Christianity

In the Roman Empire polytheism was practiced, and religions indigenous to particular Middle Eastern nations became international in the first 3 centuries of the Roman Empire. Roman citizens worshiped Isis of Egypt, Mithras of Persia, Demeter of Greece, and the great mother Cybele of Phrygia. Their cults centered on mysteries (secret ceremonies) and the promise of an afterlife, symbolized by the death and rebirth of the god. The Jews living in the empire preserved their monotheistic religion¡ª Judaism, the world¡¯s oldest (c 1200 bc) continuous religion. Its teachings are contained in the Bible (the Old Testament). First-century Judaism embraced several sects, including the Sadducees, mostly drawn from the Temple priesthood, who were culturally Hellenized; the Pharisees, who upheld the full range of traditional customs and practices as of equal weight to literal scriptural law and elaborated synagogue worship; and the Essenes, an ascetic, millennarian sect. Messianic fervor led to repeated, unsuccessful rebellions against Rome (66-70, 135). As a result, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the population decimated; this event marked the beginning of the Diaspora (living in exile).

To avoid the dissolution of the faith, a program of codification of law was begun at the academy of Yavneh. The work continued for some 500 years in Palestine and in Babylonia, ending in the final redaction (c 600) of the Talmud, a huge collection of legal and moral debates, rulings, liturgy, biblical exegesis, and legendary materials.

Christianity, which emerged as a distinct sect in the second half of the 1st cent. ad, is based on the teachings of Jesus, whom believers considered the Savior (Messiah or Christ) and the son of God. The missionary activities of the Apostles and such early leaders as Paul of Tarsus spread the faith. Intermittent persecution, as in Rome under Nero in 64 ad, on grounds of suspected disloyalty, failed to disrupt the Christian communities. Each congregation, generally urban and of plebeian character, was tightly organized under a leader (bishop), elders (presbyters or priests), and assistants (deacons). The four Gospels (accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus) and the Acts of the Apostles were written down in the late 1st and early 2d centuries and circulated along with letters of Paul and other Christian leaders. An authoritative canon of these writings was not fixed until the 4th century.

A school for priests was established at Alexandria in the 2d century. Its teachers (Origen c 182-251) helped define Christian doctrine and promote the faith in Greek-style philosophical works. Pagan Neoplatonism was given Christian coloration in the works of Church Fathers such as Augustine (354-430). Christian hermits, often drawn from the lower classes, began to associate in monasteries, first in Egypt (St. Pachomius c 290-345), then in other E lands, then in the W (St. Benedict¡¯s rule, 529). Popular devotion to saints, especially Mary, mother of Jesus, spread.

Under Constantine (r 306-37), Christianity became in effect the established religion of the Empire. Pagan temples were expropriated, state funds were used to build huge churches and support the hierarchy, and laws were adjusted in accordance with Christian ideas. Pagan worship was banned by the end of the 4th century, and severe restrictions were placed on Judaism.

The newly established church was rocked by doctrinal disputes, often exacerbated by regional rivalries both within and outside the Empire. Chief heresies (as defined by church councils backed by imperial authority) were Arianism, which denied the divinity of Jesus; the Monophysite position denying the dual nature of Christ; Donatism, which denied the validity of sacraments performed by sinful clergy; and Pelagianism, which denied the necessity of unmerited grace for salvation.

Paul, Saint (AD 3?-62?), a missionary of Christianity and its first theologian, called Apostle to the Gentiles.

Life

Born to Jewish parents in Tarsus (now in Turkey), Paul was originally named for the ancient Hebrew king Saul. Paul's letters reflect formal training in the Jewish Law as preparation for becoming a rabbi. By his own account Paul excelled in the study of the Law (Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:6), and his zeal for it led him to persecute the nascent Christian church. The book of Acts portrays him as a supportive witness to the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Paul became a Christian after experiencing a vision of Jesus Christ during a journey (Acts 9:1-19, 22:5-16, 26:12-18). In referring to this event, Paul never uses the term conversion, which implies shifting allegiance from one religion to another; he perceived the revelation of Jesus Christ to mark the end of all religions, and thus of all religious distinctions (Galatians 3:38). He was convinced that Christianity was God's call to all the world, and that God was making this call apart from the requirements of the Jewish Law.

According to the account recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul carried out three well-defined missionary journeys. From Acts it is also known that Paul was arrested in Jerusalem after riots incited by his Jewish opponents, and that he was finally taken to Rome. He was probably executed in Rome in AD 62.

