I just read a comment on social media in which someone responded to a comment from another person who explained that God (meaning the Christian God, of course) sometimes chooses the worst type of people to do his will (in explaining why they would vote for Trump as a Christian). He responded that “I could never worship that God”.

Now, honestly, I have endeavored to not be too overtly political in any of my posts thus far, but this simply needs to be said. See, I have actually been thinking of saying something more or less exactly along those lines for some time. No, I can’t worship that god.

Allow me to explain first by re-stating that I am well versed in Christian theology, having acquired multiple degrees in the subject. So, contrary to many others, I actually do know the many and varied aspects of Christian theology, and am, in fact, also fairly well acquainted with Judaism and a little less with Islam. I really never comment on the latter two except in passing because, frankly, I used to be an ardent Christian but no longer am. In my mind, these things allow me to speak about Christianity with some level of authority and, shall we say, “right”, whereas commenting on the other religions would be less appropriate since I never have been a member of the Jewish or Islamic faith. Suffice it to be said here that I may touch somewhat upon ancient (not modern) Judaism in this article, along with Christianity, but will go no further. For me, all monotheistic faiths have one glaring flaw anyway so that whatever I say about Christianity can be carried forward to the other faiths. That flaw is exactly monotheism and, more specifically, patriarchal monotheism (because matriarchal monotheism is an impossibility). And this is exactly why I am a Pagan and why I insist, to those who don’t seem to understand this, that one cannot be a Pagan monotheist.

Anyway, let’s get back to the politics of the whole thing first. Many people today are genuinely surprised that so-called “Christians” could support someone like Donald Trump. I actually get that. The reason is because I do know where they are coming from exactly because I used to think just like them. See, I WAS a true believer. I was a fundamentalist of fundamentalists, and evangelical of evangelicals! I used to believe that the entire Bible had to be one-hundred percent absolutely unerringly true and factual and perfect and inspired by God. And I WAS a fanatic! I LOVED the book of “Revelation” and the book of Hebrews more than any. My favorite church Father was Tertullian. And I literally ate up everything that either Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart ever said! Billy Graham too. His book, “World Aflame” was my very favorite religious book. Second to that was “Saul of Tarsus” (I’m afraid I forgot the author’s name). I used to read the Bible for hours and also pray for hours. I nearly wore the knees out of my pants praying!

But, even with all of this, my personal faith was centered on the beatitudes. And, so, my Christian outlook was based on the concepts embedded within the beatitudes, such as loving one’s neighbor. I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that somewhere down the road, ministries like those of Jimmy Swaggart would completely twist the beatitudes, literally, into something that people today don’t really have to follow because, they say, this is a picture of the millennial reign and, after all, it doesn’t have to do with individuals, but it instead has to do with nations and it is all about how the nations treat Israel. That’s how the whole idea of sheep and goat nations developed to begin with, in case anyone is unclear on that. I know enough theology to understand that, OK?

Of course, the beatitudes are really about people, not nations, and the sheep and goats are people, not nations. But you can’t convince them of that! Why? Because for them to admit error here, their whole political theology falls apart. Yes, I said “political theology” because it really is nothing more than politics wrapped up in religious garb. That is why they can follow and support someone with no apparent moral compass and convince others to do the same. Because the end really does justify the means, in their minds. As long as he does what “we” want, then he is someone sent by “God”!

But let’s be really real here. OK? If you read the Bible, with certain exceptions like the beatitudes, it’s all politics anyway. Think about it.

And, therefore, it is also division and an “us vs them” mentality. In Genesis it literally says if you don’t “bless” Israel, then God will curse you! So, any perceived enemy of Israel was, and still is, literally cursed by God Almighty! Naturally, then, we MUST support Israel in anything and everything they do, or we will be cursed! Some televangelist-types are already saying as much – that we have been cursed because we didn’t support Israel enough and we favor a two-state solution and, thus, a division of the land which is, in their minds, against God’s will! Never mind that it is already literally divided. And, somehow, “America” is like Israel in that we have to follow a certain religious standard or God will get mad at us, like he did so many times them, and do all kinds of horrible things to us until we repent! Never mind the other nations. THEY don’t have God’s favor the way WE do because WE are a Christian nation built upon biblical principles. Thus they think, anyway.

They love, and have always loved, to point at Pagans as something that no one in their right minds would really want to be. They tell lurid tales of Pagans sacrificing children in ancient times, among other things, to discourage people from even considering it. And, of course, abortion is a sacrifice to Pagan gods! Don’t believe me? Listen to what they say. Ask them. And, naturally, God is highly offended by this! So, we are on our way to destruction if it isn’t totally stopped! Anyone still wonder why it was the very first thing that was “accomplished” by the Trump administration?

Well, let me cut to the chase here. No Pagan god/goddess ever instructed his/her people to totally annihilate a particular population, including children and even animals – thus committing genocide. No Pagan god/goddess ever condoned the murder of a person and the cutting up of their bodies to be spread at various points in the nation as some kind of sign. Frankly, no Pagan god/goddess ever impugned the entirety of humanity with the stain of original sin because of the rather minor mistake of two people. In fact, no Pagan god/goddess ever destroyed every living thing on earth by water, except for a few who got on a boat, because he just couldn’t stand their sins anymore. No Pagan god/goddess ever destroyed a building, stating that if people could do that then nothing would be beyond their abilities – that silly story of the Tower of Babel. In the meantime, here we are in the modern age having sent humans to the moon and satellites further out into space than anyone could have imagined generations ago. Oh, I forgot – no one knew about space just a few generations ago. They thought it was all somehow very close rather than so vast we could never traverse it even if we had the ability. And, after all, the earth was the literal center of the universe. Pagans never burned each other for saying that the earth was round or that the earth was not central to everything that exists. We didn’t burn witches either! But they are literally instructed to murder witches!

The televangelist-types are always yelping about how “they” (and you know who THEY are, after all) want to manipulate and control people. But there is no person under greater control than someone with a closed religious mind. And the monotheists have always been best at creating exactly that. Why do you think Karl Marx said that religion was the opioid of the people?

And no Pagan god/goddess ever created an eternal hell where people would writhe in exquisite pain and torment forever because of whatever sins they committed while alive on earth just because they didn’t repent and accept a savior!

No, I can’t worship a God who is only political and who would “send” someone without an apparent ounce of decency in him as some kind of American savior, because that is exactly how they see him. He’s the modern-day Cyrus to them. He may as well BE Pagan! They wouldn’t care as long as he did what they want!

You people really think you are preaching some kind of gospel? When you say that some are trying to stop you from preaching about Jesus and the gospel, yet your entire programs are little to nothing other than conspiratorial crap designed to persuade people from voting for anyone other than Trump, you are preaching no gospel. When you insist that it’s all about sheep and goat nations and how they treat Israel, you are preaching no gospel. When you howl about how the world is about to end, but people better buy these food buckets and be ready, you are preaching no gospel. When you insist that the changes in weather patterns are not climate change (because that is a hoax and scientists somehow don’t agree – as if religious experts agree on the Bible) but are instead caused by demonic forces battling it out in the heavens – or that earthquakes will become more and more frequent because, get this, of the combination of solar eclipses, blood moons, and locusts coming out of the ground all at once, you are not only not preaching any gospel, but you are wacko and need psychological help!

If the reader doesn’t think they say these types of things, let the reader listen to them for a week or two. That’s all it will take.

You televangelist-types think people are trying to keep you from preaching Jesus and the gospel. No, they would like for you to stop the conspiracy BS!

No, I can’t worship YOUR god! And when I die, I will be most happy and fortunate for it.

I now understand, after all of these years, that it really was all about politics from the very start. So, it is obvious to me why every word out of their mouths is really political and they THINK it’s gospel instead. I get it. That’s why I can’t be among them. That’s why I can never worship their god. Christianity, at least in the US, has totally strayed from the teachings of the beatitudes and has totally twisted even that into a political framework of its own liking. It’s so simple. So, they will literally follow ANYBODY who delivers their political ends. A small part of me is saddened by this knowledge. But the truth is that I left Christianity and monotheism a LONG time ago and have been totally free of it ever since. There is no going back for the one who is truly free.

Let me try to explain something about these “end-times prophecy” Christian fanatics. The present situation concerning this Israeli-Gaza war has exposed their hypocrisy like nothing before has. See, the final result of the supposed end of the world with the return of Jesus is not to save the world, or to remake the world, or anything else other than this. The goal is that, in the end when Israel thinks it is about to be annihilated by its enemies, the Jewish people will finally call upon Christ and be saved!

But let me take a step back for the moment and explain that Christians actually have differing viewpoints as to exactly what constitutes “Israel” as far as our present time and end-times prophecy are concerned. Some have a viewpoint roughly similar to that which is common among those who follow liberal Judaism today. That viewpoint basically espouses a worldwide vision so that all Jewish people, wherever they may be, are Israel. This is roughly in line with the thinking of many Christians that the Church is “spiritual Israel”. Others, both Jewish and Christian on the more conservative/evangelical side embrace the idea that the concept of “Israel” is inextricably tied to the land that Abraham was promised, according to the Bible. In some respects, then, for these latter folks, those outside of the “land” of Israel don’t really count.

