New below– “‘Deep State’ a conspiracy?” (what evidence points to), and discussion group posts on “God is not Christian” (arguing whether Historical Jesus affirmed atonement/sacrifice beliefs).
See also at bottom of this opening section some counter points to Sam Harris’s absurd claim that there is no “human free will” (“free will is a powerful, necessary illusion”). Some helpful insights from the NDE movement affirming Joseph Campbell’s speculations on the dualism of good versus evil in this realm and ultimate Oneness. Free choice is a necessary reality to the existence of authentic moral good, or human purpose and responsibility is meaningless. But such is the outcome of “ultimate meaninglessness” in philosophical materialism.
See Bob Brinsmead’s latest Substack on how Paul formed Christianity from Hellenism along with other strains of ancient mythology. And my comfort with unconditional as “non-religious”. Also, an affirmation of Pete Hegseth’s comment that pacifism is “dangerous”. Totalitarian threat must be met with and defeated by credible military force.
Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger- “Wikipedia has become a propaganda site”
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-founded-wikipedia-heres-how-to-fix-it
Intro from Free Press: “I Founded Wikipedia. Here’s How to Fix It, Larry Sanger”
These intro comments by Oliver Wiseman:
If this story sounds familiar, it’s because it could describe so many of the institutions that we once relied on to bring us information. In fact, it might just be the story of our times. This crisis of trustworthiness is the skeleton key to understanding so much of the turbulence and disorder in public life today.
It’s certainly the story of The New York Times, NPR, and countless other media organizations. It’s the story of all too many institutions in medicine and public health.
It’s also the story of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia was founded on an idealistic mission to provide all the world’s information for free—and to do so democratically. But, as we’ve reported before in these pages, the Wikipedia site has been hijacked by ideologues.
Anonymous editors who are supposed to be committed to the truth instead edit articles to suit their ideological priors. And that has made the site harder to trust than ever— especially on some of the most controversial and important issues of the day.
Then this from the Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger:
Sanger says that he launched Wikipedia to be “the largest written resource in the history of the world. I oversaw the establishment of several fundamental standards, including rules about neutrality and verifiability.”
But since he left, “the standards that inspired the company have been sacrificed in favor of ideology.” He says there is no longer plurality of viewpoints in a balanced way. The editors favor and select one view making Wikipedia now a “propaganda site”.
He proposes a number changes to return Wikipedia to its original purpose and remove the current systemic bias to “globalist, academic, secular, and progressive (GASP)” ideology.
He says, “The list favors left-wing media sources and hamstrings right-wing and religious media sources. Wholly “deprecated” sources include, for example, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and The Epoch Times. “Generally unreliable” outlets include much of Fox News’ reporting and all of the New York Post and The Federalist. In practice, this list determines what can and cannot be cited on Wikipedia. That means facts are omitted; legitimate opinion is ignored; religious doctrines are essentially asserted to be false; and leftist pieties are approved.”
“Wikipedia is now full of bias. Generally, this takes two main forms: casting aspersions on disliked politicians, institutions, and ideas, in a way that essentially means taking one side in a dispute; and omitting essential information with the same effect.”
Wikipedia editors present their bias in the titles to articles, eliminating or including key words/phrases that pre-set the conclusion that readers are expected to reach even about controversial issues. This was especially notable in regard to Covid and “disinformation” about that crisis.
Sanger notes that “many scientists now reluctantly concede that more skepticism about Covid-19 policy, such as forced lockdowns, mask mandates, and required vaccination, would have been beneficial at the height of the pandemic.”
He says that the majority of Wikipedia’s top editorial leadership remains anonymous. They are responsible for the content of Wikipedia but cannot be held accountable for conflicts of interest and biases that have consequences.
He adds, “If Wikipedia wishes to be a responsible player in the media scene, it must begin to act like one. Let the reputation of the most powerful Wikipedia editors rise or fall based on merit, and let it be tied to their real and full names. This is the standard for real-world journalism. Wikipedia should be no different.”
Sanger concludes that Wikipedia has become a propaganda site for one side of the political divide. He says, “the consensus it achieves often lines up with the prerogatives of the Democratic Party and the media establishment that supports it.”
Note: Google has admitted the same bias under pressure from Democrats, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has similarly admitted yielding to Biden White House pressure to censor.
“Zuckerberg says he regrets caving to White House pressure on content”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/26/zuckerberg-meta-white-house-pressure-00176399
Google Admits Censorship Under Biden; Promises to End Bans of YouTube Accounts of Thousands of Americans Censored for Political Speech
Dana White parts with Trump and Pam Bondi over free speech, the need to protect even “hate speech”, and decries cancel culture on Republican side…
“Trump ally Dana White splits with White House on ‘cancel culture‘”
“’I’m a big believer in free speech, and unfortunately probably the most important speech to protect is hate speech,’ White said. CBS News reporter Jon Wertheim then stated White wasn’t ‘a fan of cancel culture.’ ‘No. I hate it. On both sides. It’s like all the stuff that’s goin’ on with Charlie right now- you know, these people are goin’ out and sayin’ stuff. And, you know, you’re seein’ people gettin’ fired or kicked out of school,’ he said.
“White maintained his contempt for those who may celebrate Kirk’s death but he didn’t believe in ruining their lives. ‘I think you’re a disgusting human being if you’re celebrating the death of another human being but people make mistakes and people are gonna do dumb things. I don’t like trying to destroy people’s lives over doing something dumb,’ he said.”
So also, commentator Tucker Carlson cautioned the right on this, saying this after the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel’s show:
“Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson later noted that Kirk was a ‘free speech champion’ and that he hoped his murder would not be used as ‘leverage’ to bring hate speech laws to the United States. He did not mention President Donald Trump specifically in his remarks, but went after Attorney General Pam Bondi for controversial remarks .
“Carlson said Kirk would have ‘objected’ to such comments, suggesting Bondi ‘didn’t think it through and was not attempting to desecrate the memory of the person she was purporting to celebrate.’ ‘This is the Attorney General of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, telling you that there is this other category called “hate speech,”‘ Carlson noted. ‘And of course, the implication is that’s a crime. There’s no sentence that Charlie Kirk would have objected to more than that,’ he continued, calling a society with hate crime laws ‘the opposite of what he worked to build.’”
Bill Maher protests the shift of his “Democratic/liberal” side into Woke Progressive insanity over past years. He speaks as a once-leading Democratic/liberal commentator who has been slowly awakening to common sense again over these past years…
“Bill Maher warns Democrats to rein in ‘radically new’ ideas”
Pardon the ridiculous, infantile practise of woke progressive news media like MSN to block expression of commonly used words with “(Expletive)”. Treating readers as idiot, easily triggered people too fragile and unbalanced to handle common language. Sheesh.
Quotes from article:
“Bill Maher delivered a scathing critique of Democrats on Friday night, as he called for a return to what he described as the values of the ‘old America.’ The longtime host and political commentator took aim at the Democratic Party on the latest episode of HBO ‘s Real Time with Bill Maher, urging its leaders to scale back what he described as ‘radically new and often terrible ideas.’
“’If we are ever going to get back to the old America, that’s got to be the Democrats’ part of the bargain,’ Maher said during the broadcast. ‘Stop coming up with radically new and often terrible ideas and then, in the next breath, insist there be no debate about any of it.’…
He made the comment that “when conservatives see it, they say, “I’m sorry. We’re just not going to go along with reinventing society, often pointlessly, even if we have to cancel democracy to do it”. “Cancel democracy”? How so Bill? By simply restoring common sense policies? He just can’t let go of his “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and frequently interjects it in his comments, that, while Democrats have been naughty, Republicans are still “the worst side” of things.
He then offered examples of “the new and terrible ideas” of his fellow Democrats so give him credit for his partial and still-developing “awokening”. He continued…
“’Transitioning kids by self-diagnosis with no age limit, no parental notification, and no acknowledgment of social contagion. Not doing it. Asylum now covers any reason for anyone to come to America. Not doing it. Homelessness is a lifestyle,’ Maher said. ‘Natural immunity doesn’t count anymore. Whiteness is toxic. [Expletive] in women’s prisons. Welcoming the intifada. We’re not doing it,’ he added.
