Have you not observed nature? Everything in nature has its place; everything serves a purpose in the life-cycle. Humanity is the only thing that seems out of place with no obvious purpose in nature. So, then, what exactly is our purpose? Is it simply to dominate and destroy – something that we are obviously exceedingly good at? Are all other things here simply at our disposal and subject to whatever whim we may be engaged in at any given moment in time?

Some would say that our purpose must be to serve god. But for that to be the case would it not be reasonable to presume that god needs to be served; that god has a need to be served? If so, then one would also have to posit that god, if he were the creator (I speak as a monotheist would), created us because of his need to be served since there was no other creature or god around to serve that need.

So, in such a scenario, god created the angels first, but that wasn’t enough. So he created the earth, the animals, the plants, etc. But they weren’t enough either. So then god created humanity and has been trying, with limited success, to get us to worship him exclusively ever since. God couldn’t even get his first creation, the angels, to worship him exclusively and some rebelled! So, both the angels as well as humanity have been in rebellion ever since, with nature paying the price even though it cannot, by its own nature, rebel. Nature, after all, can only act according to instinct and the desire to survive.

But we must have some greater purpose than this since we are inherently capable of so many things that no other creature is capable of! It would seem, then, that it is reasonable to propose that our purpose must be found among those things which only we can do. But, does that mean that we should perform to the fullest all things that only we are capable of or, conversely, that we should select only certain goals to perform to the fullest? Indeed, as an example, if we are to choose both to create and to destroy to the fullest our purpose would ultimately be self-defeating in that we should fine ourselves to be necessarily constantly destroying all that we have previously created and then rebuilding it in endless, meaningless, succession. But this is what we are already doing, relegating ourselves to functioning not one whit above nature itself!

Thus, even though it is in the very nature of humanity to build, this scenario would be (and is) nothing short of pitiful! And, apparently, god doesn’t like building very much anyway since he struck down the tower of Babel. So building must be one of those innate qualities that only humans possess, but which does nothing to get us closer to god.

So, now, we have demonstrated that to do all possible things (even to do them all well) cannot be our purpose – that which we are here for – both because we would always be in conflict and because this would not get us any closer to the creator. Perhaps, then, we should seek the answer in determining that we should do “good” things only, rather than “evil” things; positive rather than negative things; creative rather than destructive things. Indeed (speaking as a polytheist here), is this not what the ancient Sacred Mysteries taught us?

But, one may ask, how can we know good from evil, positive from negative, creative from destructive? Well, did not Platon (Plato), in Meno 81-86, demonstrate that such understanding is innate within human kind and cannot be taught by another because the soul is immortal and uncreated and already knows all things? Thus, when we expect others (and even ourselves) to know good from evil, are we expecting too much of others (and of ourselves)? I submit that we are not and that, in fact, we are taught to perform evil or we generally would not do so. I have never yet encountered a person who, if given a choice, would

perform evil rather than good if they had not somehow been taught to perform the evil thing and often coerced into doing it by others.

The frank truth, then, is that no one is inherently evil, although I will admit that I have met some who would cause me to question this. Evil, frankly, does exist in the world (but not in nature), but it is a learned behavior, not something we are all born with – not some original sin curse! But if people are taught that evil is inherent within them, then they will believe it and sometimes act upon it.

In any case, it is actually quite easy for us to determine what is good and what is evil; what is beneficial and what is detrimental. But, then, why exactly is it that we already know good from evil? Why is this knowledge inherent within us? It is exactly because we possess soul in greater measure than any other “creature”, if you will, just as we possess greater abilities than any other “creature”. Yes, all animate beings possess soul, but we possess soul in greater measure than any other.

Does this mean that souls are not truly individual, but may be greater or lesser in each individual case, if you will? In a word, “Yes”. But how do we determine this and upon what premise or set of premises is such a conclusion logically based? It is logically and reasonably based on the very existence of Knowledge itself as an entity (something that scientists are beginning to discover as we speak). Knowledge is not simply an abstract concept, but a thing – an entity, if you will, that actually exists. And this entity which we call Knowledge can and should be equated with soul. Therefore, for animals it is instinct; for humans it is understanding. And once one understands a given concept, then one is enlightened upon that subject.

What is it, then, that we are supposed to understand – to be enlightened about? After all, one “learns” and comes to understand many things over the course of a given lifetime. What, then, could be that one true and good thing that we are expected to understand that will enlighten us as to our purpose in being and bring us to our best end, as the Existentialist would put it?

What?! Have you not understood even up til now!? That which we are all to strive for most earnestly of all is the very knowledge of self – self-knowledge or self-understanding! For if one understands oneself then one is fully capable of also understanding others and, indeed, all other things. If one is able to accomplish this then one is capable of understanding at once one’s own place in relation to all other things. If one “knows” oneself then one understands one’s integral part in all that take place.

Now, once one knows or understands oneself and also understands that one possesses an uncreated, indestructible soul (because it was not created and, therefore, cannot be destroyed), as Platon taught us, then one cannot fear death but must instead welcome it as a release from the school of the material world, which is itself good, not evil. For if it were evil then its lessons would all be evil also. Nature, by default, would also be evil. But since we have already established that nature is not evil, nor can it be, then it simply cannot be that the material world is inherently evil. Thus, there is no Demiurge who created evil matter. For such to even be true we would have to say that the Demiurge creator would also have to be evil; for good and perfection cannot create evil and imperfection. And since this creator would necessarily have to be soul/spirit, one would have to posit that this soul/entity was evil in and of itself. In so many words, one would have to posit that there are truly evil souls. In that case, to perform good acts and to know oneself would by no means get us any closer to the Demiurge creator. And why would we want that in any case unless we were taught to want it?

Sadly, it would seem that some are actually taught to desire exactly this. But, again, evil is a learned state. This is exactly because soul is inherently good. Why is it good? Because it possesses, i.e. is, Knowledge and enlightenment. Thus, the more knowledge/enlightenment of self, of our soul, that we possess, the closer we can come to understanding our own place in all that is and the easier it becomes for us to not fear death. For death is truly the ultimate end of all living things. It is, therefore, an integral part of the life-cycle every bit as much as birth is. To arrive at this understanding brings us to enlightenment and allows us to achieve our own best end in death. Each time we achieve our own best end we have a greater opportunity to exit the wheel of reincarnation. For once we have fully understood these things we no longer need the school of the material world.

Thus, as the soul cannot be destroyed, it stands to reason that it also cannot be harmed. But, I submit, it can be vexed! Still, that does not mean that it can endure some eternal torment because of the supposed sins of a body it is now separated from in death. But one may say “The creator will create an entirely new and perfect body, like the old one but also different, to be tormented along with the soul just as he will create new and perfect bodies for those who will dwell in eternal bliss (sadly, I have recently heard “theology” exactly like this)! Never mind that the old bodies have already become a part of nature, sometimes over and over again, as all things repeat themselves. The one who posits this, then, will state that the creator first created both body and soul at exactly the same time and put them together at either the point of conception or at the point of birth to endure whatever lifetime determined for that particular person (but, rather unfairly, not the same duration or status for all), and that, based upon this one lifetime alone it is determined (although some state that the creator either foreknew or even foreordained this) whether the individual soul (but not the body, just the resurrected, perfect, body) will go to eternal punishment or to eternal bliss! But the flesh, which actually perpetrated both good and evil acts, is never really punished because it is already gone to be a part of nature again. So the soul is housed within a new and perfect body so that it can endure torment for eternity! The entire scenario is theologically absurd!

But then this one may ask; “If the soul is not created at the time of conception or birth, then where does it come from?” Have you not understood anything from the very beginning here?! The soul cannot be eternal if it is created just as the soul must be eternal if it is not created! All things that come into being have an end, but that “end” is really only a new beginning. Thus, the cycle of life and the universe. Flesh is not eternal and, therefore, can be destroyed. Soul is eternal and, therefore, cannot be destroyed. Soul has no beginning and it will have no end!

The same, therefore, must be said for the universe itself. It has no beginning and, therefore, will have no end. If this were not so, then there certainly could never be any place of eternal bliss nor any place of eternal punishment as the monotheist proposes. The theology of the monotheist falls completely apart simply by proposing that the creator is eternal, but his creation is not, yet he can and has created eternal souls that will receive pleasure or torture for eternity based upon only one inconsistent lifetime housed inside of a body of corrupt flesh. And, for most, the determining factor in all of this is not deeds, but simple belief based upon childish faith. This is absurdity at its finest!

And the answer of the monotheist to the initial question – that as to what the actual purpose of each individual is – becomes that we are all to believe in a savior who died for us (but only his flesh died, of course) and be saved by this belief so that we can be with the creator after we die.

But since I have already demonstrated the absurdity of even positing the existence of a creator, I will take this scenario even further. I will now posit that nothing substantiates the understanding that evolution is the process of change that all animate things are going through than the very concept of soul itself. Indeed, without soul it would be absurd to even posit evolution as a theory at all! You see, the likelihood that biology would even presume to take a steadily improving trajectory on its own is just as absurd as positing that it was created by some perfect being. Neither can reasonably be possible.

