Muslim women are supposed to cover their bodies so that only their faces and hands are visible, and often even the face isn't allowed to be shown. Their clothes are designed to conceal their "womanly curves" (so as not to inflame the lust of men). The burqa of Muslim women consists of a loose body covering (jilbab), plus a head covering (hijab), plus the face-veil (niqab). A more extreme face-veil called a purdah can be worn so that no part of the face can be seen. The burqa is supposedly designed to protect women's modesty and ensure that they are treated with respect. The precise opposite is achieved: they are rendered worthy of no respect at all. They are scarcely human. They become mere objects, the chattels of men. They have no individual identities. No one can tell one from another. Can those who choose to dehumanise themselves like this have any claim to being treated as human?

The Koran says: "Men have a status above women." "Good women are obedient…as for those from whom you fear disobedience…beat them." "Your women are your fields, so go into them as you please." A woman is allowed to inherit only half as much as a man. The witness of two women is needed to man that of one man. What kind of woman subscribes to a religion that so demeans her?

In England in a past century, a husband took legal action against the man with whom his wife had committed adultery on the grounds that the man had "trespassed on his property". England has moved on; Islam hasn't. Women are second-class citizens, entirely defined and controlled by the men in their lives. What level of brainwashing is required for Muslim women to assert with the utmost confidence that they are free, happy and treated much better under Islam than under any other religion?

Orthodox Jewish women are required to shave their heads and wear wigs when they get married because their natural hair might incite lust. Orthodox Jewish men wear dismal dark suits and hats. Many Jews wear the kippah: a skullcap. Tzitzit are special knotted "fringes" or "tassels" allowed to hang freely outside the clothing of Orthodox Jews. Their hair is required to be worn in certain characteristic ways. Many Jewish and Muslim men consider it forbidden to shave their beards.


Sikhs are obliged to follow the Five Ks:

1. Kesh: uncut hair and uncut beard. Sikhs, with their turbans and beards, are unmistakable. They have no freedom over whether or not to display their adherence to Sikhism. What sort of people willingly allow their appearance to be so relentlessly controlled? What manner of God would care in any way about whether or not someone cut their hair? This is not a requirement of God, but of men seeking control over others.

2. Kanga: a wooden comb used for maintenance of the Kesh.

3. Kara: an iron bracelet worn on the right wrist. This is said to be a physical reminder that a Sikh is bound to the Guru. In fact, it's a symbol of being bound like a slave. No God has any interest whatever in whether people wear bracelets. This is not a requirement of God, but of men seeking control over others.

4. Kachera: specially designed cotton underwear. Supposedly intended to reflect modesty and high moral character, but in fact intended to make you ashamed of sex and your body, and to force you to submit to codes of conduct. No God has any interest whatever in what underwear people wear. This is not a requirement of God, but of men seeking control over others.

5. Kirpan: a sword. Supposedly a symbol of a Sikh's commitment to defending his faith and protecting the weak; a symbol of bravery. In fact, an unambiguous symbol of violence, illustrating the underlying violence of this religion. No God of love, compassion and peace would ever support the use of such a symbol. This is not a requirement of God, but of men seeking control over others.

People who have surrendered their choices over their appearance have fully signed up to the control agenda. Wear whatever you like. Be free.


How They Control What You Eat And Drink


Muslims prohibit the eating and drinking of numerous substances, declaring them haraam - forbidden. They are: pork, all carnivores and birds of prey, animals slaughtered in the name of any god but Allah, carrion, blood, alcohol, intoxicants, anything that's not "halal". Jews must eat "kosher" food, which is essentially the same as halal food.

Catholics must not eat meat on Fridays.

Muslims are expected to fast during Ramadan. Catholics are supposed to give up something pleasurable for Lent.

God has no interest in what people eat and drink. Have whatever you like. Be free.


How They Control Your Behaviour


Muslims are obliged to greet each other by saying "as-salamu alaykum" ("peace be unto you"). They must say bismillah ("in the name of God") before meals, and use only the right hand for eating and drinking. They have numerous hygiene practices concerned with washing their feet and hands, and shaving their body hair.

Muslim women are not permitted to shake hands with men who are unrelated to them. Most Muslims and Orthodox Jews are subjected to a rigid code of etiquette, designed to ensure that they do no interact with others in non-approved ways. Many Orthodox Jews try not to interact with "outsiders" at all. The same is true of many Muslims.

Muslims who commit adultery can be stoned to death or beheaded; thieves have their hands amputated; homosexuals can be hanged. Many minor indiscretions are penalised by flogging. Moral police are everywhere, spying on the people.

Muslims want to put apostates to death. The Church of Scientology has a "disconnection" policy whereby members have to break off all contact with those who have broken the rules or opposed the Church. The Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar "disfellowshipping" procedure.

Behave in whatever way you deem is right. Be free.


How They Control Your Time


Muslims are expected to pray five times a day: at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and night. This is a classic brainwashing strategy, involving sleep deprivation and constant repetition of the desired behaviour. The "call to prayer" booms out from loudspeakers in mosques five times a day. Why should non-Muslims be subjected to this noise pollution? This practice shows no respect or tolerance for others. This is one of the primary characteristics of religions. They have an unflagging desire to push their beliefs down others' throats. Muslims are certainly not alone in their disregard of those who do not share their beliefs. Religion, apart from an occasional important festival, should play no role at all in public spaces. It is a private matter.

Jews are expected to recite prayers and benedictions throughout the day. They pray when waking up in the morning, before eating, after eating, before going to bed and so on.

Shabbat - sundown on Friday night to sundown on Saturday night - plays a key role in Jewish religious practice. Endless rules and restrictions are specified, including 39 categories of melakhah: "work." Lighting a fire, writing, switching on lights, shopping, driving cars, burning fuel, and using electricity are all forbidden. The Jewish Shabbat customs are amongst the most ridiculous ever devised. What God would possibly care if someone switched on a light or not? The type of God envisaged by the Shabbat is one of the most petty, stupid and tyrannical deities ever conceived.

Don't allow your time and light switches to be controlled. Be free.


How They Control Your Thoughts


Muslims and Jews are expected to devote much of their time to studying and memorising the Koran and Torah respectively, since these texts are supposedly the "Word of God". Muslims and Jews are not expected to read any rival holy books since that could lead them into temptation, doubt and the path of false prophets and idols. Until 1966, the Catholic Church had a formal list of prohibited books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) that the faithful were never to read. (They still maintain an unofficial list, upon which books such as The Da Vinci Code and The Armageddon Conspiracy are placed, although, bizarrely, they have stopped making it publicly available.) Muslims burned Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and sentenced the author to death (to their credit, they didn't actually carry out the sentence). If their message is so good, why are they so scared of other texts?

Don't let them control your thoughts. Read whatever you like. Study anything and everything. Be free.


How They Control Your Body


Muslim and Jewish men are ritually mutilated via circumcision to ensure that they bear the "brand" of their religion.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus Christ was asked whether circumcision was necessary and his reply was, "If it were necessary then every father would beget a circumcised male." Circumcision represents an explicit criticism of the work of the "Creator" since if God thought the foreskin was unnecessary he wouldn't have created it in the first place. Circumcision has nothing to do with the will of God and everything to do with the desire of controllers to impose their "brand" on babies.

Never allow anyone to mark your body in any way for religious reasons. Be free.


How They Control Your Health

Orthodox Jews, by marrying "in", have a severely restricted gene pool, leading to a number of terrible and often fatal genetic illnesses. Many Muslim families advocate marrying first cousins, again leading to widespread genetic abnormalities. Many Muslims practise "honour" killings when someone tries to break out of the strict control imposed on them. Such religious beliefs are extremely bad for your health.

Never allow anyone to make you marry against your will. Never engage in in-breeding to satisfy someone's insane religious demands of you.

The Unholy Trinity



The concept of the Trinity was shoehorned together in the most ridiculous way to allow Christianity to be both monotheistic and polytheistic. Jehovah and Allah are proper monotheistic gods and you wouldn't find either of them incarnating on earth, being crucified and then resurrected. For Christianity to "work" i.e. for it to be literally true that God walked the earth before being killed then brought back to life by himself (even though he was dead) then it is necessary to divide God into at least two parts (one that dies and one that goes on living). Christianity then compounded the problem by introducing the "Holy Spirit" which descends upon righteous people and imbues them with godliness. So, now there were three gods instead of the one required by monotheism. All three gods were declared to in fact be one - a remarkable and transcendent Holy Trinity, a supreme "mystery" of the universe that no mortal mind could truly comprehend.

Of course, the whole notion is the most ludicrous, insupportable, incredible nonsense imaginable. No rational person could ever accept it. To state it with crystal clarity: a monotheistic God is a single God with no mysterious separate parts or split personalities. Christianity is not monotheism; it is polytheism. The only people who don't understand this are Christians.

There is not one particle of logic in the absurd concept of the Holy Trinity.

Jews worship God the Father. Christians worship God the Son. Christian Gnostics worship God the Holy Spirit. As for Islam, Muslims reject the Trinity and worship only Allah, yet he is still somehow to be equated with the God of the Christians and Jews. The Jewish and Christian prophets (especially Jesus) are accorded a high status in Islam. Mohammed and the Koran are seen as correcting the errors of Judaeo-Christianity.

Of course, there is no discussion of why God's original prophets were in error if they were divinely inspired, and if earlier prophets were mistaken then so could Mohammed be (which is what the Satanic Verses controversy was about).

