The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Why Christ?

Why Christ?
Posted by stooge number one (Guest) - Wednesday, November 14 2007, 21:39:49 (CET)
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Up until almost the first century A.D., some 80 years after the Romans murdered Christ, only Jews could become Christian, which didn’t even exist, as a separate religion, by that name until then. The earliest converts were Jews, who “converted” to nothing…all they did was believe that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah; the one who would lead them to the top of the heap…on earth…whereas the Orthodox continued to wait. In all other ways they remained Jewish. Undoubtedly some gentile misfits did convert, since there seemed to be a belief going round that Jesus was IT; so why not join? I doubt if very many others, well grounded in their own cultures and traditions, including the religion they and their parents and children were born, married and would be buried in, abandoned everything for a Jewish faith…people don’t just turn their backs lightly on their ancestral ways….especially not back then. Jesus appealed most to outsiders, people at the fringes…tax collectors, publicans, thieves, criminals, the poor and maimed and diseased; outcasts already, they were readily attracted to one who promised them paradise and kingdoms on earth. What did they have to lose?

But what on earth convinced Constantine that this religion of Jesus, Jewish in every way, as the promised Messiah and “Prince of Peace” was just the thing for the Roman Empire? You’d think that on converting, Rome would give everything away and go live in a cave. But it didn’t…it got even richer and more powerful, finding the burst of energy it needed to last and terrorize people another 1,300 years. This conversion to a religion of “peace” and “love” by the Roman Empire is one of the greatest puzzles of the ancient world. Or maybe not.

If the majority of the Hebrews didn’t accept Jesus, even though he was one of them…what possessed a Roman emperor, so far removed from the Jews, who were subject to his rule and often rebellious, to make this Jesus “gentle meek and mild” the centerpiece of his new Imperial, corporate religion which he would have to first stuff down the throats of his own people on pain of death?

There were many pagan sects in the empire to choose from, coming from as far as Egypt and Syria. The cult of Isis and her lost and resurrected brother/husband was growing in popularity…and there were others, all of which demanded obedience to the empire from their followers. Contrary to Christian legend, the pagan Romans were tolerant, even of early Christianity…as surviving documents show. Any persecution came about at the hands of insane emperors like Nero, who was all for killing anyone, his mother included. When the Romans converted to Christianity the real persecution of Christians began…but not before. That alone raises all sorts of concerns; why would the adoption of Christianity make tolerant people murderously intolerant…of their own co-religionists, no less, where they had been accepting of all pagan faiths till then?

All that was asked of the early Christians dwelling in the empire was a nod to the emperor as the supreme deity of the State…after burning a little incense to Caesar, people were free to believe in whatever gods they wanted, Christ included…no problem. In fact Pagans were notoriously tolerant, which makes sense. When you believe in fifteen gods you’re hardly going to be bothered by a group who believe in twenty…or fifty…or one. Since Constantine was no Christian and since his empire hardly changed its bloody ways, what could have been his real motivation? In other words, what did Christianity offer that no other religion did when he went shopping? The answer to this question is not the usual; Christ-taught-love-and-peace-and-forgiveness. Sorry… but all of these were alive and well long before Christ…as several poems, documents and letters from earliest times show.

What made Christianity appealing to the emperor was, primarily, its furious intolerance, unheard of in those days. While pagans lived and allowed others to live, Christians did not…certainly never once they had the military means to harass, forcibly convert and kill the opposition. But the Hebrews were also intolerant; convinced that their god was the only god. So why didn’t Constantine convert to Judaism (well…he actually did)? The followers of Christ, especially Paul, who really defined the religion and opened it up to non-Jews, weren’t just intolerant…they believed in EVANGELISM…that is; they felt it a duty and moral obligation as well as the greatest proof of their own faith, placed upon them by Jesus himself, to go out and “bear witness”, spread the Gospel or “Good News”. This was harmless enough so long as there was no army at their backs and people were free to ignore them(as happened in China and elsewhere they had no soldiers to enforce compliance and where Christianity never prospered)...but backed by the Roman Legions, Christians simply would not take “No” for an answer, even to the point of killing your mortal body to “save” your immortal soul. The Hebrews, after a short flirtation, renounced evangelism or apostolic work among the heathen, regarding their religion as something special and unique to themselves alone…and Islam, which came much later, had no apostolic tradition and little intolerance, so that it would not have served as well anyway.

Christ’s greatest utility, and therefore appeal, to Rome, as interpreted and conveyed by Paul(who never knew Jesus), was self-righteous intolerance and militarily backed and god-driven Evangelism which accepted and sanctified all manner of horrific means to “spread the good news” and “make converts”. Paul, later to be a saint, was a Roman citizen who used that special status a few times to escape the wrath of fellow Christian/Jews (into the arms of Roman troops), furious at him for his interference, who tried to kill him more than once but only succeeded in beating the holy crap out of him…..hmmmmm. Was Paul a Roman agent???