As we observe from nature, plants generally don’t change – don’t evolve. The same basically goes for animals. We never see them evolve, although we can manipulate them and “create” different types and breeds. So, logically, one has to conclude that each plant and animal is already, for all practical purposes, virtually perfect and completely suited for its own natural purpose in the greater scheme of things. And this is indeed what we observe.

But the human is vastly different. The human already possesses many more abilities than any other animal, yet at the same time it is wholly unsuited to the very environment of the planet upon which it lives! Therefore, the human simply must wear clothing for any number of reasons, not least of all the fact that, otherwise, it will die! This is the case with no other entity. So it is simply a fact that humans, as they exist today, were never meant to be without clothes. If the program “Naked and Afraid” taught us anything, it is this! In addition, humans simply cannot survive long without shelter. Thus, our inherent need to build and create. Finally, humans have an inherent need to consume a much wider variety of foods than any other animal species.

Therefore, we are unlike any other animal or animate species on the planet. Because of our distinctive features and abilities, especially our ability to build and create, we have an inherent desire to picture a creator who is like us. We forget that we are actually soul housed within a fleshly body and, therefore, if there were to be a creator that creator would not “look” like us! And the creator would also have no inherent needs. Thus, the creator would not need for us to worship him. And the supposed self-sacrifice of a fleshly man-god would not bring us any closer to him!

Well, by now it should seem obvious that there simply is no external creator deity at all as those things which he supposedly crated are eternal, if they are not material, and, therefore, cannot have been created by any creator. But if one simply has to have a creator of some type, then we can refer to Platon one hast time here. For in Timaeus 30 he begins to expound upon this very question. Without much more elaboration on my part, I will simply provide some quotes from the relevant passages (found in Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle, Second Edition, by Reginald E. Allen, pp. 270-73) which should suffice (Italics mine).

“This, then, is how we must say, according to the likely account, that this world came to be [for I do not propose that this earth is eternal], by the god’s providence, in very truth a living creature with soul and reason. This being premised, we have now to state what follows next: What was the living creature in whose likeness he framed the world? . . . For the god, wishing to make this world most nearly like that intelligible thing which is best and in every way complete, fashioned it as a single visible living creature, containing within itself all living things whose nature is of the same order. . . . And for shape he gave it that which is fitting and akin to its nature. For the living creature that was to embrace all living creatures within itself, the fitting shape would be the figure that comprehends in itself all the figures there are; accordingly, he turned its shape rounded and spherical, equidistant every way from centre to extremity-a figure the most perfect and uniform of all, for he judged uniformity to be immeasurably better than its opposite. . . . For he assigned to it the motion proper to its bodily form, namely that one of the seven [planets] which above all belongs to reason and intelligence, accordingly, he caused it to turn about uniformly in the same place and within its own limits and made it revolve round and round . . . . and so he established one world alone, round and revolving in a circle, solitary but able by reason of its excellence to bear itself company, needing no other acquaintance or friend but sufficient to itself.”

Life, death, decay – these are all integral parts of the life-cycle of all material things and beings. Unless living matter dies and begins to decay, it cannot and does not release its bound-up energy back into the world. This energy is that which is pent up inside of the living organism, which originally came from the sun. A living creature absorbs this energy in any number of ways, not least of which includes the ingesting of other plants and animals which contain this energy within. Stagnant, unchanging “perfection” can possess no such energy. Energy is that which allows all things to grow and is also that which is produced when a living creature dies. The release of energy is the salvation of the flesh as one observes it in the natural world. The release of the soul takes us further down our evolutionary path as knowledge is disseminated even more than before, over and over again into infinity.

If one wishes to, one can dispute the existence of god or the gods. But one cannot dispute the existence of the living Earth.

A trend that is disturbing to many of us, including myself, has been gaining traction among evangelical fundamentalist type Christians recently.  It is the insistence of some, perhaps many, that the United States of America is a “Christian” nation and always has been because it was meant to be.  While most would not be disturbed by this, it is worth noting why some of us are and should be.

Let me begin by stating that no one I know or ever have known actually disputes that Christianity was an integral part of the founding of this great nation.  Neither do I dispute this for, to do so, one would have to ignore much of American history.  So, basically, I have to emphasize at the outset that few, if any, are actually stating that America was not founded, in part, on Christian principles and that we should be guided, in part, by some of these principles.  But the key words here are “in part”.  The sad fact of the matter is that there are those who cannot accept even this limitation, for they want it ALL.

I am gratified to be able to state that even Hal Lindsey, in his encore presentation of “Does the Flag Still Wave?” from July 3, 2009, actually stated that America was “certainly never a Christian nation” but was a “Christian-guided nation”.  THAT is TRUE.

That having been said, after seeing more than one program on one or another religious channel over the weekend espousing the idea that America was indeed founded solely on Christianity, when Lindsey’s program aired last evening I was prepared for the worst from him also.  And even though he was right in the above statement, he was still incorrect in some of his observations, some of which were not only inconsistent but also illogical because he drew conclusions from statements made by certain founding fathers and others that did not logically follow from those statements.  The statements and quotes cited were statements of opinion and cannot logically be taken as fact.  In so many words, for those who have not studied logic, one cannot deduce a logical conclusion from a premise or set of premises that are merely statements of opinion.

Now, this was a flaw in Lindsey’s presentation while the others often reached back beyond the founding of this nation to statements made by some at times prior to the founding in order to justify their belief that America was founded as a Christian nation.  In one such instance (and Lindsey touched on this also) the Mayflower Compact was cited.  I am not going to get into this too much, but if there was ever a tyranny in America, it was among those who formulated this compact (although early Virginia was not far away from this in its own right).  I think that everyone has heard of the witch trials and burnings that happened among the Pilgrim settlers.  But few know that at least one, and I think maybe more, instances of this type also happened in old Virginia also while it was still a colony.  Is this the type of government that some wish for us to live under today?  I hope not!

Still, getting back to Lindsey, he talked about how by the early 1900s “all kinds of men’s ideas began to be read into the scripture” and that these ideas swept through the universities and seminaries, etc.  He is, in fact, partly right here also.  There indeed was a movement which initiated a “new” reading of the scriptures and other religious texts from that time period onward.  As he stated, it is called “Neo-Orthodoxy”.  On his program, Lindsey defined it as “denying the inerrancy and divine inspiration of the Bible” adding that it meant that the Bible was not “literally true” and that “‘revelation’ of scripture is based on one’s personal experience”.  Here Lindsey is a little mixed up.  The definition of Neo-Orthodoxy, as found on dictionary.com is “a movement in Protestant theology, beginning after World War I, stressing the absolute sovereignty of God and chiefly characterized by a reaction against liberal theology and a reaffirmation of certain doctrines of the Reformation”.  Quite the opposite of what Lindsey is saying here.  But, I that there was a movement countered by this Neo-Orthodoxy is obviously the point he was trying to make here.

Lindsey continued to lament that during the 1960s and 1970s professors would give students failing grades for expressing any Christian point of view.  Now, as shown in documentation, Lindsey is exaggerating here as many others have also done.  The fact of the matter is that students were (and are) not failed for expressing Christian viewpoints.  They have been and sometimes still are given lower grades if they are unable to back their viewpoints up with concrete evidence.  Stating that the Bible says it and it is the inerrant word of god simply no longer cuts it.

Lindsey further states that the founding fathers were “pro-God”.  OK, I will give him that to some degree, although most were Deists.  He quotes John Adams from 1798 to illustrate: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It’s wholly inadequate for the government of any other”.  Lindsey adds that what Adams meant was that our government was founded with the assumption that the majority of the population would be Christian and have a Christian world-view.  Thus, they would naturally be moral (an assumption found to be incorrect time and time again, I might add).  Further, Lindsey stated that: “Great liberty could be given because they could be trusted to be moral”.

Lindsey goes on to state “One of the things that was most prominent in the minds of those who founded this country and wrote our constitution was that they had lived under governments and regimes where the government had absolute power.  And the thing that was repeated among them over and over again was ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'”.  Well, here Lindsey is also a little mixed up because the quote was actually coined by John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton  (10 January 1834–19 June 1902), so Lindsey is placing a quote as much as at least a half a century before it could possibly have been uttered!  But perhaps the founders were thinking such a thing.  After all, they had indeed, in some instances, escaped from tyrannical regimes in Europe which, incidentally, happened to be Christian.

Lindsey proceeds: “And with their Christian point of view and their Christian thought they knew from the Bible that all mankind is born with a sin nature. . . .  Because of this they formed a government with “as little power as possible”.  Because they were seen as moral, according to Lindsey, they were entrusted with great freedom.

So, Lindsey posits that the founders trusted the population to be moral because they were mainly Christian and, therefore, created a weak government because of this trust.  That is a logical fallacy if I ever saw one!

