocalyptic millennial” ideas have led societies into mass-death crusades). The project here is oriented to how we sort out the bad from the good and ensure that the good dominates our narratives/worldviews.
This is what the “Search for Historical Jesus” and “Jesus Seminar” have been about over the past few centuries (the “Seminar” since 1985). And the “Q Wisdom Sayings” research has now gotten us closest to what the wisdom sage Jesus actually taught.
My personal interest on this site is probing how ideas impact human minds, emotions, motivations, and responses/behaviors. As the military guy stated, we will never solve the problem, particularly the problem of religiously-motivated violence, until we deal with the ideas, especially bad religious ideas, that drive such eruptions of violence.
Infecting narratives everywhere… both religious and “secular/ideological”
The driving ideas (inciting, guiding, validating) and consequent outcomes are more widely present in our world than many suspect, due to the “secularization” of religious ideas over past centuries. The same core themes that dominated previous millennia of primitive religious traditions are now dominating the so-called “secular/ideological” belief systems and movements of the modern era.
These quotes from chapter 11, “Totalitarian Millennialism” in “Heaven On Earth: Varieties of the Millennial Experience”, Richard Landes.
“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.
“The self-image of modern secular societies insists that they have achieved their unique and uniquely powerful configurations precisely by rejecting all forms of religious superstition, especially the raving fantasies, the Schwarmerei, of millennial prophets. Nothing, it would seem, could be further from modernity than millennialism.
“And yet, if one sticks to the definition of millennialism- perfect and just society on earth (however defined), and thereby, collective salvation for its inhabitants- and if one looks at the dynamics of apocalyptic time- from enthusiastic take- off to cognitively dissonant disappointment, to re-entry into normal time- it seems justified to argue that, rather than having abandoned millennial beliefs, ‘modern’ industrial society invented a new, secular variant…”
Speaking of the Twentieth century intellectuals in thrall to Marxist ideology and its collectivist approach, Richard Landes says this- “Any attempt to put this totalitarian system in the category of a closed and barbarian theocracy is very often vehemently refused. In this case, very emotionally seated aspirations and hopes of young or older intellectuals are at stake. Everybody who dares to take the Bolshevik world as a religious community is considered a traitor betraying the humanitarian ideals of the modernity of the French Revolution…
“If you see it in this sense, say the proponents of the project of modernity, the distance between the old and new modern world would shrink too much and the debts to the Christian tradition would become too heavy. Thus, when you treat the Bolsheviks as a millennial sect, you are going to betray the project of modernity and treat the Bolsheviks, despite their very modern efforts to industrialize backward Russia, as a medieval sect of obscure believers.”
He adds, “Among the historical issues of the twentieth century nothing poses greater problems to scholars than the similarities and differences between the Soviet and Nazi totalitarian systems, both of which (by the definitions of this study) were active cataclysmic, apocalyptic millennial movements.” (End of Landes quotes)
The ongoing domination and influence of religious ideas/themes/beliefs, deeply embedded as archetypes of the subconscious, illustrates Kristian Niemietz’s conclusion in “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”, that many people choose their beliefs according to the following… “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.” We respond to those deep influences emoted from our subconscious.
And this raises the question of what exactly has promoted these themes in Western narratives, consciousness, and society to the result that they still dominate great religious traditions and now major “secular/ideological” traditions? Answer- Paul’s apocalyptic millennial Christ myth has been most responsible for the continued domination of, in particular, apocalyptic millennialism in our Western world. And the destructive outcomes from these ideas continues, ideas/themes that continue to incite “madness of crowds” eruptions like climate apocalyptic alarmism.
Historian James Tabor affirms this persisting dominating influence of Paul and his Christ myth in “Paul and Jesus”:
“There was a version of ‘Christianity before Paul’, affirmed by both Jesus and his original followers, with tenets and affirmations quite opposite to these of Paul… the message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself” (p.xv1).
“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul. We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture” (p. xv11).
“Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did” (p.15).
“The entire New Testament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production…” (p.19).
“The ‘Jesus’ who most influenced history was the ‘Jesus-Christ’ of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself (and) his message of a… kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world”, (21).
“The form of Christianity… (that thrived in the late Roman Empire)… was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision”, p.24).
“Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message”, (39).
“The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ,” (41).
(End of Tabor quotes)
And of course, if you want to understand what shaped Paul’s formation of his Christ myth, Bob Brinsmead suggests, for example, the research of Helmut Koester on Hellenism in “History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”. Bob has summarized that and other sources of influence on Paul in his recent essays:
“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/
I would add- Take your understanding further back to the earliest human mythmaking- i.e. Sumerian, Egyptian, and even prehistory mythology as probed by John Pfeiffer in, for example, “Explosion: An Inquiry into the origins of art and religion”.
Basic themes emerge that validate the dominant features of early human existence, an existence that was still more animal-like than human. Tribalism, domination by elites/shaman over commoners, and justice as eye for eye punitive destruction of offenders/enemies. Such features of existence were validated by creating gods with the same features to function as ultimate authorities. And millennia of such narratives resulted in beating these themes into human minds and subconscious as “archetypes of the subconscious”. From there they continue to influence us in shaping ever new narratives and systems of belief with the same old features/themes from a primitive past.
That is what is behind Niemietz’s statement that “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
So, you self-identify as “secular”?
I have pointed out before the absurdity of many today (the “bliss” of youthful ignorance) claiming personal status as “secular, materialist, even atheist” yet still mouthing the dominant themes of primitive mythology/religion, themes that are central to their worldviews/narratives.
We can no longer deny the evidence of how bad ideas like “apocalyptic millennialism” (main themes of Paul’s Christ myth) have shaped Marxist mass-death, Nazi holocaust destruction, and now shape the environmental alarmism crusades of past decades. Thanks to the good research of historians like Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, and others, we have the evidence of what exactly are the bad ideas in the mix, based on their destructive outcomes. So what do we do with this evidence?
We can reject the psychopathology in Paul’s Christ myth that still dominates our religious and secular/ideological narratives and consciously/intentionally replace that with the profoundly humane alternative offered by Historical Jesus- i.e. his themes on unconditional deity and related ethics that validate the best in us and not the worst as in tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others.
But the transformation of the very core of our prominent narratives amounts to a death and rebirth process, to disintegration of the old and reintegration around the entirely new. Radical and entire transformation of narrative and consciousness that will reverberate throughout life and society. It is transformation that goes deeply to the archetypes of human subconscious that have long been dominated and shaped by the old mythical themes due to millennia of indoctrination.
Further notes: There are varied elements in the mix of right and wrong in narratives notably in oxymoron of “Jesus Christ”. That is where we need to engage the project of Jefferson to get the diamonds out, cleaned off, and presented free from the “dung” context they spoke about.
Why the hesitancy of many to embrace the central insight of Jesus on an unconditional God?
Paul’s Christ has distorted and disguised a supremely unconditional and non-religious reality as just another religious reality, as something highly conditional and religious. Jesus’ nonreligious wisdom insight on deity as unconditional was buried in a mythology that affirms religious conditions like sacrifice to pay for sin. This was Jefferson and Tolstoy’s point on “diamonds buried in dung”, meaning Jesus’ insights and themes were buried in a larger context that distorts the Jesus insight on unconditional, that turned his message into something entirely opposite and contradictory. Hence, the argument here that “Jesus Christ” is a mother of all oxymorons- two entirely contradictory things merged in one.
Further, common misunderstanding of the unconditional feature of deity taught by Jesus has intuitively oriented many people toward thinking that it affirms some form of pacifism in the face of violence/evil. Pacifism is too often a useless and even dangerous response in the face of violence.