It is worth mentioning that in or about 1947 there was quite a debate as to what the new nation should be called (not to mention where it should be located). Not everyone thought that the name “Israel” was the proper choice. Many preferred “Zion”. I think there might have been other suggestions too. But the name “Israel” was chosen, and the location was accepted, both based, in part, on the Bible, including biblical prophecy. Let it be understood that there actually were some who were determined that this name and location be chosen exactly because they wanted to see it as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

Frankly, this episode in history is akin to the debate during the time of Constantine as to exactly which scriptures were to be accepted as canonical for the Christian Bible. Christians are taught that the men who made these decisions were inspired by the Holy Spirit, so, naturally, they got it right. And concerning the establishment of the modern nation of Israel, both Christian and Jew are taught that it was all done according to the will of God. From my perspective as someone who has studied Christianity all of his life, and also studied a fair amount of Judaism at the academic level, but who has rejected both along with any form of monotheism – these were really decisions made by men, period. In my view, there was no inspiration when the canon was created, nor was there any fulfillment of prophecy in the creation of modern Israel.

It is not antisemitic to make such a statement. Many Jewish people would agree (contrary to what most will be told by others) that the modern nation of Israel has little to nothing to do with the ancient nation of Israel. The ancient nation was destroyed by the Assyrians in about 720 BCE and was never revived until modern times. In the meantime, at least nine or ten of the twelve tribes were scattered, most never to be heard from again. Of course, we have the Samaritans who claim (probably correctly) to be descended from some of these peoples. But the only time Christians generally ever refer to Samaritans is when discussing the woman at the well or when using the phrase “good Samaritan”.

Regardless, many Jewish people today don’t really want to move to Israel exactly because they don’t really see the new nation as having any real connection to the ancient one. And they don’t see it as a fulfillment of prophecy. Trust me, I have studied under Rabbis myself. And for the Christian evangelical who is constantly concerned about end-times prophecy, those who are in this category don’t really matter except when they can convert an occasional Jewish person to Christianity. The only ones who really matter to those concerned with biblical prophecy are those who actually reside in Israel. Because THOSE are the ones who will suddenly be saved by Christ at the end of the Tribulation.

Now, this is where the rubber meets the road where evangelical hypocrisy concerning the Israelis and the Palestinians is concerned. See, they focus so much on the nation of Israel and the Jewish people who reside there who, as I have stated, are to be saved at the end of the Tribulation when Christ returns to save them, that they almost totally ignore the fact that there have been Christians residing within the borders of the modern nation of Israel, as well as Gaza and the West bank and other areas, for thousands of years – at least since the time of Constantine. Christians – who just happen to have all kinds of ancestral backgrounds, but very little of it from the ancient Hebrews. These are descendants of various peoples who settled and were settled in that area of the world in ancient times because of the constant change of one empire after another. These include Greeks, Scythians, Romans, Egyptians, and Arabs, as well as others. These peoples mixed to some extent over time and are today generally referred to as “Palestinians” because, following the Bar Kokhba War, the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, renamed the area Syria-Palestina. The name “Palestine” generally stuck until the modern nation of Israel was created. So, when you hear some televangelist or evangelical or end-times doomsayer state that there is no such of a thing as a Palestinian, they may as well say that there is no such of a thing as an American. As we are a “melting pot”, so are those referred to as Palestinians, right? Frankly, so too are the modern Jewish people or any other people we can refer to today. No people have arrived into modern times without becoming a mixture of various peoples from ancient times.

To continue, evangelicals and biblical prophecy people tend to see all of the people of that area, except for the Jewish people, as being Arab or Egyptian (trust me, it’s what they say, not what I say). This is exactly because they generally don’t know much of anything about the history of the area beyond what they may read in the Bible or be told by their favorite pastor or televangelist. They literally know just about nothing about the history of the area beyond that save, perhaps, a bit of Crusader history. But during and after the war of 70 CE, many, many Jewish people were either killed or enslaved and sent to various parts of the Roman Empire and beyond. And after the Bar Kokhba War it was even worse for them. Emperor Hadrian was SO mad about that war that he attempted to eradicate the area of Jewish people altogether. Many historians consider his actions to have been practically genocidal, and I agree. There weren’t many Jewish people left in the area after that war up until modern times. This is just a fact. They did trickle back in over the millennia, but not to any great extent until modern times. And all of that time, neither Israel or Judah/Judea existed as far as a land area or nation is concerned. Of course, there was no real opportunity to create such a nation either because of the domination of one empire after another in the area, culminating with British rule prior to its creation.

But let’s get back to the Palestinian people who, just like any other people on the earth as I have hopefully demonstrated, deserve just as much recognition as any other people on the earth. These people were all Pagan at first, except for the few of Jewish faith among them. Not very many of them became Christian until the time of Constantine and soon thereafter, with many still remaining Pagan for at least decades. I won’t get into how they were literally forced to become Christians just as so many others throughout the Roman/Byzantine Empire were over the course of a couple of centuries. Be that as it may, by the time of the Islamic conquest most of them had converted to Christianity. But the imposition of Islam changed that dynamic so that most afterward became Muslim. I’m not going to spare Islam here either. They also used force to convert people, contrary to what some modern propagandists would like for others to think. But that is simply the way of monotheism anyway.

Regardless, many did and still do remain Christian. And THIS is the point of hypocrisy that is so evident now when looking at the present war when at the same time considering biblical end-times prophecy. You see, these modern Christian doom-sayers ignore the fact that it is estimated that among those of the Palestinian diaspora (yes, the term can be sued for them as well as other peoples along with the Jewish people), up to 500,000 adhere to some form of Christianity. Yes, only a small percentage who reside in either Gaza or the West Bank are Christians – between 1 and 2.5 percent. But does that justify ignoring them? Still, by contrast, Jews who identify as Christians number in the millions. Of course, there are many more persons of Jewish heritage than Palestinian heritage in the world too. I’m not sure what the percentages are for people of Jewish heritage.

But part of the point is that there are already more people of Jewish heritage by far who call themselves Christians than Palestinians. So, one has to ask, then, why it is so important that the Jewish people accept Christ in this end-times scenario. Why indeed does no one seem to care at all about the Palestinians who call themselves Christian, even though they are vastly fewer in number. Does Jesus not care about them too? Well, if you read biblical prophecy, it would seem that the answer is “no”. And that is exactly part of the crux of the matter. See, to the end-times doom-sayer, “Israel” HAS to be the land and the Jewish people who reside in it. They don’t consider the Diaspora of Jewish people (which some of them actually believe started in Roman times, falsely, of course). And they don’t consider any other people who also reside within those borders. The ONLY ones who matter to the prophecy-mongers are those of Jewish faith who also reside within the borders of modern Israel. They are what the end-times and the Tribulation are all about! The culmination of literally everything, from the beginning of the “Church Age” to the end of the Tribulation hinges on Jesus returning to “save” Israel. And, again, they mean the modern nation and the Jewish people who reside there.

In a way, this scenario literally leaves out anyone else who professes to be Christian, as well as all of those who have done so throughout the ages. Because, in the end, they don’t really matter either. Oh, they will be “saved”. But the focus has never been on the gentile convert, after all, if you read biblical prophecy and understand that it is all about Israel anyway. In actuality, literally everything that has taken place was done toward the expectation that whoever would be living in Israel at the end of the Tribulation who was of Jewish faith would be saved when they finally called upon Christ to save them from their annihilation. NOTHING ELSE REALLY MATTERS, if you read biblical prophecy in this way.

Thankfully, some of both faiths, and even within Islam, read all prophecy as allegory. Thus, they do not have to accept this literal and, in my view, damaging, interpretation of world events. Sadly, I don’t see the allegorical interpretation winning out in the end.

In light of recent events, and because certain televangelist-types have again made idiotic comments about who the Palestinians are (or aren’t), I am re-posting this short piece of history (with additions and corrections) which I wrote a few years ago.

The Jerusalem area was first settled about 4500 BCE. It is first mentioned as a city by the Egyptians about 2000 BCE. The Hebrews/Israelites invaded Canaan about 1358/50 BCE, about 650 years after we know Jerusalem already existed. But they didn’t capture Jerusalem because they couldn’t. David conquered Jerusalem in about 1003/4 BCE, about 354 years after the Hebrews/Israelites invaded and settled in Canaan, taking it from the Jebusites. Meanwhile, the capital of Israel had been Shiloh, where the people actually had their first temple (archaeology has proven this). Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians from the Jewish people in 586/7 BCE and most Jews were deported to other lands. In 538 BCE the Jews were allowed to return and rebuild Jerusalem, making it their capitol again. But, in 332 BCE, Alexander the Great takes Jerusalem without any resistance and it is added to his empire, afterward falling under the purview of the Seleucid Empire. In 164 BCE the Maccabees, a Jewish sect, revolted and managed to defeat the Seleucids, thus taking Jerusalem back. They had a state which lasted about 101 years. But, in 63 BCE the Romans, under Pompey, took Jerusalem. It remained under Roman domination, with the capitol of Judea actually being Caesaria, until the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Bar Kokhba and his forces took Jerusalem in 132 CE and held it for about three years, until 135 CE. Afterward, the territory was renamed “Palestine” by Hadrian and Jerusalem (renamed Conia Aelia Kapitolina) eventually fell under Byzantine domination as the Roman Empire crumbled. But the Persian Sassanids managed to capture that area and place Jerusalem under Jewish control in 614 CE. That lasted about three years, the Jewish leader there being killed and the Sassanids deciding that placing Jerusalem back under Christian control would be a better idea. Then, in 636/7 CE Islamic forces captured Aelia. They held it, more or less, for about 1311 years until the Jewish people were allowed to return under British mandate in 1947/48.