Muslims shut down all debate about Mohammed and the Koran, which is why Islam can never be a thinking person's religion and why Islam is never associated with cutting edge intellectualism. No one would regard contemporary Islam as a shining beacon of intellectual endeavour. Muslims complain about so many Nobel prizes being awarded to Jews and so few to Muslims, but there's no conspiracy going on. The Jews, to their credit, have always valued intellectual pursuits and vigorous discussion. A few noble exceptions apart, Islam has no such tradition. Muslims are not permitted to argue about the Koran. They are not permitted to challenge Mohammed or question Allah. This attitude, inevitably, leads to anti-intellectualism. The intelligence of hundreds of millions of people is actively being held back by their adherence to Islam.

What typically happens with religions is that various priests and prophets advance an assortment of preposterous notions. These are then moulded into an increasingly desperate theology that becomes more and more complex and less and less credible as time goes on.

Christianity arises from a theological attempt to reconcile two contradictory positions: 1) Jewish monotheism where God can never die and 2) Greek polytheism where a god, such as Dionysus, can be incarnated on earth, killed then resurrected.

Christianity is a Satanic fraud perpetrated against humanity. No part of it is believable. It is a hybrid religion, an embarrassing attempt to combine Judaism and Greek mystery religions such as Orphism. ("Illumination" is a religion with a great deal in common with Orphism, but which completely rejects Judaism.)

If you have not watched the religious section of the film Zeitgeist for some time, you should go back and be reminded all over again of how fake Christianity is.

This is a summary of mainstream Western monotheism:

1) The Jews applied the concept of Pharaoh Akhenaten's monotheistic god to their partisan, tribal god known as Yahweh. Yahweh thereby became the "one, true" God with a unique covenant with his "chosen" people, the Jews. (Of course, no universal God would ever enter into a binding contract with one group: he would no longer be universal if he did.)


2) The Christians then combined monotheistic Judaism with polytheistic Greek religion.


3) The Muslims then tried to return to proper monotheism (although the Satanic Verses controversy reveals how Islam also almost succumbed to polytheistic influences.)

Western monotheism is the history of a grotesque error, of how the Demiurge managed to have himself worshipped as the True God. Humanity cannot move to the next level of its evolution until it has banished this error.





So, what of the Eastern religions? We shall firstly look at Hinduism. As with the mainstream Western religions, most Easterners do not have the vaguest idea of what they actually believe in. It may be accurate to say that there is no Hindu who understands Hinduism, just as there is scarcely a Christian who understands Christianity. We will reveal what Hinduism is really all about rather than what Hindus imagine it is about. Hinduism is mind-boggling, one of the strangest religions conceivable since it ultimately concerns God's psychological struggle with himself.

There are many religions in the world, all making radically different claims. If one religion is right then all the others are wrong. It follows that all religions, bar the one that is a reflection of the true nature of God, are in the business of concealing that they are false. As a matter of simple logic, anyone who supports one religion must accept that either they are being deceived or all those who support different religions are being deceived i.e. religion is fundamentally about deceit. No religion commands more than 17% of the allegiance of the world. Therefore, no matter what religion you belong to, you can be certain that you are in an overwhelming minority and that the vast majority of people on earth disagree with you and consider that you are being deceived, or that are deceiving yourself. Religion on this planet is primarily about lies, delusion, self-deception and control. To put it another way - religion, in general, is Satanic. Its very purpose is to lead people astray, to create conflict and division. The bloody history of the world proves that conclusively.

When anyone is considering what the true religion is, they should ask themselves this question - does this religion have an aspect that seems Satanic? If they find such an element they should instantly reject that religion.

Religions, in their attempts to make themselves seem plausible and credible, dress themselves up in all manner of elaborate terminology, baffling jargon and endless paradox. They try to bewilder you into acceptance. Hinduism is particularly bad in this respect. Just as it is possible to cut through all of the nonsense associated with a religion such as Christianity, so it can be done with Hinduism. And just as Christians will denounce anyone who holds up a mirror to their ridiculous beliefs and forces them to look at the craziness of what they hold most sacred, so Hindus will scream and complain too.

Below, we have listed what the main points of Hinduism are when shorn of the propaganda of Hindu apologists.

1) God exists outside of space and time and is perfect oneness.


2) Using Maya - the power of illusion - God creates an illusory world of space and time in which the condition of oneness is replaced by the condition of many-ness. The universe of Maya is akin to God in a dream state where he imagines himself split into infinitely many parts.


3) God, when viewing himself in the mirror of Maya doesn't recognise himself because everything is distorted by space and time, concealing the true underlying oneness. He is overwhelmed by this vision of multiplicity.


4) Psychologically, God has become fragmented because of Maya and seeks to be whole again i.e. to free himself of Maya and return to his non-dream state. In effect, he is experiencing a nightmare. Material existence is hell and the underlying unity of God is heaven.


5) In the universe of Maya, God's single soul is fragmented into a vast number of separate souls that have lost all sense of their proper relationship with each other i.e. that they are part of God's soul and are not in any way individual.


6) These individual souls are in a state of complete ignorance about their true origins. They start to identify with their Mayic "ego", which revels in separation, difference, self-love and selfishness. They must overcome this ego if they are ever to realise their true nature. Their true Self is called Atman, and each ego is struggling to raise itself up and become Atman.


7) Through a series of painful lessons brought about by a process called karma, each of these souls will endure a hellish cycle (known as samsara) of birth, death and rebirth until they finally realise the truth about themselves and are able to see past the veil of Maya to the true nature of things i.e. that they are all part of God. This moment of supreme enlightenment, of liberation from samsara and karma, is called moksha.


8) When every soul has achieved moksha, God is whole again and the power of Maya is broken. However, it is likely that this process will continue for eternity i.e. God is an eternal becoming.

Hinduism can best be thought of as a process created by God to ensure that he is forever perfecting himself, always getting closer to the ideal of God familiar to all religions.

Imagine a universe capable of thought and with a soul that yearns for intellectual and moral perfection, i.e. a universe that wants to become God. This universe exists outside of space and time. Everything is connected. It is an eternal oneness. How, it wonders, can perfection arise from this oneness? What challenges can oneness overcome? How can oneness build character? How can it extend its intelligence and, above all, how can it become moral?

The universe ponders for eons and eventually it realises that its oneness is its biggest problem. Creativity and change emerge from conflict and difference. Absolute oneness is sterile and cannot create morality. "I was oneness yesterday, I am oneness today and I will be oneness tomorrow." This is the formula for eternal stasis. Nothing ever changes.

Then, in a flash of inspiration, the universe knows what it must do: create difference, the state of none oneness, of many-ness, multiplicity. It must give birth to the principle of individuation where things have an individual character rather than all being the same.

But how can eternal unity and infinite oneness ever become a universe of difference? Then the universe realises it can do something astounding: it can create the illusion of many-ness, separateness and difference. The illusion will be brought into being by two startling new concepts: space and time.

By applying the mental, unreal constructs of space and time to itself, the universe creates the stupendous illusion that many things exist where, in truth, there is but oneness.

In the new matrix of space and time, the universe seems to be composed of an infinity of different things, all located separately in space and time. Some of the things in this universe are just "stuff" - material - but other things are on an altogether higher level. They are minds, like fragments, or sparks, of the Great Mind of the universe. Just as the universe is capable of thought, so are these sparks. They are "souls".

So, the universal oneness sees a means to continually refine and purify itself. All of these souls will be subjected to a process that will make them as knowledgeable as possible - "enlightened" - and also as good as possible - moral paragons. The souls will be continually recycled within space and time until they are flawless. At that point, they will see through the illusion of space and time, be released from the universe of illusion, and be reunited with the underlying oneness, but now they will be without error, tested in the most rigorous possible way by Maya. This is the ultimate quality control system.

This process will never cease; the universe will be forever perfecting itself and getting closer to its object of becoming the True God.

Most people will see absolutely no connection between Hinduism and what has been described here, yet this is the essence of the original, mystical Hindu vision.

We will now start attaching Hindu labels to everything we have mentioned. We will use definitions (in bold) supplied by a Hindu website, followed by our comments:

To understand Buddhism, it is necessary to understand the five key concepts of Anatman, Skandhas, Karma, Samsara and Nirvana.



Anatman and Skandhas

Anatman is the doctrine of "no self". Buddhism rejects not only the concept of a soul (atman), but also that of the self or individual. The Buddha taught that the concept of "I" was the source of all the ills of our society. For him, there was only existence as a part of the whole. What we erroneously perceive as a "self" is actually a temporary combination of five different elements known as skandhas. The first skandha corresponds, more or less to the body (matter), and the remaining four (sensations, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness) to, roughly, the Western concept of mind. Our bodies, physical and emotional sensations, ideas and beliefs, conceptualisations and consciousness all work together to produce the illusion of a permanent, distinctive, individual "I".


The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (an Illuminatus) said there is nothing permanent except change, and that we can never step into the same river twice (because the river is ever-changing). This is the philosophy of "becoming". Buddhists endorse a similar view. The Buddha taught that the world was in constant flux and nothing lasts forever, except the process of change. So, not only is a permanent soul denied, so is a permanent God.

The purpose of Buddhism is the attainment of liberation by realizing the unreality of the self and rooting out all traces of individuality, which bring only suffering. The self is an illusion, and can almost be described as the source of evil since it brings so much suffering, cruelty and selfishness into the world. Where most religions are intent on developing the perfect self, Buddhism seeks to create perfect selflessness. (But it must be pointed out that the perfect self contains a great deal of selflessness. No religion advocates the creation of a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic super being who cares nothing for others. That would be a devil, not a perfect self.)