Add that Paul’s Christ myth is “emotionally satisfying” to minds long oriented to justice as punitive destruction of enemies. That view of justice has dominated human consciousness across history through religious and secular traditions and belief systems. Justice as vengeance is so deeply embedded as archetypal in human subconscious that any mythology affirming this view of justice evokes “emotional satisfaction” in many people. Hence, they respond, not with rational thinking and despite contrary evidence, but emotionally to the mythology that affirms vengeful justice, as in Paul’s Christ, and that then dominates their choice in beliefs.
Further, the Jesus insight on unconditional has been distorted within the larger context of a deformed hero’s quest, where people dominated by justice as punitive destruction view themselves as heroes in a righteous battle against demonized and irredeemable threats to their religion and therefore threats to all life and the world. Such is the ongoing impact of Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism of good versus evil that still frames our personal narratives and quests.
Paul’s retaliatory Christ, punitive destroyer of all enemies (Revelation), the great world Savior who will subjugate all unbelievers with a rod of iron, satisfies many emotionally. That vision of a conquering Lord Christ soothes the spirit oriented to such vengeance and domination of foes. Where the opposite message of Jesus enrages people as evidenced in the response to his first public speech when he left off “the day of vengeance of our God”. He refused to feed and satisfy the base longing of his audience for punitive destruction of their enemies.
Jesus understood what his new theology did to people seeking satisfaction in vengeance for their offenders. He illustrated the enraged longing of many for such vengeance, notably in his parable of the older brother’s anger toward his father exhibiting unconditional mercy toward his prodigal son. Also, the upset of the all-day vineyard workers toward the owner’s generosity toward the underserving.
Unconditional treatment of enemies, unlimited forgiveness, inclusive generosity, nonretaliatory restorative justice, triggers and offends, even enrages those longing for traditional justice as punitive destruction of some form. Hence the success of early Christianity because it was emotionally satisfying to many, where the Jesus theme, presented in its stark unconditional nature, only enraged people.
Continuing comment on the common misunderstanding of unconditional as pointing to pacifist responses to violence…
Responsible humanity demands the defense of the innocent. That is basic Classic Liberalism, that the most fundamental responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens from assaults, whether foreign or domestic.
So no, the theological insight of Jesus that God is unconditional love does not affirm pacifism in the face of evil. But it does point toward liberation from the inhumane archetypes that have long dominated human consciousness/subconscious, archetypes of tribal, dominating, and destroying deities- i.e. the threat theology that has cursed people with unnecessary fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, nihilism, and violence, deforming human personality and societies. The Jesus insight on theology does orient our consciousness and spirits toward restorative treatment of offenders where practically possible, once offenders are restrained/incarcerated, held responsible for restitution and serious change of behavior. Protecting the public is first priority of the state and its criminal justice systems.
More “stunning” stuff from Megyn Kelly (the impulse to domination corrupting liberal democracy), Wendell Krossa
This ought to concern all of us who value freedom and general liberal democracy, to discover that the great threat to our democracies now comes from within our societies, from elites mainly on the left, the formerly “liberal/democratic” sector of the population now gone highly illiberal in shifting toward extremist woke progressivism as the newest phase of a crusade fronting the same old collectivism/socialism. These people have tried to dominate public narratives, putting forth endless lies to propagandize us that any challenge to their domination, as in “populism pushback”, is “an existential threat to democracy”. “Democracy” defined by them as their control of the state institutions and society. They then smear populist pushback for restoration of equal freedom and rights as “Right-wing extremism”. And in classic psychological projection, populism is framed as the great threat to democracy, as undemocratic challenge to their “righteous” domination.
In the intensified tribal dualism of today, the left is pushing a one-sided partisan effort to shut down any opposition from the other side. We have observed over the past decade an incredible episode of undermining liberal democracy, the ongoing attempt to overturn the freedom, rights, and equality of all- the most basic things that we claim to value in Western liberal societies. We already had the Twitter Files exposure. Now, following the 2024 election we are being exposed to more and more of how state agencies were used by the Democrats to go after opponents, censoring, criminalizing, trying to silence and ban dissenters from public life. Kelly offers some stunning exposure of corruption in a great liberal democracy that illustrates the same corruption across other Western democracies (notably Britain, Germany, Brazil, etc.).
