Origen was accused of heresy on four grounds …..
a) He believed in the pre-existence of souls rather than souls being created at the moment of conception.
b) He therefore believed that Christ's human nature as well as his divine nature existed before the Incarnation.
c) At the Resurrection, human souls will be given ethereal bodies rather than physical bodies.
d) All men and even all devils will be saved at the last.
The Nicene Creed
Adopted by The Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea. It was here that Christianity was first defined in any rigorous way. There has never been a more abstract statement in human history.
Read it then ask yourself ….. isn't this the most bizarre thing I have ever read ? The highly intelligent heresiarchs mentioned above could make no sense of it and tried to change it to something more logical. Their attempts were crushed by the Church.
The Nicene Creed ( AD 325 )
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from
heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
The whole story of Christ is absurd from beginning to end, anyone who thinks carefully about the Trinity and the Incarnation quickly finds these concepts to be incomprehensible. Is the Trinity even compatible with monotheism ? It is truly astounding that this religion has spread all across the face of the earth ….. and has more followers than any other.
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The Davidic Conspiracy
The true story of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with religion. It was actually one of the most audacious plots in human history.
To bring the lost line of kings back to power, to resurrect the Davidic monarchy. Much of the astonishing story is hinted at in the 4 Gospels, and yet is consistently ignored or misinterpreted. Even though the truth of Christ can be laid out for all to see, the majority of Christians will never accept it ….. because they have " faith ". A king of the house of David had not ruled over Judah since Zedekiah in 586 BC. The Jews were defeated by Nebuchadnezzar and forced into captivity in Babylon. By the time Jesus Christ ( Yehoshua ben Yosef ) had reached his thirtieth birthday, it was over 600 years since a Davidic monarch had sat on the throne in Jerusalem. Every Jew wanted nothing more than to find a new David.
They wanted to be free of the Roman occupation, they wanted the southern kingdom of Judah to be reunited with the northern kingdom of Israel, to form the united ancient kingdom of Israel …...… as it existed in the time of David.
The people longed and prayed for it, were certain that their God would deliver it to them. One day, the Messiah would come and restore everything to Israel that had been lost. The Temple would become more glorious than ever. They would bathe in the favor of Yahweh. And the more they watched the Romans tramping through their streets, abusing them and flaunting pagan gods, the more they dreamt of the
Saviour.
But how could the power of Rome, the greatest empire on earth, a savage military machine, be overcome ? Only the direct intervention of Yahweh could defeat such a power. In the time of Joshua, the priests of the Jews had carried into battle the Ark of the Covenant, the holy vessel that, in a very real sense, contained Yahweh himself ……..…. to vanquish the enemies of Israel. But the Ark was lost long ago. The importance of the Ark cannot be stressed enough. It enabled the Shekinah - the earthly presence of Yahweh - to live amongst the Jews. The Chosen People had their Chosen God in their midst.
The Jews quite literally believed that they, through their high priests, could converse directly with God. You didn't merely pray to God, you had a two-way conversation with him ……. No God ever had greater resonance for a people. ( As to the reason why the Creator of the Universe would choose to inhabit a box and be carried about by a human tribe that lived in dusty, ancient Israel thousands of years ago, and lead them into savage battle, well …….. you'll need to ask him. ) To have a Davidic king on the throne, the Roman occupation of the province of Judea would have to be made so militarily costly for the Romans that they would cut their losses and leave. The whole nation would have to rise up to drive them out. But what could inspire an entire nation to risk their lives for the freedom from Rome, to re-establish the rule of the Davidic kings ?
The recovery of the Ark would certainly do it ….. but that wasn't going to happen. But then the leaders of the Davidic royal family in waiting had a stunning thought. What if a person could be a human Ark of the Covenant ? That is, what if a specific person were possessed by the Shekinah and walked around as a being of flesh and blood but expressing the voice of Yahweh, expressing the divine will itself ? If the people thought that the divine presence was amongst them once more, they would rise as one .... Judea would become ungovernable and the Romans would leave. Then the Davidic king could be restored to the throne.
But how could it be engineered? There was no reason at all to expect Yahweh to help since he had failed to help the House of David for some six hundred years. So, if they wanted to achieve their ambition, they would have to fake it. It would be for the greater good and hence fully morally justified but nevertheless it would be the biggest deception in all history.
There was one thing above all that would have to be pulled off if people were to truly believe …… the chosen candidate would have to do the impossible ………. He would have to rise from the dead.