For Buddhists, a person is like one of Heraclitus's rivers i.e. changing instant by instant. There is no constant, permanent core - a self, a soul, an atman - that is immune from this change. Each of the five skandhas is changing with every passing moment, and so is the combination of the skandhas. All phenomena are in a constant state of flux: always changing, always becoming something new, always dying, always regenerating in new ways.

Over the lifetime of an individual, the skandhas may undergo radical change. Think of the difference between the baby that we all begin as and the elderly person we become if we live long enough. Is the 100-year-old person really the same individual as the 100-day-old baby? Look at how much has changed over the years. They are unrecognisable as the same entity.


When we die, the combination of the five skandhas from which we were formed breaks apart, and the individual skandhas undergo radical change (the bodily skandha, most obviously, decomposes). But there is said to be an ever-evolving consciousness, a "stream of consciousness" (or mind-continuity), which becomes one of the contributing causes of the emergence of a new group of skandhas. The incorporeal mental processes continue and are reborn in a new body. The new being does not contain the essence of the one that just died, but nor is it completely different. It is part of the same "flow" as the proceeding being.

Because they don't believe in souls or any permanent essence that survives death, Buddhists cannot be said to believe in reincarnation, but they do believe in rebirth. The question immediately arises as to what it is that gets reborn. Buddhists themselves don't agree on the precise details. The most logical answer is one or more of the skandhas, albeit in greatly modified form. Whatever it is, critics of Buddhism might claim that it is suspiciously like a soul. For example, Buddha claimed to be able to remember past lives, so that automatically means that a person's experiences, perceptions and feelings must be transferred during the death/rebirth process in order for them to be recalled in the next life. Non-Buddhists would be perfectly happy to describe this entity that has been transferred as a soul since it seems to capture the essence of the person who died, just as the soul does.


Some Buddhists say that the mind has three levels: gross, subtle and very subtle. When we sleep, our gross minds are inactive and our subtle minds manifest themselves. When we die, our gross and subtle minds dissolve entirely, but the very subtle mind, the mind of clear light (that followers of other religions might describe as the ineffable light of God) becomes manifest. All of our willed actions leave an imprint on the very subtle mind, and it is here that our karma is recorded and works its effects. It is said that the very subtle mind, although changing like everything else, has no beginning and no end. It is this mind that undergoes the process of rebirth and that, under the guidance of the teachings of the Buddha, will be completely purified and eventually transformed into the omniscient mind of a Buddha.

There are obvious difficulties with this type of thinking. The very subtle mind seems suspiciously close to the conventional idea of the soul, and the way a Buddha is described is alarmingly like the definition of God. This tendency is always present in Buddhism. On the one hand, the soul and God are denied and, on the other hand, they soon seem to reappear via the backdoor.


Nevertheless, the practical consequence of Buddhism is that the ego/self/soul is downplayed in comparison with other religions, though it can scarcely be regarded as being completely eliminated. An atheist might support something along the lines of the Buddhist skandhas, but no atheist would agree that memories can be transferred from one person when they die to another when they are born. The "atheist test" is always a good one to apply to Buddhism. Buddhism is definitely not "spiritual" atheism: strict atheists would reject most claims of Buddhism.

Moreover, the Buddhist belief in karma means that something karmic is transmitted during the death/rebirth process, and this directly influences the "fate" of the newborn baby i.e. the baby will be saddled with a karmic inheritance that will dictate the course of its life. Again, no atheist would accept such an idea.


Although Buddhism rejects the notion of a permanent self, it acknowledges the "empirical" self i.e. the one we experience on a daily basis (composed of ever changing physical and mental phenomena). It is this that we refer to as "I", the ego.


Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula asked:

"If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can't we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body? When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life...Physical and mental energies which constitute the so-called being have within themselves the power to take a new form, and grow gradually and gather force to the full. The person who dies here and is reborn elsewhere is neither the same person, nor another."


David Hume's "bundle theory of the self" is reminiscent of the skandhas and non-self theories of Buddhism. Hume was a closet atheist, so he would have admired the quasi-atheism of Buddhism, but he radically departed from being a fellow traveller of Buddhism when he called causation into question. Causation is the cornerstone of Buddhism, the prime doctrine that underpins its explanation of all phenomena. Moreover, causation is also fundamentally challenged by Quantum Mechanics. Buddhism evades the issue by claiming that causality only applies to the world of "illusion", but not to "reality" itself. (This is the same position as the one adopted by Kant: cause and effect apply to the "phenomenal" universe but not to the "noumenal" universe.)

Karma


Karma means "volitional action". Some Buddhists say that the mind resembles a field and volitional actions are like seeds sown in the field. Positive, virtuous or wholesome actions ensure future healthy bloomings that will bring us happiness, while negative, non-virtuous or unwholesome actions will produce dark, choking weeds that will give rise to unhappiness and suffering. This concrete relationship between actions and their effects, with virtue causing happiness and non-virtue suffering, is the "law of karma" and is the basis of Buddhist morality and ethics.

There is really no such thing as evil in Buddhism. Those things that are usually labelled evil are produced by unwholesome, unvirtuous, selfish conduct.


Virtuous actions arise from selflessness, compassion, love, kindness and wisdom while unvirtuous actions spring from greed, hate, callousness, selfishness and ignorance. Virtue is linked to empathy and sympathy while lack of virtue is associated with those who are always looking out for Number One - the Wall Street Gang, the capitalist crooks, the robber barons and carpetbaggers, the racketeers and con men: in short the people who run our world, the Old World Order.

Karma is often described as fate, but it's actually simple action and reaction, cause and effect. All volitional acts, whether virtuous or unvirtuous, create karma. The effect of karma is to produce a force that operates in the same direction i.e. good actions generate other good actions, and bad actions other bad actions. This is regarded as a quasi-scientific law of the universe.


It is because karma reaches across lifetimes that it is associated with fate. Every new life has a karmic inheritance. It is weighed down by karmic baggage that will have a profound impact on the course of an individual's life. No one starts with a clean slate in Buddhism. Some people commence their lives with the karmic equivalent of an enormous boulder chained to them that they must drag around wherever they go; others with a rocket booster that can propel them into the heavens.

When karma is not brought to an end by the attainment of nirvana by an individual then it continues beyond the individual's lifetime and causes rebirth. Depending on the acts performed, the effects of karma may take several lifetimes to work their way through "the system", but in that time new karma will be generated by every unenlightened action.


The "balance" of an existing karmic account is assigned to an individual at the moment of their conception, becoming part of the five skandhas that define a being.

The effect of "bad" karma is not unlike the horrific and nauseating Christian concept of Original Sin, by which the whole human race was damned to hell by God, necessitating Jesus Christ having to incarnate on earth and be crucified to atone for our grievous fault and save us from the eternal fires. (Of course, God could simply have forgiven humanity, and Jesus Christ would then have been unnecessary, but the Christian God obviously prefers doing things the bloody, gore-filled, perverse way.)


Karma is the precise opposite of meritocracy. It is the heredity principle gone insane. It's not your parents who give you your "inheritance", but your past lives. There is no even playing field, no concept of all people being born equal. Karma refutes all the principles of the Western Enlightenment. It is an entirely Satanic concept and has no role in a civilised world.

The Voice of God



The human brain consists of two hemispheres linked by a thick band of connective tissue called the corpus callosum. The two hemispheres are not identical. In right-handed people, the left hemisphere is dominant and controls the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere controls the generally weaker left side of the body. Bicameral means "two chambered" and provides a good way of describing the human brain with its two distinct but connected hemispheres.

The left hemisphere is normally considered the seat of language and logic while the right hemisphere is the province of art, mathematics and music. Autistic savants can show bewildering technical expertise in art, mathematics and music while often being regarded as backward in relation to language, logic and empathy. It has been speculated that these individuals suffered left-brain trauma in the womb due to an abnormal response to testosterone, leading to right-brain dominance. People who have suffered strokes in the left brain have been known to undergo remarkable transformations and discover high-level artistic, musical or mathematical skills that were not in any way evident previously.

The left-brain is characterised as selective, focused, methodical. It filters information to allow the "big picture" to be seen. The right brain, on the other hand, deals with all of the detail ignored and filtered by the left brain. Ours is a left-brain "big picture" society, but that doesn't mean it was always so. Julian Jaynes's radical hypothesis is that what we regard as modern consciousness is intimately connected to the evolving dominance of the left brain and, particularly, to the development of language and writing. Before that, the right brain was in charge and what we regard as consciousness simply didn't exist. In fact, Jaynes speculates that human consciousness as we now understand it has existed for only about 3,000 years.

What existed before consciousness was the "bicameral mind". Jaynes argues that human beings, as they started to learn rudimentary language, began to undergo a form of auditory hallucination when they were stressed. They would hear a voice in their head commanding them what to do: "fight", "run", "drink", "rest", "hunt", "shelter" etc. The hallucinated voice was that of the tribal chief or some authority figure. The person carried out the command unquestioningly. No consciousness existed to allow the command to be pondered, challenged or contemplated. It was simply executed robotically. Even when the tribal chief died, his hallucinated voice would still be heard for a long time after. In this way, it would seem that he wasn't actually dead. Was the tribal chief promoted to the status of "god" at this time? (This was the origin, Jaynes suggests, of the belief in life-after-death and therefore the human religious sensibility.) As society grew more complex, additional voices arose to reflect additional chiefs and gods.

The bicameral human mind had an inbuilt master-slave structure: one part of the brain barked orders, and another part carried them out immediately. This permitted a rapid and decisive response in crisis situations. It is a more sophisticated form of animal behaviour, most of which is pre-programmed and instinctual. Animals don't reflect on their behaviour and don't take time to decide what to do, and nor did the bicameral mind.