Lindsey goes on to quote a handful of others, all of whom were also offering their opinions, which cannot be taken as facts.  But then he sets into Thomas Jefferson when he cites the comment of Jefferson that there was a wall between church and state, calling it a “falsehood”.  This is also an opinion, but the difference here is that Lindsey and others on the Christian right hate this opinion while endorsing the others.  Neither logical or consistent.  But immediately afterward he quoted Jefferson thus: “To the corruptions of Christianity (There was a book with this title “Corruptions of Christianity” in Jefferson’s day which he read and is referring to here) I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.  I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others”.

Lindsey added that “Jefferson was simply saying that government should not ordain any one religion as the only religion”.  That is true.  But Lindsey seems to have no idea what the “corruptions of Christianity” Jefferson refers to indicate here.

Lindsey ends with “The Founding Fathers always believed and assumed that the major religion in America would be Christianity” but  that they still allowed “freedom of worship”.  They “feared most . . . a state religion or a state denomination”.

Now, while much of this is reasonable, the inconsistencies and illogic in this framework are clearly evident.  I will only add that our government was modeled on the ancient Roman Pagan governmental system of the Republic (with a president added), not modeled on the despotic Christian kingdoms which many at that time believed to be “god-ordained” and “god-established”.  They made this choice exactly because these tyrannical systems simply did not work.

Within the last couple of weeks the Christian fundamentalist types have really come out swinging, as it were, suddenly emboldened to do so since the political climate is beginning to favor them, it seems.  Please pardon me if I refer to some of these folk as “fanatics” on occasion.  It is difficult not to do so when you watch programs such as the “Jim Bakker Show” where they constantly emphasize that “something bad is coming” or that the end of the world and Christ’s return is at hand!  All the while they have developed a new gimmick (one would think that Bakker had learned about such gimmicks after going to prison, but perhaps not) in which he and his “ministry” are selling “Staying Alive” food based upon a supposed dream he had.  Yes, at one point I was literally laughing so hard I was crying as Jim Bakker was offering this “Staying Alive” food while his PTL singers were singing “Stay’in Alive!” (song and film produced and sung by the Bee Gees; song released 1978 and film released July 15, 1983).  You can’t make this stuff up!

Yes, Mr. Bakker is so emboldened that he literally flaunts the Johnson Amendment as something the he will not abide by, taking the lead, it would appear, in this regard.  Because of this, he has had one guest (sometimes several at a time) after another who were willing, as he prodded them, to make political statements, always pro-Trump and anti-“liberal” (and some even stating that there was some nefarious reason Bakker really went to prison because the government was after him).  But, really, this should come as no surprise to anyone.  Ever since the 1980s the fundamentalist fanatics have been trying to get someone whom they could call “our man” into the office of President of the United States.  Now they believe that they have succeeded.  Never mind that he is not perfect; “God” will use him anyway like Cyrus!  All the while he isn’t going to save America from whatever calamity may be on the way, so one simply MUST buy this food they are selling along with all of the fanatical books being hocked on almost every broadcast!  It seems to me that Trump is likely to turn out more like ole Akhenaten who was so busy with religious matters within his immediate realm that he allowed the outer realms of the Egyptian Empire to crumble around them all.  But, that is just my own opinion.  Unlike these Christian fanatics, I do not claim prophecy in this matter.

Now, I truly hope that no one before me has coined the term “Christamericans” and if they have, I ask forgiveness for using it here without giving credit.  But when the term came to my mind I knew that I would have to use it unless I found it used elsewhere.  In doing some internet research, I found it nowhere.  And the term is perfect for these people.  These are a different variety of Christian, the ones who really turn everyone off from Christianity by their actions and words.  You know the type; those who KNOW exactly the way to salvation and everyone who does not follow THEIR interpretation of it is going straight to hell!  Those who are sure that the end of the world is so close that you can taste it and who, in the mean time, do absolutely NOTHING to prevent catastrophe(environmentally, militarily, politically, or otherwise).  After all, global warming isn’t real and all of history is in “God’s” plan.

But worse than that, they are determined to put their own into political office in this nation so that everyone will have to abide by their “Judeo-Christian” laws!  Thus, they WANT American government and Christianity to be intertwined as if they were one and the same.  And they don’t care about any religious minorities in this nation, period.  That is, with the exception of the facts that (1) they want to convert all others and (2) they want tax money from non-Christians (sometimes even for the purpose of supporting or propping up Christianity).  The media routinely refers to them as “evangelicals (which they are).  But it seems to me that Christamericans is a much better term for them.  They simply MUST have it their way or “God” will punish us all!  But since disaster of some kind is coming anyway, according to those like Bakker, then they are prepared to store away food and when that time comes, to reap a harvest of souls for Christ as they give away food at the price of having to listen to the gospel (much like a local homeless shelter where I live)!  Bakker himself has stated that that time will be the “greatest soul-winning time” in all of history!

And part of the price that will have to be paid, according to these fanatics, will be the destruction of the state of Israel by her “enemies” because that must take place before Christ can return!  So Israel, so very much like America in many ways, including that they play American-style football there, is to be destroyed.  Another Holocaust!  I, personally, think that there ought to be a better way than this.  But for the fanatic it is all in the plan of “God”.

Yes, these pro-gun, severely conservative, severely capitalist, Obama (and Hillary and now Bernie Sanders) hating, mostly low-educated, Trump supporting, pro-Israel (no matter what), Muslim hating, liberal-bashing, suddenly pro-Russian, sometimes white supremacist oh, so perfect people are determined that you will be just like them in every way and support their churches too.  They will say that their god will coddle you through every step of your life as if you are a baby while at the same time consigning you to eternal hell if you don’t believe just right!

Anyone ever notice that the Roman Empire is by far the favorite punching bag for the fundamentalist Christian fanatic, especially when they want to at the same time demean Paganism?  Well, obviously, it was just a matter of time until Perry Stone, Jr. on the “Jim Bakker Show” started in on this trend, doing so in an effort to smear the “left” by comparison.  I won’t quote the whole thing. But, in part, Perry stated the following: “The Roman Empire was [he should have said “is” here] classified as a very tolerant empire because they let you worship any god or goddess you wanted to worship unrestrained [not quite] because every Roman city with Roman temples and priesthoods had tax revenue for the Roman Empire.  As long as those pagan temples prospered, the Roman government got income.  Christianity comes along – now remember Romans spos’d to be tolerant of everybody including Christians.  They’re spos’d to say, ‘hey, if you’re a Christian that’s your business.’  But here’s what happens; when Paul went into those cities to preach so many people got converted it shuts the temple down [false].  You know what happens when it shuts the temple down, don’t ya?  There’s no more offerings for the priest; no more sells (sic) at the market for the animals; there’s no more silver shrines to Dianna [actually Artemis] being made in the book of Acts and the man in Ephesus said we have to arrest them and get them out of town; our money is in jeopardy.”

Then Stone goes on to talk of certain people hating churches [obviously referring to Bernie Sanders who has become their new punching-bag, if you will.  Apparently they are done with Hillary Clinton for now except to refer to her as “Jezebel”] because of their tax exempt status.  He then further goes on to talk about how the Romans called the Caesars “king” and worshipped him and the Christians would not do so.  Then he uses the term he has been waiting to use by stating that the Romans called the Christians “intolerant”!  Never mind that this is one term that was NOT used against Christians in the Roman Empire so far as I have found.  But he is trying to make his point here because the “left” is always calling the “right” “intolerant”.  Now get this, not only has Mr. Sanders already been labeled as a “persecutor” of Christians on this program and others, but now it is being stated that he hates Christian churches because of their tax-exempt status; never mind that Jewish Synagogues are also tax-exempt in exactly the same way.  That nuance never enters the mind of Mr. Stone and, of course, he never tells his ignorant listeners either.

Then he goes on to state how “In the Roman Empire there was no day off” and continued to expound that because the Jews had a day off (each week), the Christians wanted one too and were therefore called “lazy” by the Romans.  Then he goes on toe expound about the Christian “love feasts” as being seen as possibly cannibalistic and orgiastic by the Romans, mainly because they were held in secret and outsiders were not allowed in.  He stated that this was a “misunderstanding” that was “propogated against the Christians” by the Romans.  Finally, he states that in “66 AD” Nero started “this horrible persecution of Christians”, finally emphasizing that it was because they were seen as “intolerant”.

The nice response to Mr. Stone here is that this is a completely misleading diatribe commonly perpetrated by Christians, most of whom don’t know any better.  And it is obvious that Stone has either misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued whatever history he has read, because he has certainly read something (sources I have also read, no doubt).  So here is the REAL TRUTH.  The Roman Empire (and the Western world in general) WAS tolerant of all religions (except enemy religions like Atenism and Zoroastrianism), for the most part.  They didn’t like Judaism, but it was tolerated also because it was seen as “old”.  But they did not easily tolerate “unrestrained” worship, so this word insertion is incorrect.  What Stone’s mind has in it when he mentions “Roman” temples in “Roman” cities is anyone’s guess, but the government did not collect tax revenues directly from any temples.  Not even the Jewish temple, as is commonly assumed.  In fact, if they had been there can be no doubt that Roman generals would not have destroyed so many temples of all kinds as they conquered or put down rebellions, etc. (not to mention the fact that there is absolutely no evidence for the assertion).  So this is simply false.