“Maher also criticized what he views as a growing unwillingness among Democrats to engage in open debate, arguing that opposing views are too often dismissed as ignorant or morally corrupt. ‘You can’t just say [expletive]’ he said. ‘Math is racist. [Expletive] for Palestine. Looting is cool. Healthy at any weight. If the men’s football team played the women’s team, it would be a tie,’ he continued.
“’You can’t just say [expletive]. I mean you can, but it doesn’t make it true. You’re not Harry Potter,’ Maher joked. He went on to accuse Democrats of defending ‘some of the dumbest ideas to ever come down the pike,’ and warned that continuing on this ideological path could have lasting consequences.” (End of Maher article)
Probing the psychology around the intense hatred of differing others in our societies today- the tribal divides, Wendell Krossa
This Gutfeld panel of guests note that Rosie O’Donnell moved out of the US but can’t end her feud with Trump. Even her therapist questions what is going on with the intensity of her hatred toward Trump. She cannot stop talking about him, framing him in the worst possible way as a fascist dictator who is destroying democracy, etc.
As Gutfeld regular Kat Timpf says, O’Donnell likes it. She adds that hatred of Trump is a motivating factor for many people. It becomes their identity and is then hard to let go. These people, says Timpf, could go out and meet others like Trump supporters and discover that they are intelligent and good people.
Those possessed of such intense hatred might find out that there is more than just two extreme choices- i.e. (1) being constantly and completely overwhelmed and completely encompassed by hatred and fear over someone who will be out of office in a few years anyway, or (2) you (the Trump hater) are a stupid person, a hateful person.
If you really believe, on the other hand, that Trump supporters are stupid people, says Timpf, then that is a scary way to live if you believe half of the country are awful people. But that is not reality.
The only way to get over that view of Trump voters is to have conversations with those others who disagree with you. But Timpf doesn’t see O Donnell doing that because that is asking her to give up her very identity, to give up the idea that she is not just a person with a different opinion. It’s harder to give up an opinion when it is not just an opinion to you, but it is something that places you (in your mind) above other people. It makes you some kind of hero. You are asking people to give up their life on a pedestal of moral superiority. That is asking them to give up too much.
Gutfeld adds that even though they are unhappy, miserable people, they believe they are better than other people.
Note that interviewer Nicole Wallace, discussing the TDS of Rosie with her, almost admits, regarding her own TDS, that “Maybe it’s me”. Yikes, that was close to admitting the real problem. Because as Gutfeld follows, all the existential crises that the Democrats predicted would come from Trump did not come true which means that after Trump won, they were wrong about most things (e.g. the economy, crime, etc.). They proclaimed Trump would end the world so maybe that means that they are viewing things through the wrong filters and they should take those off, says Gutfeld. But, as he concludes, they can’t do that because their identity is tied to how they view Trump and they can’t let that go.
An interesting analysis by this panel. They are nailing some of the elements in what is driving the intense tribal hatred in the US today.
The other guest, chef Andrew Gruel (one of better social/political commentators today), makes the point that what we are watching today happening in the UK, that could have been the US’s future if Trump had not been elected. Gruel refers to the Woke Progressive extremism and insanity that is destroying a once great nation just as the same woke cult has been doing across Western liberal democracies in Europe, Canada, and Australia.
As Gutfeld adds, in the US we expect immigrants to assimilate to US culture, where in Europe the governments expect citizens to assimilate to the culture of incoming migrants. And that is the failure of multi-culturalism- i.e. to not insist that immigrants must assimilate to liberal democracy.
Because of their felt drive to virtue-signal for status as morally superior, and out of their fear of smears of racist, Islamophobia, etc., woke Progressives have embraced the suicidal empathy where they are now permitting Islamicist activists to push for the transformation of liberal democracies into theocracies, or collectivisms (in the strange- loose, temporary- cooperation known as the “Red/Green” association, Islamicists and neo-Marxists are working toward the common goal of overturning liberal democracies.).
My related post to a discussion group: Wendell Krossa
Take a listen to this link below around the 18-minute mark as Kat Timpf, a libertarian/Independent, offers her analysis of Rosie O’Donnell’s TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome- hatred toward Trump).
And I offer first my qualifiers- As also Independent, I am not a fanboy of the person Trump. I cringe at his “petty vindictiveness” at times, his braggadocio and tendency to exaggerate with extreme examples and numbers. But I also see his fundamentally common-sense policies on many critical things that impact most citizens, especially helping the poorest and making life safer for all. That trumps his other foible-level imperfections, for me. And while I also cringe at Gutfeld’s sometimes “nasty” (my opinion) comments/terms regarding Democrats, I find his panel, including Gutfeld himself, offer some of the best commentary on what our societies are going through today. They present just about the best analyses out there and that explains why his show is number one.
Gutfeld slips over sometimes into petty name-calling (e.g. “assholes”), into the tribal vengeance thing of vilification for vilification, hurt for hurt, eye for eye, that renders us all petty and not at our best. Yes, poke fun at, mock, but try to avoid the nastier stuff. Like many try to do- restore the Johnny Carson neutral thing with a dose of human decency.
Timpf’s point on how such things as TDS become part of a person’s identity as morally superior in society, nails what many others (i.e. Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn on “America This Week”) are also pointing to as we all try to understand the psychology behind the tribal hatred dividing societies like the US. This goes to what the entire Woke Progressive phenomenon has made us aware of- i.e. things like “suicidal empathy” (Gad Saad) and the felt need of many to virtue-signal for status in society (Jordan Peterson’s point) as morally superior, even as many embrace a deformed empathy that has destructive outcomes in harming others.
This (“suicidal empathy”) refers to Progressive policies, for example, that release repeat violent offenders that inflict further harm on innocent others, and policies that allow even criminal illegal immigrants into a country to murder citizens. Others also note that European countries are allowing too many Muslim immigrants who hate liberal democracy and openly state that they come “not to take part but to take over”. Those immigrants claim that they will transform the new host societies they are entering into Islamic theocracies run according to Sharia law, just like the countries that they have left (qualifier: not all Muslim immigrants take this position, but a significantly threatening number do).
As Timpf says re O’Donnel, what we are seeing is “not just people holding an opinion but holding something that is core to their identity”, that enables them to portray themselves as morally superior to others, it grants them superior status (in their minds). And they seem unaware that when our identity is built around hatred it destroys the person hating. We see this now in the many Democrats (i.e. 70% in surveys) who now affirm totalitarian policies like favoring censorship of their opponents, and believe that violence is valid against their opponents, and even cheer the murder of opponents like Charlie Kirk (see Joe Rogan comments). As Timpf and others note, these people seem unaware of what they are thinking and promoting.
“The Greg Gutfeld Show 9/30/25 FULL END SHOW | ᖴO᙭ ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS September 30, 2025”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYYVRyWqsc
“Rogan calls out self-described ‘progressives’ who celebrated the ‘public execution’ of Charlie Kirk”, Alexander Hall
Quotes from article:
“Weeks after he heard about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on-air, podcaster Joe Rogan noted that he is still reeling from seeing how many so-called progressives celebrated his death.
“’The Charlie Kirk thing fucking opened up my eyes… I never expected so many people would celebrate that man’s murder.’…
“’It’s just bizarre, like, normal people that, I think, think they’re good people, and they think, they genuinely think, that guy was a bad guy… And I don’t think they’re right. And I think they were indoctrinated. And I don’t agree with everything that Charlie Kirk said or did’.”…
“Rogan reasserted that one of the most frightening aspects about the entire incident was the fact that perfectly normal people celebrated the murder of a young man because they did not like what he had to say.
“’I don’t think some of the things he said, he should have said… but the fact that people were cheering when he died — normal people, housewives, moms, like fucking people working at banks, people working at various industries — celebrating a man getting shot in front of his kids in the front of the whole world. Like what the fuck is wrong with us?’”…
“Rogan criticized what he saw as hypocrisy, saying it was disturbing that people on the left who claim to be progressive, compassionate and inclusive were openly celebrating gun violence and public executions.”
