And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and
when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be
driven to worship them, and serve them, which the
Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the
whole heaven - (Deuteronomy 4:19, KJV)
Gospel of Philip
on Ignorance
Spiritual
ignorance is the mother of all evil. Ignorance will
eventuate in death, because those who come from
ignorance neither were, nor are, nor shall be
Book of Enoch on
Ignorance
Sin has not
been sent upon the Earth, but man of himself has
created it
Book of Mark on
Ignorance
It is from
within, out of the mind of man that all evil emerges
- (Mark 7:21-23)
Schopenhauer on
Ignorance
They (men) would sooner die than
think. It is very curious that the universality of
an opinion should have so much weight with people,
as their own experience might tell them that its
acceptance is an entirely thoughtless and merely
imitative process. But it tells them nothing of the
kind, because they possess no self-knowledge
whatever
- (How to Argue Logically)
Rev. Robert Taylor on Ignorance
There were no books, save
painfully written and very costly manuscript, worth
the ransom of princes, and utterly unattainable
except by the very wealthy and by the church. Not
‘till about 1450 was the first book known in Europe
– (The Devil’s Pulpit)
Henry L. Mencken on Christianity
The truth is that Christian
theology, like every other theology, is not only
opposed to the scientific spirit, it is also opposed
to all attempts at rational thinking.
Northrop Frye on the Bible
It is futile also to try to
distinguish what is "original" in the Bible, the
authentic voices of its great prophetic and poetic
geniuses, from the later accretions and corruptions
sometimes alleged to surround them. The editors are
too much for us: they have pulverized the Bible
until almost all sense of individuality has been
stamped out of it
– (The Great Code)
Thomas Paine on Christianity
Of all the systems of religion
that ever were invented, there is none more
derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man,
more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in
itself, than this thing called Christianity. Too
absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and
too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart
torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As
an engine of power, it serves the purposes of
despotism; and as a means of wealth, the avarice of
priests; but so far as respects the good of man in
general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter.
…when the New Testament was written,
I might say invented, the art of printing was not
known...the book was in the hands of very few
persons, and these chiefly of the Church...This gave
an opportunity to the writers of the New Testament
to make quotations from the Old Testament as they
pleased, and called them prophecies, with very
little danger of being detected. Besides which, the
terrors and inquisitorial fury of the Church...stood
sentry over the New Testament; and time, which
brings everything else to light, has served to
thicken the darkness that guards it from detection
- (The Age of Reason, Part III, Examination of the
Prophecies)
I do not believe in the creed
professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church,
by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the
Protestant church, nor by any church that I know
of...Each of those churches accuse the other of
unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them
all.
I would not
dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His
name to that book (the Bible).
Among the most detestable villains in history, you
could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an
order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to
massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the
daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's
name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the
Bible).
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the
moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.
Accustom a people to believe that priests and clergy
can forgive sins...and you will have sins in
abundance.
The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp
and revenue in pretended imitation of a person
(Jesus) who lived a life of poverty.
The day will come when the mystical
generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his
father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with
the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain
of Jupiter
- (Letter to J. Adams April 11, 1823)
The clergy converted the simple
teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving the
world and adulterated by artificial constructions
into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to
themselves…these clergy, in fact, constitute the
real Anti-Christ.
Biblical
Gibberish
Saint John states nonsensically:
There are also many other things
which Jesus did the which, of they could be written
every one, I suppose that even the world itself
could not contain the books that should be written.