Mr. Stone asserts that the Romans were rather automatically intolerant of Christians from the beginning.  Not so. He paints this fanciful (and often repeated) picture of Paul’s preaching gaing multitudes of converts, including in Ephesos, so that there the temple had to be closed down.  NOT AT ALL SO!  This temple continued to function until later Christian emperors had it forcibly closed down not long after a Christian fanatic destroyed the very ancient statue of Artemis that had been inside of the temple in 400 CE.  However, the Christians who did exist there did tend to disrupt the local economies so that fewer sacrifices were made, etc.  But this had nothing whatsoever to do with revenue going to Roma!  And, yes, the Christians refused to call Caesar “king” or to worship him.  They disrupted everything they could, in fact, socially.

But they were not called “intolerant” for this.  They were called “Atheist”.  This was the term commonly used to describe Christians because it was felt that if they could not accept the deities of the Roman State then they must not really believe in any deity after all.  The term “intolerant” would have given them a status that they had not achieved at that point in time.  There simply were not very many Christians, so they could not afford to be “intolerant”.  Who were they to be intolerant of, the majority Pagans?  No, they didn’t become “intolerant” until the time of Constantine and afterward when they were in power!  THAT is when they became “intolerant”!  During this time-period the injunction “love thy neighbor” found in the gospels was transformed into “turn in thy neighbor” as everyone turned on his or her neighbor, directed to do so by the Byzantine tyrants in the name of Christianity!

Further, the bit about Christians wanting a weekly day off is just comical!  The truth is that Romans had plenty of days off.  They were called “holydays” when festivals took place.  But they did not take days off each week and it was not the Christians they called “lazy” for having a day off each week, it was the Jews.  The Christians got a weekly day off by default because they had been part of Judaism before splitting off from it.

Yes, the Romans did think that the Christians were doing nefarious things in their “love feasts” because they were secret and, in some documented cases, they WERE.  Christians would in later centuries turn this around and claim that the Pagans had been practicing nefarious things in their Sacred Mysteries (with no real evidence, I might add).

Finally, Nero did NOT start a “horrible persecution” of Christians in 66 CE.  He started putting down a revolt of the Jews (and Christians) emanating from Jerusalem in that year.  But they love to twist history around to their own liking, don’t they?  And none of it had anything with Christians being labeled as “intolerant”.  Again, they were labeled a lot of things (such as Atheist), but that was not one of them.

The bottom line here is that temples in the ancient world, including in the Roman Empire, were not money-generating machines for the empire, but were gods communication machines.  Those who state that the Romans collected taxes from these temples are sadly, and probably purposefully, mistaken.  They love to spout this piece of propaganda in order to make the Romans look bad.  I have seen it time and time again.  Frankly, if they had been collecting taxes from them they would have put most of them out of business (which is exactly why the churches and other religious organization need tax exempt status in the first place).  These are just facts.  But people like Stone don’t care about facts, they only care that they can get rich themselves off of other people’s gullibility!

But that’s not all.  On the same episode, if I may use that term, of the “Jim Bakker Show” Perry Stone, Jr. stated that the Christians had nothing to do with the revolt and subsequent fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE because they had all left and gone to Pella.  He stated that the reason (get this because it is important) that the early church in Jerusalem was selling everything and giving to the poor was so that the poor would be able to go to Pella when calamity came.  This, as far as I can tell, is a truly new twist on this event.  See, the book of Acts states that they were all together in one accord and everyone who had lands, property, etc. sold it and gave it to the church, which distributed it equally as anyone had need.  Thus, a socialistic social structure.  But that is anathema to these Christamericans (including the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity) because the early church just could not have been “socialist”!  NO, capitalism is “God”-ordained to these folk!  So there must have been some other reason that they first operated in this manner and Mr. Stone has found it in the spurious account of the early Christians fleeing to Pella when the revolt began!  And that just makes it all better, doesn’t it?

Further, what he does not tell you is that the myth that Christians went to Pella was created by Eusebius of Caesarea, who, as scholars generally agree, was a consumate liar and fraud.  But “Christian” history has latched onto this when, as I showed in my first book “Apocalypse and Armageddon”, they would not have gone to Pella because it was just too close to Jerusalem itself (How in the world could they be safe from Roman forces there?!), but must instead have gone to Alexandria and intermingled with the largest Jewish population outside of Jerusalem at that time, where they could hide and be safe until things calmed down.  Even so, the idea that they had nothing to do with the revolt, etc. is false.  They helped start the whole thing and some of them stayed in Jerusalem and, no doubt, died there!

But Stone didn’t even stop here.  In the midst of all of this supposed history he addressed the “left”, asking “What are you afraid of?”  He makes everything the Christamericans do sound so inoffensive by stating that they are about protecting babies, protecting marriage, feeding people, clothing people, and building orphanages “with Christian money” (get this, it is important).  And while it is certainly true that Christianity has done, in most cases, a marvelous job of creating orphanages and tending to these other social issues, Stone launches into this attack upon Atheism here when he screams “Show me an Atheist that’s built an orphanage!  Show me an Atheist that’s ever done anything good for anybody but themselves!”  What he apparently didn’t know is all one has to do is Google “atheist orphanage” and you have your answer.  And he could just as well have been attacking Pagans in this way.  One should expect exactly this in the future when they are sue they can’t ignore us anymore.

Stone goes on to attack Bernie Sanders even further by asking “Mr. Bernie, what are you afraid of in having a man like that [Vought] that’s such a good man that has moral values?  What frightens you about him?  And you know what they’ll say.  ‘Well, he’s gonna force people to be Christians.’  You can’t force people in a belief system. . . .  Nobody’s telling them were gonna kill you if you don’t convert.  Isis does that; Christianity does not do that!”  Apparently Mr. Stone (like most Christians) has never read the history of the time period between 70 CE and the beginning of the Dark Ages, so I must simply recommend my second book “Killing Roma”, which is replete with examples of Christians forcing others to convert and destroying their holy places, etc.  Yes, it is the history of early Christian “intolerance”!  It is the section of history that the Christian fundamentalist type most does NOT want anyone to know about!

The rest of Stone’s ranting is really not worthy of rebuttal.  Still, even more proof that the Christian will say anything, falsehood after falsehood, to get their point across is the “episode” of “The Hal Lindsey Report”, aired on June 23, 2017.  This report speaks of a couple of legitimate concerns, surrounded by one falsehood after another, specially with reference to Bernie Sanders.  And here it becomes painfully obvious that Lindsey has done little or nothing beyond watching, you guessed it, the Jim Bakker Show along with, perhaps, a smattering of Fox News.

Lindsey begins by stating that the coward (my word) who shot Republican congressmen at a ball game was a “left-wing Bernie Sanders supporter.”  While it is true that he worked on Sander’s campaign, Lindsey’s apparent aim is to smear Sanders by comparison here.  Lindsey goes on to complain about Trump being compared to Hitler, stating that it is an invitation for violence.  No mention, however, of the multitude of comparisons of Obama with, yes, Hitler over the years, and even worse than that.  Oh, no, people like Lindsey have NEVER done anything like that!  Actually, not only did they, but the even created a picture of Sanders in Nazi uniform during the campaign, which circulated widely on the internet so afraid were they that he might actually get the nomination.  Lindsey goes on to cite the play “Julius Caesar” and how wrong such a play, with Trump in it as Caesar, is.  Without going into detail on this, I would simply like to state that I don’t condone depicting any American president or other politician as being assassinated, period.  Beyond that, however, I really don’t like Trump being compared to Caesar.  Caesar was a great man.  Trump is not (and, I think, never will be).

Finally, Lindsey laid into Bernie Sanders himself, stating that Sanders “declared government off limits to Christians” (false).  Lindsey stated of Sanders, “According to his vision of America, anyone who believes the Bible must not be allowed to hold a high government position. . . . Sanders told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Vought is free to hold any religious belief he wants, however, if he thinks Islam is a second-class religion he must not be allowed to hold a high position in government.”  Lindsey closed, partly, with these words “This is persecution. . . .”  So, Lindsey, in the eyes of his followers, has successfully labeled Sanders a persecutor of Christians by falsifying what Sanders has said on these matters.  This is what these Christamericans do, all the while pretending to tell the truth.

Sadly, in the midst of all of this a lone fanatic (not a Christian one in this case) drove his automobile into a monument of the Ten Commandments in Little Rock, Arkansas.  It seems obvious that he did this because he himself is anti-Bible, etc.  This is entirely wrong, no matter what the supposed reason. It only feeds into the Christian persecution complex! And I expect I will see this on the “Jim Bakker Show” and the “Hal Lindsey Report” in a few days as they continue to whine about “persecution” and intolerance”!  This type of even only feeds into their paranoia and makes the case FOR them!  And, unfortunately, this is not this man’s first offense of this type, so he clearly has not learned that violence and destruction are not the way.  It is exactly the same type of thing that the Christians of Constantine’s time and afterward perpetrated upon others (although they don’t like to admit this) and the exact type of thing that the Islamic State perpetrates upon others almost on a daily basis today.