According to Jaynes, the hallucinated voice(s) arose in the right hemisphere of the brain and was heard in the left hemisphere. The right brain was the master that issued executive commands and the left brain was the slave that dutifully followed them. From this originated the human propensity for master-slave relationships.

Jaynes thought his model provided an insight into hypnosis. The authoritative voice of the hypnotist becomes that of the right-brain master that once spoke to human beings. The left brain reverts to its old slavish instinct and mindlessly obeys the master's commands.

In a TV show featuring British illusionist Derren Brown, he rang a public call box and waited for someone to answer. As soon as a person picked up, he shouted, "Go to sleep!" Amazingly, many of those who answered the phone were filmed immediately slumping to the ground in a deep sleep. Brown's explanation was that these people were extremely suggestible. He pointed out that most people would ignore a ringing phone in a public call box, assuming it was a wrong number and knowing it definitely wasn't for them. Those who do answer are almost Pavlovian in their behaviour - they feel compelled to pick up a phone if it rings, no matter what the situation is, as if they have been conditioned since birth to do so and have no conscious choice. Is "suggestibility" a vestige of the old bicameral mind?

(In the 1960s, it was rumoured that the CIA carried out research on "voice control" as part of their top secret MK-Ultra project. The idea was to use a form of auditory hypnosis via the telephone to gain control over the person at the other end of the line. An agent would use subtle vocal commands and specific acoustic tones to bring the listener under his influence and then manipulate him for the desired purpose. It was hypothesised that the right hemisphere of the brain was more impressionable than the left and could be targetted.Once it had been brought under control, it could be used to direct the left brain. Afterwards, the subject would be made to forget what had happened. This procedure is entirely consistent with Jaynes's theory. Prohibition A, freely downloadable from this site, is about brainwashing and mind control techniques used by the American Intelligence services and relates a hypothetical plot to install a fully brainwashed person as President.)

Is schizophrenia, where people hear voices ordering them to do things, a reversion to the old bicameral mind? Are the "imaginary friends" that some children create also a product of the ancient bicameral mind?

Are young children conscious? How many of us can remember even one detail of our earliest years? Yet we clearly did things, despite not being conscious in any way that we can recall. Perhaps we were guided by a bicameral mind in our childhoods, with our parents' voices the ones we hallucinated in our heads to tell us what to do when our parents weren't physically around. We can't remember this phase of our lives because we had no consciousness to organise memories for us. Children in infancy exhibit similar traits to autistics; they don't understand concepts such as deceit and empathy. Nor would people with bicameral minds have understood these concepts. Are autistics operating according to a form of bicameral mentality?

Is a charismatic leader with hypnotic language skills - someone like Hitler, Mussolini, Martin Luther King, Billy Graham - taking the role of the hallucinated voice of the tribal leader or god of bicameral times? Is that why they inspire such devotion and can command vast crowds? At huge election rallies, are human beings reverting to their vestigial bicameral selves? Is that why they love strong leaders, why they love authority, why they love celebrities and the super-rich? Have they placed these people on a par with the old bicameral gods? Is a lynch mob a manifestation of a collective bicameral mentality kicking in? - a leader commands and the mob mindlessly obeys. Is the office hierarchy where people feel compelled to obey their inept managers a throwback to bicameral thinking? People say they're scared to lose their job if they disobey. They're obviously much less scared of losing their self-respect.

When Moses went up to the summit of Mount Sinai and encountered Yahweh, when Mohammed went into a mountain cave and encountered the Angel Gabriel, when Jesus spoke with his heavenly Father, were they all exhibiting "bicameral episodes"? Such episodes are thought to be more frequent if people have been fasting, meditating, isolating themselves from others. In short, if you go into the wilderness for forty days, you markedly raise the chances of having a bicameral episode. Are such episodes the basis of the "divine revelations" of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Is the "Word of God" the same as the "Voice of God"?

In a famous experiment by Benjamin Libet, strong evidence was provided that consciousness may often consist of retrospective rationalisations of events that have already been decided by the brain i.e. free will might be illusory. But another explanation is possible. Perhaps the older bicameral mind acts before the conscious mind, except the hallucinated voice is silent. The conscious mind then rationalises the event as its own work.

Did empathy - our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and imagine what they would feel and think - evolve from the old bicameral mind and the new conscious mind trying to understand each other and seek some mode of cooperation and mutual understanding? In other words, empathy was, according to this view, originally internal before being extended to others, and may derive from our twin-chambered brain. We can run a simulation of the person with whom we are empathising in our right brain, while comparing and contrasting with our "selves", located in the left brain. This is a capacity that evolved from the older bicameral mind. Whereas in the past, the right brain issued the "voice of god", and the left brain obeyed, the left brain can now create any voice in the right brain and treat it as if it were a separate individual. The simulation can become so powerful and vivid that the created voice might eventually seem real. Some novelists have claimed that their fictional characters take them over and write the book on their own, without the author's conscious involvement. These novelists say they could imagine placing the character in any situation outwith the context of the novel, and know exactly how the character would behave. This is consistent with a bicameral mentality, with a created character taking on a voice and life of its own.

Is our love of acting and role play, of story-telling and fantasy, of impersonating others, of assuming an identity for computer games, of having an avatar in a virtual reality world like Second Life, related to the inbuilt existence of a twin nature arising from the left and right brain, and from the modern conscious mind and the old bicameral mind? Studies have shown differences between how men and women use their right and left brains. Are women more prone to submissive and compliant behaviour because they are more bicameral then men? Is the human obsession with opposites, with binary logic, related to bicameralism? Is the "double", the doppelganger, the shadow, the "other" all intimately connected with bicamerlaism? Does the ultimate root of good and evil lie in bicameralism? There is virtually no arena of the human condition which couldn't be considered as some kind of bicameral phenomenon.

Is the human race as a species prone to individual and mass hallucinations because of bicameralism? Can humans create such powerful simulations of other "voices" that they effectively conjure gods, ghosts, spirits, vampires, werewolves and a whole gallery of supernatural beings out of their imaginations and then believe they are real? Are mediums (those ones who aren't outright charlatans), so skilled at simulating the thoughts of a dead person about whom they have collected a few details that they can accurately describe how that person might have behaved when he was alive? Is that why they seem so convincing? Are people who have uncannily accurate intuitions about other people running incredibly powerful simulations of those others in their mind? Or is something else going on?

Some patients suffering from a hallucinated personality claim that the hallucination knows more than they do. What does that imply? It could be argued that the right brain, with access to all of the detail that the left brain filters out, may well seem to have greater knowledge. It retains all of the facts that the left brain has long forgotten.

Some people have had "split brain" operations involving the severing of the corpus callosum. Could that result in a person developing two "selves"? Not nearly enough scientific research has been conducted on split brain patients. They could hold the key to persuading the world about the reality of the bicameral mind.

The word "paranoia" literally means having another mind alongside one's own. That is exactly what the bicameralism is.

Does multiple personality syndrome (MPD) - when one personality seemingly divides into two or more - derive from bicameralism? (Prohibition A shows how MPD could be used to manufacture "Manchurian Candidates" - perfect mind-controlled assassins.) Regarding those people who can provide vivid details of past lives when they are under hypnosis, are memory traces of buried "voices" being accessed? (If someone living in America who had never left the country were able, under hypnosis, to successfully reveal the location of an ancient artefact that had been buried in France for hundreds of years and state that he himself had hidden this object in a previous life, how could any mainstream hypothesis account for this?) Is "speaking in tongues" a bicameral phenomenon? (If someone were to speak fluently in an ancient and "dead" language which they had never previously encountered and of which they could have no possible knowledge in conventional terms, how could any mainstream hypothesis possibly account for this?)

The Muses who are said to guide poets, writers and artists - are they actually bicameral voices? Tourette's Syndrome - is that an inner bicameral voice suddenly erupting uncontrollably? Being "possessed" - is that really a description of an old bicameral voice coming to the surface? In an exorcism, is a bicameral "demon" being expelled? The famous ancient Greek Oracle at Delphi - was the priestess vocalising the thoughts of a hallucinated god?

In ancient Rome, an individual's "genius" was his guardian and guiding spirit. This "genius" could easily be interpreted as an echo of the bicameral voice of old. Socrates, when he was on trial for his life, spoke of a daemon that helped him in difficult times. He described it as, "…a sort of voice which comes to me and has done so since my childhood; and when it comes it always dissuades me from what I am proposing to do, and never urges me on." John Milton referred to a "Celestial Patroness" who guided his poetry. William Blake seemed to live his life amongst a plethora of visions and auditory hallucinations. Wagner reached his creative peak when he searched inside himself for his musical ideas rather than looking to the outside world. Mathematician Françoise Chatelin heard a voice which, he claimed, instructed him in a new way of understanding numbers.

Is the condition of bipolar disorder (manic depression), from which many artists suffer, connected with bicameralism? During the manic phase, the person is consumed with activity, passion and creativity. Is that when he is being guided by an inner voice, silent but still directing his actions, reminiscent of the bicameral voice? The depressive phase would kick in when the "voice" or inner conviction vanished and the person was left to his own devices once more. He would feel bereft without the certainty and direction provided by the inner voice.

Some people might speculate that the vestigial bicameral "voice" could be equated with the Jungian "Shadow" aspect of the personality, or with the Freudian "Id". What is referred to as the "unconscious" may actually be the interplay between the modern conscious mind and the ancient bicameral mind. In certain situations, particularly stressful ones, the bicameral mind may come to the fore since it is far more decisive and quick-acting than the conscious mind.