As the Bible story progresses, we
are led to believe that the great royal house of
David and Solomon gained its office because a
shepherd-boy slew a giant with a stone. We are told
absolutely nothing about its sovereign descent from
the mighty dynasties of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and
yet this is the book upon which oaths are sworn to
tell ‘the truth, and nothing but the truth’ in
courts of law - Laurence
Gardner (Genesis of the Grail Kings)
Bible on Slavery
As for your
male and female slaves whom you may have; you may
buy male and female slaves from among the nations
that are round you. You may also buy from among the
strangers who sojourn with you and their families
that are with you, who have been born in your land;
and they may be your property. You may bequeath them
to your sons and after you, to inherit as a
possession forever; you may make slaves of them, but
over your brethren the people of Israel you shall
not rule, one over the other, with harshness -
(Leviticus 25:44-46)
Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with
all respect, not only to those whose are good and considerate,
but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man
bears up under pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious
of God…But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this
is commendable before God -
(Peter 2:18-21)
Martin Luther on
Slavery and Government
Nothing is more poisonous, harmful or devilish
than a man in rebellion
...even if those in authority are evil or without faith,
nevertheless the authority and its power is good and from
God...therefore wherever there is power and where it flourishes,
there it is and there it remains because God has ordained it
- (Vorlesung uber den Romerbrief)
God would prefer to suffer the government to exist no matter how
evil, rather than to allow the rabble to riot, no matter how
justified they are in doing so...A prince should remain a prince
no matter how tyrannical he may be. He beheads necessarily only
a few since he must have subjects in order to be a ruler - (Against
the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants)
Destructiveness of Jehovah
The creative spirit is
inseparably paired with a motif of destruction and
war. The spirit of God creates armies: "By the word
of Yahweh the heavens were made, by the breath of
his mouth, all their armies" (Ps 33:6). The
myth-creating cluster of the motifs of God's spirit
and destruction is commonplace in biblical stories
(e.g., Jgs 14-16) viewing the spirit of God as
dangerous. Job offers an argument to affirm this in
presenting Yahweh's spirit in the metaphor of the
roaring lion's breath: "By the breath of God they
die; by the wind of his rage they are consumed" (Job
4:9). Isaiah too speaks of the creative spirit's
destructive power, evoking the story of the
destruction of Sodom: "The spirit of Yahweh is a
stream of brimstone. It sifts the nations with the
sieve of destruction" (Is 30:28, 33)
- Professor
Thomas L. Thompson (The Messiah Myth)
Existence
of Jesus
It was not until the eighteenth
century that the idea that possibly Jesus never
existed at all made a timid appearance with "some
disciples of Bolingbroke (1678 – 1751)"…who,
according to Voltaire…held that the obscurities and
contradictions in the Gospel tradition gave them the
right to deny the existence of Jesus. 1 These ideas,
which the disciples of Bolingbroke did not venture
to express in writing, were made public at the close
of the eighteenth century by Volney (1757 – 1820)
and Dupuis (1742 – 1809). 2 For these writers Jesus
was neither a man nor a god; they claimed that he
really represented a solar deity like the divinities
which men have worshipped down the ages....The first
author of the nineteenth century to pronounce
definitely against the actual existence of Jesus was
Bruno Bauer (1809 – 1882)
- Maurice Goguel (The Life of Jesus)
St.
Paul
The man who invented it would be
greater and more astonishing than its hero
– J. J. Rousseau (on Paul)
One man has
done more to damage the cause and obscure the
origins of religion than any other. He is Paul. Paul
of Tarsus (some say Tax Collector for the Romans and
others a tentmaker); the infamous St. Paul, the
originator of Pauline Christianity. He pirated the
aspects he built into Judean Christianity and
‘created’ (for want of more damning adjectives) what
can only be considered in the light of today‘s
knowledge and understanding, a fairy tale. He
deliberately ignored and discredited the truth about
the cornerstone of Christianity, the militant Jesus
who was an adherent of the Enochian Way, an Essene,
a Son of Light, and created in its stead a mild
mannered, meek man who performed a plethora of
improbable ‘miracles’. All of which are based upon
the distortion of mundane everyday events. Having
done all this, he mixed in a goodly proportion of
the existing Roman Mithraic mystical belief system,
and then proceeded to sell his construct to the
Roman world. The Romans would never have tolerated
Christianity had Jesus been portrayed as the
militant he was, working against the oppressive
Roman yoke before his supposed death - Peter
Smith (Religion As Myth)
Had Paul and
his cohorts, together with the church leaders who
followed in their footsteps, destroyed
all earlier reference material,
they might have succeeded in their attempt to prove
that their version of the ‘truth’ was the only
extant version - Peter Smith (Religion As
Myth)
The religious teaching presented in Paul’s Epistles
is fundamentally different from what research has