Virgin birth
A god cannot be born in the normal way. His birth must be distinguished from that of ordinary mortals. Either he is born of other gods …… or he is born of a " virgin ". Jesus Christ was said to be born of a virgin for no other reason than that no one would take him seriously as a deity if he weren't.
Anyone who seriously believes that Jesus Christ actually was born of a virgin is incredibly stupid. You would have to have taken leave of your senses to believe it. Even two of the gospels do not repeat the nativity story of Jesus, so ridiculous is it. The nativity myth had two other functions to serve.
1) To show that Jesus was a humble man of the people, hence he was visited by shepherds in his manger.
2) To show that he was a great king and god, hence a star appeared over Bethlehem and three kings of the East visited him.
This is pure mythology. It is astonishing that billions of people treat it as real. They are celebrating a fake god being born in a mythological setting involving mythological characters. December 25th is the birthday of Mithras, Sol Invictus, Lucifer and other solar and light deities ….. It is not the birthday of Jesus Christ. There was no star over Bethlehem, and Herod carried out no slaughter of the innocents. King Herod died in 4 BCE and the Roman Census took place in 6 CE. The nativity tale that claims that both the Census and Herod's " massacre " took place within months of each other is an obvious fabrication.
But does it matter to Christians that the nativity is an invention ?
Would it stop them celebrating Christmas ? Isn't it about time to replace Christmas with the ancient pagan festivals of the winter solstice such as Saturnalia ? Nothing could be more symbolic of a new world than the abolition of Christmas with all of its saccharine, fake, hypocritical sentimentality ……... its annual orgy of consumerism.
The Family of Jesus Christ
Very little is reported in the Gospels concerning Jesus' mother and father. We hear next to nothing about any extended family. Why not ? Because the very existence of a family is inconvenient, to say the least, in terms of the construction of the Christian myth. To discuss the family is to betray what was really going on.
It was especially forbidden by the Christian Church to say that Jesus had brothers and sisters, even though it explicitly says that he did in the Gospels.
Christian apologists spent a great deal of time trying to explain away such remarks, but their attempts were laughably unconvincing.
Here and there in the Gospels, attempts were made to hide the truth ( usually by changing names of key figures ) … but every now and again the truth is glimpsed.
We know that Jesus had four brothers. What were these brothers doing while Jesus was preaching in Judea ? Well …….. three of them were standing right behind him. The three apostles known as James, Simon and Judas were Jesus' brothers and leading supporters and were deliberately misrepresented as having no fraternal relationship with him.
James ( the Just ) was the most important of the three. Although Jesus, the oldest brother, was the " Messiah ", it was James, the next oldest, who was intended to assume the throne as the Davidic King of Israel. Simon ( later renamed Peter, the "Rock", the man who came to be regarded as the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church ) was to be the high priest of the new post-Messiah Jewish religion ( which had nothing to do with Catholicism ). Judas was the family's treasurer, but Jesus had also earmarked him to play the role of the traitor. It was the most thankless ….. and yet vital of tasks …. this will be discussed later.
The youngest brother was Joseph, better known as Joseph of Arimathea. ( It is traditional to say that Joseph of Arimathea was Jesus' uncle, but that was simply plucked out of thin air by Christian commentators to explain why Joseph was allowed to bury Jesus. Clearly, he had to have a family connection, which he did ….. he was Jesus' brother. )
Joseph also had a key role to play, he was the " inside " man, working within the Sanhedrin as the eyes and ears of Jesus' family. The Sanhedrin was the highest judicial and religious council of the Jews, consisting of 72 members. Joseph was a scribe for the Sanhedrin. A scribe was a distinguished professional who combined the roles of adviser, counsellor, minister, financier and lawyer. The Sanhedrin had several scribes who provided expert support services to the council.
These five brothers were reminiscent of the American Kennedy brothers, Joseph, John, Robert and Edward. The Kennedys' father was determined to have a son in the White House, to establish a new dynasty. The oldest brother was the " Chosen One", but he died in WWII. The baton then passed to JFK. He was assassinated and it passed to RFK. When he in turn was assassinated …… to Teddy.
In the case of Jesus' family, Jesus was the "Chosen One", but it was never intended that he should assume power. His job was to " die ", be " resurrected " and " ascend into heaven ". His family would then be deemed to enjoy the favor of God himself. Jesus' family would be the Chosen Family of the Chosen People of the one God. The Jews would fall at their feet and hail the divine family of God, the priest-kings, the living Ark of the Covenant that could communicate directly with God.
