My view of Christianity has really changed and grown over the last three years.
I admit I have an open mind and I will consider all religions that reflect what I read in the bible of Jesus's words. As I delved more into finding out if there was a more universal religion that underlies all religion it called my attention to th enegative influence of Rome on developing Christianity. The Roman Dogma is all that prevents Christans from believing in a more expansive and inclusive perspective of other religions. Indeed, both Islam, which as been called the enemy of Chrisitanity in some main stream media and the Hindu religion recognize Jesus as a messenger of God. The problem comes when there is the insistance that Jesus was a God or is a part of God or a sort of Demi-god. As I thought about it the logic that Rome forged Christianity into their own image becomes blatant. The how and why the depiction of Jesus' life was so distorted is obvious. This distorted view has given rise to all sorts of terrible consequences. War being the most obvious. The second is that people who only study dogma go so far as to claim that Jesus was a myth. There is an wikipedia page that sums all of it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory. Further, royalty in other countries, just like the Pope, defend their positions as king and queen as being divinely given through bloodlines that lead back to Jesus' family. I'm just going to sum up important aspects of the dogma that Roman obvoiusly twisted tohey their own advantage so that they can have Power. Rome Wanted Only One Religion Even before Jesus' death this was the tradition of the Roman Empire. There goal was to have one world religion so that everyone would worship their government. That would give their government unwavering authority over all human kind. That's why when they took over Israel they placed a statue of Zeus in the Temple of Jerusalem. To them, as a people, all religions were the same religion. They believed in a universal religion but most importantly their Caesar was called their savior. The Caesar was considered a Savior because he stamped out chaos by uniting all of the nations. (http://christianmonthlystandard.com/index.php/savior-in-the-roman-world/). The Caesar was also a supposed Demi-God of partly human and partly Godly birth. Rome, then, already had a propensity towards developing a singular relgion to rule the world. The problem was that their pantheon just wasn't universally accepted absolutely rejected in Israel. This has lead to some people arguing that Rome invented Jesus Christ in order to placate the rebelious local groups. Throw Out Paul's Epistles Someone once told me t it is Paul who explains the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I have never liked Paul (I'll leave out a past life memory where I was try to convince people that what Jesus taught was already being misrepresented). You can read about that here: https://bridgetkorns.weebly.com/blog/category/past-lives The problem is that Paul never met Jesus. He was a 'convert.' The story is he encountered the risen Christ on the road and became a believer. I believe Peter had his own political purposes for spreading Christianity and he was crafty in the ways of man which landed him the role of leading the eaerly church. When you track down the history of it the early church was initially turned over to Jesus older half brother (son of Joseph but not of Mary). He was the one that Jesus left his followers to but there was debate within the early church to let this outsider, Paul, come in and start to accepting non-jewish followers. Before long Paul was in charge of the fledgling church. There is a little problem with this, however, because (especially with the Romans) outside believers brought their own beliefs to the religion. Paul never met Jesus. He may have been taught some of the secret teachings from the disciples but he looked at all of it through a Roman lense. Roman's had a very different view of God from the Jewish people and there is no indication that Paul attempted to learn Jewish mysticisim. Instead, he approach the religion as he had been taught. That meant Jesus had to be a demi-god, God was more like Zeus, the Holy Spirit was Mercury and the Devil was more like Pluto who is based on the Greek Hades. So, what he created was very much a Roman religion. The Various Roman Councils When Rome was failing as an Empire and decided to make Christianity their main relligion what was considered 'acceptable' was debated in councils. That means it didn't come from the first church. They didn't go back to the source. They debated and decided what they wanted it to mean for political reasons. They left out the gospels that didn't mesh with their Roman point of view. They then sent out word that all Gospels that were not approved of by them were to be destroyed. Valuable information was lost, possibly older manuscripts then those of the approved books, and the Roman's complete control over the religion and what it stood for was established. They also banned common people from reading the approved bible by reserving it only for the Clergy. Ultimately, these men were gathering to discuss the best way to save their Empire. The best way for them to save the Empire was to place heavy emphasis on the importance of submission to authority. They managed this through fear and guilt. They told people that if they did not get right with church authorities that they would be condemned to eternal suffering. They made the most important symbol of their church the torture, starved Jesus on his crucifix the central focus and told people it was their fault he died in this way to have their sins forgiven. However, there is no indication in Matthew, Mark, John, or Luke that Jesus was starving at the time of his crucifixion. In Jewish tradition the Devil/Satan was actually a term for the sinful imuplses of man. The devil was a part of the human psych similar to what is now called the ego or in Hindu sense gratification. With the addition of Roman opinion and point of view on the matter the Devil become personified and we just ended up with a version of Pluto/Hades. Thus, a trio pantheon of the Gods was introduced: God the Father (Zeus), God the Son (Apollo), and the Devil (Pluto/Hades). Then there is the Holy Spirit which isn't really explained. In fact if you look up Holy Spirit Catholic Belief and you end up with google saying this: "For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person (hypostasis) of the Trinity: the Triune God manifested as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; each person itself being God." In general Christianity became the same Roman religion with fewer players. This conveinantly took the introspective religion of Judaisim and made it about forces that existed outside of the human being. God is a punishing god that will destroy most of humanity for their sinful ways. The Devil, the evil God equal to the