JESUS RAN A CULT
FIRSTLY
Jesus Christ, the reputed founder of Christianity, was
allegedly the most decent religious teacher of all time. This reputation is a
hoax whole and entire and largely enabled by people who have barely read the New
Testament. The man was a cult-leader and had brainwashed slaves if the
gospels are to be believed. A cult is a religion that teaches lies, that bullies
its members to follow it, or otherwise manipulates them. Christianity is
doubtlessly still cultic though it might not be as obvious as it used to be but
the gospels say that the entourage of Jesus was a full-blown dangerous cult. In
their stupidity, they thought this cultism was to be applauded.
MARRIAGE
Jesus turned the family into a mockery of union. He went further to make it also
a mockery of love by forbidding divorce. The marriages of his days were of men
and sometimes older ones who wed young girls in their early teens. Women
had no right to divorce and Jesus reinforced that right though admittedly he
took that right from men too. If anybody should be allowed to divorce it
should have been the women. They were too young to wed and plus they had
no say in the ceremony - the man alone gave consent.
The Catholic Church does not allow an attempt to dissolve the marriage but allows divorce under certain conditions as long as this is understood to be merely a legal decree and does not really end the marriage in the sight of God or allow remarriage. Jesus' teaching has only led to hypocrisy like that and marriages that put on appearances but which are full of hate.
In Mark 10, firstly, Jesus attacks divorce and later he attacks remarriage. Clearly, then he was opposed even to the divorce that the Catholics permit. He said the two are joined in one flesh and are one so this bond should not be terminated. Jesus was against separation. And he urged his disciples to separate from their wives!
CULT-LEADER
One of the things people find most shocking about cult-leaders is how they try
to tear apart the bond of family and friendship in order that they might have
the victim to themselves. David Berg, the founder of the Children of God,
actually told young people to hate their parents if they did not share their son
or daughter’s new faith. Frankly, Christians have the cheek to say that Jesus
was right to break up families and that anybody else who demands such splits is
wrong to.
Jesus commanded that if your parents are against you
following him then you must hate them. Christians say he was only
being poetic - he only meant that you are not to literally hate them but merely
to love them less than him and disobey them. But he uses the word miseo
for hate. If he meant what the Christians say then why didn't he say so
for he lived in a culture where many cults that wrecked families existed?
He meant it. Jesus speaking of a slave said that the slave that has two
masters will hate one miseo and love the other (Luke 16:13). He is saying that
miseo is not love at all. It is the absence of love if it is not outright spite.
Jesus is making it clear that you cannot love God and a man. If you love your
neighbour what you mean is that you treat your neighbour well purely as an act
of devotion to God.
The Sermon on the Mount itself states that nobody who loves and is kind to those
who love him deserves any praise or reward. The Church licks up good family men
at their funerals for the Church is only a power game anyway. Jesus ran down
family life. By implication we should not like to be treated well by those who
love us but should rather love our enemies instead of them and serve the
enemies. That is the true sense of the golden rule, Treat others as you would be
treated.
Christians downplay and ignore how the inhuman Jesus himself said that wanting to be with your love and your family forever in Heaven is foolish for there you live like an angel. And marriage and family no longer exists there. Everybody is your mother and father and brother and sister and child in a sense. Just as your spouse is no longer married to you from death onwards so family ties end. That such a faith has got such power in society speaks volumes about how manipulative it is. Such a teaching means that if you are to be "prepared at all times" for the end as Jesus directed then you must detach from your feelings about others as part of that enterprise.
Jesus promised an incredible reward for those who left their loved ones, children, land and/or property for him (Mark 10). They leave freely for otherwise there would be no talk of a reward. In those days of hardship and danger, that would have meant leaving the children in deep trouble. It proves that he was evil because we don’t tolerate cultists doing this.
Luke 8:1-3 indicates that Jesus and his
disciples were living off the likes of Joanna. She had plenty
of money. Her husband worked for King Herod. Herod and
Jesus apparently hated each other. It is obvious that she
stole what she could and then joined Jesus' entourage. She
broke ties with her home and this helped avoid or delay arrest.
So Jesus had funders. Normally a travelling preacher does
favours for people to get money. Paul the apostle said he worked for
his keep wherever he went. Jesus did nothing. He was a
sponger depending on funders like Joanna. We can be sure that she was not the only one and it
is telling that the gospels don't mention that.
JESUS AND DIVISION
Anybody like Jesus who told lies and rewarded vices would necessarily have to
promote strife and false unity which is a cover for division.
Jesus nagged a man to follow him and then
objected when the man said he wanted to bury his father. Jesus
said let the dead bury their dead. Some say he was not banning
the man from his father's funeral. They think the man meant,
"I can't follow you now for I have to look after my father and I
will follow you when he dies." But is that really any better?