Baptism
Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist …. a second cousin of Jesus.
Jesus' family tried to pretend that John the Baptist had sanctioned him as the Messiah. John the Baptist actually had someone else in mind, Simon Magus.
Wilderness
Like many " holy men ", Jesus was said to have gone into the wilderness ….. for forty days and nights to spiritually test himself. Members of many religions, secret societies and Special Forces carry out the same exercise.
New Church
It was inherent in the ideology of the Family that Judaism would have to be reformed to accommodate the special status of Jesus as a divinely chosen Messiah, a flesh and blood Ark of the Covenant through which the Shekinah manifested itself as in times of old.
The Davidic line of kings would be upgraded to a line of priest-kings with the closest possible connection to God. Jesus, of the line of David, would be deemed to be the vessel of the Shekinah. From them on .... the Davidic family would be the most sacred family on earth, the anointed ones, the holy ones, the chosen of God. They would rule Israel in perpetuity.
To establish the new Jewish religion that recognized the unique status of Jesus and the sanctified Davidic line, it would be necessary for the old Jewish religion to be reformed.
But the old regime had no intention of bowing to the will of the Family.
Their whole power base was threatened. They hated the Family just as the priests of ancient Egypt hated the Pharaoh Akhenaten for trying to replace their gods. They had no intention of letting this coup happen. Many of them were actively collaborating with the Roman ruling regime to ensure themselves a good living. Many were making good money from all of the commercial activities taking place within the Temple precincts. They would brook no interference. They would remain as the establishment. They would resist the Family with all their power.
Rehearsal
Raising people from the dead was almost commonplace in the Bible
In one instance, St Paul is stoned to death by Jews in Antioch. He apparently resurrected himself and then went about his business, without a word on the profound mysteries of being dead. In fact, in every instance, there is never any follow-up regarding any of these so-called literal resurrections from the dead.
They are not mentioned again. None of the select group who have overcome death is ever asked any questions about what happened. There is no medical verification of any of their allegedly lethal conditions. These stories are blatant fabrications. No one who is truly dead ever comes back to life in the same body. But gods and holy men need their " miracles " to prove their credentials so they dutifully arrange the charade of resurrecting collaborators of theirs from the dead, or they simply make the whole thing up and it then becomes a matter of " faith " whether you believe these episodes or not. The brainwashed masses suck it all in without question. In fact, the expression " raising people from the dead " is often used as a spiritual metaphor. The " dead " are those who are stuck in spiritual ignorance ….. they are raised from the dead when they "see the light" and are initiated into a spiritual sect. Gnostics often referred to non-Gnostics as " the dead ".
Jesus no doubt regarded those who were not part of his sect as " the dead ". So, how can you make a convincing pretense of bringing someone back from the dead ? The issue is to make a person seem sufficiently dead for a sufficient amount of time to deceive medically naïve people. Certain drugs can induce such deathlike states.
Prior to his own " resurrection ", it was imperative for Jesus to carry out a full-scale test of " coming back from the dead ". The person he chose for this task was his closest confidant, his brother-in-law Lazarus ( aka the " beloved disciple " John, brother of Mary Magdalene, the other half of the " beloved disciple " designation.) Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John furnishes the story of Lazarus.
Mary of Bethany ( aka Mary Magdalene ), who had anointed Jesus, sent word to Jesus that … " he whom thou lovest is sick. " Jesus replied, " This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified by it." In other words, he already knew all about it, and its purpose was to bring him fame and glory, to establish his divine credentials. He waited two days (!) and then went to see Lazarus. He said, " Lazarus our friend sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." When his use of the word " sleep " was challenged, he hastily changed it to " dead ". The Apostle Thomas then said, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." ( The disciples had previously been discussing Jesus being stoned to death by the Jews if he went back into Judea from Galilee, so this can easily be interpreted that the disciples knew they were going on a " martyrdom " mission.) When Jesus arrived in Bethany ( just outside Jerusalem ), it was to be told that Lazarus had been " four days already in the grave ". Martha, Mary's sister, said to Jesus, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." Jesus replied …. " I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live." ( This of course is the entire basis of Christianity. ) They went to the tomb of Lazarus, a cave with a stone laid over it, exactly as Jesus himself would soon be placed in …… and Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by commanding, " Lazarus, come forth ". " And presently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands, and his face was bound about with a napkin "