Finally, a headline from USA Today entitled “Supreme Court imposes church tax”, subtitled “Reckless ruling blows a huge hole in the wall between church and state: Opposing view”, brings us to the real crux of the matter.  The article proposes that the separation of church and state has worked for generations and that it should, therefore, continue.  Otherwise, we will have non-church members having to prop up Christian churches with tax dollars – propping up something that they very well may not believe in.  It is exactly on the same level as the proposal in Tennessee to have “In God We Trust” placed on everyone’s license places; a measure that, thankfully, failed earlier this year.  Why should anyone, Christian or not, be FORCED to spend their own money, including money taken for taxes, to prop up or advertise a religious viewpoint that they may not themselves hold to?

Make no mistake. THIS is what the evangelical, conservative fanatical Christian types want – the end of church-state separation so that they can get tax payer money on top of the usual offerings.  Offerings are likely dwindling as we speak (I hear it in the way they beg for money on no less than fifteen religious channels (one actually going so far as to say “Don’t think about it; it’s not about reason.  Do it now!), all Christian-oriented, of course (even the program “The Jewish Jesus” is in no way about any Jewish Jesus, trust me), all the while Jim Bakker lamenting that “They have taken God off of TV!”), so they want all of us tax payers to prop them up!

So the actual intent of all of this is that they will destroy the church-state separation by ignoring the Johnson Amendment and preaching politics at every opportunity AND start receiving tax payer support for their churches and ministries.  So even if they lose their tax exempt status (and operate in a way consistent with what THEY incorrectly state temples in the Roman Empire did), they will still be getting financial support; frankly more of it than ever since people are getting tired of giving to those they know are charlatans.  Thus, the creation of the State Church of America filled with oh-so-holy and righteous and politically-correct Christamericans!  This will be the true downfall of the United States of America if their plan is allowed to come to fruition.

 

Today, via the news, we are confronted with yet another heinous act perpetrated in the name of religion.  This time, however, it was an attack on Muslims in London, presumably by a Christian.  I use the term “presumably” because it seems that no one is quite willing to actually name this person as a “Christian” (or even to be clear what religion this person may adhere to).  Therefore, I do not at this time claim to know what religion this person adhered to, if any.  But I do know two things: (1) According to reports Muslims were targeted because the perpetrator stated that they were “the problem” and (2) this act was wrong on all levels no matter who it targeted or the supposed reasons for it.

One should easily be able to see here that religion simply does not, generally, make people or societies better.  An individual will latch onto whatever part of their supposed religion that they want to in order to justify any action they seek to take.  The above is a perfect example of this and history is replete with exactly this type of thing.  And, if need be, an individual will convert to another religion if they do not see their present religion as providing that avenue.  So those who posit that any given religion, including Christianity, has made human society and the human existence better because it was superior to some other belief system are simply misguided.  The human condition remains the same.  For the Christian, I say “just read your Bible and you will see this”.  The historian and the theologian, if they are honest, already know this.

For the last three weekdays the Jim Bakker Show had as guest the author David Horowitz.  They were heavily advertising his new book about Trump (never mind the Johnson Amendment because Jim states openly that he has no intention of adhering to it).  Horowitz made several incoherent statements concerning government and religion on each telecast.  But the one thing that he did state that was correct was that slavery (and human trafficking) is probably more widespread than ever before in the history of the world.  Of course, that is a statement that I also made in my latest book “Killing Roma” in response to those who posit that Christianity has made the world better and even helped to eliminate slavery.  Laughable for those who have actually read their Bibles, but they still posit such!  So, where has Christianity, or any religion, for that matter, actually made the world better?

Of course, for the conservative Christian, it is only the Christians who are being persecuted.  No other religious group faces persecution, in their minds.  For them, this is true to such an extent that on a certain news network some time ago they repeatedly referred to the Yazidis as the “Christian Yazidis”!

But it goes even deeper than this.  Getting back to today’s (or yesterday’s) heinous act in London, why exactly do we not hear about this perpetrator’s religion?  Why don’t we hear about where he went to church and who his pastor was and what his religion’s core beliefs supposedly are?  Well, the reason is because (supposedly) he was a Christian.  It’s really that simple.  If a Muslim perpetrates such an act all of this is talked about incessantly and is brought right out into the open as soon as anything is found out!  Yes, the Muslim is rather automatically judged because of his supposed religious beliefs.  And if you are a Pagan or a Wiccan, really watch out!  Immediately you are labeled as a devil worshipper and some sort of weird creep!  Don’t think that they hesitate just because you are not Muslim here!  But if a Christian perpetrates such an act, no digging into his (or her) religious background takes place at all!  No question about denomination or  local church affiliation or who preaches at the particular church he may have attended or even what his belief system may have been.  Oh, no, Christianity can’t be the problem!  After all, Christians have never been guilty of perpetrating heinous acts against others in the name of religion…. (Skythoupolis, witch burnings, the Inquisition, all of which they want to continue to hide)  And this attitude prevails even as they howl that history is being rewritten.

In the ancient Roman world, when Pagans were being forced to give up their religions and to stop practicing according to their religious conscience, when droughts or bad crop years took place they began to complain that the Christians were causing it because the Pagans were not allowed to make proper interaction with the ancient deities who had always protected them.  The Christians would respond that, on the contrary, it was god’s wrath upon the empire because everyone had not yet converted to Christianity.  The final Pagan response: “Then why is your god punishing you along with us since the drought affects you just the same as it does us?”  The only answer that could have been made was that the Christians needed to do even more to force the Pagans to finally convert, and they proceeded with great zeal in this!  Eventually the whole Western world was plunged into the Dark Ages.  That we eventually crawled our way out of it should not be seen as some kind of sign of the success of Christianity, as some posit.

Force and religious intolerance are not the way.  If the world can be made worse by anything, it is obviously these two things.

As the human body requires maintenance, so too does the body of the earth and even the universe itself. This is something that was recognized by our ancient ancestors universally, if you will, from the Egyptians to those who inhabited the Near East to Europe. This understanding is fundamental to all Sacred Mysteries.

Coupled with this understanding came the equally important understanding that it is the female who gives birth and that birth simply cannot take place without the feminine principle. The male simply cannot produce offspring by himself. Thus, the feminine principle is elevated to the status of most important in the greater scheme of things. This is why the earth herself was seen by the ancients as a goddess, especially by the ancient Minoans and Greeks. And, although the bull was seen as important to these ancient peoples in the West, so also was the cow (as in the Egyptian goddess Hathor) and there was no necessary connection to male dominance.

Thus, this Western (Euro-Mediterranean) understanding of the life cycle and the importance of the feminine stood in direct contrast to understandings developed in more Eastern areas of the world in which humanity would observe, for example, that an alpha-bull would procreate with multiple cows within the same herd, thus producing many offspring. This was seen as a sign of male strength and male dominance by these people. So, for them, the feminine was relegated to a subordinate status and the masculine was seen as dominant.

Along with these two foundational understandings came the third most important understanding that the entirety of the universe, as observed in nature itself, operates in a certain fundamental and inerrant way. The very cycle of life, as the ancients observed, repeats itself. Life flows from death. They observed this, as an example, in the life-cycle of the caterpillar which seemed to serve no particular purpose in and of itself, but which would later form a cocoon and appear to die, frozen in time and space, only to later emerge as a beautiful butterfly or moth. They also observed how the seed of grain and other plants appeared to be dead, but once it fell into or was planted into the ground (the womb of the earth herself) it would spring forth as a living plant that, in turn, also produced more seed and the cycle would be endlessly repeated.

Thus, the ancient Sacred Mysteries, with very few exceptions, were based upon goddesses rather than gods, female deities rather than male ones. For the initiate, this should have been an obvious point from the very beginning. But, if they happened to miss this point somehow, as they proceeded through the initiations they would be shown, in various ways, this exact concept until the end point at which, if they did not understand somehow when shown the “holy thing” by the hierophantes (hierophant), then they had not achieved enlightenment and were, therefore, not true Mystai. So it was indeed possible to go through all of these initiations and still miss the point entirely as, I submit, Clement of Alexandria must have done based upon his obvious misunderstanding of the Sacred Mysteries of Demeter.

Thus, people such as Clement failed to recognize the fundamental connection between the life cycle observed in nature as in the examples above to that of the human life-cycle. So obsessed was he and others of his ilk in the concept that time is linear and that there is some actual ending to it, culminating in eternal reward or punishment (as in Eastern thought) that he could not see the marvelous and very simple truth of it all. He could not see that the human soul recycled just as everything else in nature did and that it would endure repeated lifetimes upon this beautiful earth until, with increasing efforts toward a pure state in each lifetime, it would finally merge into the realm of the deities and be with them. He could not see that it was necessary for this natural cycle (for we and out souls are a part of nature) to continually repeat itself and, in turn, it was necessary for humanity to do its part to maintain it.