Jesus calling the father dead is assumed to refer to the man being
dead to God, ie evil. Today Christianity says that caring for
parents is following Jesus! It is all an ideological mess!
Jesus sanctioned the war-mongering Mosiac Law. He was clear his intention
was to fulfil or keep it. Thus if he contradicted it we should see that it
was not intentional. Not once did he say the law was wrong but said
whoever watered it down would be punished by God.
Jesus asserted that anyone who did not listen to his message deserved to be
burned alive (Matthew 10:14). He was willing to destroy the faith of others in
their teachers and in their cult for he wanted them to listen to him. Yet he
forbade his disciples to listen to anyone trying to destroy their faith who
could be able to. Even today Christians are given the same advice. Jesus was
saying that he was good for forbidding Christians to expose their faith to
danger though he expected others to expose their faith to danger from God. When
you can get accurate information there is no sense or goodness in hiding from
those who are allegedly wrong. How a man could say he alone should be heeded
when somebody will come along with better credentials than him could be called
humble, caring and saintly is an unanswerable question.
Jesus taught that we are all sinners (Mark 10:18). He authorised the practice of
making social pariahs of some sinners (Matthew 18:15-18). He saw sin as infinite
ingratitude for the infinite love God bears for you so all sin is infinitely bad
in so far as it is an insult to God. It is deserving of everlasting punishment
which can be the only price for infinite sin. The bad results of sin are another
issue. For Jesus, a discreet act of adultery is as bad as public scandal. So it
is hypocrisy and bullying to pick on some sinners instead of others. If
Christians will stand before Christ the Judge, then they can tell him, “Let me
into Heaven, Lord, despite my many sins for they are no worse than your own”.
Didn’t he befriend sinners himself? Christians say it is right to shut a person
out if it brings them to their senses and wrong if it does not. That is their
feeble attempt at justifying Jesus. The truth is that nobody knows how or when
anyone will change. Jesus said that it was right not to judge and then he
permits the opposite! If I assume divorce is always bad which is an extreme
position and condemn divorce I am condemning the people who divorce too. Why?
Because I arrogantly take it for granted that the faith I have created is
correct. I won’t see it just as my opinion.
Jesus told the apostles that he spoke in parables to prevent understanding among
the outsiders. If that is true then the stories about crowds coming to hear him
are fiction for you don’t come to listen to a man who can’t speak plainly to
you. The parable of the seed was harmless so Jesus would not have wanted to hide
what it said. Mark testified that Jesus was lying when he said he wanted to
reserve the understanding of his doctrine to his disciples for anybody could
figure out what the parable meant (Mark 4:33,34). Jesus wanted to encourage
division and ignorance.
Jesus said that sin prevents conversion to his brand of religion not ignorance
so if a person hears the gospel and does not believe it, it is because they hate
God (John 3:21; 7:17). He said, “Whoever is of God listens to God. [Those who
belong to God hear the words of God.] This is the reason that you do not listen
[to those words, to Me]: because you do not belong to God and are not of God or
in harmony with Him” (John 8:47). Lots of people know by experience that this is
not true even if they do believe in sin. This ethical teaching is also a slander
against those who won’t follow him and incites Christians to hatred against
them. That is the end of the Christian fantasy about Jesus being humble and
fair.
Jesus was not the prince of peace predicted by Isaiah.
A CELIBATE’S JEALOUSY
Jesus’ hatred of sexuality and his desire to restrict it to marriage for life
causes a lot of trouble in families today and rips them apart. In the guise of
protecting family life, his law really seeks to foment resentment and harshness
while keeping up appearances.
Some scholars hold that Jesus might have been married but he was definitely
celibate at least in public at the time of his alleged ministry.
He smeared homosexuals accusing them of doing wrong without evidence. He did
this when he said that sex outside marriage was immoral and that marriage was
for one man and one woman for life.
His not blessing gay marriage is sufficient proof of his unfairness – it was
vital in those unscientific times for gays to avoid promiscuity for many
diseases that are curable now were fatal then.
The abuses of homosexuality do not prove that it is wrong.
Its alleged unnatural nature does not prove it wrong either for we have to fight
nature for it is red in tooth and claw and far from sacred all the time. Is it
natural to live in houses or to wear clothes? Nobody can find a reason they
believe for being against homosexuality.
Jesus forbade divorce under all circumstances. This was cruel. He could have
protected marriage by making divorce hard to obtain. If he allowed it for
adultery then he was encouraging adultery. This was arbitrary because he was
implying that adultery was an attempt to break the marriage contract but so is
hating your partner and everybody does that at times. He wanted to be cruel and
condone adultery and hypocrisy at the same time.
Even sexual thoughts were forbidden (Matthew 5). He believed that if you thought
about being in the sack with somebody that it is the same as doing it in reality
because the thoughts seem to be real to you and you think they are real.
Obviously, it must be a sin to fall in love and to have sexual thoughts even
under conditions in which they will not force you to do something you regret.