recognized as being authentic sayings of Jesus…What
we know as Christianity today is not the teaching
contained in these authentic sayings; it is the
theology disseminated by Paul and the doctorers of
his Epistles -
Elmer H Gruber (The Original Jesus)
Either this man (Paul) was never a
Rabbinic Jew at all, or he has quite forgotten what
Rabbinic Judaism was and is
- Thomas Whittaker (The Origins of Christianity
with an Outline of Van Manen's Analysis of the
Pauline Literature)
The only hypothesis that
satisfactorily explains the peculiar agreement in
the style of the whole collection, and at the same
time the differences not merely between one Epistle
and another, but between different parts of the same
Epistle, is that which has been set forth…namely,
that none were written by the Apostle Paul, but that
all proceeded from one circle or "school”
- Thomas Whittaker (The Origins of Christianity
with An Outline of Van Manen's Analysis of the
Pauline Literature)
Paul the Imposter
The Marcionists (a Christian sect)
assumed that the evangelists were filled with
falsities. The Manicheans, who formed a very
numerous sect at the commencement of Christianity,
rejected as false all the New Testament, and showed
other writings quite different that they gave for
authentic. The Cerinthians, like the Marcionists,
admitted not the Acts of the Apostles. The
Encratites, and the Sévénians, adopted neither the
Acts nor the Epistles of Paul. Chrysostom, in a
homily which he made upon the Acts of the Apostles,
says that in his time, about the year 400, many
people knew nothing either of the author or of the
book. St. Irene, who lived before that time, reports
that the Valentinians, like several other sects of
Christians, accused the Scriptures of being filled
with imperfections, errors and contradictions. The
Ebionites, or Nazarines, who were the first
Christians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul and
regarded him as an impostor. They report, among
other things, that he was originally a pagan, that
he came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time
– Boulanger (Life of Paul)
The "Christian" Catacombs
It is now generally accepted that no
Christian catacomb painting can be dated earlier
than 200 CE. The artistic style of the catacomb
paintings, it is agreed, is not a novel Christian
creation, but represents a continuation of styles
found somewhat earlier in late Roman catacomb art.
Early Christian catacomb art is thus an extension or
continuation of Roman art, albeit under Christian
patronage, and not a radical, new departure
- Harold W. Attridge and Gohei Hata (Eusebius,
Christianity, and Judaism)
Religion of Early Man
Primitive people, ancient or modern,
make no distinction between the natural and the
supernatural, between nature and man, human
experience and cosmic events. They have no knowledge
of natural laws or natural causation. Speculation
among the ancients could not take an intellectual or
rational form; it had to be poetic or imaginative.
Theirs was a world of myth, magic, and miracle
- Fred Gladstone Bratton (Myths
and Legends of the Ancient Near East)
Astrology
Mankind has always scrutinized the
heavens, looking for guidance, omens, meanings...The
study of the Sun, the Moon, stars, eclipses, day and
night, began well before recorded history
– Joanna Marine Woolfolk
(The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need)
City Construction
and Astrology
Most of these
cities were built under the inspection and under the
protection of a celestial sign. Their horoscope was
drawn; hence the impression of the images of the
constellations on their medals
- Dupuis (The Origin of all Religious
Worship)
Solar Worship
Although this
god was everywhere and was all...yet did man prefer
to look for him in those elevated regions, where
that mighty and radiant luminary seems to travel
through space...It would seem as if the Almighty had
established his throne above that splendid azure
vault, sown with brilliant lights, that from the
summit of the heavens he held the reins of the
World, that he directed the movements of its vast
body, and contemplated himself in forms as varied as
they are admirable, wherein he modifies himself
incessantly - Dupuis (The
Origin of all Religious Worship)
So far as I can see, the Chaldean
deities were primarily the powers of nature,—the
earth, the sun, or the sky. These developed into
distinct personalities, and the numerous epithets
which were applied to them originated a vast
mythology and an endless array of divinities, each
epithet becoming a separate personality. As in the
case of other nations, the Sun had been the chief
object of worship, and the larger portion of the
mythology accordingly grouped itself about the
Sun-god and the numberless forms which he had
assumed. The more I examine the Akkadian mythology,
the more solar does its character appear
- Rev. A. H. Sayce (The Astronomy and Astrology of
the Babylonians)
The early Israelites were mostly
sun worshipers. And even in later times, the sun
god, Baal. divided with Jehovah the worship of the
Jews. Saul, Jonathan, and David named their children
in honor of this god -
John E. Remsberg
Sun-worship was by no means
unknown to the Israelites....The myths that were
circulated among these people show that they were
zealous worshipers of the sun. These myths are still
preserved, but, as in all other cases, they are so
much altered as to be hardly recognizable. The
writer who has preserved them for us lived at a time
when the worship of the sun had long ago died out.