When intoxicated people find that they can get home from a bar yet not have any conscious recollection of a single part of their homeward journey, they sometimes say they were on "autopilot", but perhaps it was their old bicameral mind that took over and guided them safely home. What about sleepwalkers? Have they been taken over by their old bicameral voice and then remember nothing about it when they wake up? As for dreams, human beings really have no idea what takes place in the dreamscape. People are woken up in order to report what they have been dreaming about. However, that involves their normal conscious mind kicking in and then trying to rationalise the few fragmentary images it can remember. It is possible that the dreamscape is where the old bicameral mind has much more say than normal, and tries to communicate messages to our consciousness, most of which are promptly forgotten unless they are particularly vivid? Jaynes thought that bicameral humans didn't really dream at all. Since they had no sense of "self", they could never imagine themselves in other times, places and situations, as modern, conscious humans do when they're dreaming. Rather, a bicameral person continued to experience the same sort of hallucinations in sleep as when awake i.e. voices speaking to them, accompanied, perhaps, by images of dead tribal chiefs, gods, heroes etc. Jaynes also speculated that the sexual encounters of bicameral people were boring and infrequent since they had no fantasy space to go to in their minds to spice things up. In many ways, bicameral humans are as far from modern human beings as Neanderthal Man.

There is a group called the "Hearing Voices Movement" which claims that between 2% and 4% of the population regularly hear voices, but only about one third become mental patients. In other words, there are people who hear voices and yet manage to cope with them and function normally. John Nash, the Nobel Prize winning economist, eventually managed to control the voices that had tormented him all his life.

There is a phenomenon known as the "Third Man", derived from T.S. Eliot's poem Waste Land:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together.
But when I look up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you.

The idea is that in times of extreme stress, a presence can manifest itself and guide a person out of danger. Many people in life-threatening situations have described such a presence giving them direct instructions. Frequently, they attribute it to divine intervention. Many mountaineers, marathon runners and people doing extreme endurance sports have reported Third Man encounters. Scientists typically assert that oxygen deprivation is leading to deterioration in brain function, leading to hallucinations. However, the people undergoing these experiences seem not to be going into a chaotic, unfocused, disconnected state that will lead to their death, but the precise opposite. Why would a hallucination be so helpful and so specific in its advice? According to Jaynes's theory, what is happening is that the left brain is surrendering control to the right brain and the old bicameral mode is being restored during the crisis.

Jaynes's theory is massively speculative but it seems to convincingly address many issues that are inexplicable within the parameters of alternative and more conventional hypotheses.

There is no mystical element in Jaynes's thinking. He is rationalising a wide range of phenomena according to specific differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, leading, he thinks, to hallucinated voices (and perhaps hallucinated bodies too). These hallucinations are, he proposes, the basis of humanity's religious beliefs.

Jaynes's hypothesis, as it stands, is one that should speak loudly and persuasively to atheists. Even though they reject the concept of God, they may see the possibility of "expanding their consciousness" via getting in touch with the strange landscape of the right brain, full of creativity, mathematical, artistic and musical potential, and vast resources of unfiltered data that, if it could all be accessed under certain conditions, might provide amazing insights and extra capabilities. Wouldn't we all want access to an inner voice that could help us in times of danger, or that could revolutionise our perception of reality? Just as humanity underwent a remarkable transformation when it evolved from the bicameral mind to modern consciousness (in Jaynes's theory), so it could take another radical leap if modern consciousness could selectively tap the old bicameral mind.

But there's another possibility that Jaynes never considers. What if the bicameral hallucinated voices aren't hallucinations? What if they're real? What if the voice is that of the divine spark? What if it was the divine spark that guided humanity from its ape ancestry to modern consciousness? That would be one way of accounting for the staggering difference between humans and all other animals.

What if the divine spark has full memory of all of its previous incarnations, and these memories can be accessed under hypnosis? (Plato, an advocate of reincarnation, argued that all true knowledge involves recollection. We are not discovering anything new…we are simply remembering what our soul knew when it was part of the divine order.) What if glossolalia - speaking in tongues - is actually a manifestation of the native tongues of previous incarnations? What if some incarnations go back to the very dawn of humanity and know exactly what happened back then? What if they know the truth of the "Garden of Eden" and all the other Biblical events? What if they know the identities of the archons? What if they deliberately became silent, as part of a greater plan, once they had brought humanity to consciousness? The combination of reincarnation and a hidden voice that can be accessed in certain circumstances is nothing short of a way to bring the whole of human history alive, to reveal all of the moments once thought lost in time. And what if the divine spark also offered glimpses of the divine order, and the uttermost secrets of the universe?

Jaynes's proposal could be treated as a mystical theory providing direct evidence of the divine spark located, in effect, as a separate personality in the right hemisphere of the human brain - divinity inside man - or as a rationalist's account of how we might think the divine exists even though it is only a sophisticated hallucination produced by brain wiring.

Jaynes's theory permits the religious to glimpse the divine spark, and atheists a higher self. In that way, it can unite both factions in the pursuit of a higher humanity with massively expanded possibilities.

Those who might speculate that the Illuminati's path to enlightenment is concerned with gaining reliable and consistent access to just the sort of inner voice of wisdom, command and revelation that features in Jaynes's theory would be on the right track. But on that subject we can say no more.

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time is come."

Victor Hugo


"All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Schopenhauer

Cognitive Dissonance
When people have invested a huge amount of their life into something and then receive a shocking piece of news that throws their beliefs into doubt, how do they respond? Some realise that their belief system is no longer tenable and take the brave step of abandoning it. They begin their search for something new. Others downplay the news and say that they always had doubts anyway, and this is just a new doubt to be added to the others. But the theory of cognitive dissonance makes an astonishing prediction that many people will reject the news entirely, and actually redouble their faith in their belief system. In other words, the more their beliefs are challenged, the more they will reaffirm their beliefs. They will view with hatred the messenger who delivered the news, and may conclude that the messenger was sent by Satan to tempt and corrupt them.

Rushdie's book highlighted an old story that Mohammed, having had the Koran dictated to him by the Angel Gabriel, had a later encounter with Gabriel in which additional Koranic verses were added. It soon became obvious that these new verses were incompatible with the earlier verses, and they were quickly removed from the Koran. The conclusion of Muslims was that Satan had taken the form of Gabriel in the later encounter and tried to corrupt Allah's sacred words by introducing new verses. So, these forbidden verses became known as the Satanic verses, and many Muslims attempted to pretend they never existed. If they did then Mohammed is revealed as a flawed prophet who was duped by Satan. And if he was duped once then why not twice? Why can't it be concluded that the whole of the Koran is Satanic?
Now you understand why Rushdie's book was so incendiary. He shone a light on the deadliest weakness of Islam: the fact that their great prophet was deceived by Satan.


But if this Satanic deception is true of Islam then why not of Christianity and Judaism too? And why should it not also be true of many conspiracy theories? How do you distinguish God's truth from Satan's? How do you know you are not suffering from an extreme cognitive dissonance reaction to bad news?



Many conspiracy theorists refuse to accept that their ideas have been conclusively refuted in many cases. Cognitive dissonance prevents them from acknowledging the truth. They have invested so much of their "soul" into their beliefs that it has actually become impossible for them to backtrack. They are permanently locked into lies and delusions.



Do you believe that Icke, Jones, Makow and the others could ever admit their errors? Of course not. Anything that does not fit their system is rejected and attributed to the cunning of their enemies. But what distinguishes this approach from madness? A lunatic in an asylum who thinks he's Napoleon will never agree that he's mad. He will say that his enemies are trying to deceive him.



Would you ever accept that your beliefs had been comprehensively refuted? And if you wouldn't, aren't you just the same as all the mad Napoleons?

Jesus Christ was the central figure in one of the most audacious plots in history. Much of the astonishing story is hinted at in the four Gospels, and yet is consistently ignored or misinterpreted. Yet even though the truth of Christ can be laid out for all to see, the vast majority of Christians will never accept it. Why? Because they have "faith".

It’s useful to contrast faith with science (knowledge). One definition of a scientific theory is that it must be capable of being falsified i.e. it must make predictions that, if not borne out, will cause it to be judged false. If the predictions of Einstein’s various theories had not been experimentally verified then no scientist would have accepted them. All scientific theories are provisional because, at any time, new experimental data can refute them. Newtonian physics, which had been successful for centuries (and remains successful in most situations encountered in everyday life), was eventually overthrown by Einsteinian physics because in specific situations where the two theories predicted different outcomes, the experimental data vindicated Einstein and refuted Newton. Towards the end of the 19th century virtually no scientist would have anticipated that Newtonian physics was about to be replaced; nevertheless, it happened. This is one of the greatest strengths of science: the most cherished of theories can be discarded if the facts demand it. So why have Christianity, Islam and Judaism not gone the same way as disproved scientific theories? It’s because they rely on faith, the enemy of reason. If Newtonian physics were a faith-based religion, we would no doubt still have “Newtonians” stomping around condemning the “Einsteinians” as dangerous heretics who should be exterminated and cast into hell. No matter what the Einsteinians said, no matter how much proof they offered, the Newtonians would never change their minds. Science spares us that tragedy. Religion, on the whole, does not.

Are people like Osama bin Laden, the Pope, and the Chief Rabbi capable of holding different opinions from those they currently espouse? Is there anything they would accept as evidence that they are wrong? If not, aren’t they just brainwashed automatons, or mindless extremists with a fanatical and irrational adherence to the position they have adopted? One thing’s for sure: these people can’t all be right since they believe in entirely different things.

