All my formative years and into advanced philosophical studies, there was one ‘absolute’ dictum concerning ‘means to an end’. Simply stated, that dictum is direct and straightforward — “Evil means are never justified by a good end”. In my naivety, I believed and accepted without much questioning that the world operated under that banner. As I grew both in age and maturity, I was able to discern much evil being imposed on people worldwide — WW2, Korean war, Cold war, Northern Ireland Protestants continually fighting with Irish Catholics, etc., etc., etc. — some nation, some ideology, some religion, some government, some person attempting to dominate others while all the time attempting to justify their activities as ‘good and desirable’, but which most of the world recognized as unadulterated evil.
Almost always the process involved attempting to deceive others through a process of rationalization —taking a known and accepted truth, combining it with false premises, and then presenting the conclusions as legitimate. That is a communications trick as ‘old as the hills’ used by scalawags to deceive and control others. Those same people will look you squarely in the eye and attempt to convince you that ‘cat manure smells good’ because the cat is pretty, playful, and cuddly, while anyone with a functioning nose who has ever been exposed to fresh cat manure knows there are few viler smelling entities in existence.
In modern day times and, likely forever, politicians are the best at such deceitful tactics — they come in many ‘shades of gray’ and wearing many different hats. Some want to be president of their local country club. Others vie for positions on their city council. Many feel compelled to be on their church board or become a deacon in their church. Some few even feel qualified to be president of a great nation, and inevitably, there are some who believe they should be in control of the entire world – that has been ‘the norm’ throughout recorded history.
I have observed throughout the years that one of the most notorious of such misappropriations has been and still is the Bible. For eighty years I have listened to preachers ‘prove a point’ by quoting a passage from the bible. As certain justification, the religious community worldwide has proclaimed that the ‘bible is inerrant’ because it is ‘the inspired word of God’. So, no quote can be questioned — only be interpreted according to the whims of the preacher.
Just recently, I posed a question to the Bible community concerning Matthew 16:18 where Jesus is quoted as saying, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hades shall not prevail against her”. With that quote in mind, my question is, how is it possible that the so-called Christian community has totally ignored that commission and turned to a self-made, man-made interpretation? I can sum the answer up in one simple little statement — it’s always been that way.
From day one, when Christianity started spreading westward toward Europe, each community had its own bishop who was the absolute authority concerning matters of faith and morals. History clearly shows that three hundred years later, one of the instigating factors leading to Emperor Constantine’s calling a council of the worlds bishops at Nicaea was the lack of productivity for the empire by the Christian community. That lack of productivity was generated by the constant squabbling and even overt fighting among bishops and their subjects. Those hostilities were generated by differing understandings and teachings about who Jesus was, what he said, and what it all really meant.
During that time, all writing and copying was done by hand. Because of the diverging interpretations among bishops, it is near certain that each bishop altered those writings to meet his own specifications. There were eighteen hundred bishops under the auspices of the Roman Empire at that time, so one can only imagine the magnitude of discordant views. Of the eighteen hundred, only three hundred or so attended the Council — they made the determination of what Christianity was to be. They chose which writings were to be accepted and which were to be rejected. To make matters worse, of all the thousands of copies and alterations of the original writings, only one copy survives today —that copy was made some two to three hundred years after the original, and no one knows its exact validity. We have absolutely no way of knowing exactly what Jesus said and did and, more importantly, what it all meant. Just as in war, the majority doesn’t necessarily determine whose right, just who wins.
By the time of the council, Peter’s successors had been seated in Rome for more than three hundred years. You don’t suppose some self-serving bishop conveniently inserted Jesus’ passage concerning Peter — who knows? — no one. Despite all those possibilities of teachings divergent from Jesus’, for over one thousand years the passage about Peter was accepted and respected — the Pope in Rome was the absolute head of the Christian Church. Then the power struggle between Rome and Constantinople culminated in the Great Schism — the Eastern Church severed ties to Rome. So, it is quite obvious that the Eastern Church hierarchy did not respect the ‘words of Jesus’. Then comes along Martin Luther and a host of others — if the Eastern Church can do it, so can we. In other words, we don’t have to believe and accept Jesus’ words.
So, now we have 45,000 such splinter religions each one pounding the bible while holding their constituents spellbound with ‘the absolute words of Jesus’. With that insight, what would you call such an activity? I know what I call it, ‘A self-serving sham’. The Bible is no more dependable for delivering Jesus’ message than a 10-cent comic book.
In all the writings in the bible, nowhere is it made clear why the Jewish hierarchy wanted Jesus dead. I believe that was/is deliberate. If they told the explicit truth in their writings, they would ‘shoot a hole’ in their self-serving new version of Judaism. They knew that Jesus only teaching of noteworthiness was ‘love’ — love of God and love of neighbor. They knew that Jesus was a subversive traitor to their ‘sacred, money-grubbing religion’. Jesus’ teaching of love would completely negate their sacrificial religion with its attendant enslavement of their constituents.