So, for all practical purposes, the Hebrews/Jews had Jerusalem for about 729 (until gaining it back in 1948) years out of its approximately 6518-year history! And it has literally been held by the Muslims for a longer period than by anyone in history.

The Palestinian people are descendants not only of Arabs, but also of Jews, ancient Greeks and Romans. They are not just Egyptians as some in the televangelistic world would tell you. After the Bar Kochba Revolt, most Jewish people were forcibly removed from that territory, and it was renamed “Palestine”. Jerusalem was rebuilt as Aelia Kapitolina and Pagan Romans were settled there. The rest of that territory began to be populated with various peoples. There were already a large number of Greeks there, and Arabs began to move in over time. These peoples – the Romans, the Greeks, and the Arabs, as well as others, along with the few Jews who were left, intermingled over time and became the Palestinian people. And they eventually became mainly Christian. Many have remained Christian to this day.

So, at least get your history straight. If you think that it belongs to the Jews because of “God”, then say that. But don’t say that the Muslims have no historical right to it.

As some of my readers may recall, I was trained as a Christian theologian. That training enabled me to acquire multiple degrees in religious studies from accredited colleges and universities. I state this, not to toot my own horn, but simply to remind the reader that (1) I do know what I am writing about and (2) I do hold degrees in religion, which is more than most televangelists or their associates can say, not to mention many other supposed religious leaders today. Yes, some of them actually hold legitimate degrees, some of which are in religious studies. But very few of them do. Yet many people accept what they say almost without question.

So, these other religious “leaders”, preachers, televangelists, etc. will almost always invariably insist that the Bible is their source of authority on any given subject. And they will insist upon the inerrancy of the Bible – and they mean all of it, not just parts of it. Why do they do this? Simply put, it is an article of faith for most of them. Their denominations teach the inerrancy of the Bible and, if they have any college-level education, they have been trained to accept that. In short, they MUST believe this as an article of faith in most denominations. Therefore, they insist upon this and instruct their flocks to do likewise.

Now, it may come as a shock to some people who do not have any, or who have limited, theological training that their religious “leaders”, whomever they may be, know some or all of the things which I am about to expound here. They have been trained in the history of how the Bible came about just as well as I have been. So, they know most or all of the things I am about to state here, yet they will rarely, if ever, tell you. If that sounds like a recurring theme in my writing, it is. They know, but they literally won’t tell YOU. Yes, they do want YOU to remain uninformed on this manner, as well as a host of others.

Now, I am not going to go into all of the detail I could go into here. It would be too much and would not be necessary in any case. I can easily tell the reader enough to make the point without going into too much detail. If the reader wants more detail on, say, how the Bible was put together over the centuries, that information would be easily found in various places on the internet or in books. It’s too easy to find. That said, I will state a few things in a way that I doubt the reader will find elsewhere.

First, to clarify the subject, the actual “belief”, if you will, is that each book of the Bible is inerrant in its original form and in its original language. Few will go so far as to insinuate that the various translations that we have today are totally inerrant. But some would come disturbingly close to exactly that.

But let’s first deal with original writings. Most people do know that the three languages that the various parts of the Bible were written in were Hebrew, Aramaic (which most state was the language of Jesus himself), and Greek. Therefore, biblical scholars and theologians are required in college or seminary (usually both) to study at least one of these languages, depending upon what their focus may be. And they are expected to become proficient in that language in order to progress in their studies. That already leaves most televangelists in the dustbin because most of them have not done this. Oh, they can take a lexicon and a few other helpful sources and come to basic understandings of the biblical writings, but they are in no way proficient at the level of, say, someone with a PhD in biblical studies. They just aren’t. And, as a matter of full disclosure, I am among those who just aren’t. I struggled mightily with both Greek and Hebrew and managed to pass my classes, but in no way did I become proficient in either. And I didn’t even attempt to take any class in Aramaic. But I repeat this mantra yet again simply to demonstrate the fact that many people will ask some televangelist or one of their associates to explain biblical passages, not truly realizing that they really don’t know the answers. The SBN program, “Frances & Friends” comes to mind. The only “Doctor” they have on the program is Don Paul Gray and, contrary to what most may think, his doctorate is in a subject other than theology.

All that said, one thing that most people today do not seem to realize is that we actually have NO original manuscripts of any of the biblical documents. Not a single fragment of any letter, treatise, book, or sentence has survived from an original writing. Not one! NONE or the original writings have survived the centuries. And, if this even has to be stated, the writings that we do have ARE fragmentary AND are copies made well after the original writings were penned. In addition, what many well-trained biblical scholars don’t even know is that many of these copies have all kinds of notes and extra references written in the margins of said manuscripts, showing that the transcriber sought either to explain something in the margins, or questions something there. And there are examples in which an instructor wrote in the margins, sometimes chiding the student transcriber for making some kind of error. Now, to be fair, such things are found not only among biblical documents, but other ancient documents as well. In short, this was just a common thing to happen. Ancient manuscripts often have all kinds of notes and corrections, etc. in them.

I state all of these things to finally make the point that, even IF the original writings had been so inspired by the Holy Spirit as to be totally inerrant and perfect, they no longer exist. NO ORIGINAL BIBLICAL DOCUMENTS EXIST, NOT A FRAGMENT OR A SINGLE LETTER ON PARCHMENT, PERIOD. And the majority of biblical scholars know that because they have learned that in college and seminary. Of course, that information is in the prefaces to most, if not all, modern Bibles today if people cared to read about it. So, it’s not like they are trying to hide that fact. If someone doesn’t know, it’s because they didn’t bother to read about it. And, believe me, I have listened to people call into “Frances & Friends” asking about exactly this type of thing. This, obviously because the caller never read even the notes in their own Bibles. One has to wonder whether, if someone won’t read the prefaces and the notes, how much they read of the actual Bible itself. Frankly, most questions I hear callers and emailers ask could easily be answered if the person did read their Bibles. But I digress here except to state that the Bible does not have to be inerrant, nor does the reader have to be some expert in one of the ancient languages, for answers to be found within its pages. It’s actually too easy. No one has to ask Frances Swaggart or her panel members anything much. I mean, has any reader seen how they sort-of scramble to answer questions as if they never thought of them before quite often? That’s because they haven’t.

Anyway, the second major point I would like to make here is that IF even the original writings were totally inspired and inerrant in every detail and word, then the writings contained in the Bible today, in their original forms, were the only perfect things in the entire universe! That is, while they still existed. Now, just ponder this for a moment, please. In all of the universe, writings by an assortment of ancient men, most of whom would have been barely educated, if that, somehow turned out to be perfect in every detail. This, because the Holy Spirit ensured that they were. God, who made the entire universe, still made nothing perfect, except these specific writings which humans many, many years later, accepted into a single canon that we today call the Bible. That would literally mean that the only perfect things in the entire universe would be God, the angels that did not rebel (and that is questionable because they still could), and the writings of the Bible. Wow!

People, seriously, if God didn’t make anything else perfect, except MAYBE certain angels, how could the original biblical writings have been perfect? Well, some would say that the earth, for example, WAS perfect before the fall of Adam and Eve, and that they were perfect also prior to that time. Trouble is, the Bible itself does not say that. The book of Genesis states that God saw everything that he had created and that it was “good”, not perfect. Nowhere does even the Bible state that anything God created was perfect. It does state that Satan was “perfect” in all of his ways until iniquity was found within him, but that’s as close as anything in the Bible comes, as far as I can recall. Words that we translate as “perfect” are also used elsewhere, but they also have nothing to do with creation itself. And none of our current biblical writings themselves claim perfection. “Revelation” sort of comes close, but even it doesn’t.

Frankly, even the original writings had to have been imperfect simply because of the fact that fallible man wrote them. I know that most people don’t want to acknowledge that, but it has to be true. Otherwise, one would have to posit that, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, man is indeed able to reach some level of perfection. Sadly, there are some people who would say exactly that. Some churches do actually teach that human beings can live perfect lives after being saved. My own father used to work with someone who constantly harassed him over religious issues such as this. That person truly believed that people could live perfect lives. And, of course, he based this belief on the Bible. My dad eventually got tired of his efforts in this regard, so he asked questions. He said to the man (paraphrasing), so, you believe that a person can be perfect in everything that he or she does, right? The man responded in the affirmative. That’s where my dad already had him! So, he continued with the logical question (again, paraphrasing), so, while a person is doing everything he or she does in a perfect manner, what about all of the things he or she might neglect to do that they ought to have done? Perhaps, in the quest to live a perfect life, one can still neglect to do something that one should have done. Isn’t that imperfection? The man had to back down after that.

And, after all, even the apostle Paul never claimed perfection, for he stated, “the things I hate, those things I do”. Romans 7:15-20 (NASB), “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.”

I submit that, with such a confession, the apostle Paul would also readily admit that his own writings were imperfect! Therefore, they are fallible and do contain errors. After all, he was a mere man! It doesn’t matter how inspired he may have been, he was still imperfect himself and, therefore, everything he did was, by definition, imperfect. That would include anything he wrote.