Sources

The New Testament contains 13 letters bearing Paul's name as author, and 7 of these were almost certainly written by Paul himself. These letters, in which Paul occasionally speaks of his personal experience and his work, are the major source of knowledge about the course of his life; most scholars concentrate on them and consult the Acts of the Apostles as a supplementary source.

Theology

Every attempt to summarize Paul's thought encounters obstacles, especially the fact that each of the letters was written to a specific church, and Paul slanted his teachings to address each church's unique problems. Certain themes, however, are repeated with sufficient frequency to be considered the core of his thought.

Paul consistently assumes the basic temporal scheme of Jewish apocalyptic speculation, which posited two ages: the Old Age, under the dominance of Satan and his hosts, and the New Age, which God will inaugurate at some point in the future through his superior power (see Apocalyptic Writings). He quoted the formulations of earlier Christians that focused on a sacrificial view of Christ's death, but the essence of his view of Christ lies in the assertion that God made Christ the victor over the power of sin. He affirmed the Law to be holy, just, and good, but after he turned to Christianity, Paul no longer believed the Law to be powerful enough to vanquish sin and death (Romans 8:3). For him, Christianity begins not in something people decide to do, but rather in something God has already done by revealing his Son and by sending his Spirit.

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THE DARK SIDE

Why do bad things happen? Why do some people do bad things? Philosophers have told us the answer in the past and I am beginning to see that they had it right.

As far back as 2700 BC the Chinese emperor Fu Hsi spoke of the Yang and Yin. Today we see the Yin and Yang as that intertwined black and white symbol and think of it as the battle between light and dark or good and bad. However it should be noted that the Chinese considered the Yin to be feminine and the Yang to be masculine.

Zarathustra (circa 630-550 BC, although this is disputed and thought to be much earlier) started a religion that taught that there was a battle between good (light) known as Ahura Mazda (the "Lord Wisdom") and bad (dark) that was an ethical dualism opposing Truth (Asha) and Lie. Angra Mainyu (the Fiendish Spirit") caused evil.

Each day when we awaken we have a choice; we can be, and do, good or bad. It is as simple as that. You can be as bad as you want and you will be consumed by darkness (evil) or you can try to do the right think and you will be good (light). The Devil did NOT make you do it! There is no devil.

I do not even think there is a god, some sort of creation yes that took the form of evolution. Now I would change my mind in a heartbeat if I saw any sort of evidence of God; just give me some proof and not expect me to believe because you tell me to.

Now if we look at the above "Wisdom" would be goodness; we would all be wise to do the right thing (and stay out of trouble). And that "Fiendish Spirit" is a perfect description of what gets in our minds and allows is to do corrupt illegal, evil things.

It is all so easy to understand, yet so hard to do.

The evolution of religion

I will start with my theory that a mass extinction occurred around 12,000BC when something impacted the ice sheet in Canada. This killed most of the life in North America including the early humans who had migrated from Europe. The impact also created huge waves that killed most of the humans living around the world near seacoasts and up rivers that flowed into the oceans. This would explain why all cultures have stories of a flood. Now with a very small remnant of humans left in isolated pockets we can start the story of religious evolution.

One pocket of survivors was living in the mountains of Ararat and by 4000BC they had moved down the rivers to the area now known as Mesopotamia and they are known as the Sumerians. They had carried all of their history, knowledge, and mythology with them orally and around 4000BC they finally wrote it down. Their religious myths involve stories of a family of gods; these gods live lives very similar to the humans. They have stories of kings of the gods, the kings sons taking over, rivalries, treacheries, etc.

Eventually the Sumerians where replaced as the dominant group by others however the new groups kept and used the knowledge and religious mythology of the Sumerians. One by one each of the dominant groups had religions that had a family of gods no different from the group that they replaced other than a change in a few names. In time civilization spread to Egypt and even there the religion involved a family of gods with the same sort of processes as in Mesopotamia, however the names are very different.

Mankind also spread north and the Hittites and Greeks also had families of gods running their religions; same religion however more name changes. Later the Romans picked up the Greek model and did more name changing however it was still a family affair and thus the same religion. There where other religions such as the Zoroastrian of Persia that still remain in small pockets. Mankind also spread south and became the Hindus who also believe in a family of gods and later developed religious modes like the Buddhist that spread north into China.

Around the 1370sBC a leader of Egypt named Akhenaton started a new religion that held that there was only one god, the sun god. Now if you refer to my ¡®Birth of the Jewish Religion¡¯ you will see that the Hebrews had come from Mesopotamia where they worshipped the local gods and were living in Egypt at the time of Akhenaton. It is my contention that Moses got his belief in a One God from his exposure to this religion in Egypt and he took it with him when he led the tribe of Abraham into the wilderness thus starting the Jewish religion and their belief in one god.

