Jesus is Not God

Now, no other Religion in the World would consider it as some kind of an affront to question of validity of supposing that some Man was NOT God. Most Religions consider it most essential to the very nature of Religion that God be very specifically defined as being Most Transcendent, above the world, and above anything at all material. For them the supposition that any Man could be God is akin to idolatry – worshipping something that is material as though it is God. Indeed, much of the success of the Islamic Reaction and Conquest was owing to their easily being able to attack Christianity on the grounds that it was essentially a Religion of Idolatry, and a violation of Monotheism… while Judaism and then Islam thought it paramount to claim only One God, Christianity insisted, stupidly, on a Trinity of Three Gods.

You know, it was not as though each and every Christian had always believed in the idiocy of supposing a man could be God. Indeed, there were a great many believers and even a great many Bishops who at one time believed otherwise. They come down to us from History as those of the Arian Heresy (if you don’t want to be a heretic, then don’t lose a Religious War). These Heretics were not absolute villains – they believed Jesus was the Messiah, that he was a great Saint, that he had perfect Mystical Knowledge and even some Absolute Mystical Unity with God. They made every possible Religion Assertion EXCEPT that of saying that Jesus was one and the same as God. For them it was simply a matter of definition. A man COULDN’T be God, and that was that. If they had won the argument, there would not have been an Islamic Conquest, because the Muslims would have been deprived of any motivating argument, or at least nothing as sufficiently powerful as idolatry.

As a religious person it often saddens me when I look back upon Religious History and see that God did very little to assure that only the most correct Religions would win out. What actually seems to happen is that the most stupid and cruel factions who seem to allow for the most violence win the Religious Wars. When one thinks about it for a moment, it really isn’t very surprising, is it? And then, when the idiots win their Wars, their argument is that God MIRACULOUSLY supports only Religious Correctness. Even today the Christian Argument for the Divine Holiness of All Scripture, an argument they apply only toward Judaic Christian Scriptures, consists entirely in that it has SURVIVED. If God did not want us to read it, then it would have been lost some time or another like everything else (then we need to wonder why it is that God must seem to want us to have some special regard for the Dialogues of Plato, the Plays of Euripides, and the Legend of Gilgamesh, as those works have also survived down to us. And then, what of the Heretical Red Sea Scrolls… why did God decide to suddenly just dig them up now? ). Essentially the Argument for Divinely Inspired Scripture is based on the Absolute All Powerfulness of God with the correlate that God exercises His complete power on the World, if not in anything else, then perhaps only in seeing that Scripture is perfectly correct. Plagues, Famines, Wars, and Bureaucratic Corruption may sweep the continents, but the Publication of Religious Literature is going to be Exact. God knows His what’s really important, doesn’t He?

Anyway, at about the 8th Century, a faction of Knights in France, siding with the Wealthiest of the Bishops who believed in the Divinity of Christ, a belief that came with the benefit of supposing that they could sin with impunity… oh, by the way, it was Theologically Necessary to make Jesus equal to God so that His Death could be considered as Potent Enough to allow for the Forgiveness of Sin. The Forgiveness of Sin allowed the Bishops who believed it to be Corrupt, and that Corruption allowed them to be Rich, and that Wealth allowed them to support a Powerful Militia of French Knights. Well, though there had been fighting for centuries prior, there was something of a tipping point, and the “Jesus is God” Faction was able to fully take all of Western Europe. Catholicism was handed over to Corruption.

The problem with any Religious Mistake is that it can lead to further error. Once Jesus was made into God, then the next step was to make Paul into God. As Jesus had to be made into a God to give him the power to forgive Sin, well, Paul had to be made a God because Paul was the actual author of every major Christian Doctrine. He never even quoted Jesus, not even once. Everything was straight out of Paul’s own imagination. He never even listened to any of the Real Apostles, and his own letters, and the book of Acts indicates the extent of his arguments against them. He even killed one of them. Anyway, first the Catholic Bishops and then the Protestants thought it absolutely essential that Paul be given some Divine Credentials. The Catholics first created the fiction that Peter was the First Pope, because Peter had sponsored Paul into the Church (it being ignored that Paul had murdered Peters rival for power in the new Church, giving Peter not the purest of motives in giving somebody a job in return for a big favor). Peter’s empowerment would have the effect of legitimizing Paul. But the Protestants, having to go further after they had to denounced Peter in order to cast down Peter’s Church, created the Doctrine of ‘Word of God’ Scripture… that every word of Scripture is the virtual Word of God. This Doctrine is almost entirely directed toward establishing the Letters of Paul as Divinely Inspired to a Perfect Degree. Indeed, in the formulation of Christian Doctrine, almost every word of Christ is swept aside, while Paul is the recognized authority in all matters of Faith. In the Christian Pantheon, so to speak, Paul is more God than even Jesus. You see, that is what happens when you go down that road. Who will be God next? Pat Robertson. I guess George Bush thought he himself was.

It seems I’m picking on Christianity, but Islam is not any better. While the Christians make the mistake of overtly claiming Christ to be God, the Muslims are tacit on the point of asserting that Mohamed is actually God, but they certainly treat him with Absolute Respect, and indeed treat every aspect of their Religion with Absolute Divine Respect. Now, it should be a matter of Faith to them that Only Allah is Allah. But when you examine their behavior, they seem to treat a great many things with the Same Respect that should ONLY be accorded to Allah. They kill people for drawing a funny picture of a Man they know, Mohamed. If that’s what they do for a Man, then what extra do they keep aside for respect to God? Obviously nothing. While the Muslims accuse everyone else of Idolatry, they are as guilty as everyone else, and a bunch of crazy cut-throat sword-dancers besides.

And, no, certainly the Jews are no better than anybody. While it has been claimed that the Jews, at some time or another had ever been Monotheistic, when one examines the body of their History, that assertion only goes so far as denying other People’s Tribal War Gods while asserting only their own particular Tribal War God. This is not really a belief in God but a belief in a Demi-God, or Spirit King, and a very Local Parochial one at that. Indeed much of the Ancient World classified the Jews rather as atheists because they are remembered for denying more Gods than they ever bothered to support. Yes, when the Jewish Prophets had to kiss up to their Babylonian Captures and then apologize to their Persian Saviors, they hit the note of Religious Universalism, but does anybody ever really mean the flattery they dish out to Bosses and Patrons? We can see in recent European History that again Jewish Philosophers had begun to strike the note of Religious Universalism, but how long did that last? Today when we look at the Jewish Religion in Practice, it has returned to its origins as a Tribal Religion of Old, and their God is again merely a local territorial Spirit out to help them Kill their neighbors for Land. The “God” before whom they bow is simply a Big Real Estate Demon – not exactly the same as a Universal and Transcendent God. And a Religion that worships a Real Estate Demon really isn’t a Religion, is it? Oh, and this is if all the persecutions, tortures and killings did not already disqualify them. Hmmmm, maybe American Protestantism needs to review themselves, because they are doing everything the Jews are. Oh, I forgot… the Christians think that their Sins are forgiven… perhaps their biggest problem.