But let’s get back to the original manuscripts themselves. Not only do we not have even a single shred of an original piece of writing, but later writings have gone through many revisions and contain many changes, as any truly good biblical scholar can tell you. Every single piece or fragment of any of the earliest manuscripts that DO still exist have differences, some minor, some not so minor. Scholars, as a general rule, try to accept the oldest manuscripts available. But sometimes it is obvious that even the oldest ones are not as good, and probably not as accurate to the originals, as some later manuscripts. So, they don’t always go with the oldest ones that are still available. Now, it’s complicated how scholars can deduce which manuscripts are the best as opposed to those that are not. But, trust me, most scholars are competent enough to do this with proper training. That having been said, what they come up with is still NOT perfect and is NOT infallible. No competent scholar would ever suggest otherwise.

Now, one really does wish that we had at least some original manuscripts, especially if they were all or mostly intact. I myself would relish that. I would greatly enjoy comparing originals to later revisions. I might even take a stab at learning Greek and Hebrew again if such an opportunity were to present itself. If anyone was ever able to find and prove the existence of even one original, I would do my utmost to examine it myself if it were put out for public consumption. But, alas, such a dream is only illusory. I’m not going to state without any reservation that such a document can never be found. But I am going to state that it isn’t going to happen. It just isn’t. They simply do not exist anymore, period.

But this actually brings us to the next problem and to the next major point I have to make here. One really has to question this; if God, through the Holy Spirit, somehow ensured that the original writings, copies of which are in today’s Bibles, were perfect and inerrant, why would God not also have ensured that these perfect documents survive to this day so that no one could dispute what they may or may not have said? In short, why did God go to all that effort just to allow his perfect documents to become lost over time? If it was important enough to create perfection, why let it ever be destroyed? Is it, somehow, that perfection can’t exist in an imperfect world? Well, perhaps that last question is too philosophical, after all. So, we won’t go any further down that road here. The real point, however, is that it really doesn’t make much sense for God to have ensured that certain writings were perfect and infallible only to allow said writings to be destroyed.

The fact that they no longer exist is the main cause of confusion and argumentation concerning the Bible in general and the individual texts otherwise. But frankly, people would argue anyway. They don’t need the originals to prevent that. Even if we had them, some people would argue over what they said. Trust me.

So, let’s be real here. The fact of the matter is that (1) we don’t have any original writings and (2) even if we did, they would contain errors because of human input, and (3) the copies that we do have contain even more errors than the originals would have contained. The original writings were NOT perfect, and our present Bible, no matter which version is used, is also NOT perfect.

How many non-theologians or people who are not biblical scholars know much at all about the process of the formation of the Bible in the first place? The debates as to which books to accept, and which to reject, would make some of our present political debates look like child’s play. Frankly, it’s a wonder that people ever finally agreed to an actual canon. And, even more frankly, they really didn’t! Certain combinations of books have been accepted over the centuries by various different groups for their own purposes. And that has been the case from the very inception of any attempt to create a Bible. Some Bibles had more books than others, in so many words. Some Bibles had this book, while another one wouldn’t, but might contain others. So, frankly, even to this day there is no complete agreement even as to which books properly constitute the Bible.

But let’s just take the Bible that most Protestant churches accept. They will state that THOSE books were inspired, while any other book not contained in their Bibles was not. THOSE books were (are) perfect and without error. Thus, they are inerrant. And Protestant churches base their entire creeds, dogmas, and articles of faith on THAT particular book. It is an article of faith that a person MUST accept all of the books of the Bible – their Bible – as inerrant as a matter of salvation. And they would be shocked at any suggestion that, if the originals might have been inerrant, the copies and translations can’t be! But that is exactly the final crux of the matter.

So, for my final major point I must point out that there actually are some denominations that insist that the King James Version of the bible is every bit as inspired and inerrant as any original must have been. Otherwise, their faith could be called into question. This simply because, whatever they may say, their entire faith is placed solely and completely in a BOOK! Thus, they literally HAVE to believe without reservation ludicrous stories like Noah’s flood and ark, as well as a whole host of others.

The worst part of it is the fact that they really do believe that the original KJV was and is infallible and perfect. Never mind that literally NONE of them even read the original KJV because it was written in very Old English which almost no one CAN even read today. The versions that we have today are NOT the original! Changes have been made so that we CAN read it. Oh, but those changes don’t cause any errors, they will say. Be that as it may (or may not), it is strictly ludicrous to posit that God somehow made sure that original writings were inerrant but allowed them to be lost and further allowed a whole host of errors to creep into all later manuscripts until the King James translation was made, which he somehow ensured would also be inerrant and perfect! And, on top of that, God has ensured that each change made to the KJV was perfect and without error too! I’m not quite sure why God would choose English as the language of choice here. What about all the other translations made in German, etc.? Are they not also inspired and without error? And there is little use in getting into other English translations because, in this scenario, they simply MUST contain errors. This because God would surely never allow different translations of the same language to be inerrant. One has to be perfect, while all others must be imperfect. If anyone reads this and doesn’t see how crazy that is, I really don’t know what to say further.

In the end, many, many Christians, especially conservative evangelical Protestants, have succumbed to actually making their Bible into an idol! It’s really that simple. A single book is their real focus – not Jesus, not God, not the things Jesus actually taught according to the very Bible they worship…. They would hiss at any Pagan, calling statues of the deities “idols”, while they have their own idol! It’s sad, but all too true.

I think it goes without saying that in an enlightened and intellectual society most people would immediately recognize whether a quote was factual and attributable to the person referenced or not. Please don’t get me started on all of the supposed quotes from personages such as Sokrates or Platon (yes, I use the correct Greek names here). Thus, it stands to reason – it actually seems all too obvious – that we do not live in an enlightened and intellectual society. This is obvious because such quotes are rampant, and few have the knowledge to discern whether they are real and properly attributed or not.

This leads us to the quote of the day (actually made a few days ago, but it is still lingering around), made by Sen. Josh Hawley and attributed to Patrick Henry: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here”. Not only have fact checkers shown that the quote cannot be attributed to Patrick Henry, but also that the sentiment expressed therein is contrary to what our founders envisioned. But, frankly, what can we expect from someone who gave a power sign to January 6th insurrectionists (albeit prior to their insurrectionist acts), encouraging them and who, by all accounts, can be classed as a Christian nationalist (and who would likely accept that title with pride)?

The frank fact of the matter is that this quote DOES express exactly the sentiment that many hold today because of misinformation – a sentiment which many wish to see as reality in this nation today. Thus, they try to use skewed history in order to facilitate their aims. Please allow me to break it down for the reader.

The first thing they are attempting to do is to skew history in such a way as to have everyone believe that freedom of religion only applies to Christians. Thus, they will state mindless things such as “peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here”. When their rhetoric constantly expresses the belief that our laws and even our Constitution are based on Christianity, this is where they are heading, making everyone who is not a Christian a second-class citizen at best. It is no misstatement that our founders were indeed Christians, for the most part. But the problem lies in the inference that our founders expected everyone to be Christians and that they expected history to follow suit in that everyone would remain Christian. And, frankly, if there were a few people of other faiths, such as Judaism, that would be no issue. Rule by Christians would benefit them too, it is thought. But that is the real point – it is alleged that our founders wanted Christian rule! No one else was to hold any level of political power or societal status, period. And even non-Christians would be fine with this because Christian rule would benefit them too.

To get there they not only misquote founders and others, but they, well, they have quit trying to say that separation of church and state was not a concept and have instead proceeded to say that it was and is a concept, but that it means that the state (i.e., the federal government) cannot interfere in religious affairs, but the Church CAN exert influence over government. And this is exactly what would happen if we had Christian rule. Of course, these people always overlook the fact that medieval and early modern Europe HAD Christian rule. Christian rule is presumed to be moral in their eyes. But an examination of it in European history shows a bit less morality than they wish for most to have knowledge of. The main point being that our founders understood what Christian rule was all about, so they elected to have neither a monarchy or a theocracy.

Let me drill this in just a bit more, please. Most people today – even those who know very little history – understand that we as a nation rejected the notion of monarchy and, thus, established a republican form of government with a president, not a king. For most people, that is not even a question. Sadly, there are a few today, however, who would establish a monarchy here – or, better put, a dictatorship, because that is what a monarchy really is, after all. They would allow the branches of government to remain, but all real power would be vested in the executive branch and the President if they had their way, trust me. Why? Because that is the way it always was, with very few exceptions, all the way from Constantine to the ending of the medieval world. Ever notice that democracy is just not a concept in the Bible? See, “God’s” form of government is kingship. Never mind that he supposedly told the Israelites that they would regret having a king. The only form of government being considered was in fact kingship. And that is exactly why medieval Europe always had either kings or emperors. They followed the biblical model.

But to twist history even further, some pseudo-historians have even begun calling the time of the Judges in Israel their period of so-called “democracy”. In so many words, these pseudo-historians would have everyone believe that it was not, in fact, the Greek Athenians who invented democracy, but it was instead the Israelites during the period of the Judges. I kid you not! Yet, these same pseudo-historians still adhere to the notion of a theocracy, which is, in fact, what the time of the Judges, more or less, was. It was, in short, a theocracy without a king. But once Israel selected a king, then it became a full theocracy. And THAT is what we had in medieval Europe! Those who don’t understand our history today do actually look to medieval Europe as a sort of standard. They don’t understand that our founders saw the flaws of theocratic government and shunned it in favor of a government by and for the people.