Pete Hegesth on pacifism and peace, Wendell Krossa
I want to affirm (in link below) where “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth says that “pacifism is so naïve and dangerous. It ignores human nature and ignores history.” He continues, saying you have to be willing to wage war in order to attain and protect peace and freedom. Either you do that, he says, or “you will be subservient to someone or something.” He adds that is a truth that is as old as time and you need a powerful military to pay the cost in blood and treasure in order to ensure that subservience to totalitarian opponents does not happen, that we can maintain our freedom and peace.
Pacifism, which some commend for expressing a utopian longing to avoid violence and achieve peace, is simply a wrongheaded understanding of the world that we live in. It becomes a form of “suicidal empathy” and does not work in the face of real threats that may exhibit elements of the psychopathic mind or the animal impulse to totalitarian domination, along with the tribal impulse to destroy competing others who differ in some way.
Hegseth continues, stating that if we want peace then we have to prepare for war to achieve it, to protect and maintain the liberal democracy gains that we have made over past centuries. Credible counter force is necessary to stand down the bullies of our world who refuse to leave others alone but pathologically lust to exercise domination and control over others.
Such is the regrettably sick, cruel reality of our world, that such people exist among us. Hegseth hits the right notes on many of these issues.
Why then the emphasis here on the ideal of unconditional response and treatment of others? Doesn’t that fly in the face of the use of military force against attackers/enemies?
I see “unconditional” as more about the advice of the ancient Chinese sage who said that when you are attacked by some enemy, then you must engage war to stop your attackers, to defeat them. But when you have defeated them, then do not triumphally gloat and humiliate them, but seek to rehabilitate them, just as the Allies did with the Germans and Japanese following the end of WW2. We always remember Joseph Campbell’s good advice to remember that our “enemy” is still our brother, our family. It is wise to have such insights in our heads to inform and guide our actions in all the diverse situations that we encounter throughout life.
Campbell’s statement again: “For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).
Add here also Leo Tolstoy’s similar advice:
“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care” (Resurrection).
Site project in regard to the ideal of unconditional:
This site stresses the critical ideal of unconditional deity because it shapes, as nothing else can, our mental, emotional, and motivational states, also our behavioral responses in life.
The unconditional ideal functions to prepare us for confronting evil in this life, helping to focus our intentions that purpose to maintain our humanity as we do what we often must engage with regret- i.e. use force to restrain violent offenders, to imprison repeat violent people and hold them fully accountable for offenses. Unconditional guides us to do so as humanely as possible so we don’t permit ourselves to sink into to the same inhumane ugliness of offenders, indulging the “natural” impulses to hatred, vengeance, domination, punitive/destructive payback, or whatever.
Unconditional, in the larger context, is about how we find the best pathways to that better peaceful future that we all want. No one seriously wants the horror of war that deforms all who must be involved, especially the soldiers who conduct frontline war (add police forces also here). This was a feature that Hegseth did not address, how the human use of violence to counter attackers deforms the minds and lives of the soldiers/police who do so. The PTSD that we are all familiar with today. Note the outcomes of people exercising force toward others in the higher suicide and divorce rates among police who frequently encounter and deal with the most disgusting humans among us.
Nonetheless, an unconditional ideal to inform life does not negate in any way what Hegseth is arguing for- i.e. merit-based competency to defend peace.
And nothing in our struggles with applying such an ideal as unconditional responses/behavior, changes the truth that God is unconditional reality, just as Jesus stated. That is ultimate comfort and reassurance lodged in the background narratives of life (i.e. an unconditional God will include all in the end- “sun and rain” will be given to all eventually).
Hegseth notes how the pathology of “woke progressivism” infected and took over the US military, along with tribal politicization, to degrade the military. As he says, “we are done with that shit” and now we return to common sense.
The singular purpose of the US military is to prepare for war and to be the best at it, in order to defeat any threat and protect freedom and peace. The horror of war is too often the harsh reality of the world that we live in where some of our fellow humans, for whatever reasons, will unleash their tribal impulses to dominate others, to attack and destroy competing others. Notable also today is the threat from a resurging collectivism (Marxist) that is now expressed through the woke progressivism that has been spreading from inside our societies.
This Woke progressivism is the same WEF pathology that favors the larger collectivisms of China and Russia. Collectivism is a direct threat to the individual freedoms that we have fought for in our liberal democracies where elites/bureaucrats are prevented from lording over citizens through our maintenance of the systems of common law and representative institutions of Classic Liberalism.
We also face the continuing threat from Islamic extremism, notably via organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and others who are actively seeking to invade and take over Western liberal democracies. They have stated openly that they do not want to assimilate but to “take over” and install Islamic theocracy.
“Full speeches: Trump, Hegseth address military leaders at rare meeting in Quantico”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGeNPJlIK4
This Substack comment from Bob details how the “diamond” message of Jesus was “buried” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy) in Paul’s Christ myth that dominates the New Testament.
What have I done in my journey? Bob Brinsmead, Sept. 30, 2025
My email response to the question- “What have I done in my journey?”
The Jesus movement developed post-Easter by forming two groups. The first group were the original Aramaic-speaking Jews (James, apostles etc.) in the Jerusalem church (these were known as the Hebrews—quite conservative Jews). The other group were the Jewish Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews. It is a fascinating history.
There was friction between the two groups from the start. For a background on this, one needs to understand the impact of Hellenism in Jewish history. The Hellenist Jews were influenced by Greek language, philosophy, culture, and religion.
This was a force within Judaism for two to three hundred years just as there was a Persian influence on Judaism before that – bringing Aramaic and Zoroastrian ideas into Judaism to create the astonishing era of Jewish apocalyptic (the books of Daniel, Enoch, Maccabees, etc.) So, with Hellenism, there were even greater influences with Greek philosophy, Greek culture, Greek ideas, all impacting within Judaism.
The conservative Jews, including the conservative Jerusalem church or synagogue of the Nazarenes were not comfortable with the Hellenists and were not comfortable with the more radical evangelism of Stephen the Hellenist, and so the Jerusalem group kept their distance from Stephen, kept clear of the persecution which followed, and were not personally impacted by the persecution crusade of Saul of Tarsus which was directed at the Hellenists to whom he was finally reconciled. But in one respect Paul was also a Hellenist by birth, education, and background, as well as a Pharisee—a conflicted mix?
Oh! Yes, with Hellenism came the Septuagint version of the O.T, which Paul used exclusively. Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenist Jewish philosopher, the most prominent Jewish writer in Paul’s age. The Hellenist converts of the Jesus movement fled to Antioch where they acquired the label of Christians because of their distinctive and original focus on the beginnings of Christology, which was all Greek (excuse the pun) to James and the company at Jerusalem. The bottom line is that Antioch and not Jerusalem was the cradle of the Christian Church.
It managed to overtake or hijack the Jesus movement that began in Jerusalem under the leadership of James, only after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans which ended the dominant role of the Jerusalem church in 70 C.E. This Christ movement which began at Antioch never really blossomed until after the death of both James and Paul in the 60’s.
When they both died around the same time, James was the towering figure in the Jesus movement and Paul looked almost down and out. ‘All in Asia have deserted me…’ , he wailed just before his death. The truth is that Paul and James, or Jerusalem and Antioch really did put on a very serious Punch and Judy show—and the author of the book of Acts and others tried to write out of the story despite leaving traces of blood all over the floor, so to speak.
What have I done in my journey? I got to do this process with Christology. I have looked into the whole process of how the sausage was made over a period of 400 years, from Antioch to Chalcedon in 451 C.E, seeing how, with a certain amount of Greek or Hellenist influence, the theologians of the church built the edifice, how each Creed developed from the Apostles’ Creed, to the Nicene Creed, and then on to the anti-Arian Creed of Athanasius plus Chalcedon in 451 C.E. at Nicene, with the Emperor Constantine presiding, (that was even before the edifice was complete), the church was ready to support the emperor’s edict to kill anyone who questioned a single point of the Nicene Creed. The faith worth dying for had become the faith worth killing for in many centuries to come!