At its peak the Roman empire embraced 100 nations. Almost any religion could have been enforced by Rome as a means of pulling such disparate forces into one conformity…but apparently not just any religion would do. It’s absurd to think Rome looked for the kindest, gentlest, most pacifistic religion available. On the contrary, Rome needed Paul’s Christianity, not only as one size to fit all…but as a religion that taught, nay demanded, intolerance of “sinful” people stubbornly refusing to “see the truth”, whose continued adherence to their own gods and traditions, ignoring the “miracle” of Jesus, meant they were “evil” and a “danger” to Christian society, which could crush them, Evangelically, with impunity because they obviously deserved it for their stubborn refusal etc.

Evangelism appealed because, then as now, it gave a religious mandate and cover for the rabid and unique intolerance of Christians adding, however, a new twist in that these brutalities were now done on behalf of bringing people to “the right path”…people who would be damned to an eternity of suffering anyway, so why not at least save their souls…or try to…even if their bodies, which were evil anyway, got lost in the process, fortuitously leaving behind jewels, property and petroleum to be enjoyed by those who labored on their behalf, as well as their orphans...to “save” them and “raise” them as good Christians. Only Christianity offered all of this…and it was just what the Empire needed for calming its nerves and steeling them too.

Who could object? Whereas before Rome was just a bloody empire seeking world dominion…it now became a tireless worker for the Lord striving to subdue Evil and selflessly laboring to bring lost souls to salvation or American values….a big improvement over the old way of raping, stealing, killing and enslaving just for fun and profit.

What’s appealing, to an empire, about intolerance? Aside from the conviction that your way is the only right and good way, there’s a total subservience to the God who expects and forgives such horrendous crimes committed in his name and for his benefit… God and also his “viceroy” on earth; the king or president etc. Which brings me around to Jumblat, our favorite example of all that can go wrong with a human bean whose mind is shat upon early without benefit of a good flushing.

Jumblat is rather typical of rabid Christianity. He is one who believes in and adores authority, God’s authority, as he understands it, most of all. Naturally he sees any dissent or challenge to such exalted authority as the worst possible crime/sin. When social systems break down, say during an extreme and prolonged economic depression….or when one’s nation loses a war…or if personal problems threaten to overwhelm…or he loses his job; this kind of person doesn’t dare challenge authority figures or institutions who are responsible…neither those in heaven nor in the palace. Instead, being sworn brother to intolerance through his religion, people like Jumblat look around for those who are “enemies” to god and, by extension, to the king/president. To Jumblat it has to be the Jews, or Communists, or international bankers, or intellectuals, or anyone who seeks a political/social/economic explanation and solution for a nation’s ills, or whom you hate anyway, like Muslims or Liberals, because they refuse to think “correctly”, like you. Such “willful” disobedience is said to “anger” God so that he sends a 9/11, or flood, or forest fire, or disease, or indigestion, or loss in war, as signs of his displeasure with the “tolerance”, which he hates, for it offends his “universality”, and allows “Evil” to walk the land in some mistaken, pagan, notion that we should live and let live. God is forced to send a “warning” to the faithful to put on their sheets and hoods, swastikas and Patriot Acts and go out and be intolerant in the name of his Christianity.

A person like Jumblat, the darling of all Fascist rulers, blames the least accountable for troubles, saving his particular venom for those few who question and challenge the MEN who run things…because those powerful men have wrapped themselves in Jesus/Flag…in the intolerance and “perfection” of Jesus…so that questioning those responsible as to how they ran a war, or why they started one, or why laws and regulations are changed in favor of the rich at the expense of the poor etc, becomes a challenge to GOD…and, with their intolerance level rising and pumping through their veins at the sight of such “blasphemy” and “threats” against God…Jumblat turns his considerable hatred, which in his nasty soul he sees as “love of God”, against those who have traditionally been, not surprisingly, responsible for curtailing the excesses of the rich and powerful…which has NEVER been the Church or king but almost always those opposed to the two greatest attributes of God/King: Intolerance and it’s evil twin Evangelism which is, after all, a fancy word for forced conversion. At least it only works well where force is applied.

Note: It’s common for the religious to claim that Liberals or, as they call them, “Cultural Humanists”, are also intolerant and strive as hard to spread their message as any devout Christian. I dispute that. The intolerance of the Liberal is an intolerance at injustice on earth not at those who merely think differently… and his “good news” is that things can be changed; they are not eternal. But what makes the Liberal especially unlike the religious is that the Liberal appeals to Reason…not mystical deities and mumbo-jumbo plus which the Liberal doesn’t use the stake or noose or torture to drive home his point… and has no self-appointed mandate from a personal god to torture and kill those who remain unconvinced. The Liberal acts on behalf of the common good, content with civil Law and not obsessed by “evil”…while the religious acts on behalf of his god first and the god’s representatives next…not the same at all…classifying people as “evil” because it allows them to kill children as well, who might grow up “evil”, so why not a little preventive, unilateral action? And, finally…every conservative Fascist Christian is very happy to have unemployment benefits, food stamps, federally insured savings, a 40-hour work week, paid vacations, minimum wage, sick pay, retirement benefits, Medicare and a whole host of programs Liberals brought into being…all of which were denounced once by the Intolerant Evangelicals as the work of the Devil because they went against the authority of greedy Man and therefore, of the God who rules him.

Another endearing thing about Intolerant Evangelicals is their rank hypocrisy.



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