OK, so, again, their first priority has been to skew history so that most people today won’t understand that our founders were establishing a republican form of government exactly so that we would NOT have a king. Now, this leads directly to the concept of separation of church and state. Let me begin by asking a question. What would be the point of establishing a democratic form of government based on a certain religion – any religion or even the concept of religion to begin with? Put another way, how could a theocracy be created without a king or an emperor to keep it established? The point being that establishing a theocracy would make no sense at all if it was not coupled with strong leadership centered in one person who would keep it intact. In case no one has noticed, theocracies don’t work without a king or an emperor. They can’t hold together and continue to function. Why? Because inevitably rule by the many means that there will always be differing opinions and differing beliefs which will sometimes come into conflict. Thus, if you have, say, Pentecostals and Catholics in the same government they are naturally going to differ quite often. But if you have a Christian king or emperor, everyone has to acquiesce to him at all times no matter their beliefs.

Let me repeat again, please, theocracies do not work without strong rulers. Now, one may point out that, for example, the Roman Republic was a theocracy, and they would be correct. It was indeed a theocracy – and it was politically weak too. Its strongest point was its military. So, what happened? A military general – Gaius Iulius Caesar – took the reins of power over and above the objections of the Senate, thus solidifying rule by one person, a dictator, and making the Senate even weaker than it already was. He was both Pontifex Maximus and, in reality, sole ruler, albeit briefly. But his chosen successor, Octavian, was able to consolidate everything and make it all work. The Roman Republic was politically weak and could not have continued as a theocratic state without the establishment of an emperor. For better or for worse, that is what happened. The concept of separation of religion and state never occurred to the Roman. Freedom of religion did, but separation did not. And, in fact, no state or nation in all of recorded history had ever – ever – existed without an established religion until our founders made it so here!

So, the fact of the matter is that, knowing these things, our founders established a republican form of government WITHOUT establishing a religion! Our founders did not want an established religion of any kind in this country and, so, they effectively separated church and state even if no documents actually used the phrase. If they had wanted an established religion that would have been simple enough for them to have done. Even IF they had said that Christianity, in whatever form it would take, was to be the established religion, they would have understood from history that in order to do so they would have had to have established a kingship also. The point being that if they had wanted a theocracy, they would inevitably have established a kingship. There literally is no way around this. But instead, they made the executive branch of government the weakest branch! Really, the only real power the President had at first was as Commander in Chief. Not so today. I have often said that the President has too much power today and I stand by that statement regardless of the circus that the other branches often can be.

So, we should now understand that our founders did NOT want a theocracy any more than they wanted a kingship. In short, they did not want religious rule which logically means that they did not want Christian rule only. Yes, they did want government and the populace to adhere to good Christian morals and values, but not because they would be imposed by “Christian” government officials.

But another part of the reason that separation of church and state is a valid concept, and that it DOES mean that the state cannot impose a religion on the populace, is that it was already happening in the Colonies. Well, at least most of them. But some Colonies, such as North Carolina, did not have an established religion, so no particular form of worship was being imposed on the population there. Many, many, people left Virginia for the Carolinas exactly for this reason. Colonies such as Virginia were already effectively theocracies. When our Constitution and Bill of Rights were being formed, this issue was naturally in the minds of those who were selected as delegates. No other state wanted to have the religion of another state imposed upon it and its citizens. Thus, the entire concept of a state religion, whether it was to have to do with individual states or the entire country, was effectively wiped out here. Notice that following the Revolution no state actually had a state religion, at least for long. Contrary to the way certain pseudo-historians would have everyone believe, no religion was being imposed in any way upon the populace. Theocracy in this nation ceased, period. The only thing left to do was to state that “Congress” could not impose religion upon anyone AND to establish that no religious “litmus test” could be used to determine the worthiness of any political candidate. They didn’t have to reiterate that states could not impose their own religions.

Pseudo-historians will point out that many state constitutions referred to God and to religion. But they fail to mention, for example, that even in Tennessee until this very year ministers of the gospel were barred from serving in the state legislature! But sadly, they changed that by vote this year.

Now, let us please proceed to the concept of state’s rights. To some degree, I actually agree with this concept in principle. That is, to the extent that the federal government cannot enforce laws contrary to the laws of a given state within the borders of that state. So far, the concept has worked fairly well, with some exceptions – the main exception being with reference to slavery – and we know how that turned out. As it turns out, freedom has to be for everyone, not just some.

Still, the pseudo-historian will apply the concept of state’s rights to religion, and this is where it will get really interesting if I am not mistaken. See, even if “Congress” cannot pass any law establishing a religion, the pseudo-historians are already implying that states can! In their conceptual world, any given state could, in fact, make laws that state that ONLY Christians could run for public office, be teachers, or any number of other things. And they could conceivably go even further by mandating that only certain kinds of Christians in any given state would be acceptable. Thus, even some Christians would be left out! So, in their world, not only can any given state make abortion illegal, but they could make being a Christian a prerequisite for holding public office, etc. In such a world, inevitably, only Christians would be elected to positions in the federal government too because they would have already been vetted by their states. Thus, Christian rule would be imposed upon the entire nation, not by Congress directly, but by the laws of each individual state. And then, my friends, we would have a theocracy. But, of course, we would need a strong leader to keep it all together and functioning now, wouldn’t we? Enter those who would have the President function effectively as a dictator and it all comes together.

When you hear televangelist-types talk about a certain politician, ahem, stating how great he has been for Israel and for Christianity and at the same time stating that they literally don’t care about his morals (and they do say this) because of all the good he has done in both realms, realize that they are not about the gospel, they are only about politics and that he is their chosen Christian dictator who would impose their views on everyone else. All of them have the very same agenda – the televangelist-types, the pseudo-historians, the fake journalists, and the wacky politicians. They want a theocracy here in THIS nation and they will literally do and say anything to make that happen!

Well, recently Brazillians democratically voted to oust their former ultra-conservative leader, President Jair Bolsonaro (whom evangelicals compared to Trump), replacing him with a much more liberal new president, Lula da Silva. Now, I really don’t get into South American politics, per se, and am only concerned with it to the extent that I, like many, prefer to see more democratic governments across the globe. That said, there are a host of others whom one might think would prefer the same thing, but they don’t. To put it another way, one might expect most Christians, especially American Evangelicals, to prefer democratic governments over authoritarian régimes. But, sadly, if their supposed “leaders” are any indication, they generally don’t. The reason for this is that a relatively new errant theology has been developed which allows these types of Christians to see dictators as good so long as they supposedly support “Christian values”. In short, Christian dictators (even if they really aren’t, but still support evangelical causes) are perfectly OK with these people. This errant theology, then, refers to any nation that has such a leader as a sheep nation, while all the rest are referred to as goat nations. So, if you follow this theology, then the natural conclusion here is that Brazil has suddenly become a goat nation, bound to be judged harshly by Christ when he returns! And, frankly, the US is in the same boat, in their view, after electing President Biden, whom some repeatedly refer to as evil and bound toward deliberately destroying this nation.

But where could such an errant theological construct come from? It comes from Matthew 25: 31-46. In this passage it is explained that upon Christ’s return he will separate people, some on one hand and some on the other. Those on his right hand are referred to as sheep, and those on his left hand are referred to as goats. Tracking so far? If you replied, “not really”, good for you! Why? Because this is exactly why I refer to their theological construct as errant. See, the passage states, in part, ³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left” (NASB). Notice that the passage, in verse 32, clearly states that he will separate the “people” into two groups, not the nations. But, those who hold to this theology take the reference to nations earlier in verse 32 as meaning entities with national boundaries like we have today. But any real biblical scholar will tell you that the word translated as “nations” here does NOT mean that. It means all of those people and tribes who are outside of Israel. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with national boundaries, modern or otherwise.

The Greek word used here is (ἔθνη) “ethne”, from which we get the words ethnic, ethnicity, etc. It could also be translated as “race” or “races”. The τὰ ἔθνη were the Gentiles so often referred to. Any foreigner – any non-Hebrew of non-Jew was a foreigner and, therefore, τὰ ἔθνη. Frankly, I have always felt that the word would better be translated as “foreigner” or “foreigners” in all passages. But that’s just me.

Regardless, the passage is clearly speaking of people, not nationalistic borders with people in them. And, therefore, they are not being separated according to national borders, but according to their works. Because the passage further states, ³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me'”, etc. No one is being judged because of what their national leader may or may not have done. This is an individual judgment.

Just like Matthew 24, evangelicals, especially the televangelists, have developed and perpetrated this errant theology so much that most who are a part of the evangelical movement have come to accept this without actually READING it. Evangelical leaders and televangelists have totally misconstrued both chapters for purely political reasons to keep their “sheep” on the ultra-conservative side, to their own detriment and to the detriment of everyone else.

You know, they often say “you can’t make this up”. Yet, when such a statement is made one already knows it is often about something that is indeed made-up. Such appears, at least, to be the case with reference to the following. In this case I will not provide a book title or author’s name simply because I would prefer not to advertise either in any way. There is such a nyriad of “Christian” books, asserting wild and ridiculous claims out there already that it would only add to the already prevailing confusion. The information presented here will do enough toward that end.

But, how to even begin? The reason I ask that question is literally because the information to be presented here is so wild and “out there” that it is difficult to know where to begin to take any of it apart. But, let me first begin with one fact. For those who don’t already know, I studied theology for many years and hold multiple degrees in the subject. So, when I state (as I will) that I have never heard of this or that, I literally mean that not only have I never run across this or that piece of information in my years of study, but I also could not find it in a diligent search of the internet today.