When one sees how the sausage is made, one loses an appetite for it.
What am I left with? I am left with what the apostolic church at Jerusalem were left with- no Christology at all, no doctrine of a blood atonement, no virgin birth, no divinity of Jesus…just his teachings! In the words of Burton Mack, it is neither possible nor even necessary to know anything very much about the person called Jesus except what he taught.
He was on this account a great Messenger from God because, like any good messenger, he did not make himself the message or centre of attention, but he did have a new doctrine of God and what it means to live in his kingdom in the here and now.
He taught that God is not in some other place more than his Abba father is in this place, and that the Father will not there present in some apocalyptic time more than the Father is present in this present time. There is no apocalyptic event to look for. There is no sacrifice needed to bring to the compassionate Father. (He died as a prophet, not as a sacrifice.)
The messenger did not teach people to put their faith in him or laud him. No ‘good master’ stuff or ‘Lord, Lord’ stuff with this messenger of the Father. God forbid, no worshiping the messenger who simply wanted people to do what he said instead of making some gib deal out of who he was supposed to be. That all annoyed him big time. No good ambassador will do otherwise.
Human beings, however, can become too smart by half. But at least the Hellenists were smart enough to see that if you wanted to conquer the Graeco-Roman world with a new religion, you would have to have something more exciting than the wisdom sayings of a Jew.
It would be far easier to turn this Jewish prophet into a Gentile god with all the bells and whistles (titles and status) of a Greek god, and at least one born of a woman whom you could say was impregnated after the manner of any Greek legend.
So it was that the Hellenists at Antioch reached out to speculate on something more potent than the mere teachings of Jeus, and to give him a title and a status and a C.V. of enough impressive Greek-like miracles to transcend a mere Jewish messiah—and have that more illustrious Greek word Christ as a title.
This meant taking one small step for the Hellenists at Antioch but one giant step for humanity. It meant taking the focus away from the teachings of the messenger and putting all the focus on to the person of the messenger. It is simply a human tendency to do that. Purton L Mack dares to describe this as forming the cult of Christ.
The so-called Hebrews in the apostolic church in Jerusalem led by James, the brother of Jesus, never had a Christology and never went down that 400-year road of developing one.
The question is now starting to be asked all over the Christian world whether this 400-year road of developing a Christology has turned out to be a 2,000-year detour away from the real vision of Jesus.
This cloud has a very bright side. In our present global village, it has become embarrassing to suggest to all and sundry that our Christ is bigger and better than any of your avatars; and that is beginning to dawn on Christians that the historical Jesus would not have liked any chest-thumping, ‘I am the greatest’ antics.
After all, he did utter some very contrary and revolutionary things about what greatness really means. And on the other hand, we are left with a Jesus who was never a Christian anyway but whose words can reach the heart of people from any religious background and become an enormous, human-uniting force that is not driven by any institutional church.
Documenting this amazing story and its history is so daunting that I am left scratching around thinking how I can write some of it up, What I have said here is just my crude and very unready outline that might give you one hundred reasons to throw it away as nonsense -for which I readily forgive. Robert Brinsmead
The Jesus message/core theme suits my non-religious spirit, Wendell Krossa (I am not a fanboy of all the Q research and conclusions out there)
I have struggled, notably, since early teen years with a strong impulse to independence, freedom from parental control, and then later freedom from religious and state interference, domination, and control (Note: This is common to the shift from childhood to adulthood). It took me till midlife to understand that I was responding to an innate spirit of Classic Liberalism, as embodied in liberal democracy society (“Live and let live”).
Preface Note: Q is short for the German term “quelle” that means “source”. Early German theologians, among others, noticed that Matthew and Luke, who wrote later than Mark, borrowed a number of sayings from Mark’s gospel. But they also obviously borrowed other sayings from some other unknown source, hence Q.
My point:
We have to discern and pick out the authentic Jesus teachings from the larger New Testament context where the NT authors included much more that they attributed to Jesus, sayings and situations that contradict his main theme of unconditional love and therefore cannot have come from him. Note, for example, Matthew 5 and 11. Jesus states in Matthew 5 to “love your enemies”. Then in Matthew 11, Matthew has him stating angrily that those who refused his miracles in surrounding hamlets (i.e. refused him and his message) will be cast into hell, the supreme statement of hatred of enemies. Those two entirely contradictory statements did not come from the same person (see “The Five Gospels” by the Jesus Seminar scholars).
I repeatedly refer to “Q Wisdom Sayings” on this site. But- qualifier- I would limit my understanding of Q as “the closest that we get to the original message of Jesus” to (1) the material in Luke 6:27-36, (2) the parable of the Prodigal’s Father who affirms God as unconditional love, (3) the parable of the generous vineyard owner who similarly affirms unconditional treatment of people, and a few other things that similarly affirm the core unconditional theme of Historical Jesus, such as his practice of inviting the outcasts of his society (hookers, local mafia, etc.) to community meals of Jewish elites.
My guiding criteria for evaluating what that Palestinian wisdom sage taught includes his central theological insight, his “stunning new image of God”, a theological breakthrough that was unheard of before he presented it around 30 CE. I use his central theme of unconditional as my supreme criterion to detect the element of “thematic coherence” anywhere else in the material that has been attributed to him. And I don’t find much in the New Testament gospel accounts that is validated by this criterion, not even in the Q Wisdom Sayings versions that are presented by noted Q scholars like John Kloppenborg.
I take the Luke 6:27-36 summary of the teaching of Jesus as one of the finest presentations of human ethics and affirming theology, i.e. Luke doing better than Matthew’s same collection of statements that he muddled and messed up with his concluding statement to “Be perfect as your father is perfect”. That summarizing conclusion by Matthew misses entirely the unconditional tone and spirit of what Jesus had just said, that God embraces with equal inclusion and love the very imperfect, the bad with the good (“Sun and rain are given to all equally, to both good and bad people”).
I take the same position as Bob Brinsmead that the core message of Historical Jesus is a “NONRELIGIOUS” set of precepts and statements because the God who is presented by Jesus is unconditional. Unconditional is contrasted with all religion that is highly conditional. Religion was created, from the beginning, to embody and present the conditions demanded by angry, threatening deities for appeasement of their wrath (i.e. blood sacrifice/payments, offerings/meals, correct beliefs, required rituals, and religious lifestyle as the marker of true believer status in a given religion, etc.).
One cannot escape the fundamentally conditional nature of all religion.
The stunning new God of Jesus, being unconditional love, is therefore profoundly anti-religion (because anti-conditions). Just saying.
Also critical to note, the Q message of Jesus is not a Christian message even though it was included in the developing Christian religion of Paul. The essential unconditional theme of Jesus has been profoundly distorted and buried by Paul’s highly conditional Christ myth that embodies the supreme condition of a cosmic sacrifice sent to be murdered in order to appease the retaliatory and conditional God of Paul, the highly religious God of Paul.
As Bob Brinsmead says, the precepts of Jesus are about love in the ordinary, mundane activities and relationships of all human lives, whether people identify as religious or atheist. The love that Jesus taught was for common daily relationships, especially his teaching on “love your enemy”.
Jesus was not the first to urge love for enemies. The Akkadian father got that right some 2000 years earlier. But that Father did not get the theological element right in the “behavior based on similar validating belief” coupling. He added the warning to his son to “make sacrifice to your still threatening and demanding conditional God” (my paraphrase of his comments). So the Akkadian father’s love of enemy lacked the unconditional feature that Jesus eventually got right.
Once again, the central message of Jesus is not a religious message, hence, my addition to Jefferson and Tolstoy’s point- i.e. the “diamonds” of Jesus have been deformed and buried within the religious context of Paul’s Christ mythology.
And I would challenge the varied Q scholars on the versions of Q that they have presented, on the material that they have attributed to Jesus in their versions of Q. For example, see the Q gospel presented in John Kloppenborg’s “The Earliest Gospel”. Others (James Robinson) have noted that there were later editions of Q (i.e. Q 2, Q 3) that suddenly changed from the original version and became more threatening, changing from the merciful, non-retaliatory God of Jesus to a retaliatory God once again threatening judgment and apocalyptic destruction.