Our primordial and ancient ancestors did understand these basic concepts and incorporated that understanding into what we refer to today as “Mysteries” or “Mystery religions”. These Sacred Mysteries taught the initiate these fundamental principles, which are not only observed directly from nature but are also possible to deduce logically by way of rational analysis. For even Platon (Plato) produced a logical argument in favor of the belief in reincarnation in his Meno: 81-86 in which he shows that a certain boy could not possibly have answered questions put to him had he not experienced life in some pervious time. Thus, reincarnation.

Ronald Reagan stated that “[f]reedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. . . .”  He was right.  That is a sad truth of history.

It’s amazingly simple.  They have always sought to take your freedoms and religious liberties away from you in the very name of religious freedom, all the while crying “persecution” and the end of the world as their reasoning for it.  Thus, they will accept with open arms even some of the most vile people as their own as long as these persons accept and promote their conservative, religious, political agenda.  I dare say that they would even accept Pagans if they were in lock-step with this agenda.  And THAT is the actual danger for us who are Pagans.  We must NEVER allow ourselves to get caught up in the political nightmare that these people have created, for if we do, then we have truly lost.

It actually used to be asked within my own lifetime why the Roman Empire fell; what caused its fall.  I suspect that this question is still asked in some quarters even though the evidence that Christianity killed it is actually overwhelming and incontrovertible.  In any court of law the verdict would be “guilty”.  This may be difficult for some to accept, but it is nevertheless true.  A handful of main points can be made to support this conclusion:

(1) From the very beginning Christians worked to disrupt society, starting with Judaism as a religion (which the Christians were still a part of).  They did this mainly by allowing uncircumcised foreigners in and by stating that Jesus was a risen messiah.  They quickly began to claim the Old Testament writings as their own while rejecting the special status of the Jewish people as God’s chosen.  Ultimately they helped to cause the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple there in 70 CE.

Once they broke free from Judaism completely after the Parousia did not occur they moved on to disrupt the wider Roman world by emphasizing their rejection of divorce, showing little, if any, respect for Roman law or society, opposing sacrifices and refusing to take part in community activities or holidays, and being generally obnoxious and abhorrent in any number of ways.  That they had set fire to Roma in 64 CE and almost destroyed her was practically a given in the minds of the folk.  Yet they still expected to enjoy the same exemptions afforded to Judaism even after 70 CE and made a great issue of the fact that they were not.

In effect, they had worked to turn the Jews to Pagans and the Pagans to Jews by disrupting and altering their societal norms and standards.  Courts were often pestered with Christians wanting to be martyred and the economy suffered because the Christians did not purchase victims for sacrifices.  Still, these things by themselves really had little impact on the empire as a whole.  If this had been the extent of things then both Christianity and the empire might have evolved into something different together.

(2) But, more came once Constantine I came to power.  Although he was clearly not, at least completely, a Christian by the time he became emperor, he almost immediately began to take steps that would favor Christianity.  He began a systematic process of destroying Pagan sanctuaries and holy places while at the same time often having the clergy in these temples killed!  In addition, he robbed several temples of their treasures and in some cases caused parts of ancient temples to be reused to build Christian basilicas.   The same took place in some cases with reference to Jewish Synagogues, which were also robbed of treasures and demolished to be replaced by basilicas.  His successors, with the sole exception of Iulianus (Julian the Apostate) only intensified these efforts while also targeting Pagan books (in communal book burnings!) and libraries (several of which were ordered burnt to the ground!).  And they also moved to enact increasingly severe laws against any and all Pagan practices.  The wholesale destruction of the Pagan way came into full-force!  It was gradually replaced by the decrepit and dysfunctional Christian system.  The government seemed intent upon one thing only – the total destruction of anything Pagan, to the exclusion of practically anything else other than renewed efforts to attack and subjugate the Sassanid Empire to the East.

Moving the capital from Roma to Konstantinopolis (Constantinople) was truly the death-knell for the empire in the West although it lingered on for some time afterward.  And the wholesale destruction was less pronounced in the West than in the East mainly because it was more difficult to convert the populace in the West than in the East.  There were no roving mobs of Christian monks and other fanatics in the West such as were seen in the East, going around destroying everything they possibly could!

(3) So while the East was embroiled in rather constant religious and political turmoil punctuated by episodes of engagements with the Sassanids, the West crept along in general decrepitude.  But even they still might have survived much longer than they did if not for the near constant barbarian invasions which, in fairness, also assaulted the East, but to a generally lesser degree.  The one main exception being the uprising of the Visigoths which resulted in the near annihilation of Roman armies in the East!

And it MUST be understood here that EVERY SINGLE BARBARIAN TRIBE that invaded the empire had previously been converted to Christianity with only two exceptions; (a) the Franks who, once they were allowed to settle in Roman Gaul made little trouble and even made efforts to assimilate politically and religiously, adopting many Roman ways, and (b) the Huns who, although incredibly hostile and destructive, rather quickly fizzled out as a force to be reckoned with after the death of Attila, mainly thereafter becoming mercenaries within the Roman armies.

These Christian barbarians did something that barbarians of previous generations had never before done.  They invaded, destroyed, looted, and STAYED.  They didn’t leave because they had been already convinced that they as Christians were the inheritors of the Roman Empire since God was taking it away from the Pagans!  So they simply didn’t leave!  That, coupled with the sacking of Roma which was more of a shock than an actual event of destruction, was almost too much for the West.

(4) Add to all of this the rule of almost completely inept emperors coupled with a share of political and religious intrigue here also and you almost have it.  Still, one must add to this scenario that even in their own writings (those mainly of Augustine and Ambrose) the Christians stated emphatically that it was simply time for the empire to die because it had served its purpose according to the will of God in that it provided a world conducive for the advent of Christ.  In their minds there was nothing more for the empire to accomplish.  So even in the West the stage was deliberately set for the demise of the empire by Christian theologians.

(5) After the fall of the empire in the West Konstantinopolis tottered on in almost total decrepitude even as its monks preserved some semblance of the ancient world’s knowledge and literature.  The sole true exception to this decrepitude was the reign of Justinian I during which something like the old empire was recreated by dint of great effort and the cost of much blood!  But once he died most of his gains were quickly abandoned forever.

The city of Konstantinopolis had the fortune of being virtually impregnable, so when the Islamic forces invaded Byzantine territories, united by religion essentially the same way that the earlier Christian Germanic barbarians had been, the Byzantines could afford to lose territory (which they did) and still survive.  This Eastern empire had been weakened severely already in her final assault upon the Sassanid Empire in which both armies fought to almost complete destruction!  This is one thing that truly paved the way for the Islamic invasions that came soon thereafter.  Neither entity was really strong enough to fight them off anymore.  Thus, the downfall of the Sassanids was rather quick.  But Konstantinopolis still lingered on as a sick old man until the Islamic Ottoman Turks finally managed to breach its walls with the help of a new weapon – gunpowder.

 

The fact of the matter is that I remain quite astonished that the question was even still being asked within my own lifetime as to why the Roman Empire fell.  And when the question was asked, they meant the empire in the West, for there was no real question as to what happened in the East.  Even so, even to this day, those who may ask such a question hesitate to describe it as having anything whatsoever to do with religion directly.  But this is just the truth!

During the early Dark Ages one could be excused for not having a real answer to this question because one would naturally have to accept whatever church authorities stated on the subject.  And they certainly were not about to blame themselves!  No, the Pagan world was corrupt and debauched!  God decided that they must be destroyed for their wickedness and for their refusal to accept Christ!  This is what the folk would have been told had they asked such a question and since they were mostly illiterate they could not have read anything to the contrary even if it had been available to them.  Such knowledge only existed within the monasteries in the West or in the Vatican.  And it was rarely consulted even there.

But then a “miracle” took place in that the West became reintroduced to its literary heritage, or what was left of it, via an amazing and hard to believe set of circumstances, by which this literary knowledge was brought back by way of the Islamic world!  Almost instantly an insatiable appetite for more and more came into vogue and monasteries were searched for whatever they had, resulting in the Renaissance.  This went toward increasing literacy among the masses, generally culminating in the Enlightenment.  Thus, the Western world crawled back out of the Dark Ages, slowly, because of the reintroduction of ancient Greek and Roman literature!

In a few hundred years the new science of archaeology would be added to the mix, the result being that much of what was left of the ancient world would be dug up again and, in some instances, partially rebuilt.  This also resulted in the fortune of finding the Rosetta stone, thus eventually reviving knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language which had been extinct for about a thousand years!  The knowledge of the ancient world dramatically increased with this chance discovery.  Later the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also the Nag Hammaddi Manuscripts brought long-buried knowledge back to light.  And since archaeological discoveries are still a fairly regular occurrence it seems that there must be more yet to find.