OK, so there is now a book out that proposes to tell the real story of Christmas and the Nativity. Now, scholars, like myself, know that there are conflicting accounts of whatever may have taken place even in the gospels, not to mention in early Christian writings. These conflicts are not really so easily resolved. Yet, Christians generally have come up with a composit story to fit the narrative anyway. It basically goes like this; Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to be counted in the census so that they could be properly taxed. While there, Jesus was born in a manger, a stable, a cave, or an inn, depending upon whichever version one prefers. The wise men, of Magi, arrived to find their king and give him gifts after which an angel told Joseph to flee into Egypt to get away from Herod. Oh, and angels showed themselves to shepherds in the field and announced the savior’s birth to them.

It gets all wrapped up into one story these days, and has for a long time. The one thing that the author in question gets right is that this narrative is generally false because all of these things did not happen at once, according to the gospels. So, obviously, he gets credit for pointing that out. Not that it matters a whit to anyone these days celebrating Christmas. But the reason I came up with the title to this piece is that the author literally expands the story into something that any reasonable observer would know could not possibly be true. The story he presents is so over the top that one might think that just about anyone would recognize this. And, this even though the biblical story itself is way over the top already. There is literally no need to add to it! But, that is what is taking place here, the author explaining that it comes from years of research on his part. Well, I already know the types of sources he would have to be using for this, if any, and they would mostly be considered unreliable among scholars mainly because their writings would not be anywhere close to contemporary with the gospel writings. But we don’t have to dwell on the author’s supposed sources here anyway.

Thus, the first glaring statement made by the author that I wish to present here is probably the wildest, and most ludicrous, of all. First, think for a moment about the gospel accounts. Any scholar today knows that the original texts did not use the term “wise men” for the men from the East who supposedly followed a star around until they found Jesus and presente him with gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The story goes that when they arrived in Jerusalem, they first went to see Herod and asked where the child could be found. Herod, not knowing, but being very suspicious, instructed them to continue looking for him and report back to him when they had found him. But, they didn’t report back to him and the family fled to Egypt until Herod’s death. So far, so good.

Now for the author’s expansion of the story acording to whatever sources he may have found, which he verbally told to Jim Bakker today. The author states – without alluding to the fact that the Magi were priests of the Zoroastrian religion – that these Magi, who could have been as many as twelve altogether (somehow three is preposterous) brought with them vast amounts of each of the three items in question and presented them all to Jesus because they had to give him wealth equivalent to his true status – they being able to afford this because they were the richest people on the earth at that time anyway. So, they didn’t present Jesus with just three small boxes of each item, but instead had so much that they had to have a virtual army to guard both them and the vast treasure on the way to see Jesus! And, so, finding Jesus and his parents in a cave which was used to shelter animals, they presented him with this untold vast amount of wealth!

Aside from the fact that it has always been problematic that Zoroastrian priests would somehow know and accept who Jesus was when everyone else on earth either rejected him, or had to be trained to understand who he was during his lifetime, the author expects the potential reader of his new book to accept that these Magi traveled a vast distance, laden with an untold amount of wealth through hostile territory, guarded by a virtual army, and first went to Herod asking where Jesus was and then presented him with all of this wealth while he lay in a cave! Oh, I forgot, the arrival of the Magi, according to the author, took place two years after Jesus’ birth, so he was no longer in the cave. So says the author anyway.

But the latter doesn’t really matter, does it? After all, no one today really cares exactly when this even took place when celebrating Christmas. Right? But the author continues by stating that Jerusalem was in an uproar over their arrival, and that Herod was greatly concerned too with so many people suddenly arriving in Jerusalem (he seems to have forgotten that if it was two years after the birth of Jesus it was during a time when Jerusalem would have been filled with people already, celebrating one of their holy times). Well, naturally he would be if this scenario was possible! But the author seems to miss something else here. If such a caravan was about to arrive in Jerusalem they would have been seen and known about while they were still very far away. Scouts would have seen them and Herod’s army would have been prepared to protect the city from them.

It’s bad enough to believe that “wise men” would go up to King Herod and ask him where the new baby king was to be found; but to believe that they brought a foreign army and untold treasure with them as they did it is beyond the pale. On top of that, to believe that Herod would have simply told them to search for the baby and bring back word of his location is just beyond outlandish! Herod would have been much more likely to have had them executed on the spot, and confiscated their treasure. No foreign army would have been allowed into the city!

Beyond all of this, the author continues that Joseph was already wealthy anyway because his work would have been in high demand. I’m not making this up. Regardless, we are to believe that the already wealthy Joseph, and his young wife, Mary, were therefore already wealthy and that they accepted a horde of treasure from priests of a foreign religion who understood somehow who Jesus really was when no one else but Mary did. Then they had to flee to Egypt with all of it and await Herod’s death. And, by the way, years later when one of the Apostles was traveling to India to spread the gospel he first found the Magi on his way and preached to them, converting them and baptizing them. Why this was necessary when they supposedly already knew who Jesus was to begin with is unclear. Again, I have never run across any of this in my years of study – none of it.

Oh, did I mention Mary? If the above scene is not bizarre enough let’s also have a Mary who fully understood practically all of her life what her role would be and, so, when the angel came to her and told her that she would bear the Messiah, she was ready and complied. How could this be the case, you ask? Well, see her parents knew, somehow, and instilled within her from an early age that she would be given some important spiritual task. So, when the time came she simply complied. Of course, the author repeatedly referred not only to Mary as a young woman of 12-14 years of age, which is probably accurate, but also referred to Joseph multiple times as a young man. But all accounts and scholarly concensuses have always referred to Joseph as just a bit older (around thirty, at least), probably already having children by a previous marriage, who were Jesus’ half-siblings.

I’m not quite sure why the author proposes that Joseph was a young man. However, the author does make a big deal about the supposed fact that both Joseph and Mary were of the Davidic line. Thus, in the author’s mind, this made Jesus the legitimate heir to David’s throne. The obvious problem with this, of course, is that any male child descended from David patrilineally would have had a legitimate claim to the throne. Oh, did we forget that Joseph was supposedly not the real father of Jesus? Descent from Mary only simply would not cut it. It would be helpful if there were none who could claim patrilineal descent, but that’s all. Regardless, somehow descent through both Jesus’ step-father and his mother made Jesus THE legitimate heir. And Herod would have somehow recognized this.

Oh, and now we can get to something that has always been one my favorite Christmas themes – swaddling clothes. Growing up I recall every year the reading of the Nativity account and the mention of Jesus being wrapped in swaddling clothes, as if that was cute and one should react, “awwww, isn’t that sweet!” In my studies later in life I came to understand, via scholarship, that swaddling clothes were pieces of cloth that ALL babies were wrapped in, sort of like a diaper plus some. Basically, they were meant to keep the newborn from squirming around too much. So, when the shepherds were told by the angels to look for a baby in a manger (still) wearing swaddling clothes, that made perfect sense. So, again, ALL newborns would have been wrapped in such bandages and, therefore, that would not have been in the least unusual. But that is what the shepherds had to look for.

How strange it would have been if it had been, say, unusual to wrap a baby in such strips of cloth and for shepherds to be told to look for that! But, that is exactly what some modern scholars (I found one on-line today), including this author, have proposed. Their alternate proposal is that the place where the baby Jesus was born was in a cave next to the field in which the shepherds brought up lambs for sacrificial slaughter. These lambs, when newborn, were supposedly wrapped in strips of cloth so that they would not thrash around as they were laid on the stone manger to be inspected by priests to see if they had any blemishes on them. Now, while this general scenario is indeed possible, I have never heard of animals being wrapped in anything referred to as “clothes” in ancient times. We dress up pets sometimes today in pet clothes, but they didn’t do that in ancient times. And, indeed, IF this scenario is to be seen as correct, then the shepherds would have seen it as quite crazy to find a baby wrapped in the same cloth strips they used for lambs! In fact, they would likely have accused the supposedly already rich holy family of theft! Need I say that I have never heard of this either before?

The real symbolism, if there is any here, that the author and some scholars have obviously missed, is that soon after birth Jesus was anointed and wrapped in swaddling clothes, i.e, strips of cloth, just as he would be anointed and wrapped in bandages, i.e, strips of cloth, after his crucifixion, both birth and death really being the same.

Finally, even though there is more, I will end with this. The author also proposes that, first, there were innumerable angels who came down and announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. But he also gives us a reason why that was the case. See, apparently the angels were a bit curious themselves. The author sates that no angel had been allowed to see the face of god up to that point. So, once Jesus was born, they came down to see the face of god.

One thing I have learned throughout the years is that belief is almost always predicated on the sensational and the outlandish. The more ludicrous a story is, the more people will believe it. I mean, if it makes sense, no one wants to believe it. Trust me on that. And, happy holidays.

I have come increasingly to the realization that most people have this “head up in the sky” attitude about religion. What I mean by that is that most people appear to think that the religion they believe in or practice has some direct, unbroken, connection to the ancient past. Basically, they see their own religion as either unchanged, or changed very little, from the ancient past. And that includes people from all religious persuasions, denominations, sects, cults, or whatever. And, obviously, all think they are perfectly right.