Kloppenborg’s version of Q includes statements of Jesus that threaten judgment and punishment, statements that are entirely out of whack with Jesus’ central theme/message to end eye for eye retaliation and instead love enemies because God does not retaliate against enemies but loves enemies as evident in the merciful and generous granting of sun and rain to all, to both good and bad people. That central theology negates any material on a wrathful God promising judgment and punishment as in Kloppenborg’s version of Q.
And as Bob Brinsmead says, he doubts the actual person, Jesus, wanted to make disciples/followers and church leaders, or start a new religion. Bob is skeptical of statements where Jesus is portrayed as apparently calling for people to become converts and follow him, to become disciples. Note that sometimes when Jesus healed people (no doubt presented them with his message of an unconditional God (?) to heal psychosomatic illnesses- i.e. “demon possession” as caused by traumatizing threat theology) he then sent them back to their home areas to continue their independent lives. He also rejected the natural sense of indebtedness or obligation, that follows from being a recipient of acts of charity, by telling healed people, “Your faith (not me) healed you”.
(Insert note on Jesus’ healing people, as in places like Mark 2:3–12 where he says to a sick person, “Your sins are forgiven” before they had done anything, like make some sacrifice for atonement. Jesus stated to people that they were forgiven based on his belief in an unconditional God and that (i.e. his unconditional theology- no doubt communicated to the sick people) released those sick people from the psychosomatic impacts and paralysis caused by threat theology. Again, just suggesting. Psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo detail the deforming of personality from threatening “Cruel God” theology. As they state, “Sick Gods make people sick”.)
Continuing with the point on Jesus not subjecting people to indebtedness or obligation, but setting them free…
After all, Jesus was the guy who said “Don’t lord over anyone but serve others”. Doesn’t sound like “come follow me and be a submissive convert”. In the “authentic Jesus material” (evaluated as “authentic” by the criterion of affirming unconditional) there is no “submit to Lord Jesus ruling with a rod of iron”. Then how much less authentic, having nothing to do with Jesus, is Paul’s advocating for religious authorities such as church leaders/bishops, etc.? Or Paul’s advocacy for wives to submit to husbands, or slaves to submit to masters?
Charlie Kirk and his wife Erika got this “wives submit to husbands” wrong, despite their defense of it. Beware all “Lord, King, divine Ruler” stuff, which early humans projected onto their images of deity- i.e. animal alpha domination projected onto God. See Alex Garcia’s “Alpha God” for some interesting comment on the human practice of projecting the animal onto God. If true “greatness” is as Jesus argued- to serve others- then “God is great” would refer to a serving deity not a “lording-over-others” deity as in Paul’s “Lord Jesus” myth.
Why the projection of so much “anti-Jesus” material onto that wisdom sage?
The gospel writers wrote two generations after Jesus died and they did not actually know the man. They were writing theology (mythology presented as actual history) and did so to affirm Paul’s Christ myth that dominated early Christ-ianity. Hence their “biographies” of Jesus include much material that Jesus never actually said and things he never did, like Hellenistic miracles. The gospel authors created such material and attributed it to Jesus in order to affirm the Christology of Paul. They were following the Hellenism pattern of attributing miracles to special people in order to frame them as divine persons.
And as was the practice of that time, they fraudulently claimed the names of well-known apostles as authors of their books/letters so as to give credibility to their mythmaking.
Added note: Fear-based narratives are not how we unite and motivate people to good behavior.
You can employ fear of things like threat theology to unite and control large groups in organizations and states (i.e. angry deity threatening punitive destruction in apocalypse and hell to coerce submission to religious systems). However, manipulating people with fear will deform human personality and will lead to other outcomes like nihilism and violence as the history of fear-oriented narratives reveals. See also the points of psychologist Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”.
“Deform human personality”? Yes, note again that Jesus encountered many cases of psychosomatic illness called “demon possession” in his time. I would suggest that he healed those people with his encouragement of unlimited forgiveness based on his new theology of a God who was unconditional mercy and love.
I would argue the same message would liberate many today suffering with illnesses like depression which has been termed “the world’s number one illness”. The theme of divine unconditional love may even help a young generation traumatized by the apocalyptic terrorizing from the climate alarmism crusade with its threats of “angry Planet, angry Mother Earth”. Young people suffer significant rates of “eco-anxiety” and trauma, high levels of general anxiety and depression after decades of being battered with endless public proclamations that the world will soon end, with actual dates set repeatedly by notable public prophets of apocalyptic doom.
Politicians and other wannabe totalitarians have always used the threat of looming emergency and imminent catastrophe to manipulate and control people, to get people to submit to their salvation schemes, to embrace the demand for a “salvation that comes through destruction”, even self-destruction. We see such self-destruction in the widespread push to embrace the destruction of our Western societies through the rapid implementation of Net zero decarbonization. This is very much like the “Xhosa cattle slaughter” where people panicked apocalyptic lunacy killed the cattle that were their very livelihood. They became caught up in hysteria of the “madness of crowds” insanity from an eruption of apocalyptic lunacy.
The Xhosa illustration:
https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/psi_sigma_siren/vol3/iss1/2/
“Nongqawuse’s prophecy provoked the colonially embittered Xhosa (cōe-săh) people to rise up and kill their cattle. As the movement drew to a close, around 400,000 cattle had been slaughtered and an estimated 80,000 Xhosa died of starvation.” (South Africa, 1856-57)
H. L. Mencken warned about the manipulation of people through fear that renders populations susceptible to manipulation into embracing/supporting irrational salvation schemes of apocalyptic prophets.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”, In Defense of Women.
We have all been living through one of history’s greatest eruptions of apocalyptic madness over the past three decades of the climate alarmism crusade. Prophets of this madness have tried to maintain fear at fever pitch with endlessly repeated prophecies of imminent catastrophe. The dates for the end of the world have to be set and reset and reset again because the apocalypse never happens.
Historian Richard Landes warned about the approaching apparent failure of such apocalyptic crusades. The leaders will either become disillusioned and return to normal life with tails between legs. Or more dangerously, out of desperation to keep the panic alive, some will double down in desperation and may even shift to the phase of “exterminate or be exterminated”. Failed prophets become desperate over the possibility of lost credibility and reputation, lost income, and lost careers that have been built on apocalyptic panic-mongering.
(Insert: Even parents know that children are better motivated to good behavior by positive affirmation than by threat of punishment.)
“The Cult of diversity, inclusion, and equity destroys science: The coming end of Canada’s supreme wokeness”, Gad Saad, Oct. 1, 2025
Saad talks about his testimony to “The House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Science and Research regarding The Impact of the Criteria for Awarding Federal Funding on Research Excellence in Canada.”
He states: “Meritocracy is the sole operative ethos when judging research excellence. Scientific quests have a singular goal, to better understand the world and its wondrous mysteries. Science is not an empathy party meant to elevate and celebrate so-called marginalized groups. The use of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) when allocating research funds is an affront to individual dignity and to research excellence.
“A 2025 report by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy found that 97.5 per cent of academic job postings at Canadian universities referenced DIE requirements.” He then gives examples from major Canadian universities.
He makes the point that, “(S)cience is, or should be, an apolitical process. Scientific truths and natural laws exist independent of researchers’ identities…. Ideological activism is anathema to research excellence. Meritocracy is all that matters.”
Saad concludes: “Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but I believe that we are seeing the early stages of an auto-correction in supremely woke Canada. It will require sustained effort to eradicate all the parasitic ideas that have damaged research excellence in Canada. The early indications though are that even the progressive ideologues, who served as the architects of the relentless dismantling of meritocracy, are seeing the proverbial writing on the walls. May we return to reason, logic, and common sense in the not-too-distant future and recommit to keeping our irrelevant identities away from the pursuit of science.”
More Saad truth from Gad, (He’s a lot more than just another “gadfly”). This from a video of the panel presentation to the House of Commons.
“Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity in Science-Full Testimony @ The House of Commons (THE SAAD TRUTH_1906)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFY-lAfhJ2U
Saad speaks to the DEI takeover of higher education and the outcomes in the corruption of good science. The Liberal government has mandated hiring for positions, based on DEI criteria and not solely on personal merit or achievement in varied scientific disciplines.
My point, related to this parliamentary presentation, is that DEI and its classification of people according to “victim/victimizer” categories relates to a broader ideological thing pushing for dominance in our societies. We are experiencing a resurgence of far-left collectivism with its old categories of “oppressed/oppressor” that were formerly defined in terms of the simple-minded tribal dualism of capital/property owners versus propertyless workers/peasants.
I would add here the impulse of people to virtue-signal for superior moral status in society, even though the outcomes of the policies that they then support have harmful outcomes. I see such damaging outcomes from the use of DEI criteria in hiring for positions in scientific disciplines (damage to the scientific endeavor). Or the virtue signaling for moral status (signaling great compassion for minority groups) that then becomes a form of “suicidal empathy” when it lets repeat violent offenders free to further harm other victims. Violent offenders freed from prison because they belong to a minority group classed as “victims” based on skin color/race.
Even though such outcomes harm people, the activists promoting such things still believe that they can signal as morally superior, as compassionate people despite the evidence of harmful outcomes from their “compassionate” policies in increased crime.
And this embrace of policies that harm others but are viewed as the means to a better future traces even further back to more primitive ideas such as “salvation through destruction,” a dominant religious theme from antiquity, based on apocalyptic mythology and the belief that salvation, a better future, is achieved via violent sacrifice of the right people, even innocent people.
That is a barbaric belief that has always undergirded the sacrifice tradition of humanity. Think of those Aztecs cutting out the hearts of living children. Or today, Luigi Mangione celebrated for killing the “right person” and that some believe would make things better. Or the murder of Charlie Kirk to make things better.
This idea of achieving a better future or salvation through murder and destruction has been beaten into human consciousness/subconscious over multiple millennia via religious traditions. It has become archetypal that you can be righteous in murdering innocent people as sacrifices and to clear the way to achieve your utopia, heaven, or a better future. These are dangerous ideas/themes that have long infected humanity, and validated murderous wars against enemies as righteous crusades to achieve noble ends.
These background beliefs/themes, still dominant in religious traditions, and lodged deeply in human subconscious as archetypes, continue to exert influence on human minds and lives, what psychologist Harold Ellens terms “dynamis”.
Such ancient ideas feed into the suicidal empathy that Saad talks about today.
Also a good point by Saad that we solve bigotry not by now imposing reverse bigotry as many are doing through DEI discrimination against certain groups that do not meet DEI criteria even though the people are qualified, even excellent in their discipline. But they do not have the right skin color or gender or sexual orientation. DEI promotes the new “Woke Racism” with its victim/victimizer categorization of people that is just a new iteration of the same old tribal dualism of Marxism.
DEI takes us into a historically new descending “eye for eye” cycle where the former oppressed become the new oppressors. DEI destroys disciplines, institutions, and societies where it has been applied.
Saad and the others on the panel note the now prominent orientation in higher education to the left as professors across past decades have hired ideologically similar candidates for positions and the whole endeavor has now shifted far left and Woke Progressive with DEI. This strong leftist orientation in higher education is so out of touch with the Canadian public who no longer trust higher education of propagandizing public media like CBC, though the distrust is more notable among conservatives and moderates than leftists. And that, of course, is the tribal thing.
Saad notes the “self-censorship” now in higher education as the worst form of censorship. He says that many people contact him, often academics who tell him not to reveal their names as they fear being retribution in being fired, losing grants and positions, or being publicly vilified and bullied by intolerant colleagues. So they ask Saad to not include their names if he reads their emails publicly. They are too afraid of retaliation from DEI activists who do tolerate diversity, inclusion, and equality in freedom of speech, etc. As Saad says, we are not North Korea or other totalitarian states. This is Canada and its happening here.
Others on the panel also note how DEI, contrary to the claims of its title initials, is exclusionary, rejects diversity, and does not equality (not “equity”). If you don’t meet its criteria for gender, skin color, sexual orientation, etc. you will not get funding or positions. It is not true DEI that should be about equality of opportunity for the best qualified people for positions, argues Saad.
“Deep state” a conspiracy? Wendell Krossa
Critical to protecting liberal democracy for all is to tackle what DOGE began to uncover, and what Joe Rogan guest Mike Benz revealed in his two interviews on JRE- i.e. the “complex of infrastructure” that has been constructed behind-the-scenes to censor and propagandize populations, to indoctrinate citizens, notably in the US, but also typical across Western liberal democracies today.
That has been called the “deep state” and dismissed by Progressives as “conspiracy theory”. But it appears undeniably evident in, for example, the domination of higher education by leftist professors and administration staff (true believers in Woke Progressiveness). It has been uncovered in the intelligence agencies censoring conservative opponents on behalf of Democrats- i.e. the Twitter Files exposure by Matt Taibbi and others, the Facebook admission of succumbing to Democrat pressure to censor, also recent admissions by Google and Wikipedia to Democratic bias, all major communication forums.
Also, the bureaucracies of numerous governments have been infected with Woke Progressivism as evident across Europe in the censoring and criminalizing of opposition on the Conservative or “populist” side. Also evident in the dominant narrative in “science” that has been pushing the climate apocalyptic crusade of the Left, over past decades, etc.
You further see evidence of this “Deep state” thing, for example, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulation of labor data, presenting what appears to have been outright lies to try and favor Biden’s re-election in 2024 and discredit opposition. You find such stuff throughout government bureaucracies favoring one side against the other which shows that deep state arguments are not all dismissible as just conspiracy theory stuff.
Note:
Many decry the downfall of the Democratic Party in the US due to its swing far left into extremist woke progressivism. You could have the revival of what is sometimes nostalgically referred to as the past healthy balance between the two opposing parties in a democracy, if both are committed to the basics of liberal democracy- i.e. protecting the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally, as in Classic Liberal principles, systems of law, and representative institutions that serve the sovereign people.
But when one party swings away into neo-collectivism as in Woke Progressivism with DEI, that balance between the two no longer works. Then it becomes the issue of protecting the basic common-sense principles, laws, and institutions of liberal democracy against neo-collectivism. That is a different battle altogether.
This exchange of emails from our discussion group recently– “Thank God that God is not Christian, not religious.”
First, this was posted by a member of our group who defends Christian atonement theology:
Subject: It was GOD in Christ who effected the ATONEMENT.
“May I refer again the best scholarly book on Christian theology. “Atonement, Justice, and Peace” by Darrin W. Snyder Belousek. One reading and you will be a happy Christian again, ___.”
Bob Brinsmead replied to the above person:
“That was not the apostolic faith which had no doctrine of atonement and no Christology. What Belousek teaches is the speculative Hellenistic theology on both counts. The Hebrew apostles had nothing more than what Jesus taught them about God and man. God, who is an everywhere Spirit, had created man in his likeness and image to be a reflection of “the invisible God.” Jesus was regarded as being such a man as we may also be numbered among those who are called “the light of the world” (Matthew 5). In the Hebrew faith, man in the image and likeness of God was never taken to mean that man would be or could be God, because in Hebrew thinking there is one God and “God is one.” God always remains God alone, and man always remains man. God is not a man and man is not God.
“The relationship may be illustrated by the relationship of Light to a flower. A flower is created so that it is able to reflect and display a spectrum of the light that shines on it and through it, but a flower does not substantially have any colour. All the colour it may reflect is within the light that shines on it and through it. So, man can reflect something of the “Light that lights everyone coming into the world,” but man is not that Light.
“This is Hebrew thought, but Greek thought was different. In Greek thought there were elite people who had a special birth. They were said to be the progeny of the gods who had slept with women. For instance, this is how Alexander the Great was thought to have become a son of Zeus. This gave him the entitlement to rule over the common people as one of the elites as per the teaching of Plato who also was thought to have had a special birth. And so it was with the Greek rulers as it had been with the Egyptian rulers.