Jesus never said nor intended to be our sacrificial lamb of appeasement of a vengeful God. His only purpose was to be our liberator. He intended to free us from the terrible persecuting blanket of guilt imposed by Moses and Judaism. His aspiration was to be emulated years later by Martin Luther King — “Free at last”. He had hoped to get his message to enough people that, after his death, they would continue to spread his word of God’s love — such a brave, heroic, and daunting move —a subversive insurrection of all times. The hierarchy knew that — if the entire Jewish population rebelled, the Roman emperor would be terribly displeased — the freewheeling Jewish government would be abolished — their playhouse destroyed. They were not about to let that happen. So, they trumped-up lies and false charges against him and murdered him on a cross. I daresay that Jesus’ intention was the most daring, courageous, heroic, and praiseworthy undertaking the world has ever known.
So, where does that leave us, the everyday, common sense, John Q citizens? Unless you are one of the very few who takes the time and makes the effort to ferret out the truth, you are living in a fairyland of entrapment of your entire being. And, I am not saying that in a derogatory way — we all have been brainwashed by those who wish to control us. That control almost always culminates in their absconding with our pocketbooks.
In my research, I have been able to uncover only one writing outside the Bible which depicts Jesus explaining over and over again and again who and what God is — those dicta coincide perfectly with my definition of God’s essence — God is a Perfect rational Being — heaven is a state of being, not a place —eternity is a state of being where no time (change) exists —the Spirit of God resides in every entity. That writing is The Gospel Of Thomas. It was rejected by the Council Of Nicaea for one compelling reason — it would have immediately put them out of business. Likely, most of you have never heard of Thomas’ Gospel — you won’t find it under the back cover of your bible. It represents Jesus’ ‘secret sayings to his twin brother Thomas, Peter, Mary Magdaline, and possibly two or three others. It seems obvious that Jesus felt that they were the only ones who would understand what he was saying.
The idea that the bible is ‘inerrant’ is completely ludicrous and obviously self-serving — there are too many contradictions which cannot be reconciled. It seems apparent to me that the composers of the Gospels wrote what suited their fancy. For instance, the gross discrepancy between Matthew’s and Luke’s description of Jesus’ interaction with the two insurgents who were crucified with him — both stories cannot possibly be true which leads one to suspect that neither may be true.
It is rather clear to me that the writers ‘painted pictures’ detailing their own wishful thinking but probably having nothing to do with the truth —we’ll never know. Then we have the Apostles Creed recognize by most of Christianity which says, ‘Jesus descended into hell’, while Luke’s fancy puts Jesus and one of the insurgents in heaven at that identical time— what are we to know (believe)? —nothing. It presents an unresolvable paradox.
I am fully aware that most of you, just as I, have been brainwashed by your church to soak up everything they say and preach without question. It distresses me to no end to say this, but I believe without reservation that no religion I am aware of is legitimate. All are worshiping a God that does not exist — the same mythical God presented in the Garden of Eden. I believe without being able to prove that there is God, but my God is Perfect Rationality. My God created a universe of absolute truth outside of which there is no truth. That perfect truth is manifested by the fact that every event since the beginning of time has generated consequences perfect for its given set of foregoing conditions —no exceptions. That perfection cannot be altered.
We all have been led to believe that God can ‘change his mind’ — He can like you one day and despise you the next — if you beg him hard enough, he will change his nature and work a miracle just for you. Of course, that is an impossibility — any change would instantly take God out of eternity and into a temporal world, and immediately destroy his perfection. But you see, those who wish to control us, knowing that few will discern their fallacies, have found that depiction of God extremely beneficial for their ‘controlling selves’ — It’s called power and money.
In my humble estimation there is only one legitimate prayer and that is a prayer of Thanksgiving. Prayers of contrition are OK if directed at introspection – recognizing that we have offended our fellow man — God cannot be offended — over and over again, we fail Jesus’ command to love our neighbor. God expects nothing and accepts nothing. Everything in his universe functions with absolute perfection — criminals are developed by psychological circumstances. They are not born criminals.
So. lest we jump the track with our ideas, it suffices to say that it behooves each of us to do introspective ‘soul-searching’ in our attitudes toward God, religion, and government. There’s an old saying which demands our attention. We must view everything with a jaundiced eye.
Many of you are aware that I have written extensively about this and related subjects —Three books, Wilderness Cry, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic plus nearly four hundred blog posts. In addition, I have written a semi-historical, semi-autobiographical book of my first 22 years of life, Growing Up IN Fancy Farm Kentucky. All four books are available Amazon-Kindle and from me, autographed at handg@comcast.net
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WILDERNESS CRY by Hilary L Hunt MD 