He transforms the sun god into an Israelite hero
(Samson) - Dr. H. Oort (The
Old Testament for Learners)
Charles Francois Dupuis, in his
Origin of Worship, one of the most elaborate and
remarkable works on mythology ever penned, shows
that nearly all the religions of the world,
including Christianity, were derived largely from
solar worship. All the solar deities, he says, have
a common history. This history, summarized, is
substantially as follows: "The god is born about
December 25th, without sexual intercourse, for the
sun, entering the winter solstice, emerges in the
sign of Virgo, the heavenly Virgin. His mother
remains ever-virgin, since the rays of the sun,
passing through the zodiacal sign, leave it intact.
His infancy is begirt with dangers, because the
new-born Sun is feeble in the midst of the winter's
fogs and mists, which threaten to devour him; his
life is one of toil and peril, culminating at the
spring equinox in a final struggle with the powers
of darkness. At that period the day and night are
equal, and both fight for the mastery. Though the
night veil the urn and he seems dead; though he has
descended out of sight, below the earth, yet he
rises again triumphant, and he rises in the sign of
the Lamb, and is thus the Lamb of God, carrying away
the darkness and death of the winter months.
Henceforth he triumphs, growing ever stronger and
more brilliant. He ascends into the zenith, and
there he glows, on the right hand of God, himself
God, the very substance of the Father, the
brightness of his glory, and the express image of
his person, upholding all things by his life-giving
power" - John E. Remsberg
In their aspirations for communion
with the higher powers, the yearning of the ancient
Chaldeans turned upwards to the planets and the
stars. The horizon of the Babylonian plain was
uniform and boundless. It was the heaven above
rather than the earth beneath, which exhibited
variety and life. The Zodiac was ever new with its
brilliant evolutions. Through the clear atmosphere
the tracks of the shining orbs could be traced in
every phase and transposition. With each dawn of
morning light, with each recurrence of the evening
twilight, a new panorama spread before the reverent
imagination of the dreamer, and he saw in the moving
spheres not only the abode but the manifested glory
of his gods - John C.
Ridpath (History of the World, Vol. 1)
Mithras
He was the “divine son”…As companion
in creation and “protector” of this world he kept
the universe standing in its struggle against its
enemies. At the head of the heavenly host he fought
for God, and with his sword of flame he drove the
Demons of Darkness in terror back into the
shadows...descend upon the earth and in a last
fierce struggle overwhelm Ahriman and his hosts, and
cast them down into the Nether World. He would then
raise the dead in bodily shape, and after a General
Judgment of the whole world, in which the wicked
should be condemned to the punishments of hell and
the good raised to heavenly glory, establish the
“millennial Kingdom of Peace" -
Arthur Dewes (The Christ Myth)
Among the ideas which were borrowed
by Judaism from the Persian religion belonged those
connected with the mediatory “Word.” As the creative
power of the Godhead upon earth, the expression “the
Word” had already appeared in aphoristic literature.
Under Graeco-Egyptian influence the term “wisdom” (sophia)
had become a naturalized expression for it
- Arthur Dewes (The Christ Myth)
Mary as Lucifer
Mary of Bethany, who did the
anointing was known by the Rabbis as Mary Lucifer -
Mary the “light-bringer” –
Picknettt and Prince (Templar
Revelation)
Sacred Prostitutes
Women had their roles in the ancient
cult. There were the sacred prostitutes—an office
well known in the ancient world. It is usually
assumed that the woman dedicated herself to the
service of the god as a sexual partner in some
imitative ritual designed to stimulate the
generative faculties of the fertility deity.