“In Hebrew thinking Adam was called the son of God, as was King David, the nation of Israel or a righteous man, but this was an “adoptive” son, but in Greek or Hellenistic thought sonship was a substantial sonship by reason of a special birth. The story of the virgin birth of anyone was thoroughly Hellenistic and Greek mythology was chock full of special births brought about by the gods sleeping with the daughters of the human family. It was the same in India according to Joseph Campbell.
“So too is Hebrew justice different from Greek justice. Theories of atonement for sin by way of sacrifice existed in Greek and pagan justice long before the Hebrew nation existed. But the Hebrew prophets rejected the sacrificial system, including what had been adopted from the pagans by Israel’s priesthood. So did those prophets called John the Baptist and Jesus reject the thesis of the Levitical law that said that “without shedding blood there is no remission of sins.” In Hebrew thinking sin is drowned by the ocean of divine love which is said to “cover” a multitude of sin – God forgives in an act of love that works on a supremely human or relational level rather than from a unilateral or vertical level.
“The apostles of the Jerusalem church or synagogue had no Christology and no belief that Jesus had died for their sins. They simply held to the teaching they had heard from Jesus – and he said nothing about the Christ and nothing about his making an atonement for sin.” (End of Brinsmead post)
I then added to Bob’s comments:
What sacrifice hath wrought, eh.
The origin of the idea of angry gods began far in the human past with the emergence and development of consciousness in our human species, or better when God, who is inseparable from the human spirit/self, incarnated in us Sapiens. Could it be that we were left to figure out things for ourselves as part of some gradual learning process? What our ancestors came up with was that there were gods behind all the elements of the natural world- i.e. gods of differing animal species (the spirit of that particular species) and yes, there is something to even that as Howard Bloom has written about in his books like “Global Mind” (also Rupert Sheldrake), a larger mind that each species taps into.
(How so? Bloom notes that when bacteria develop a protective response to some threat in one part of the world, other bacteria on the opposite side of the planet instantaneously access the same protective ability. A big “Hmmm”. They appear to share a Global Mind.)
But getting back on track- Where the elements of nature were nasty to people- i.e. thunder, lightning, storm, flood, sun and drought, earthquake, disease- well, the destructiveness of varied elements of nature obviously (in primitive logic) meant the gods were angry. And sacrifice- who can trace how far back that practise originated? (See for example, Nigel Davies “Human Sacrifice In History and Today”) And the explanations began early. If humans were “created to serve the gods”, to do the work of the gods, to feed the gods, then not making offerings would piss the gods off. Hence, a logical explanation for the nasty elements and events of the natural world- i.e. angry deity. Is blood sacrifice part of this explanation? Blood offered to feed and appease the angry, threatening gods?
As a tribal man explained to me- When we get sick (due to some sin that angered the local spirits/gods) we then offer a chicken or pig and the angry spirit will eat the blood of that sacrifice and then won’t eat our spirit and thereby kill us. Contemporary tribal groups as proxies for ancient human mythology, according to anthropology.
So we eventually get this primitive logic passed down into human religious traditions- appeasing angry gods with blood sacrifice (so we can survive and regain health). And being the creative minds that us humans are, such things are revised and refined across subsequent history in elaborate atonement theories, even framed in terms of divine “love”. Love in the divine demand for the offering of a human sacrifice as required to appease the angry deities? Even child sacrifice?
Harold Ellens’ good comment on this:
“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’. (End of Ellens’ comments)
The religious belief in violent sacrifice lodges in human thinking the idea of murdering the right people to make life better, to achieve a better future. Add here the Zoroastrian cosmic dualism of a Good God (Ahura Mazda) in war against an evil Force/spirit (Angra Mainyu) and you bring in the religious validation for the human impulse to tribalism, that we are obligated by deity to heroically join the “right/true religion” to battle evil enemies and thereby achieve the victory of the good and the promised outcome of salvation/paradise/utopia.
Hence, we get in the modern era belief that salvation is achieved through violent destruction, by the extermination of our enemies. This is the central message of New Testament books like Revelation. We achieve a better future by murdering the right people. Such thinking led to what Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, and others, have traced out as the driving ideas behind Marxist violent revolution, Nazi murderous assault on Jews, and yes, even the environmental alarmism crusade to purge the evil of industrial civilization (and its natural resources consuming citizens) in order to restore the lost paradise of a more wilderness world.
So we look at what we choose to believe and responsibly consider the outcomes of our beliefs/ideas. We are responsible for what we choose to hold and promote in life. Ideas/beliefs have consequences for others, notably in harm.
Our affirmation of what Jesus promoted (i.e. his “stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God, an unconditionally loving God”) goes to the very heart of such thinking and overturns it entirely. There is no angry, threatening, punishing, destroying God. No eye for eye at the personal level or at any larger scale. No God threatening ultimate eye for eye in the apocalyptic destruction of life and the world.
Ah, I better wind down. But we (meaning humanity) have traced out this through so many doing good research and contributing to our understanding of how we have learned to explain our world across history and what our discoveries have meant in the grand narratives that we have created and the outcomes of our narratives/belief systems. There is good and bad in the mix and part of our gradual learning has been the responsibility to learn what has been bad, reject it, and find better alternatives. To find out what is good, right.
But nothing has been worse, more destructive, than ideas like “salvation through destruction”, at the heart of apocalyptic millennialism. The idea that murdering the right people, even good innocent people, can achieve a better future. Solving problems with violence like the God who demands sacrifice as the means of salvation.
I added further:
Add also bad ideas like “holiness” mythology in deity. That human imperfection offends the holiness of God and must be punished in order to restore the offended honor of God, God highly offended by human “sin”. This feature affirms the idea of deity obsessed with perfection/imperfection.
The holiness and consequent obligation/demand to “restore offended honor” theme is behind “honor killings” in Islamic regions, where if some young lady starts to adopt modern practises and dress, the males are offended and demand their offended honor be rectified, notably in the murder of the offending females, even family members, daughters. We have had these right here in Canada, where an immigrant family- i.e. the father, son, and first wife who murdered their three daughters and the second wife for adopting modern dress and dating. Holiness mythology as brutal paganism.
Christians have argued that holiness is the supreme glory of God. No, no. It has been a stain in driving eye for eye justice ideas. And in affirming the idea of a God obsessed with perfection/imperfection and punishing imperfection. The true glory of God is love, no conditions love, and humans sharing that glory in being “merciful just as your Father is merciful.” How so? Well, that list of human responses/behaviors that precedes that concluding summary as in Luke 6:27-36. No conditions love.
The point that Jesus made in the Luke 6 list? Do these things and you will be just like God. You will reflect/express just what God is like. Be unconditionally merciful just as God is. Love your enemy because God does. Offering sun and rain to all, to both good and bad people. The two most critical elements for survival in agrarian society.
That list of authentically humane behavioral responses reveals the best of human behavior as the starting point of theology. This comes from that ancient “behavior based on similar validating belief” coupling. Our ancestors came up with that coupling from being driven by their primary impulse to meaning and purpose- i.e. driven to seek divine validation for how they lived, with appeal to God to validate their purpose in this world, how our ancestors could “virtue-signal for status in society” as good people. Something so deformed today by our leftist friends who use that (salvation through destruction themes) to virtue-signal for moral superiority, enabling them to validate their domination of those they frame as “evil” others, disagreeing others. The tribal thing. Our friends on the Right do the same.
And:
Getting back to your original point, ___. Thank God that God is not Christian. More an early Jewish Jesus deity. And I am not fully aligned with the Q versions offered by scholars like Kloppenborg. Too muddled and mixed, like the gospel writers mixing and muddling the Jesus “Diamonds” with the dung of Christology. Kloppenborg’s version of Q has all sorts of threats of judgment/punishment much like the beliefs of our primitive ancestors in threatening gods behind the natural world punishing human sin. Holy gods.