first, tempts man into sinning. Jesus, the good God and Son of the vengeful God, must save the people by protecting them from his fahter and the Devil because people can't save themselvs. The only way to show devoition to Jesus for people to save them is to go to church and support the Pope who inherited his divinity from the spiritual lineage of Christ. In fact, just as the Caesars before the Pope's rule claimed to be demi-gods and thus have the divine right to rule due to their heritage...the Pope is considered the only divine ruler because he inherits the status of Jesus. One look at the Pope in all his regaila and one look at Jesus on the Cross makes me wonder how exaclty people can believe the Pope is the spiritual descendant of Jesus or that the Pope could act on Jesus's authority. Christianity as Psychological Warfare? I do agree that Rome was the first to use psychological warfare. By casting out the books that emphasized Oneness and the idea of reincarnation they removed the heart of the teachings of Jesus. Of course, they couldn't comletely remove them from the bible without modifying it too much. So, there are traces such as Jesus's referral to John the Bapitist as the rincarnation of Elijah and the disciples asking if the blind man's parents had sinned or he had sinned before being born (9:1-12) and the reference where Jesus, in John 10:30, says, "I and the father are One." Further, they had all texts that were not acceptable for their political goals burned. The only way we have the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Truth are from caches of scrolls that were hidden by the devout. Even further, they banned the church goers from reading the bible themselves because they could not completely eradicate and change the words in the accepted books or the followers would notice. They also introduced the concept that the people must be submissive to others and the government in order to receive riches in the afterlife. They completely removed the concept of self-responsibility. By making all of the 'Gods' of the bible, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirt and the Devil outside influences they discouraged self-introspection. They also created the chaste ruling class of Priests and Nuns which have absolutely no basis in the bible what-so-ever. Jesus never said that procreating was ungodly and Rabbis have always been able to get married because pro-creation was considered a commandment. The introduction of chastity to the religion was a purely Roman Catholic invention. Only the ruling class and the Pope, in this belief system, were deemed worthy of enlightenment or knowing God. They firmly placed themselves between the people and the concept of Enlightenment. In the tradition of the Roman Catholic church a normal practioner cannot know or be forgiven by God without the chruch. The Church, and therefore Rome, became the only way and means through which people could become right with God. Of course, that meant paying Rome taxes. The Kings and Queens were appointed and given divine authority through Rome. All in all, what Christianity became thanks to the Romans was psychological warfare that scared people into being good tax paying citizens. Conclusion In our age people are looking at the historical context of the bible. Many are trying to get back to what Jesus actually taught and not the bloated creation it became at the hands of the Roman Empire with it's dogma. The Roman Empire clearly wanted to last forever (and in a way it has) through the worship of the Pope. The people who empower such dogma are those who fail to read the bible themselves, fail to take self-responsiblity for their spiritual development and continue to want to be lead by others. In order to really understand the poisonous teaching that many who call themselves Christians teach you just have to look at Rome. Knowing how Rome influenced the bible and dogma is important. For peace on Earth Christians need to give up the idea that Jesus was the Son of God and was thefore a God of his own. In fact, ther eare 28 biblical passages that say there is only One God. Not three our four. One God. You can read these for yourself here: "http://mit.irr.org/28-biblical-passages-which-explicitly-teach-there-only-one-god. Jesus specifically says that the most important commandment is to know, "The Lord our God is One," Mark 12:29. Therein lies the fallacy of the Trinity that the Catholic church proposes. Jesus was a messanger and he never said he had more powers then any other human being, " Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things then these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12-14. To me it's no wonder that the Roman Catholic Church banned their people from reading the bible. They were mis-representing it and exploiting believers in every way and would not have had any authority had they not. They were cunning in changing the religion over a span of a hundred years into the supersitious nonsese that it became. I personally throw out all of Pauls interpertations. I don't even consider them even slighltly important. He is somewhat honest but, agian, it's tainted. Jesus's recorded words stand on their own and make total sense without additional interpertation needed. Also, knowing that Christians were persecuted in that time we have to take into account written information from that period whether it was by Paul or in Revelation were coded for believers only to fool the Roman's at that time. Knowing the history of the bible and how it was developed is important. Knowing the history of the church and how dogma was invented is even more important. To have the discernment to know what part of "Christian" tradition's is which is paramount to a true seeker. Also, knowing and understanding Jewish traditions and teachings really reveal the true meaninig of what Jesus said and believed. There is ony One God. Not God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and the Devil. ONE. The only battle for good and evil that exists is within the human soul. That is the the divine Unity of the Christ within and the selfish sense gratification of the Ego/Devil. Only you can decide what wins within you. Do you choose the aspect of you that is part of the unity of the One Creator or do you choose the seflish Ego/Devil within yourself?
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Brave Soul! May Your Journey On The Path Of The Seeker Bring You Joy and Peace! I'm currently posting every Saturday. With a new addition the family I have pre-scheduled most posts through December 2022. Full Moon Posts will contain up-to-date content when I can get to them. Thank you so much for your support and understanding! This is a place where you can encounter new spiritual ideas that have helped me develop as an Individual On The Path of the Seeker. Take or Leave this information as you see fit. Archives
April 2024
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