There are thousands of religions, all making radically different claims. Here’s a question for everyone following any of these different belief systems. Is there anything that would stop you believing? That is, would you accept any kind of “falsification principle” being applied to your religion? Is there any “fact” that you would accept as a refutation of your chosen religion? If you cannot formulate such a possibility then doesn’t it mean that you believe blindly? If you proudly state that your faith is "unshakable" then you are not prepared to accept anything as evidence against your beliefs. Therefore, your beliefs constitute an irrational fanaticism, completely divorced from reality. The difference between you and an insane person is merely a matter of degree or opinion since a madman also adheres to unreasonable, unverifiable beliefs that he will never abandon under any circumstances. Scientists actively look for anomalies and inconsistencies. They seek data that doesn’t conform with the expected results. That’s where Quantum Mechanics came from. Classical physics couldn’t account for a number of observed phenomena so had to be discarded, no matter how painful. Do religious believers look for anomalies, for reasons not to believe? And, if they don’t, aren’t their beliefs worthless? They could literally believe anything if they are never willing to challenge their beliefs. Every religious person ought to be skeptical because why would the True God want to associate with fools and blind believers?

Virtually all religions are designed to brainwash people into a state where they become “mad” i.e. they will buy into the particular religion hook, line and sinker and nothing will ever dent their faith. Look at the millions of Muslims participating in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Do they ever give the impression that they are thoughtful, independently-minded individuals who are open to criticism of their religion and who are capable of questioning their beliefs? Or do they resemble a mind-controlled horde who will tear to shreds anyone who rejects their beliefs? Islam, more than any other religion, is the angry scream of the lynch mob. Muslims went berserk because of a cartoon in a Danish magazine depicting Mohammed as a terrorist. People were killed. Danish products were boycotted. Imams spoke out against the evils of free speech. Someone tried to murder the cartoonist. Is this behaviour sane? Is faith sane? Or is it another word for madness? The search for gnosis – the highest knowledge – is the opposite of faith.

Since Christianity is the world’s dominant religion, we particularly challenge all Christians to consider what facts they might accept as refutation of their religion. Are there any? Every aspect of Christianity has been put under a microscope and found wanting. Nothing other than blind, defiant belief has survived the forensic analysis of Christianity.

The question becomes not whether Christianity (or any of the other main religions for that matter) is true but why so many people continue to believe in a religion that is illogical, incoherent, contradictory, incredible, ludicrous and whose myriad failings have been highlighted in endless books. The answer is simple. People will believe anything if it gives them a “system” with which they feel comfortable. Christianity provides people with a moral framework, a history, a community, a worldwide family, a hope of eternal life, a hope of paradise. Above all, it gives them an identity. The fact that the religion is unbelievable and manifestly false is neither here nor there as far as they are concerned. To abandon Christianity is a step so terrifying to Christians that the vast majority will never take it. Those who do lapse from Christianity are those who never fully engaged with it in the first place, hence their identity was not defined by it. Once your identity is exclusively defined by a religion you’re in real trouble because to abandon your religion is to lose your identity. A few months ago, a Jehovah’s Witness wrote to us to say how disgusted he was with his religion and how he now wanted to worship Lucifer, the god of light. He poured out his revulsion for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. A few months later, he said he had become “terrified” and had now begged to be allowed back into the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We were not surprised in the slightest. Many people are the victims of this horrendous mind control that will never let them go.

Jews endured millennia of horrific persecutions and expulsions, culminating in the Holocaust. How could anyone continue to believe in Yahweh after he failed to lift a finger to prevent any of this? Can there be any rational basis for belief in Yahweh as a “good”, trustworthy, honourable God who has entered into the holiest, most solemn covenant with his “chosen people”? This is demonstrably the worst contract in the history of the world; all the more surprising since so many Jews are lawyers. No sane person would continue to abide by it. It was rescinded long ago by the complete failure of one of the parties to honour the agreement. Faithful Jews only believe in Yahweh now as an act of hateful protest against the rest of the world. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are known to be fakes, but that doesn’t mean the plan doesn’t exist. Some Jews, their elite, will never be satisfied until they have fully avenged themselves against the world. Mammon has replaced Yahweh as their true God. Banks are the synagogues of Mammon. Wall Street is the Third Temple. Money is their new Ark of the Covenant. This isn't true of all Jews, of course: just the ones who want to dominate the rest of us. The others are entirely innocent.

The early Church leader Tertullian said of Christianity: “It is true because it is absurd. I believe because it is impossible.” That is still the basis of Christianity. Insanity.

People are Christians because they are scared not to be. Imagine having to understand the meaning of life without having Christianity to fall back on, without all of that comforting brainwashing, so deeply ingrained as to become second nature. The Christians are not alone, of course. All of the mainstream religions play the same game. It’s not the “truth value” of these religions that anyone cares about, but the rituals, the comfort, the consolation, the hope and the simplistic means for understanding life that such religions offer i.e. these religions are psychological rather than philosophical. And precisely because of that, they cannot be shaken by “facts”. They are immune to challenge. An atheist such as Richard Dawkins wastes his time trying to debate with them. He has failed to understand that he is attacking their identity and psychology but not offering to replace religion with anything that has any of the same psychological benefit.

Anyone who seeks to topple the false gods must offer better gods. Those who offer the sterile vacuum of atheism can’t succeed. Few people are psychologically capable of maintaining an atheistic mindset. Even the fierce atheist Voltaire supposedly converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.

Illumination, the religion of the Illuminati, is concerned with both the truth and with psychological well-being. The aspect of Illumination that deals with the truth is highly scientific and philosophical, and we shall be outlining it in the coming weeks. This aspect has a specific form. However, the psychological aspect can have whatever form is suitable to prepare the initiate for the more complex aspect. The members of the Illuminati can choose any form of religious devotion they like, and many choose to focus on the ancient gods and rituals of the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Egyptians, Norse, Persians, Babylonians etc. Particularly favoured gods and goddesses are Mithras, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Demeter, Ra, Lucifer, Minerva and Janus. None of these is regarded as the “True God” (who is named Abraxas by the Illuminati) but they are all psychologically valuable. No Illuminatus follows any of the gods of the mainstream religions, all of which are children of the Demiurge, psychotic and profoundly damaging psychologically.

While it is vital for any credible religion to be concerned with truth, it is just as important for the psychological aspects of religion to be healthy and inspiring. In this respect, everyone should be free to choose their own gods and rituals. Religions such as the Abrahamic ones that impose rigid, exclusive ways of worship on their followers are obnoxious, oppressive, tyrannical and repellent and ought to be opposed by all decent, thinking people. The Hindus, with their mixture of polytheism for everyday religious devotion and monotheism for their abstract, philosophical thinking, have a far healthier model of religion.


The “Christianity” of Jesus Christ bears no resemblance to the Christianity of Catholicism and Protestantism. Isn’t it time people listened to the truth about Christ? Yet there are many “truths” to be explored. You can have Christ the woman, Christ the gay man, Christ the married man, Christ the pagan, Christ the Jew, Christ the anti-Semite, Christ the man, Christ the god, Christ the man-god, Christ the king, Christ the humble man, Christ the freedom fighter, Christ the magician, Christ the fraud, Christ the whatever you desire him to be. Take your pick.

1) Christ, the esoteric teacher:

P. D. Ouspensky in A New Model of the Universe said:

"Historically the chief role in the formation of Christianity was played not by the teaching of Christ but by the teaching of Paul. Church Christianity from the very beginning contradicted in many respects the ideas of Christ himself. Later, the divergence became still wider. It is by no means a new idea that Christ, if born on earth later, not only could not be the head of the Christian Church, but probably would not be able even to belong to it, and in the most brilliant periods of the might and power of the Church would most certainly have been declared a heretic and burned at the stake.

"Thus the New Testament, and also Christian teaching, cannot be taken as one whole. It must be remembered that later cults deviate sharply from the fundamental teaching of Christ himself, which in the first place was never a cult.

"The New Testament is a very strange book. It is written for those who already have a certain degree of understanding, for those who possess a key. It is the greatest mistake to think that the New Testament is a simple book, and that it is intelligible to the simple and humble. It is impossible to read it simply just as it is impossible to read simply a book of mathematics, full of formulae, special expressions, open and hidden references to the mathematical literature, allusions to different theories known only to the 'initiated', and so on…Every phrase, every word, contains hidden ideas, and it is only when one begins to bring these hidden ideas to light, that the power of this book and its influence on people, which has lasted for two thousand years, becomes clear."

"[St John's Gospel] was written in Greek and probably by a Greek, certainly not by a Jew. One small feature points to this. In all cases in which in the other Gospels it is said 'people', in St John's Gospel it is said 'Jews'."

"The words of the Gospel, 'The Kingdom of heaven is within you,' sound for us hollow and unintelligible, and they not only do not explain the principal idea, but are more likely to obscure it. Men do not understand that within them lies the way to the Kingdom of Heaven and that the Kingdom of Heaven does not necessarily lie beyond the threshold of death.

"The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, means esotericism, that is, the inner circle of humanity, and also the knowledge and the ideas of this circle."


2) The Female Christ

According to Dr Anthony Harris in The Sacred Virgin and the Holy Whore, Jesus Christ was a female suffering from a genetic abnormality called Turner's Syndrome, which gave her a rather masculine appearance.


Consider this rather odd expression relating to the Last Supper (John 13:23):

Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

A Muslim has written an article entitled "Did Jesus Have Female Breasts?"

(http://www.answering-christianity.com/abdullah_smith/did_jesus_have_female_breasts.htm)

Along similar lines to Jesus being a woman, it is claimed by some people that Pope John VIII was a woman ("Pope Joan") masquerading as a rather boyish man. She fell in love, became pregnant and was torn to pieces by an angry mob when she revealed her deception in the most blatant way by giving birth during a papal mass. This pope was erased from history by the Church, paving the way for the second, official Pope John VIII. History is being rewritten all the time. It is always in flux.