The current effort to expose this corruption is not “retribution/payback” against the other side (undeniably, such motivations are in the mix). The current exposure of Democratic corruption is necessary to hold offenders accountable, to ensure the people responsible for the corrupt actions, and the outcomes noted below, recognize how they have damaged liberal democracy. Kelly details the crimes committed, and that if they had been committed by the other side, people would have been imprisoned.
Among many stunners in this report, is the unbelievable corruption of media as zealous partisan propagandists for only one side of society- i.e. for the Democrats. Media have covered up anything revealing crimes on their side and have relentlessly demonized the other side as “irredeemably evil threats to all good in the world”. I watch this daily propagandizing distortion in the headlines of articles on “MSN homepage Canada”. With titles like “Donald Trump dementia evidence ‘overwhelming’, says top psychiatrist” as typical.
Such “news” reveals that a form of insanity has now possessed Woke Progressives across our democracies.
“DOJ employee throws sandwich at officer, new info on Clinton investigation, with Burguiere and Solomon”, Megyn Kelly, Aug. 14, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dek170wAcL0
There are illustrations in these two articles below (i.e. by McParland and Shellenberger) of the ugly outcomes when some unleash their impulse to dominate and control others- i.e. the consequent undermining and ruin of liberal democracy, and the destructive violence in places like Ukraine. These articles illustrate the ruinous impacts of “the pathology to control” on others (commoners) who simply want their basic freedoms and rights to be protected, and to be treated as equals.
As with other material on this site, I include these contemporary illustrations of the impulse to domination to affirm the larger point regarding the archetypal ideals in our major religious narratives that incite and validate such pathologies. Notably, the features of domination in Paul’s Christ myth that serve to validate such behavior in people through the “behavior based on similar validating belief” coupling.
The evil triad features of tribalism, domination, and destruction of differing others have long been deeply embedded in human subconscious and validated by the very same features employed to define iconic myths like Paul’s Christ. Backing such features with divine authority as in the Christ myth only intensifies their influence on human minds, emotions, motivations, and behavior.
This site notes how the Historical Jesus stood courageously against such animal-like ideals as domination (i.e. his point that “true greatness is not in lording over others but in serving them”). Paul, two decades after Jesus died, then turned Jesus into the ultimate archetype of lording over others with his Christology and the term “Lord Jesus”, contradicting Jesus’ own message and protest against dominating lordship. That is just one of the main contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ that render the term “Jesus Christ” a “Mother of all oxymorons”.
Anyway, more on this further below… Now…
“Alaska summit offers no hope for Ukraine compromise: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hasn’t even been invited. Expect nothing but drift from this summit”, Kelly McParland, Aug. 14, 2025
McParland states his opinion that nothing positive will come out of the Putin-Trump summit on Ukraine. While he exposes the impulse to domination by Putin and others, he falls flat in his ending conclusion that Trump is hardly different. Nah, see the notes in the material below on Trump’s two main policies of reducing taxes and decreasing regulations. No totalitarian thug/fascist enacts policies that give power back to the people. Liberator is a more accurate term to describe what Trump is doing.
McParland notes the ongoing problem of “foreign potentates getting together to carve up parts of the globe outside their own is poor… People just don’t like their countries being treated like trading cards bandied about in a schoolyard.”
He states the main obstacle to some peace agreement, “What Putin wants is Ukraine as a client state in the manner of Belarus, a puppet republic headed by a willing minion to Russian dominance…
“From Putin’s position, there’s little reason to compromise now. He faces no serious internal opposition or public pressure. Russians as a people are so accustomed to centuries of all-powerful monarchs, dictators or one-party states controlling their lives — demanding unquestioning obedience while treating resistance with ruthless punishment — that it’s bred in their bone. They’re born to it, live with it and see little prospect of anything different.