What really prompted me thinking about this more than usual was the looming possibility of another war, perhaps a world war. We are dangerously close to a war that would be very, very costly in many ways. But few ever stop to think about how war itself tends to change religion, and that this is one actual cost or casualty of war. For those who either don’t know already where I am going with this, or who only vaguely see where this is leading, the blunt point is that war changes religion and that it really does not remain intact in its given form following major armed conflicts.

Now, obviously, there are many reasons for a religion to evolve, so war is only one of them. But my point today is to emphasize the role of war in changing religion precisely because few seem to think about this. And also the fact that war can be one of the greatest reasons why a religion would find it necessary to change and evolve in order to survive. Are there those who tenaciously hold to a given religious perspective or persuasion regardless of circumstance? Yes. However, the historical trend is that these people wind up as a distinct minority, very often virtually forgotten by the rest of the world. The Mandaeans might be one example of such a trend.

Anyone who has done very much study and scholarly research on the subject can readily attest to the fact that, following the Roman occupation of Greece, the temples and oracles, along with the sacred mystery enactments, tended to slowly decline. Whereas once upon a time the Oracle at Delphoi, for example, was THE place to go to consult about just about everything, for all practical purposes, after Roman occupation it became less and less sought until it virtually ceased to function prior to being forcibly closed by Christian tyrants. And the polytheistic religious practices of old had also deteriorated until laws were enacted making participating in any of them punishable by all sorts of cruelties.

This same general trend took place, not just in Greece, but practically everywhere else too. And the real initial cause for it was simply war. When Greece was in the ascendency, Greek/Hellenic religion flourished, albeit in an already changed fashion following the conquests of Alexander the Great. But once Greece was defeated and subjugated, her religion went into decline. And because of the genocidal repression of her religion and people by late Roman and Byzantine despots, her religion became virtually non-existent. In some ways it morphed into the type of Christianity found there today. But the actual religion really no longer existed.

Having stated these things, it is not Greece or Hellenic religion that is my focus here, precisely because that ancient religion did cease to exist. Some of us are working to sort-of recreate it today, but it will never be the same religion no matter what we do. It can’t be exactly because, to recreate it, one would necessarily have to rebuild all of the ancient religions centres in Greece, for example. It saimply can’t be done, at least within our lifetimes.

No, in this blog I wish to actually focus on Judaism primarily, and American Christianity to a lesser degree. And the focal point from which I wish to draw will be 70 CE. Those who have studied even a little bit know that Christianity was a nascent religion at that time. In fact, it had yet to fully break away from Judaism proper. It was literally still a branch of Judaism. Of course, internal religious conflicts and squabbles led to a slow break-away.

All that said, one should already be able to discern (even without previous study) that I have alluded to the fact that Judaism itself was hardly monolithic. People today have a bad tendency to see both Christianity and Judaism in this stage as monolithic religions without much, if any, dissent. But that was far, far from the case. Still, regardless of these facts, whatever it was that existed of both religions, as it were, prior to 70 CE basically no longer exists today, no matter what some purists or fundamentalists may think. And that is exactly because the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, which was the center of both.

Because of this, both religions had to evolve, and do so separately – the split already taking place in any case. Frankly, the only reason that Judaism itself likely survived is exactly because the Romans allowed it to happen. Their genocidal effort toward wiping out Judaism and the Jewish people was really almost successful. And whereas it wasn’t so much successful in 70 CE under Vespasian and Titus, it was later in 135 CE under Hadrian. As I stated, the Romans essentially allowed its survival, though, because a certain Jewish Rabbi managed to persuade Vespasian to allow him to leave in peace and establish a religious school elsewhere. It is from THIS that most of modern-day Judaism springs, and it is NOT very much like that which existed in Jerusalem and elsewhere prior to 70 CE.

As for nascent Christianity, it had already taken root in so many other places that it had an advantage on survivability (not that Judaism had not done the same, but Christianity was, in a way, better able to continue to function mostly intact without Jerusalem. Christianity had almost outgrown Jerusalem by then). But it was still forced to change even more because of this war.

Now, over the past two-thousand plus years, both religions have changed a rather great deal. Actually, that is an understatement. If someone from 70 CE were to observe either today, they would hardly recognize them. Oh, some sects and denominations do somewhat of a better job at reproducing whatever they deem as “original” than others, but no one gets it quite right, trust me. But, in the greater scheme of things, that in and of itself really doesn’t matter anyway. It only matters to the purist and the fundamentalist.

But, let’s be clear. Both Judaism and Christianity changed after 70 CE. Frankly, Judaism itself changed following both the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests too. That which existed in 70 CE was quite unlike what we are finding via archaeology existed prior to either of these conquests. After all, YHWH no longer had a consort or was represented by a bull.

In conclusion, to get to the real point of all of this, the spectre of war that looms over us today – if it happens – could very well not only seal the fate of our nation, but also of American Christianity itself. And it is my opinion that American Christianity, in whatever form it may survive, will likely be even more radical than that which exists today. The reason for this is because the survivors will be able to point to their so-called “prophecies” of doom and gloom and say that they were right.

I have often said that it really didn’t take a prophet (or prophets) to predict that the Assyrians or Babylonians would come down and destroy Israel or Judah. Anyone should have been able to see that. But, since their predictions were put down in writing, they get credit for having warned those people. Today, it doesn’t take a prophet to predict that some war or another, probably a major one, will likely soon break out. It may even be one that will spell our own demise. But, since there is a parade of people claiming to be prophets predicting such, they will inevitably get the credit for having warned everyone. And from this the new form of Christianity will spring. This will be necessary for its survival. And in one or two hundred years, it won’t even look like whatever we have today. But it will still calim direct, causal descent from that which exists today. Trust me on this.

Not what I intended to write about here today, but going to. Of late I have had increasing trouble going to check on the status of my Amazon and Kindle books, and today I have had enormous difficulty even finding this site so that I could post something new. Attempting to find this website on any search, even when typing in a complete http://www.wordpress.com search, leads to multiple other sites, mostly including wordpress.org, which is NOT the same thing. These two issues lead me to conclude that someone has made a real effort to eliminate any traffic to any of the resources I use to write (and I suspect this will be true of other Pagans and witches). Well, at least for now, I found another way to access my own blogsite, no thanks to those who take it upon themselves to try and decide for everyone else what they can and cannot read. End of rant, for now.

On this date, August 22, 2022, an airing of the second installment of the Jim Bakker Show with guest Jonathan Cahn took place. It should first be stated that this is not the first time Mr. Cahn has been a guest on said program, nor will it likely be the last. This date being a Monday, the previous airing with him as guest in this sequence took place the previous Friday. On that date Mr. Cahn introduced his new book, which Jim Bakker repeatedly labeled as already a “best seller” (which I doubt to be the case), entitled “The Return of the Gods”. Excerpts from the book’s explanation on Amazon follow:

“Is it possible that behind what is taking place in America and the world lies a mystery that goes back to the gods of the ancient world…and that they now have returned? . . . The mystery involves the gods. Who are they? What are they? And is it possible that these beings, whose origins are from ancient times, are the unseen catalysts of modern culture? Is it possible that these gods lie behind the most pivotal events, forces, and movements taking place in our nation and around the world at this very moment? Are the gods at this very moment transforming our culture, our children, our lives, and America itself? Could this mystery have even determined the exact days on which Supreme Court decisions had to be handed down? What is the Dark Trinity? Who is the Possessor?  The Enchanter? The Destroyer? And the Sorceress? Could a sign that has appeared all over America and the world be linked to the gods of Mesopotamia? And if so, what does it actually mean? Could the gods have returned to New York City and an ancient mythology played out on the streets in real time? Is it possible that the gods lie behind everything from what appears on our computer monitors, our televisions and movie screens; to the lessons given in our classrooms; to the breakdown of the family; to wokism; to the occult; to our addictions; to the Supreme Court; to cancel culture; to children’s cartoons; to every force and factor that has transformed the parameters of gender; to that which appears in our stores, on our T-shirts, and on our coffee mugs—to that which is, at this very moment, transforming America and much of the world?  Is it possible that behind all these things are ancient mysteries that go back to the Middle East and ancient Mesopotamia? Is it possible that the gods are even affecting your life right now?  How can you recognize it?  And what can you do about it?”

This excerpt, as well as comments made by Cahn and Bakker, will form the basis of my response. Let it first be said that I really wanted to ignore this because I have seen and listened to Mr. Cahn, with his wild viewpoints, several times on previous occasions on this very show. He is among those that I simply can’t believe anyone follows or takes seriously. Yet, he is a best-selling author, apparently (I have seen no stats myself).

And I will tell the readers what else I have not seen. I have seen NO credentials for Mr. Cahn. Not only does he apparently possess no educational credentials for any kind of ministry, as far as I can tell, but he also appears to possess absolutely NO credentials for calling himself a Rabbi either. Now, people need to understand that today’s Judaism takes the education of its Rabbis very seriously. It is not at all easy to become a Jewish Rabbi. It takes YEARS of intensive study and contemplation. But things are different for those who wish to call themselves “Messianic (i.e., “Christian”) Rabbis (for he is far from the only one). No, for them it seems that the ONLY qualifications are Jewish ancestry and adherence to some form of Christianity. It seems that literally anyone who comes from a Jewish family who converts to Christianity can march around calling themselves a Rabbi! For those who don’t understand how they rationalize this, it’s rather easy. Jesus had no known formal education as a Rabbi either; yet people apparently referred to him as such (although, frankly, the term used did not necessarily mean an actual, educated Rabbi, it simply meant “teacher”). In any case, Mr. Cahn is no Rabbi and has no credentials to be teaching any form of theology at all (I do, by the way). Yet, he has a following.