But such is the nature of humankind that we will often prefer to dwell in ignorance rather than upset our safe belief system.  We will ignore new evidence and even sometimes say it is “of the devil” just to have someway to rationalize things.  Sometimes a person’s determination to do so not only borders on, but often seems to actually embrace the medieval!

The truth is that much of what we have been taught through the centuries should and must be rejected or at least greatly modified in light of new factual evidence.  To do otherwise would be a travesty!  For if we don’t the ancient knowledge may yet still be destroyed because our precious beliefs may not allow it to exist for long.  And the medieval world had one thing that we seem to lack.  Because it had been held down for so long it had an insatiable desire for knowledge!  We today have the disadvantage of being literally inundated with “knowledge” so that we often think that we don’t need to know any more than we already do and, after all, we can look it up on the internet.  We don’t have to actually know anything!  So as the internet continues to evolve and we consult it more and more often to the exclusion of any other means of obtaining knowledge or information we will trust it more and more and not even notice any subtle changes that may be made in information provided.  Nor will we check or re-check anything.  Thus it will eventually become just OK for original texts or archaeological finds to be discarded, destroyed, or no longer consulted in any way.  Thus the docile know-nothing society that some have always wanted to create will be produced.

We must not ever forget the last Hierophant at Eleusis who, when he was confronted by Byzantine forces bent upon forcing him to forever close the sanctuary that had functioned there for thousands of years, exclaimed that the world had GONE MAD!  Don’t let the ancient knowledge be forgotten again!

In 66 CE Christ was expected to return as the Judeans revolted against the Romans.  He didn’t. . . .

 

Thus far I have striven to avoid being too political in my blog posts here.  That will not change with the exception that I have today felt the need to write the following:

The time period between 70 CE, especially following the beginning of the reign of Constantine I, was a dark, sinister time in history; a time that some obviously feel is best forgotten.  So the world has limped along in its collective amnesia on the subject of this history, having really learned no lessons from it.  The result, as I see it, being the very real potential for a repeat of much of what took place at that time.

Skythoupolis is one of the places where events moved into complete, hideous, chaos!  Regardless of how some squeal that it never happened or it wasn’t that bad or whatever, the facts, as I demonstrate in my new book “Killing Roma: The Destruction of the Works of Femaleness and the Second Coming that Never Was; The Next Four to Five Hundred Years of Christian History; A Sequel to Apocalypse and Armageddon“, would tend to show otherwise.  In fact, contrary to those who protest, it should be classed as the very first known “death camp” in all of human history, run by Byzantine Christians primarily to rid the world of Pagans!

Skythoupolis should NEVER be forgotten again!  After all, if we had remembered and learned from this period in history, perhaps the Holocaust would never have taken place.

And Skythoupolis is just a taste of that which took place during this hideous period in Western history.  The Byzantine tyrants tried to create a patriarchal theocracy.  Sadly, there are some in our own nation today who desire to do exactly that here.  This effort truly originated with our fear in the 1950s of the “Red Menace” – the fear that the “Atheist” Communists would infiltrate and somehow take over our nation.  In a partial response to this fear, we placed the words “In God We Trust” on our currency.

Later, during the 1980s the so-called “Moral Majority” spearheaded a movement to inject “God” into all possible aspects of government and society, including, and especially, our schools.  Ronald Reagan, with his ultra-conservative trickle-down economic plan combined with his pro-Christian agenda, acquiesced to by every TV evangelist on the air in a disgusting play for power, nearly collapsed our economy before they figured out it wasn’t working!  But that seems to have taught most people nothing, so devoid are the folk of even recent historical knowledge and understanding.  In combination with this, Ed Meese and his laughable “war on pornography” only caused that to spread even more than ever before!

Today we have the misfortune of witnessing the specter of religious tyranny arising within our nation once again, beginning with the recent presidential election in which several candidates espoused the conservative Christian agenda of the 1980s once again.  One of these candidates somehow managed to become elected to the highest office in the land even amid evidence presented of his dearth of religious understanding and conviction combined with a dose of rather bizarre misogyny.  But, of course, he had promised the “evangelicals” the moon itself, so they ignored these shortcomings and were instrumental in electing him.

Further, it comes to light while listening to recent religious broadcasts that the evangelical leadership, the common folk (in general), and the extreme political right care nothing about his lack of credentials or knowledge nor of his questionable morals.  They are simply elated to have another Constantine (who, as history demonstrates, was also anything other than a man of moral integrity but who, at least, was highly intelligent), preferring to refer to him as another “Cyrus” so as to be a little less than obvious on this point.  This, combined with at least a minor resurgence of the “flat earth theory” (and I really did think we couldn’t get kookier than the “ancient alien theory”!) is actually fairly typical of the former Byzantine tyrants who were also supported by the Christian populace regardless of dubious morals.

Of late we have also added several efforts at state and local levels (sadly, in Tennessee) to, in my mind, soothe the consciences of both politician and populace.  One lawmaker, after endorsing an effort to manufacture beer with higher alcohol content, proposed that everyone in the state be required to purchase new automobile tags with the phrase “In God We Trust” on them.  Never mind religious liberties, everyone should have to place this phrase on their automobiles!  Thankfully, this effort has failed, at least for the time being.  Another lawmaker proposed, and got passed, an anti-pornography bill (shades of Ed Meese).  Still another has proposed that the Tennessee State Constitution be amended to include the phrase “We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from Almighty God”.  Such an addition is not only wholly absurd and unnecessary, but offensive to those state residents and citizens who do not hold this belief!  Thankfully, the House Civil Justice Subcommittee essentially killed this bill!  And, of course, the mantra of “putting God back into our schools” can be heard still from time to time.  It truly seems as if politicians are scrambling to invent ever new ways to please their god even as they support measures to bar religious and political refugees from our soil and taking away food assistance from the needy and the elderly.  How sad!

My new book, “Killing Roma” is timely.  This is the very best time for its dissemination.  This book deals with current issues by way of historical lessons from the time period above mentioned.

Paganism is a real religion!  It is not monolithic, but neither is any other religion or religious movement.  In fact, it recognizes that there is no need to attempt to be monolithic (certain fringe elements excepted) while the monotheist continually tries to hearken back to some monolithic point in their history which never actually existed.

We Pagans can’t actually “unite”, but we can “coalesce” to an acceptable degree and become stronger together in order to better fend off the monotheistic threat.  They still see us as not a “real” religion; as not legitimate.  We must work together to change that.  One means by which we can proceed is with dialogue.  If they finally engage us in this way they have tacitly recognized us.  But they don’t want to do that because they prefer to ignore the fact that we exist because we, in their minds, are such a threat to them.

People need proper education.  The Christian tries to ignore that this period in history even took place.  They will hardly acknowledge it regardless of whatever facts are presented to them.  They want to act as if it never happened.  THAT is why we must not only acknowledge it, but must also embrace it!  Otherwise, history is still their history, leaving us almost completely out of it.

So the dialogue simply must commence!  It should first move toward eliciting an acknowledgement from the Christians that this history did take place and an understanding by them of their role in it.  Once such acknowledgement has taken place, healing can begin for all parties involved.

They have had a virtual monopoly on history in the West for almost two-thousand years.  That time has come to an end!  It is time for us to reinsert ourselves into our proper place in history.  They can no longer have a monopoly on this.

Two evenings ago I listened to Hal Lindsey talk about why he had written his book, “The Late Great Planet Earth” (a book which I purchased in the 1970s and still actually possess), and listening to him, it was almost as if he had read the preface to my first book “Apocalypse and Armageddon: The Secret History of Christianity; The First Shall be Last and the Last Shall be First“, as he spoke about few being interested in the subject matter of his book prior to the time he wrote it other than scholars and theologians.  But, as he stated, he wanted to bring this knowledge (in his case, that of Bible prophecy) to the common people.  That was and is also my aim, as stated in the preface to the previously mentioned book.

So why should the folk deny themselves knowledge of this history, leaving it to the scholar and the theologian, who will rarely, if ever, disseminate it to them?  I think it is imperative that they have this knowledge!  For without it the populace is simply less informed than it really should be.  These are critical issues that should be viewed in the light of historical knowledge – those concerning religion, education, politics, etc.

We have a real need for people with theological training within our ranks. Anyone who believes otherwise clearly has a “pie in the sky” attitude about Paganism and its place in the modern world.

It seems to me that modern-day Paganism, as well as Hellenism, is almost hopelessly divided and essentially dysfunctional because of this division. We are not likely to ever be able to truly achieve any sort of unity of organization and belief under such conditions. That leaves us in a weakened position as compared to other religions. That is partly why most people do not consider us to be a “real religion”. Still, we ought to be able to achieve some level of unity of purpose and there are certainly those who are trying to achieve this within our overall community.