Next refer to my ¡®Royal Blood, Royal Scam¡¯ and see how an off shoot of Judaism became Christianity and how this religion took over Europe by force of law and forbid any other religious beliefs by 400AD. Later the Christian Church split in two with the Roman Catholic and the Byzantine Orthodox. In Scandinavia and northern Europe the people still had religions based on the Sumerian/Greek model with complete families of gods and they where not Christianized until around 1000AD.

The third major religion connected to Judaism is the Muslim as they start their religion by a direct connection to Judaism however it is also a One-god religion not a lot different from the other two.

So you had an extinction event around 12,000BC and one small group of survivors north of Mesopotamia becomes all of the Caucasians and Semites. There must have been other small groups of survivors also. One certainly must have been the family of the Negro Race and another must have been the father of all the Oriental Races.

While the Mesopotamians came to believe in their god family the Negroes and Orientals believed in Spirits not gods. After the extinction in north America the Oriental race repopulated the Americas and the natives all believed in Spirit gods until the arrival of the Spanish when the local religions where again outlawed by the all powerful Roman Catholic Church.

A short time later the Roman Catholic Churchs monopoly was shattered by the adoption of the Protestant religions however it is still the same One god religion.

Had the Roman Catholic Church not achieved its monopoly some of the people of the earth would still be worshiping the Sumerian/Greek model with its family of gods. We would have much more diversity in religious thinking.

Since mankind can not seem to exist without some sort of religion I hope that very soon a new and better religion will come about that will eliminate all the excesses caused by the currents religions.

Dr Marlin Creasote 2009AD

The roots of religious belief.

People will tell you they believe in God, they go to services regularly and believe the tenants of their faith; why? Fully half of the world’s population is Jewish, Christian, or Moslem, do they understand where their beliefs came from, and do they know the history?

Lets start from the beginning. The Jewish story begins with a man named Abraham. Abraham came from Mesopotamia and brought with him their religion and myths. Sometime before 1500 BC he was sent by the leaders of the nation he was a member of to the region we would call Palestine. In Palestine he was told by a god to believe in him and he would make Abraham’s line special. Abraham had two sons, the first, Ishmael, is claimed by the Moslems to be the first of them. This god told Abraham to kill his second son, Isaac, then told him it was only a test. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob; Esau the oldest (oldest #2) was cheated out of the inheritance by Jacob, the first Jew to achieve power by trickery. Jacob had twelve sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel, so it was a family affair. Around 1575 BC a drought in Palestine made Jacob’s clan migrate to Egypt. Three hundred years later the next great name in the Jewish religion comes along. Moses was raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter because the Pharaoh had ordered the killing of all boy babies of the Hebrews and his mom had floated him down the river. Moses was raised as Egyptian royalty but killed a man and had to go into hiding. Much later he is told by the Hebrew God to return to Egypt and free his people. When he returns he somehow (we are not told how) discovers his family and his older brother (older brother #3) Aaron who is well spoken and respected by his Hebrew brethren. Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and makes Aaron and his family the priests of the religion.

Now we must get some historical background that the bible does not talk about. Around 1350 BC a Pharaoh named Akhenaton started a new religion that only had one god; at this time all over the world there were many gods, whole families of gods. Akhenaton wanted to stop this and make everyone only worship his one god. What if Aaron’s group of Hebrews, along with many others, had joined this new religion? Well when Akhenaton died the priests of the other Egyptian religions came back into power and what if around 1275 BC Egypt was struck by a series of disasters. The leadership needed a scapegoat and wanting to get rid of the one god group blamed them for the troubles. They would have chased them off.

When Moses and the Hebrews left Egypt they where only a small part of the group that left. What if Moses and Aaron’s group looted the one-god temples of their wealth and left town? Well the Pharaoh Rameses II (Rameses the Great) would have come after them. The Hebrews hide out for forty years and it was about that time Rameses died so the coast was clear. Moses became the leader of the Hebrews and his older brother was relegated to second fiddle (again the older brother thing).

After the forty years the Hebrews are ready to move into Palestine and take some real estate. Moses gets rid of Aaron but is himself supplemented by Joshua. Joshua and his boys kick some ass and take the land away from the Semites living on it; he then divvies it up between the 12 tribes. It is now around 1200 BC.

Two hundred years go by and the twelve tribes are under pressure from their neighbors so a leader emerges and unites them as a unified fighting force, his name is Saul of the tribe of Benjamin.