Doubtless, in many of the cults she did perform such
a function, copulating before the altar with the
priests or other male worshippers at certain
festivals. There are also indications that it was
considered necessary to make some sort of booth or
covering for the prostitute and the magic plant
during the seduction
– John Allegro (The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross)
Political Reasons for the Calendar
From the beginning the Roman calendar
was a powerful political tool that governed
religious holidays, festivals, market days and
constantly changing schedules of days when it was
legal to conduct judicial and official business in
the courts and governments...the inaccurate calendar
played havoc not only with the farmers and sailors
but also with a population becoming more dependent
than ever on trade, commerce, law and civil
administration in a rapidly growing empire that
desperately needed a standard system for measuring
time
- David Duncan (The Calendar)
Destruction of Judaism
Emperor Vespasian took possession of
all Jewish religious artifacts that had previously
been safely stored in the Temple, including the
precious Torah, and stored them in the Capitoline
Jove in Rome. He then proclaimed the entire Jewish
territory the Roman Emperor’s persona property. And
had his decision officially ratified by the
Senate…Josephus recorded that Vespasian personally
kept the Torah, revealing that it had at sometime
been recovered from Rabbi Jesus Cunobeline and
replaced in the Temple…the great Temple of Jerusalem
was no longer, and the Jews had been disposed of
their land, their treasure and the physical
substance of their religion
– Tony Bushby (The Bible Fraud)
1452
The first Vulgate or Latin version of the Bible was
printed in Gutenberg.
Original Sin
Devised in the fifth century by St Augustine.
The Rapture
The Rapture was the concoction of John Nelson Darby,
and Anglo-Irish Evangelist.
The term is not in the Bible.
Mary and the Council of Trullo
In 692 AD, the Council of Trullo declared that Mary was
the "ever-virgin." This declaration contradicts several
scriptures, such as Matthew 1:25 and 12:46, Mark 3:31
and 6:3, Luke 8:19, and John 2:12.
The Four Gospels
The four Gospels were first definitely mentioned by
Irenaeus, writing about 190 AD, over one hundred fifty
years after the alleged crucifixion.
Resurrection and Ascension
But the most remarkable point in this connection is the absolute
silence of the Gospel of Mark on the subject of the
resurrection and ascension--that is, of the original
Gospel, for it is now allowed on all hands that the
twelve verses Mark xvi. 9 to the end, are a later
insertion. Considering the nature of this event,
astounding indeed, if physically true, and unique in
the history of the world, it is strange that this
Gospel--the earliest written of the four Gospels,
and nearest in time to the actual evidence-makes no
mention of it. The next Gospel in point of
time--that of Matthew--mentions the matter rather
briefly and timidly, and reports the story that the
body had been stolen from the sepulchre. Luke
enlarges considerably and gives a whole long chapter
to the resurrection and ascension; while the Fourth
Gospel, written fully twenty years later still--say
about A. D. 120--gives two chapters and a great
variety of details!
– Edward Carpenter (Pagan and Christian Creeds)
Constantine
Roman Emperor Constantius married Princess Elaine
of Britain. It was his son Constantine I, who was
crowned Emperor of Rome in York, England. It was
Constantine I who created Roman Catholicism as it is
known and tried, unsuccessfully, to become the new
Messiah through his assumed royal descent from the
family of Jesus – Ralph Ellis (Jesus: Last of
the Pharaohs)
No Public Prayer
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the
hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in
the synagogues and in the corners of the street,
that they be seen of men…But thou, when thou prayest,
enter thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door
pray to thy father which is in secret, and they
father which is in secret shall reward thee
openly…When you pray, use not vain repetitions, as
the heathen do: for they think they will be heard
for their much speaking. Be therefore not like them,
for your father knows what things ye have need of,
before ye ask him
– (Matthew 6:5)
Additional References
and Sources
Irish Origins Appendices Page
Irish Origins References
Atlantis Appendices Page
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