“People who challenge Putin fall out of windows, die in exploding airplanes or expire in jails in some distant outback. He has valuable economic and commercial support from China, which has its own reasons for seeking a western world flummoxed by the uncertainty Putin’s war creates.”
(End of McParland article quotes)
And illustrating the impulse to domination through the CIA…
“Totalitarian” Powers, Fear, And Psychopathy Behind CIA’s Secret Rule Over U.S.: The agency remains out of control, beyond the law, and a direct threat to democracy and freedom, including in the U.S.”, Michael Shellenberger, Aug. 13, 2025
Shellenberger continues with his probing the psychopathology behind the impulse to domination:
https://www.public.news/p/totalitarian-powers-fear-and-psychopathy
Shellenberger notes the statement of a CIA whistleblower who said, “that the CIA Director under Obama, John Brennan, had a “pathological need for control” and put the writers of the ICA “under duress” to include a mention of a fraudulent dossier, commissioned by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.”
That was part of an effort to cover up corruption by the Clintons and direct attention to a false narrative of Trump collusion with Russia.
Shellenberger says the “systemic rot” in the CIA has not been confronted and corrected properly to prevent further such abuse. He moves on to the history of scandals by the CIA, as detailed in books like Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes.”
Wiener outlines examples of the “pathological need for control”, the pathological impulse of some to dominate others.
As Shellenberger recounts, “The CIA has murdered its employees, overthrown democracies, propped up dictatorships, tortured innocent people, trained death squads, induced mental illness in illegal medical experiments, spied illegally on law-abiding Americans, and may have been behind the assassination of an American president.
“All of these illegal behaviors required cover-ups, many of them elaborate. ‘Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars,’ said James Angleton, one of the CIA’s founders, and its Director of Counterintelligence for two decades, on his deathbed in 1987. “If you were in a room with them, you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell. I guess I will see them there soon.”
Shellenberger continues, stating that “The politicization and weaponization of the CIA for ideological aims has occurred for decades… Between 1947 and 1963, the CIA was ‘a dark and invasive force — at home and abroad — violating citizens’ privacy, kidnapping, torturing, and killing at will,’ concluded David Talbot in his 686-page history of the CIA, ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’.”
He notes that when the CIA was created in 1947, the Secretary of State at the time, Dean Acheson, said “he had the gravest forebodings’ about it and ‘warned the President that neither he’ nor anyone else would be able ‘to control it.’”
Shellenberger then reveals something of how the pathological domination impulse was unleashed in the CIA.
“Totalitarian Intelligence”
Shellenberger further quotes Weiner, saying that the vision of Harry Truman was that the CIA should be a “reliable source of intelligence, not an organization focused on overthrowing governments… (but) his vision was subverted from the start.”
Those involved in the creation of the CIA apparently called for it to have totalitarian powers. One argued, “In a global and totalitarian war… intelligence must be global and totalitarian.”
Shellenberger adds that “The mainstream media have long been society’s most influential champions of the CIA.”
He goes on, saying, “Through it all, CIA senior executives have displayed psychopathological behaviors… Such dehumanizing, psychopathic, and ultimately self-defeating behaviors can be seen time and again in CIA operations including its regime change operations that resulted in dictatorships…”
Then he notes that the CIA manipulates members of Congress by “telling (them) horror stories about terrorist attacks and wars that would happen if it were to deny the CIA its ‘totalitarian’ spying powers.”
Relating this to the Russiagate hoax, Shellenberger says, “Russiagate shows that the CIA continues to get its way by using dirty tricks to control the media and politicians who are supposed to provide oversight to it. Whenever Congress or anyone else urges a restriction on the CIA’s powers, the CIA and its cheerleaders insist that some danger will befall Americans, whether communism, terrorism, or nationalist-populism, without the CIA here to protect us. It’s been the CIA’s big lie for 80 years, and it’s worked.”
(End of Shellenberger quotes)