And let’s not deny that the ancients were not all wrong about gods behind the elements of the natural world. That intuitive feeling that there was something greater behind the natural world was not all deformed by the ancients… i.e. the “numinous” thing (“having a strong spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity”). The numinous thing evoked awe in our ancestors at this world and life, and they naturally perceived something of a divine presence all through the world. It’s just that wrong conclusions were made from that… i.e. the nasty myths they created of angry gods punishing us for our imperfection/sinfulness through the harmful elements of the natural world. That fallacy of angry, punitive deity has been a horrifically deforming and damaging thing on human consciousness across the millennia, burdening people with additional unnecessary fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, despair, depression, nihilism, and violence, as the psychologists like Ellens note.
One more:
Bob actually introduced this theme of unconditional way back when he was dealing with “justification by faith” in relation to Luther’s discovery that liberated his consciousness from guilt over his personal failures. Bob broke the connection between justification and sanctification, clearing things up with the idea of justification as a legal declaration based only on the finished work of Christ, and not in any way dependent on human sanctification (e.g. New Testament book of James- “faith without works is dead”), severing the connection between declared righteous and becoming righteous. That had the seeds of unconditional.
Another line of discussion to this topic: “It was GOD IN Christ who effected the ATONEMENT.”
The other discussant said: “I don’t believe the death of Jesus was a meaningless act. He at least died in an attempt to liberate the agricultural slaves. But according to the authors of the 4 Gospels, and Paul, his life and death had greater significance. We can only critically evaluate the various historical accounts without dogmatic conclusions.
My response to this person’s point on Paul believing “(Jesus’) death had greater significance”:
And critical to evaluation is to ask why Paul, his mind “dogmatically” possessed by Hellenist and other primitive mythological themes, took the death of a man protesting the sacrifice industry and turned that into the ultimate cosmic sacrifice? (He was an “intolerantly dogmatic” man as the author of “The Closing of the Western Mind” noted). Paul buried the “diamond” under “dung”. And why did Iranaeus, among others, dogmatically conclude that only the gospels that dogmatically affirmed Paul’s theology should be included in the canon of Christ-ianity? Neglecting the entirely opposite message of Jesus-ianity.
“AI Overview” offers these comments:
“Established the four-Gospel canon:
“Irenaeus was the first author to explicitly name the four canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and argue for their validity. He treated them as authoritative, using them to defend Christian orthodoxy against heretical interpretations of the Jesus narrative.” (End of AI Overview)
Others note that Irenaeus argued for the 4 gospels with such points as there are four winds and animals have four legs. Sheesh, eh.
One source:
“Of the many other gospels written in antiquity, exactly four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament, or canonical. An insistence upon a canonical four, and no others, was a central theme of Irenaeus of Lyon, [Lugdunum in Gaul] c.185. In his central work, Adversus Haereses Irenaeus denounced various Christian groups that used only one gospel… as well as groups that embraced the texts of new revelations.… Irenaeus declared that the four he espoused were the four pillars of the Church: ‘it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four’ he stated, presenting as logic the analogy of the four corners of the earth and the four winds (1.11.8).
“His image, taken from Ezekial 1, of God’s throne borne by four creatures with four faces—‘the four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and the four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle’— equivalent to the ‘four-formed’ gospel, is the origin of the conventional symbols of the Evangelists: lion, bull, eagle, man. Irenaeus was successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively, and exclusively these four, contained the truth. By reading each gospel in light of the others, Irenaeus made of John a lens through which to read Matthew, Mark and Luke“ (Wikipedia article on Gospel, accessed 12-04-2008). (End of AI Overview)
Note Irenaeus’ point on the defensive self-validation of Paul’s Christology in “reading each gospel in light of the others”. That is the “dogmatism” of closed and limited sources validation.
And this from Grok after I posed to him- “Grok comment please on Irenaeus argued for the 4 gospels with such points as there are four winds and animals have four legs.”
Grok responded:
Irenaeus, a 2nd-century Church Father, argued for the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in his work Against Heresies. His reasoning included symbolic analogies, such as the four winds (or cardinal directions) and the four legs of animals, to suggest a natural and divine harmony in the number four. He proposed that just as the world is ordered by four directions (north, south, east, west) and living creatures often have four legs, the Gospel’s fourfold structure reflects a cosmic and theological completeness. He also tied the four Gospels to the four living creatures in Revelation (lion, ox, man, eagle), associating each with a Gospel’s unique perspective on Christ.
This argument is more symbolic than evidential, rooted in the numerology and cosmology of his time. It reflects Irenaeus’ effort to defend the authority of the four Gospels against competing texts, like those used by Gnostics, by appealing to a sense of divine order. Critics might see it as arbitrary, as the number four could be applied to many things without proving the Gospels’ exclusivity. Supporters, however, view it as a poetic way to affirm the early Church’s consensus on the canon.
If you’d like, I can dig deeper into Irenaeus’ context or the counterarguments to his reasoning!
(End of Grok comment)
Another post from a fellow discussant who affirms traditional Christian beliefs:
“How could anyone read I Corinthians 13 and question Paul’s theology. “And now faith, hope, and love, abide, these three; and the greatest these is love. !!!!!”
My (Wendell Krossa) response to him:
This key phrase in 1 Corinthians 13 affirms not just “love”, but the no conditions feature that dominated Jesus’ message- i.e. “Love keeps no record of wrongs”. Is not God love? The highest, best, most humane love? Why then would such a God keep a record of human wrongs? Why would God be held to a lower standard of love than we are (i.e. allowed or obligated for some reason to keep records of human wrongs)?
The NDE people provide a helpful response here, stating that future “judgment” is not judgment as we have been indoctrinated to believe across the millennia, as condemnation followed with divine punishment, eternal punishment. Judgment is more about “self-judgment” or evaluation of what one has learned in the human journey in this world- i.e. the “life review” element. That apparently is an evaluation infused with the inexpressible unconditional love of the Light or God. Non-judgmental, non-threatening…
As the lady with a degree in Catholic theology said after her NDE- “My Christian religion is all wrong. There is no angry God, no judgment, no punishment, no Hell. Just astounding unconditional love”.
That is the real Jesus version of “God is love”.
Added note:
A bit more on “what one learned in the human journey in this world- i.e. the ‘life review’ element”.
This comes from speculation on a new framing of ultimate reality as contrasted with life in this world. Joseph Campbell has also commented on this. That we are a part of a greater consciousness beyond this material realm. That realm is a Oneness of love with no dualism between good and evil. No Zoroastrian “Ahura Mazda in war with Angra Mainyu” in some grand cosmic dualism, no God versus Satan in some great religious “heaven and hell” reality.
The dualism between good and evil exists only in this material realm, created as a learning arena for human experience and development. Only part of our consciousness is expressed in this world, mediated through a material body and brain that functions as a limiting organism, limiting our experience to 5 senses and three/four dimensions. So we can have a physical/material experience here.
Why the good and evil dualism here? There can be no outcome of experiencing authentic moral good except in a situation where there is genuine human freedom to choose between good and evil. This denies Sam Harris’s, along with other materialists, absurd claim that there is no such thing as “free will”.
AI Overview insert: “Sam Harris argues that free will is a powerful, necessary illusion, as our thoughts and actions are the product of prior causes and brain states that are beyond our conscious control. He contends that while we feel free to make decisions, these decisions emerge from unconscious processes, making it impossible for us to be the true “conscious authors” of our thoughts and action.”
Authentic human “freedom of will” makes the outcome of choice for good such a noble and honorable thing, valued highly by deity, when it is chosen in contrast with the temptation to freely choose evil. And this authentic freedom affirms human responsibility for consequences of choices made. It gives real meaning to human responsibility, self-determination, and culpability for choices.
Add what others have said that “where there is no authentic freedom there is no authentic love”. Hence, if “God is love” then not even God can interfere and overwhelm human free choice. That presents the possibility for bad choices and horrific outcomes, but such is the reality of a realm of true freedom.
As Campbell further suggests- The human experience here is about the fact that “we are all actors on God’s stage”, playing our differing roles in this temporary journey away from our true home.