Now it really gets interesting. A young man from the tribe of Judah named David becomes close to Saul and his family and in no time Saul and his sons are dead and David has taken over. David’s rise to power would not make pleasant reading if he where from any other culture. David takes control of the twelve tribes, many resent him but he governs for many years and has many sons. The son that takes over is Solomon, son of the infamous Bathsheba, and he is a real case, he has six-hundred wives, he kills people right and left and he taxes everyone so much they hate him. He also rules for many years. At his death the Jewish nation is a small grouping of tribes that some say numbers only 5000. However David and Solomon did start a kingdom that lasted for the next 400 years. Solomon’s son Rehoboam mistreated his subjects so much that ten of the twelve tribes break away around 932 BC and start the nation of Israel in the north leaving Judah in the south with only the tribe of Benjamin. Judah will forever be known as the House of David, remember that, the House of David plays a very important role in the future. The people of Judah loved David and Solomon but the Hebrews of Israel did not. The two groups fight each other and then join as allies many times but there is always trouble between them.

International power politics are not new. The kinds of problems we have today where present 3000 years ago and around 750 BC the super powers of the day where Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt; Israel and Judah where minor players that had to join one side or the other. Well Israel ran afoul of Assyria and in 734 BC it was conquered and the ten tribes disappeared, forever. The Jewish Bible as we know it today was compiled in 621 BC. The Judanians where with the Assyrians and when the Assyrians’ where supplemented by the Babylonians the Babylonians came for Judah in 598 BC. This ended the 400-year reign of the House of David, after that Judah was controlled by one super power after another, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks under Alexander in 331 BC and then the Greek Seleucid. It is important to note that right from the start the Hebrews had trouble sticking to their one god and where constantly straying. All during the 400 years of their kingdom the Jews from their king down would vacillate between their one god and the gods of their neighbors. More superpower trouble created the next chapter when friction between the Seleudcid and Egyptian Greeks caused a problem for Rome when its food supply was threatened.

The Syrian Greeks controlled Judah and wanted to make the Jewish religion illegal so around 168 BC the Maccabees fought and beat the Syrians giving control of the land back to a Jewish kingdom. Rome controlled that part of the world and when the differences between the Macabees and the other Jews caused trouble the Romans took charge. The Jews longed for a liberator from Rome and hoped for a new king from "The House of David". If what happened next had not occurred the Jews would have been a small inconsequential group forever, however.

The political infighting within the Jewish State gave rise to many groups and charismatic figures; one was a man we call Jesus. When he was executed for daring to say he was the next king of the Hebrews from the "House of David" his followers started a movement that grew. At first they where a prosecuted minority. The Romans had many gods in the Greek model but allowed the people they conquered to continue worshiping their own religions. The Roman religion was concerned with the present and did not promise much in the afterlife whereas the new Jewish-Christian religion said suffer now and live forever in heaven, this appealed to the masses so this religion grew into many diverse groups. So many Romans where becoming Jewish that the leadership of the state became worried and began prosecuting them. But then political necessity reared its ugly head again.

In 324 AD the Emperor Constantine needed help taking power. He saw an opportunity to use this large group of Christians so he made Christianity the official state religion and this helped him rise to power. The Christians where a very diverse group with competing religious philosophies so Constantine in 325 AD held the Council of Nicaea and declared which form would be allowed and which forms would be banned. All the other diverse religions where still allowed to be practiced at this time so there where many many different Gods and Goddesses. Then the Roman Emperor Theodosius (reigned 379-395 AD) banned all religions except the official form of Christianity and interestingly Judaism as it was the father of Christianity. Now Christianity was in firm control of the Roman world. The religion's power grew over the years until the Popes in Rome could declare wars and order the death of anyone they chose; you dared not disagree with them. This continued until 1530 AD when Martin Luther invented Protestantism, another form of Christianity. Today there are hundreds of different forms of Christianity however if Theodosius had not forcibly stamped out the old religions we would have even more diversity today.

The other child of Judaism is Islam. Around 622 AD a man named Mohammed started this religion in Arabia. Mohammed was strongly influenced by the Jewish and Christian religions and the Islamic religion includes many of the figures from the Jewish and Christian religions, they claim that their founding father was Ishmael, you remember him he was the first son of the Jewish founder Abraham. The Moslems also are split into many different sects.

Everything else that religious people believe came from some other culture or was invented by one of their leaders yet the believers will become irate if you challenge their faith. If you want to see how one person can start a religion that can grow large study Mormonism or Adventism.

Religion can do many things that are good for the human race however it has also been used to do horrible damage to civilizations around the world. Today this continues in bloody wars and murders around the globe, when will this insanity end? The human race must realize that while some sort of creator might have started the process we are only a product of evolution and heavenly beings will never come to save us, we must save ourselves.

Dr Marlin Creasote 2009 AD