3) The Gay Christ

A number of ancient sects believed that Christ had male lovers.

Consider these statements:

(From the Secret Gospel of Mark):

"And straight away, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth came to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

Luke 17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.


John 13:23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

Mark 14:51 And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:


Mark 14:52 And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

John 21:20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?


John 21:21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?

John 21:22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

The "beloved disciple" is usually identified as John. What does it mean that he was "beloved"? Why does he have such an intimate and physical relationship with Jesus, even resting his head against his chest in front of the other apostles? Why would the apostles accept this behaviour in what was unquestionably a homophobic culture?


But various sects didn't hesitate to draw the seemingly inevitable conclusion: Jesus and the beloved disciple were lovers. Yet how could such a scandalous relationship involving a major public figure be possible in Biblical times?




4) The Married Christ


Of course there is one way out of this dilemma, but the alternative is every bit as repellent to most Christians as the idea that Jesus was homosexual.

What if the beloved disciple were not in fact a man (John), but a woman - his wife. No one would be surprised in the slightest if a wife laid her head against her husband. Many books, most famously The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln) and the spectacularly successful novel The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown), have identified Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus. Da Vinci's painting The Last Supper famously shows Jesus seated next to an extremely effeminate, unbearded man (nearly everyone else in the picture has a beard), or is it a woman? Both are wearing clothes that are colour coordinated, emphasising their closeness. The Last Supper is an extraordinary picture because it blatantly serves up a startling visual representation of the two most controversial (and mutually exclusive) theories concerning Jesus - that he was gay or married. Every Christian Church should have a reproduction of The Last Supper hung over the front entrance to remind every Christian of what choice they must make: Gay Jesus or Married Jesus.

In the Gospel of Saint Philip, we find:

And the companion of the saviour was Mary Magdalene. Christ loved Mary more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her [mouth] (uncertain due to damage to the manuscript). The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her?"

The same gospel also says: "There were three who always walked with the Lord; Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion."

And some have said that companion can be translated as "spouse".

It has been suggested that Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and that she in fact is the unidentified "Beloved Disciple", to whom the Fourth Gospel (normally called the Gospel of John) is attributed.

There was nothing extraordinary in that time about a man and his partner travelling around together. Simon Magus, the Illuminati's most revered Grand Master, was always accompanied by his companion Helena, a former prostitute.

It should be noted that in coded manuscripts a common "trick" is to use one name to describe two separate people. This allows a constant ambiguity to be maintained. Those who are not aware of the code will be confused, but those who understand the code will easily understand the message. When both people are involved in the same episode, they are referenced by their normal names. In the Gospels, the "beloved disciple" is two people: Mary Magdalene (of Bethany) and her brother Lazarus (Jesus' brother-in-law). John 11:1-2 says, "Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, of the town of Mary and of Martha her sister. (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment. And wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.) His sisters therefore sent to him, saying "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."

So, we definitely know that Lazarus is "he whom thou lovest" i.e. the "beloved disciple". But we also know that when the beloved disciple lays "his" head against Jesus' chest, it cannot be a man that is being described since it would never have been tolerated by the other apostles. In that case, the beloved disciple is Mary Magdalene.

Mary and her brother Lazarus are known by the single codename of "John". The context usually reveals which one of the pair is being discussed. The Gospels are full of tricks being played with names to bamboozle those who do not know the code.



5) Christ the Jew


Jesus explicitly tells his apostles not to have any dealings with non-Jews:

Matthew 10:5: These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:


Matthew 10:6: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Matthew 10:7: And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.


To a woman of Canaan, Jesus says (Matthew 15:24):

I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In other words, Jesus' message is only for Jews; specifically those Jews who have not yet understood that he is the Messiah.

In similar vein, Jesus says to a Samaritan woman (John 4:22):

Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

How much clearer can Jesus be? He was a Jew and was explicitly saying that only Jews can have salvation. All Christians (non-Jews) are damned out of the mouth of the very person they worship. That's irony for you. What fools choose to worship someone who has condemned them to hell?

When crowds touched the hem or fringe of Jesus' garment, they were actually touching the tassels (the tsitsit) that we see even today being worn by Orthodox Jews. Forget any portrayal of Jesus as a blond, blue-eyed Aryan: he was probably a dark haired, dark eyed, Orthodox Jew with the skullcap, odd hairstyle, big beard and characteristic robes and tassels of an Orthodox Jew of his time.

If Jesus had been portrayed in anything like the manner of his actual appearance, there would have been no Christianity because no Gentile, no Roman, no Goth, no Gaul would ever have worshipped an Orthodox Jew. Even to refer to him as Jesus Christ - a Greco-Roman name - is a political act of propaganda to distance him from his Jewish roots. He should be called by his actual Hebrew name: Yehoshua ben Yosef. Isn't it about time Jesus was depicted accurately? Would Christianity collapse overnight if he were?

Orthodox Jews then, as now, are an exclusive, closed shop: they had and have no interest in non-Jews. They made and make no attempt to convert anyone. They are intensely tribal. Anyone who does nevertheless convert to Judaism is viewed with the utmost suspicion and never truly accepted. In the UK recently, there was a court case concerning whether the non-observant son of a Jewish woman was more entitled to a place at a Jewish faith school than the observant son of a religious-minded mother who had converted to Judaism. The governors of the school were in no doubt that the boy whose mother was born a Jew had more entitlement than the boy whose mother was a convert, regardless of their respective degree of religious devotion. In other words, Judaism is racial, not religious. If you are not of the Jewish bloodline, transmitted via the mother, then you can never be truly Jewish if you convert. No Gentile would ever have been acceptable to Jesus Christ (Yehoshua ben Yosef). To call him "Jesus Christ" is to completely misrepresent him.

Matthew and Luke both provide an extremely detailed genealogy for Jesus, showing just how impeccable his Jewish bloodline is (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3: 23-38). Rather comically, the two genealogies disagree. Nevertheless, why should we be told this information if Jesus Christ was supposed to become a god to the non-Jewish world? What non-Jew would want to know of, or care about, the Jewish ancestry of Jesus Christ?

Jesus makes it clear he has no intention of overthrowing Judaism and replacing it with a new religion (Matthew 5:17):

Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.





6) Christ the anti-Semite

In an extraordinary outburst, Jesus accuses Jews ("Abraham's seed") of being the children of the Devil and "not of God" (John 8: 37-47):


8:37: I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

8:38: I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.


8:39: They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

8:40: But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.


8:41: Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

8:42: Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.


8:43: Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.


8:45: And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

8:46: Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?


8:47: He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Christian Gnostics have pointed to this passage as proof that Jesus regarded Yahweh as the Demiurge (Satan), and the Jews as his wicked followers, who were deaf to the word of the True God. It's hard to imagine a more anti-Semitic statement.

Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, the pagan day of the sun. He was therefore announcing himself as a solar god.

Jesus cursed a fig tree, symbolising the Jewish religion and how it would soon be replaced by Christianity (Matthew 21:17-22):


And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.


And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever.

And presently the fig tree withered away.

And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!


Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.


And the same story is told in Mark 11: 12-14 and 11: 20-24

And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:


And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.

And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.

And his disciples heard it.

And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.


And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.


For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Jews wanted to kill Jesus because, on the Sabbath day, his apostles plucked corn and he cured a sick man (Matthew 12: 1-14):

At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were hungry, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.


But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was hungry, and they that were with him;


How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?

Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?


But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.

But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.


For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:


And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?


How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.

Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.


Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.

The Jews are held solely responsible for the death of Jesus (Matthew 27: 23-25):


And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.


Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.


7) Christ the King

When Jesus was crucified, a sign calling him Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews was placed on the cross. In other words, the most significant fact about Jesus according to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate who ordered his execution was his claim to be the Jewish King. He wasn't labelled a thief, a rebel, a murderer, a rapist, a looter, a blasphemer, a god, a fraud or anything else; just the King of the Jews. Anyone who made such a claim was committing a capital crime against the imperial power of Rome. Only Rome decided who could rule Israel. To say otherwise was to challenge the authority of the emperor.

John 19:15: Pilate saith to them: Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered: We have no king but Caesar.

It's laughable that Christians claim that Jesus was innocent and didn't deserve to be crucified. According to Roman law, his execution could not have been more merited. He was a rebel, an insurrectionist, a man setting himself up as a king and consequently committing high treason against the ruling Roman regime.

The Jews themselves knew the law (John 19:12):

If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar.

After Jesus miraculously fed the five thousand, the people wanted to make him king there and then (John 6:15):

When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.


But rather than trying to play things down, Jesus then walks on water that evening (John 6:16-19):

6:16: And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea,


6:17: And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.

6:18: And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.


6:19: So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.

Jesus then seems to teleport the ship to land (John 6:21):


Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.

Luke 23:3

And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it.

Why didn't Jesus deny it if it were false? Why is "God" playing evasive word games? Why is he pleading the Hebrew equivalent of the Fifth Amendment? He refuses to answer for the very simple reason that he knows he will incriminate himself. What a shifty character, so economical with the truth.

John 1:49


Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.

In Matthew 2:1-12, the three wise men explicitly seek "the King of the Jews".


Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.


When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.


And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.


Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.


When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.


And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

Zacharias 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: BEHOLD THY KING will come to thee, the just and saviour: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem for the Passover festival, he is treated as the rightful king (John 12: 12-19):

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,


Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,


Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt.

These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.


The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.

For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.


The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.

Jesus was quite simply the most famous/infamous person in Jerusalem during the Passover

Matthew 21: 10-11:

And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?