I really don’t have the time or the disposition to get into all of Mr. Cahn’s wild imaginings and ramblings, which would make a hippie psychedelic trip seem like a boring Mennonite church service. So, let’s get to the nitty-gritty, shall we? Mr. Cahn proposes that the ancient deities were actually real, but it is unclear by his speech if he considers them to have been demons themselves, or if they simply had minions that were demons. Either way, he makes it a point that they were all evil and up to no good, wanting only the destruction of humankind. And he directly claims that because all ancient societies, except for Israel, were polytheistic and, therefore, worshipped these entities – these gods (whatever they were and are) – that all of these ancient societies were by default demon-possessed.

Now, please just think about that on a rational level for one moment, if you will. Every society in the ancient world was possessed by and guided by demons and evil gods which, by default, literally means that every person who lived in said societies along with every single thing they did had to be evil. So, by extension, then, the great civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome (which I haven’t heard him mention yet), along with that of ancient Mesopotamia (which he has mentioned), had to be evil. Every person who lived in those civilizations – Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Galen – you name them – along with every single thing they did – the creation of democracy itself and/or the republican form of government (which our own government has been modeled on from our very beginning) – all of that had and has to be evil because demons and evil gods inspired it all. For the reader’s understanding here, even the Bible doesn’t go that far.

Thus, to the proposed question “[i]s it possible that behind what is taking place in America and the world lies a mystery that goes back to the gods of the ancient world…and that they now have returned?”, the obvious answer for Mr. Cahn is “yes, they have returned”. Of course, you really have to be a little bit quirky, in my view, to even propose that ancient gods have somehow “returned”, as if they had gone somewhere else and are suddenly back. But, I suggest that this very construction demonstrates his lack of theological training. It seems to me that no actual theologian would even consider proposing such a scenario. But he makes it even worse, as stated on the Jim Bakker Show, by comparing this supposed return to the parable of Jesus in which Jesus speaks of someone who had been demon-possessed, but who had become well and healed from this, only to become possessed yet again later. Matthew 12:43-45 reads:

“43 Now when the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they come in and live there; and the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”

Here, Cahn expands a parable that is clearly about an individual person (and has nothing whatsoever to do with the present time) as an example, into a parable meant for the nations, specifically the USA. Of course, this isn’t the only biblical passage that is routinely taken out of context by so many, and expanded into something that is supposed to have present national implications. This is a new characteristic of end-times biblical “experts”. In so many words, not only is this not a standard interpretation, it isn’t the interpretation presented down through the centuries.

But let me be clear what Cahn is saying here. He is stating that the old gods and their demonic hordes had been cast out of the world, for the most part, by Christianity, but now they are returning as evidenced by our current wicked ways. He is stating that the ancient deities are causing us to decline into immoral activity and thought, just like in ancient times when Israel strayed and worshipped other gods. And Cahn openly stated that America was founded as a “new Israel”. Therefore, since our foundation was Christian, and we are straying from that, the fault lies in the return of the old gods! So, everything that people today observe as evil and immoral is being caused by the return of these ancient deities. Well, if Christians wanted someone or something to blame other than themselves, Cahn has handed that to them on a silver platter! By extension, then, anyone who dares to worship any of these deities must be evil, bent upon the destruction of our culture and nation, and worthy of biblical mandate. They certainly don’t belong in America, now do they?

Yes, everyone should be afraid of these gods who have “returned” to take up their places again. Most notable, according to Cahn, of these gods is Ba’al. That Ba’al was never established in the Americas in ancient times or even up to now is irrelevant to a mind like Mr. Cahn’s. Ba’al is coming back! And all of the hideous consequence of his “return” are at play, including, but not limited to, child sacrifice in the form of abortion (not a strictly new idea since most televangelists make the same equation) and other grotesque sexual perversions, such as sex change operations! Notice that the listed perversions focus on sex (usually focusing on women), just like they invariably do whenever conservative religious zealots are ranting about what is wrong with society and culture. It’s literally ALWAYS about sex! If anyone still wonders why America is such a pent-up culture, I have just handed the answer to you. For these people, no matter what they say, sex is little more than a necessary evil with only one goal – procreation. Anything outside of that is against the will of their god. So, for them, any type of perversion or immorality naturally leads back to sex somehow.

Thus, Cahn equates Ba’al with the entity he calls “the destroyer”, who brings with him all of the perverse sexual sins of the universe! And Ba’al, in the mind of Cahn, has “returned” in order to destroy us! Cahn further claims that one of these gods visibly manifested itself on camera and he has a film of it, but I have not seen said footage as of yet. Regardless, said entity does not have to manifest himself as some kind of ghost or anything. No, he is manifested as – get this – the statue of the bull on Wall Street. I kid you not! I won’t even get into the rationalization necessary for this. He sort of explained it. And it was ridiculous and repugnant! But, obviously Ba’al is not just there, he is practically everywhere – on the internet, on TV, even in some churches! And, of course, he is in our schools seeking to pull away our darling little children and eat them!

Well, one truth that few can dispute is that much of this really isn’t terribly “new”, as far as effort is concerned, at least. From the outset Christians have worked in every possible way to denigrate, castigate, and vilify any and all of the ancient deities. They have sought to blame them for all of the ills of humankind down through the ages. And, naturally, they have tacitly transformed them into hideous demons! Thus, obviously, those who worshipped them were deluded or evil.

The funny thing here is that, for some reason, Cahn’s rationale necessitates that somehow America (the USA) was not among all of those other nations that were ruled by these gods since it’s founding was on Christian principles. How he can rationalize this would take some major mental gymnastics, I am sure. But that in and of itself negates his premise. For if the USA was exempt from this trend, then a “return” of ancient gods here would make absolutely no sense whatsoever. But somehow he rationalizes this by pointing – get this – to the 60s and 70s, to hippie culture, insinuating that everything we see today is emanating from that period in our history. So, apparently, the USA was god-fearing, then it turned to Ba’al for a couple of decades, then it returned to god, but now Ba’al and other gods are returning! I can just hear some hippie asking Cahn for some of whatever he is on! But it wouldn’t be a pleasant trip, I suspect.

As of this date, Mr. Cahn is slated to be the guest for a few more days, something that is rarely done on this program. I can only imagine what may be in store. But this does feel like an opening salvo of persecution of Pagans in this nation. After all, what are good god-fearing evangelicals who listen to this tripe supposed to do? Are they just supposed to read his salacious book and then forget about it? Is it supposed to be just another round of Christians whining about all other religions? No, it seems to me that there is more at work here. Mr. Cahn has created a picture of warfare here. The evil gods and their followers MUST be destroyed!

My response to all of this is certainly not to be confrontational in-kind. It is no desire of mine to stir up people to confront Christians in any way whatsoever about this wild buffoonery. But it is necessary that people be informed about the clouds on the horizon here. I note that Mr. Cahn seems to wear black exclusively. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. I like wearing black myself. But, while people would see his adornment of black as, perhaps, a sign of piety, I, as a Pagan, would be seen by many as evil for doing the same. If I don the black, I must be of Satan! Hmmm.

Regardless of whether evangelicals like Mr. Cahn like to hear it or not, the USA was founded on a concept called freedom. Let me state the word again – FREEDOM. That includes what we call freedom of religion. That’s not a new “woke” concept, regardless of what some may think. I broke away from Christianity because of the myriad of outright lies and falsehoods that the religion espouses, not so much what they believe, but what they do. It’s not about belief, as such. People who have any real understanding of Paganism know that it just isn’t about “belief”, it’s about right actions. That naturally flies in the face of those like Mr. Cahn who go to great lengths to show that all evil, including evil actions, flows from evil beings who somehow have complete sway over people like me. To someone like Mr. Cahn, religious freedom is ONLY for people who follow HIS god.

But let me explain that there really can be no greater expression of freedom than to leave the self-debasing, unhealthy, monotheistic religions with their psychological garbage about how evil humankind is without their god, to embrace the purity and beauty of polytheism or even simple animism. And that truly is the ultimate expression of freedom. It is my freedom! No longer wallowing around in self-loathment and self-pity because of what some ancient ancestor supposedly did. I have tasted of true enlightenment and true beauty, two things that the monotheist claims the polytheist knows nothing of.

In my mind it takes a heart that truly loathes itself to make the kind of claims that Mr. Cahn is making here. But I truly hope that that heart finds enlightenment in this lifetime. For my part, I will strive to die well and, hopefully, carry my own level of enlightenment into the next life, starting all over again. For we Pagans understand that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves – our lives in the here and now – and that it all continues into infinity. Our lives don’t stop when the physical body can no longer function and we don’t transition into some spiritual realm of bliss and unending worship of god. We transition into the next life, and the next, and the next…. This world can be a frightful and cruel place. But that is what makes it a place of spiritual growth. It is what our souls need as a purpose for existence. And we don’t concern ourselves with base and petty spiritual warfare. So, people like Mr. Cahn can paint our blessed deities as evil or whatever. But that only demonstrates the darkness in their own hearts. I, for one, am free of it. And at my death I want the world to witness the FREEDOM I possess. And that freedom includes more than anything else freedom from the fear of death. I wish everyone had what I have in that basic, fundamental freedom.