This by implication forbids masturbation for how could it be a sin to awaken
lust if masturbation is okay and done soon after? Jesus hypocritically preferred
a man to be obsessed with lust instead of getting rid of it. One of the
favourite tricks of cult-leaders was to say that certain things everybody does
are sins to make people feel guilty to keep them running to the Church for
comfort.
Jesus lived in an age in which girls were married very young when they were
unable to give proper consent. Brides were often thirteen years of age (page 35,
Putting Away Childish Things). Jesus did nothing about this disgusting custom in
which young girls were callously raped after being roped into marriage when they
were immature and children. He as good as sanctioned legalised paedophilia. This
was to hurt the girls for getting married and to sully the marriage bed. There
is no excuse for him because we all see faults in our customs and he would have
been no exception. He upheld marriage and forbade divorce even though the wife
was married without her consent to her husband when she was a child in her early
teens and then raped on the wedding night by her husband. You can’t get a
stronger approval of child-abuse than that.
Jealousy was what was wrong with Jesus and nothing else.
Christianity says that sexual sin deserves everlasting torture. Traditionally,
since all deserve to suffer for their sins it has been believed to be less bad
to hurt a person than to have sex with them. That is why Christianity tends to
be obsessed with sexual sin and be anti-sex.
JESUS VERSUS SELF-ESTEEM
Cult victims usually have little self-esteem. Sometimes the cult leader tries to
make them feel good about themselves but only in so far as they do what he
wants. All cults frown upon the self-esteem that comes from keeping your own
identity.
Jesus was an extreme case of a cult leader who tried to control people by
putting them down and getting themselves to put themselves down.
Jesus stated that humility requires behaving like a slave (Luke 17:7-8). He
approved of this behaviour (page 377, Reason and Belief). Christian humility
entails making yourself worse than what you are.
He said that concern for what God wants alone matters not what you want. He said
we are all sinners and said sin must be hated intensely so much that it is like
gouging out your eye to stop you lusting. He said this to simple people who
would have taken it literally so that was how it was meant.
Nobody can deny that Jesus used very irresponsible wording if he did not mean what he said. He is still to blame. The number of Christian cults that have arisen because of the cultic teachings of Jesus Christ is great. Many mainstream Christian leaders did override family values for faith and appealed to Jesus for support. The Church murdered Jewish parents and took their children and raised them as Catholics.
Read Matthew 26. When Jesus said that
he would be hated and killed by crucifixion the apostles told him
this was horrible and they would be willing for it to happen to
them. Shades of the Jim Jones’ People’s Temple? Clearly. It is worse
for suicide cults usually do not seek out the worst death
imaginable. And Jesus never corrected them. He merely commented that
talk was cheap and they didn’t mean it. This is not the kind of
figure that should be the most influential in the world. He needed
to tell them they were talking insane and he did not. That the story
is a lie makes it worse. The gospels say the apostles did not expect
Jesus to end up on a cross and it is made out that he told them and
they only understood after it happened. Total rubbish.
The claim of some that they put God first which means they serve their families better reminds us of those people who say, "I love myself first and foremost and that is why I am so good to others." In reality they look down on their families and have to direct the love away from them to somebody else be it God or themselves. The fact remains that their behaviour is not motivated to help the family. It is luck not the motive that ensures no harm is done. But often harm is done. Many children suffer at the hands of godly parents and narcissistic mothers and fathers.
Nobody who serves their family but only for God and not
the family can know their godly motive makes them better people. What
about atheists or the religiously indifferent who are excellent parents?
Isn't it boastful to say how great of a parent you are because of your faith?
It is arrogant for nobody can be sure enough that there is a God or that
Christianity is true! It is not goodness to give your heart to God more
than the baby in the cot in front of you. One suspects that those who say
they do all they do for God are lying. It would be too unnatural.
Conclusion
Jesus was a cult leader if he existed. Christianity has caused a lot of trouble
by promoting the gospels as the word of God. People who revere
cultic books as the word of God could restore Christianity’s position as a top
cult if they had the power to do so and dared do so.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas. Dublin, 1995
Christ and Violence, Ronald J Sider, Herald Press, Scottdale, Ontario, 1979
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Moral Philosophy, Joseph Rickaby SJ, Stoneyhurst Philosophy Series, Longmans,
Green and Co, London, 1912
Objections to Christian Belief, DM Mackinnon, HA Williams, AR Vidler and JS
Bezzant, Constable, London, 1963
Putting Away Childish Things, Uta Ranke-Heinemann, HarperCollins, San Francisco,
1994
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Robert Schuller, Satellite Saint or High Flying Heretic, Cecil Andrews, Take
Heed Publications, Belfast
The Hard Sayings of Jesus, FF Bruce Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1983
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks,
1993
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd, London,
1905
Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, Touchstone Books, Simon and
Schuster, New York, undated