And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

8) Christ the Warrior

Jesus tells his apostles to sell their clothes to buy swords (in other words, weapons are to take priority over everything else: Luke 22:36):

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

When Jesus is arrested, Simon Peter (and probably others) fight back (John 18:1-14):


When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.

And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples.


Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?


They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them.

As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.


Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:


That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.

Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.


Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews took Jesus, and bound him,
And led him away to Annas first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year.


Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.

Jesus preached war, division, civil war and martyrdom (Matthew 10: 34-39):


Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.


And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.


And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Ironically, and bafflingly, Jesus also condemns the use of the sword, even though he encouraged his followers to buy them (Matthew 26: 51-52):

And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest's, and smote off his ear.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.




9) Christ's appearance

Christ's appearance is never described in the Gospels. The prophet Isaiah prophesied what the Messiah would look like - the ugliest man of all time. Not only that, he would be despised and rejected. He would be a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 52:13-15; Isaiah 53:1-12):

Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.


As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.


Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.


He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.


But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.


He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.


And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.


He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus was reputed by more than one person to be extremely ugly. The Carpocratians were said to possess images of an ugly Christ based on a likeness commissioned by Pilate during Christ's trial. In The Sacred Virgin and the Holy Whore, Jesus is described as being about five feet tall with a hunchback and scant hair. He is dark skinned, with a long face, a long nose, and a boyish beard. This description allegedly derives from the Jewish historian Josephus.




10) Christ the Brother

There is a clear statement that Joseph enjoyed carnal relations with Mary and that they had at least one other son (Matthew 1:25):

And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.

Again, we discover that Jesus was the "firstborn son" i.e. not Mary's only child (Luke 2:7):

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.


Christ was in fact a member of a large family, with four brothers and several sisters (Matthew 13:54-58 and also Mark 6:3 and John 2:11):

And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?

Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas?


And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?

And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.


And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Mark 6:3: Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and of Judas, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?

John 2:11 After this he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brethren, and his disciples.





11) Christ the Miracle Worker

The wedding feast in Cana in Galilee is mentioned in only one Gospel (John, Chapter 2). Jesus' mother apparently thought it was a fit task for the "Son of God" to use his power to turn water into wine for thirsty wedding guests. Is that what you would ask the Son of God to do? Does he grant three wishes like a genie in a bottle?

And, amazingly, the Son of God complied. His first recorded miracle was to get people drunk on alcohol. What a start to his miraculous career. Maybe he was trying to appeal to the followers of Dionysus. Some researchers have speculated that this was Jesus' own wedding (to Mary Magdalene), hence why his mother was so anxious for him to address the alcohol shortage (it didn't reflect well on her own skill as a hostess).

Jesus said that his apostles had the ability to perform the same miracles that he could, including raising the dead (Matthew 10: 8):

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

His most remarkable miracle is raising Lazarus from the dead. This, like the wedding at Cana, is described in only one Gospel and again it is John's (John 11: 1-57):

Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.


(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)

Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.


When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.


When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.

Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.


His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.


But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.


Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.

Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.


Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.


Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.


Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:

And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.


Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.

Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.


But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.


Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:


And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.


And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.

As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.
Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.


The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.

Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.


When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept.


Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?


Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.


Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.


And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.


And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.


But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.

Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.


If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,


Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;


And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.


And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.

Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?


Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.

Lazarus's resurrection from the dead was naturally a sensation. Many Jews abandoned their religion to follow Jesus because of this astounding miracle. Lazarus became so famous that the chief priests wanted to kill him too (John 12: 9-11):
Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;


Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.

12) Christ the Man (not God)

Jesus says he does only what his father taught him, thus drawing a clear distinction between his wisdom and God's. He is conceding that he is not part of a Godhead (Trinity) that has equal powers, intelligence, judgement and experience (John 8:28):


I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught me.

Jews accuse Jesus of being a Samaritan rather than a Jew, and of being possessed by a devil (John 8:48):


Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?

John 8:49


Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.

Jesus says that it's OK to blaspheme against him (because he is just as man), but not against the Holy Ghost (Matthew 12:32):

And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.


Note that the "Holy Ghost" is the Christian equivalent of the Hebrew Shekinah, the presence of God in the world.

This post was edited by 13lack_Cat on Sep 17 2010 01:09pm

13) Christ the God


Jesus, having said that he does nothing of himself, but only what his father has taught him then makes the declaration, "I and my Father are one" (John 10: 22-42):

10:22: And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.


10:23: And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.

10:24: Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.


10:25: Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

10:26: But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.


10:27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

10:28: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.


10:29: My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

10:30: I and my Father are one.


10:31: Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

10:32: Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?


10:33: The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

10:34: Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?


10:35: If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;

10:36: Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?


10:37: If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.

10:38: But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.


10:39: Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,

10:40: And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.


10:41: And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true.

10:42: And many believed on him there.

Note that John 10:30 is almost certainly a fabricated insert to bolster the notion of a Holy Trinity where God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are three persons within a unity, sharing one "substance". The Sabellian heresy asserted that God is one person with three aspects/natures/ways of revealing himself to humanity. In other words, according to Sabellius, there weren't three distinct persons in one God, but rather one God revealing himself in three different ways (wearing a threefold mask, so to speak). How many practising Christians have ever heard of Sabellius and would be able to meaningfully debate the complexities of the concept of the Trinity (which amounts to a claim that God suffers from the most extreme form of multiple personality syndrome ever known where three separate persons permanently coexist within one being).

Jesus says that he existed before Abraham and that anyone who follows his teachings will never die (John 8:51-59):


8:51: Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

8:52: Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.


8:53: Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

8:54: Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:


8:55: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

8:56: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.


8:57: Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

8:58: Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.


8:59: Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Note that in 8:59 where it says that Jesus "hid himself" in the crowded temple, this is taken by some to indicate that he could make himself invisible (in fact there are several places in the Gospel where Jesus mysteriously disappears from the midst of large crowds) and by certain Gnostics to prove that he did not have a physical body but was pure spirit that could appear or disappear at will. (They also claimed that Jesus only appeared to die on the cross since he had no physical body that could perish).

Also note that the Jews were prepared to stone Jesus to death for blasphemy, thus proving that the fact that he was eventually crucified rather than stoned was because he had committed a capital crime against Rome (he had already committed a capital crime against Judaism by claiming to be God).

In Luke 1:32-37, we learn that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel:


In Luke 1:32: He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:



Lu:1:33: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Lu:1:34: Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?


Lu:1:35: And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Lu:1:36: And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.


Lu:1:37: For with God nothing shall be impossible.

But how can Jesus' father be "David" (i.e. the royal line of King David) if his father was the "Holy Ghost"? He is to be given the throne of David and to reign over the house of Jacob forever. This is a specifically Jewish reference. It has no relevance whatever to Gentiles.
Matthew 28:18

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

In Matthew 14:61, Jesus explicitly acknowledges that he is the Son of God.


14:61: But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God?

14:62: And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.




14) Christ as on Old Testament Extremist


Despite being regarded as gentle, tolerant, peaceful, loving and forgiving, Jesus proves that he is anything but with his deranged statements in the style of an Old Testament prophet (Matthew 5:28-30):

5:28: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.


Note that here he introduces the concept of the "thought crime" long before George Orwell introduced the term i.e. you sin simply by thinking sinfully. Whether you actually act on your sinful thoughts is neither here nor there; you have already committed the sin (hence you might as well go ahead and do it because you will be punished for it anyway).

5:29: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.


5:30: And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.




15) Christ and the Higher Self

Jesus says that at moments of crisis, the Higher Self will take over (Matthew 10: 17-19):


10:17: But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;

10:18: And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.


10:19: But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.

Some Christian Gnostics have argued that the event known as "The Transfiguration" was symbolic of Jesus' first encounter with his Higher Self (Matthew 17: 1-5):


17:1: And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

17:2: And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.


17:3: And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

17:4: Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.


17:5: While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

Gnostic Christians say that Jesus preached that everyone could be a "son of God" or a god (John 10: 34-36):

John 10:34: Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law: I said you are gods?


John 10:35: If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken;

John 10:36: Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest because I said: I am the Son of God?


Jesus is referring to Psalm 81 (or 82 in some Bibles): 1 and 6:

81:1 God hath stood in the congregation of gods: and being in the midst of them he judgeth gods.

81:6 I have said: You are gods and all of you the sons of the Most High.


Gnostic Christians claim that Jesus is saying that everyone can be a "Son of God" and enjoy the same relationship with God that he did; everyone can be part of the "congregation of gods".


Jesus makes the Gnostic statement that anyone can become perfect like God (Matthew 5:48):

Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.


16) Christ the Unknown

Virtually nothing is known about Jesus Christ. Outside of the Gospels, the few historical sources that seemingly refer to him are so vague or ambiguous that they may not be about him at all. Several researchers have concluded that he doesn't exist at all beyond the pages of the New Testament. He is a fabrication, a fiction, they say. However, these researchers would have equal difficulties with many other figures whom no one doubts existed. For instance, outside of the Gospels there is almost no mention of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea. It might be expected that a Roman Governor's life would be well documented, but this is simply not the case.

Even within the Gospels, there is meagre information about Jesus. New Testament scholar Burnett Hillman Streeter said that apart from the forty days and nights in the wilderness, of which we know practically nothing, everything we know about the Gospel Jesus cannot occupy more than about three weeks of his life. There is little mention of his mother, virtually none of his father, and controversy rages over whether he had brothers and sisters.

The Gospels are full of contradictions, inconsistencies and improbabilities, leaving ample scope for innumerable heresies to spring up. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, but none of his teachings have been preserved in that language. We are always dealing with translations and translations of translations. Ambiguity and inaccuracy are inevitable.