During the last seventy years, as I have studied history, philosophy, psychology, medicine and religion, I have experienced a gradual evolution of understanding concerning religion — more importantly, Christianity. It seems rather obvious that Jesus of Nazareth was the most notable figure the world has ever encountered. During his lifetime, his apostle, Peter, recognized him as the Christ or King. After his death, his followers continued and propagated that understanding — hence Christianity.
Much has been written and rewritten about Jesus — what he did, what he said, and what he meant. It is the “what he meant” that has been interpreted so many different ways — hence, we have 45,000 different so-called Christian religions, each proclaiming righteousness. Any rational person would be correct in asking why and how that can be.
My study and understanding of Jesus make the answer to that question quite simple — the very first official proclamation about who Jesus was, what he said, and what he meant was biased and overtly incorrect for a very specific reason. The people who formulated the Holy Roman Catholic Church were so ‘hell bent’ on perpetuating a ‘Jewish religion with a sacrificial twist’ to the new Christian religion that they completely ignored Jesus’ basic teaching of love. Not only that but they camouflaged Jesus’ teaching and intent which was to liberate his people from the oppressive, costly, sacrificial religion of the Jews with an understanding that God is ‘all love’ and has no ‘needs’, especially appeasement.
They were very careful in their propagated writings to hide the exact cause of Jesus’ execution for treason — they say only that the crowd was incited to yell “Crucify him. Crucify him”. The hierarchy wanted Jesus dead because they recognized his intent to educate the public to God’s ‘Love’ rather than God’s ‘Vengeance’ as was proposed by the Jewish religion. The High Priest, of course, were making a fortune off the peasants who were forced to purchase ‘perfect offering specimens’ from him, and, in addition, pay him an equally extortionate price to make the offering in their behalf. It was a money-making racket and Jesus perceived it as such. Therefore, the bible tells us Jesus drove the money changers from the temple with a whip and overturned their tables.
Now, fast forward 300 years. During that time Christianity had spread throughout the Roman empire and there were 1800 bishops, each with his own ‘twist’ of understanding about Jesus. They were noted to be constantly squabbling amongst themselves and, consequently, were not producing as desired for the Empire. Constantine, the Emperor at the time decided to solve the problem once and for all — make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. So, he called a general council of Bishops at Nicaea. Of the 1,800 Bishops in existence at the time, only 300 or so attended. They pow wowed for three to four months before reaching a consensus — the Holy Roman Catholic Church was formed — and the Jewish sacrificial religion was perpetuated. They set themselves up in positions of power and control with the Pope as official head and with Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops controlling selected parts of the world. Priests were the workhorses who attended to the day-to- day needs of each parish. That set-up ensured the upper brass lived in luxury, and all the while, Christian (Catholic) philosophy, theology, and liturgy were constantly evolving — a never-ending process.
Soon enough, overt abuses became apparent with bad popes and bishops using their power for evil purposes. Eventually, the power struggle between Rome and the Eastern Church became so strong as to prompt the Great Schism in 1062 or thereabouts. Then, the Medieval Church again became so corrupted as to prompt Martin Luther and others to bolt the Catholic Church, and the Protestant reformation began — it continues incessantly to this day with, with more and more sects and churches appearing annually — and why?
The answer to that question seems very apparent to me — power, control, and money generated basically by the mythological and imaginary wishful thinking of those in control. The Jewish religion fostered an idea that Adam’s long-suffering progeny had been promised a Messiah who would restore paradise just for the Just. The rest would be cast into torturous oblivion forever. This past Sunday, at Catholic mass service, the first reading in the Dioceses of Owensboro was from Daniel where he describes a time when Michael, a great prince shall arise and all the good shall live in eternal happiness including many who shall arise from their tombs whilst, simultaneously, all other shall be in everlasting horror and disgrace (paraphrased). Then, the second reading from Paul suggest that Priests offer daily sacrifices of appeasement, but Jesus offered himself as the ultimate sacrifice for or sins and now ‘sits at the right hand of God’ (paraphrased). Then, the gospel reading taken from Mark depicts Jesus describing the ‘last days’ and saying no one knows when they will happen but the Father, not even the Son. But all will happen before the current generation (forty years) passes. (paraphrased).
Now, lets dissect those readings and compare them with our current Catholic, Christian teachings and beliefs. The last sentence of the Nicene Creed which summarizes Catholic belief, says, –“I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come” — a direct holdover from the Jewish sacrificial, imaginary, mythical religion. Then, concerning Christianity’s propagation of Paul’s suggestion that Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins — nowhere in the bible does Jesus say he came to die for our sins. My understand is that philosophy was gradually developed or several hundred years, but there again, is based on someone’s imagination, and not on anything Jesus said. Now, concerning Marks description of Jesus describing the last days, it seems apparent that whoever wrote that did not comprehend what John had to say and what our Nicene creed has to say, “God from God, Light from Light, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made”. Now, if that is true, it would be impossible for Jesus not to know everything just as the Father does. But all that demonstrates the miniscule, imaginary, mythological thinking at the time and has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Consider this, there are no seats or places in heaven as the ancients are continually imagining. Heaven and eternity are a ‘state of being’ where no change is possible. It has no places, no seats, no amphitheaters. It is a state of spiritual being of oneness in God not oneness with God — God is in us, and we are in God.
It is this total lack of understanding which has created the religious morass we see today. Will it ever cease or change? I believe will in time but not for the better. More and more, people are becoming disenchanted with religion. Each person has his own reasons but if asked to explain them, he might find that difficult — he just has a gut feeling of religion’s uselessness.
All that is sad because the world could understand that if there is a God, it loves us each equally because each of us, as is everything in existence, is enveloped in that God — God is in all, and all is in God. With that understanding, we would be justified in gathering as one singing incantations of love, praise and thanksgiving to our God for our existence, our sustenance, and our eternity in him forever.
Everything in existence is composed of identically the same perfect particles of energy which are maintained in their perfection by the Spirit, Will of God. With that understanding, I again call on the world to understand and recognize The Worldwide Communion of Spirituality which means that we and everything inexistence are bonded by the same spiritual commonality in God.
That philosophy is developed and described in detail in my little book Wilderness Cry – A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe. There I do something never before done — I define the essence of God. That definition has unbelievable implications which are explored and analyzed in detail in its two sequels, Peace in Spirituality and Provocative Catholic. In addition, I have written a semibiographical, semi historical little book, Growing up in infancy Farm Kentucky. I believe you will find it informative, entertaining and humorous. All are available from Amazon-Kindle both hardcopy and digital. and from me, autographed – handg@comcast.net. If you purchase online and would like it autographed, I would be happy to do so free.
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WILDERNESS CRY by Hilary L Hunt MD 