As a formally educated member of said community with extensive theological training, it cannot be expected of me that I would respect and accept others as “theologians” unless they have acquired sufficient theological training (a bachelor’s degree plus seminary training and/or an M.Div.) as well. One, in response, may say that some education is better than none, for many claim “some” education, mostly via reading things they find on-line. But this type of response actually emanates from false reasoning in that it is often actually dangerous. The fact of the matter is that those with a smattering of education, and little or no formal training, have a great tendency to proceed as if they already know enough; indeed, all they need to know. This is exactly why we, as a society, have schools to train people to become theologians. If you don’t complete a given degree program in a specified, satisfactory, manner, you don’t graduate – you don’t get the degree. It’s really that straightforward. It’s really that simple. As well it should be.

Even history teaches us that the lack of formal education can be dangerous. During medieval times Protestantism began to emerge from the decrepit Roman Catholic Church. This occurred because literacy along with new translations of the Bible came into being at about the same time, resulting in many reading the Bible for the very first time. Naturally, they proceeded to read the Bible quite literally. Over time, all sorts of Protestant groups emerged because of this, some with more firm basis in teaching than others. Few were established and/or led by formally trained theologians. These people decided that they could read and interpret the Bible to their own liking and gather followings as such. Thus, although this is not an endorsement of the Roman Catholic Church, as such, it is an illustration of the fact that, because of these factors, Christianity became hopelessly divided and dysfunctional.

I am a formally-trained theologian; educated in the Christian way but having “converted” to Paganism, with additional military experience. I have directly seen the need for Pagan clergy within the military. Those who question this need have not seen it directly as I have.

This really isn’t, and should not be, a negotiation. To that effort, either we meet the standard or we don’t. No one is going to make exceptions for us, most especially the military. We are generally, as I see it, going about this thing with the completely wrong attitude. We want to say that our clergy (priests/priestesses, etc.) don’t need higher, formal education to function because this was not the case in ancient times, an idea that is actually incorrect. In fact, in ancient Greece and Roma a priest or priestess served in a position of social status, naturally held by someone with whatever formal education available at the time. These positions were not held by persons with low social status with no education.

Frankly, if we can accomplish the establishment of a system of formal training equivalent to that which other religious bodies have and can also place a Chaplain into today’s US military it will be a clear indication that we have “made it”. We will have succeeded in becoming the equivalent to the clergy of any other religious body in this nation. It will mean that we HAVE to be accepted and recognized by others as a “real religion” (for, believe me, they don’t see us as such at this time).

This is really my main mission. I want very much to see some sort of Pagan Chaplain (at least one) – Wiccan. Hellene, Asatru –anything, before I die, preferably during the reign of Donald Trump. The Christians very much want to keep a virtual monopoly on military chaplaincy! Oh, we have a few Jewish and Muslim Chaplains. We have even had a Buddhist Chaplain in the past. But, for the most part, the military Chaplaincy is very much dominated by Christians, most notably the Southern Baptists. And even Chaplain Assistants of faiths other than Christianity, especially Pagans of any type, are few and far between.

The real truth is that those who do not want educated, professional Pagan clergy are cheating our people out of having someone to represent them in the wider world, and especially in the military, among other clergy. Frankly, the whole purpose in producing an educational program for Pagan clergy is to actually produce qualified, professional, clergy. That point seems to have been lost in the debate that some are having. If we are not going to produce a qualified, professional clergy who are capable of representing us in the wider world and in the military then there really is no point in developing such a program in the first place. To produce such a program just so that those who go through it can claim that they know something is ultimately of no value.

Obviously, our definition of “qualified” varies, with many seeking only very minimal qualifications. That sort of process will ultimately leave us pretty much where we already are in the near future, not to mention the distant future. Our situation already is that we are having to try to establish local groups with no one truly qualified to lead them. But logic dictates that we must do one or the other first. Certainly there are those who seem to think that recognition should come automatically just because they claim they are this or that. I cannot agree with this.

Shall we continue, then, to debate the issue and to deny OUR service members the right to be represented by one of their own? Shall we continue to deny them the dignity of being able to go to some like-minded Chaplain with their issues and concerns? I know for a fact that many Pagan service members will NOT go to the Christian Chaplain unless it is for an issue said Chaplain must, by virtue of his position, address.

As for the additional concept, as I have seen it expressed, of ancient Hellenism, etc., being a private matter practiced privately by the individual or the family, there is some merit to this. Indeed, the life-cycle events were more often than not presided over by family or government officials (because all Pagan religions were really state religions, after all). But some seem to miss the wider picture in that Pagan rites and holidays were more often than not practiced by the community at large in the form of great festivals accompanied by the requisite sacrifices and prayers performed by priests and priestesses. Paganism was a community religion, not really a private one. It was a community effort that all could, and usually did, take part in. But it became more private and went essentially underground due to severe Christian persecution during late Roman/early Byzantine times. This is simply a historical fact. But it was NOT meant to be that way even though this has become its survival mode. The question must be asked, then – do we want to remain in survival mode? If so, why are we trying to revive it at all?

If we are going to continue to disagree on the point of formal education, then the best we can hope for is to draw people over from other faiths who have the requisite formal education and provide them with some additional basics and ordain them. In that event, we need to develop a viable ordination process. But I would like to see this unproductive debate come to an end so that we can focus on an educational program that will satisfy the requisite need.

Scholars have labeled the Paganism of late antiquity as having been characterized by “gross” or “base” superstition.  These scholars are generally correct as Paganism had certainly degenerated into something hardly recognizable by our great ancestors of the even more remote past.  This situation was hastened by the advent of Christianity and its imposition upon the folk.  They were left with having to practice their religion as best they could privately and secretly.  This resulted in superstitious thought processes and an emphasis upon magic as opposed to reason and logic.  In so many words, Christianity forced Paganism into a superstitious mindset among those who did not convert or only nominally converted.  This is historical fact.

Sadly, today, there are those who have latched onto this form of Paganism and who seek to hold to it as some kind of standard that should be promoted.  Because of the fact that they are not reaching back to the true beauty of ancient Paganism and Hellenism, they set, in my view, a bad example for others within our movement as well as for those who are looking at us from the outside.

Stagnating at this level is not what we as reconstructionists should be about.  Instead, we should be about reaching for and embracing that more ancient Hellenic ideal – that which our more remote ancestors strove for in their lives.  They used reason and logic to get there.  Their religious authorities and institutions did not sanction a “do what you will” attitude.  They did not promote magick as a first resort to anything; for magick is the first resort only to the superstitious and the uneducated.  To dwell at that level is to miss the point and the beauty of Hellenism.  It’s like going all the way to high school and then dropping out, believing that you already know all that you need to know.  So, yes, one can “do what you will”; but one cannot do that and still claim to be a Hellenic at the same time.  And I don’t care what deity or deities you worship.

This is the abyss that monotheism put us into; an abyss that we have to, with great effort, work to extricate ourselves from.  Those who are determined to dwell in the abyss of superstition do a disservice to the Hellenics who seek to reach the standard of our ancestors as well as doing a disservice to those very ancestors.  They set an example to those on the outside, which those on the outside naturally reject, as well they should.

In addition, there are those who seem to believe that their own personal “faith”, if you will, should count as just as valid as anything else that may be out there.  After all, it works for them, doesn’t it?  The logical fallacy in this is that if it is accepted as true and, therefore, as a premise, then we have no real standard other than, perhaps, the worship of the ancient deities.  The true danger in this is that it is exactly one of the thought processes which can lead to monotheism.  Suddenly one believes that one has received some revelation from one’s chosen deity that one thinks should be valid for the whole world.  The logical extension of this is that one goes out and promotes it to the whole world as some sort of divinely inspired prophet.  This is how monotheism has always started historically.

Let me state that no one, including myself, cares what a particular person believes or practices privately so long as it is not geared toward harming others.  But just because it may work for one person does not, by extension, mean that it will or even should work for all others.  That doesn’t make it suitable for the whole world!  This is one main reason why Paganism and Hellenism were never meant to be practiced only privately.  They were designed to be practiced publicly, communally.  And even the worship of the household Lares was a public practice in that every good Roman household did so as a family unit.  All participated in old, well-established, practices, and THIS worked!

The other side of the coin is that some seek to dictate what should be standard practice in a rigid manner.  These polytheist fundamentalists are simply wrong on all counts, including logically.  For they, just like the Christians, assume that there is some monolithic, pristine form of a given religion, especially Hellenism, that one can go back to and recreate.  The fact of the matter is that there is still (and always will be) too much that is no longer known about  the ancient religions for this to even be possible.  So there are too many unknowns and other variables to consider.  So the effort is, forgive the pun, fundamentally flawed.

Yes, we are all about the effort to try to reconstruct the ancient religions, including Hellenism.  But there simply cannot be any sort of orthodoxy imposed upon the ancient religions even if they could be accurately recreated and reestablished, because no orthodoxy existed for them in ancient times.  And imposing and orthodox system upon them would ruin the beauty that draws people to them in the first place.  Part of that beauty is in the very variety within polytheism.

In short, both efforts are destined to failure, so it is important for us to search for a logical and reasonable balance which all can be drawn to.  Otherwise, all of our efforts are ultimately futile.