Here’s what I’ve been told:
“Christianity was invented by people who wanted to get rich and gain influence.”
That’s possible, I suppose.
Let’s imagine what that planning meeting looked like:
Paul: Hey! I know how we can make a lot of money!
Peter: How?
Paul: Let’s make up a God.
Peter: You mean like Zeus?
Paul: No! A God that’s different. This God is the one who made everything!
Peter: Oh! You mean like the Jewish God?
Paul: Sort of, I guess. But part of a ‘trinity’.
Peter: A what…?
Paul: Exactly! It’s a mystery! It doesn’t make sense!
Peter: How is that helpful?
Paul: We build our whole religion out of confusion…and lies.
Peter: People might catch on.
Paul: Nope! This is the first century. We’re superstitious twits who believe anything!
Peter: So what’s this God’s name.
Paul: Jesus of Nazareth
Peter: You mean the dead guy?
Paul: Yep.
Peter: …um…he’s dead.
Paul: We’ll just tell people he’s alive again. They’ll buy it.
Peter: Shouldn’t we pick somebody…I don’t know…better?
Paul: Better than a poor, unremarkable carpenter from an insignificant town?
Peter: Yeah.
Paul: No. We’re trying to go against the grain here! Break protocol.
Peter: So how do we get rich?
Paul: We give everything away for free.
Peter: …and then…?
Paul: Then we tell people to share their stuff with each other.
Peter: Ah! So people have to join our religion if they want to participate in the swap meet!
Paul: No. We’ll share with people outside our group too.
Peter: But we charge those people, right?
Paul: No. Share with everybody, including people who try to kill us.
Peter: That sounds stupid.
Paul: Exactly! Confusion and lies!
Peter: So how do people sign-up for this religion?
Paul: They pledge to live as servants of Jesus Christ!
Peter: Servants of a dead guy…?
Paul: Serving Jesus by serving one another! Get it?
Peter: No! How do WE get rich?
Paul: We get eternal life in paradise!
Peter: How is that even possible?!
Paul: Jesus Christ gives it to us!
Peter: The dead guy gives us eternal life?!?!
Paul: *giggles* This is really starting to take shape!
Peter: Nobody is going to sign-up for this crap!
Paul: They will if we sell it hard enough.
Peter: How do we do that?
Paul: We all die martyrs deaths!
And that’s how Christianity got started.
When you think about it for just a moment…
…it all makes perfect sense!
0 Responses
Sigh. .Jasmine, please ask a teenager in your acquaintance – they’ll know the difference between myth and fact. You don’t seem to.
Proof you can’t answer the simplest question. You do exactly what you accuse Branyan of. Who is the real hypocrite here?
Not a trick, but a treat!
JZ,
Dave shows up and quotes scripture, thinking he’s performing a Jedi mind trick, I see. 🙂
You quote scientists. What’s the difference?
Jasmine, if you don’t know the difference between scientists and the Bible, you’ve got problems.
Why should I believe one man’s words over another’s? What makes your scientists more believable?
That was fun to read, John.
I find it bizarrely confirming of my faith when people look at me like I am from an alien planet and say “You really believe that stuff?” The willful blindness of men makes me grieve. Paul laid it out so well in Romans 1:18-21. Men know that there is a God deep in their hearts. But they deny it and suppress it so that they don’t have to obey their Creator and imagine they will not have to answer to Him when they die. That is much easier than living their lives for Christ and doing what He wants us to do.
Talk about crazy… choosing to live a life honoring to God rather than living for myself and my every desire. That would be crazy… if it was a lie.
Belief that life has a meaning and purpose and a Creator makes much more sense than belief that we are but an accidental gathering of molecules in a primordial goo that somehow became alive and evolved to humanity. The only reason life has value to any of us is because God has put that in our hearts when He put His image onto humans in Creation.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (ESV)
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Dave
Couple of observations.
First, Jesus was born a Jew, lived a Jew, and died a Jew. His god was the god of the Pentateuch: Yhwh.
Second, the trinity is not unique to Christian theology. It is, in fact found in the OT: Isaiah 48:16:“From the beginning from the time that it was, I was there: (1st person) and now the Lord GOD (2nd person) and His Spirit, (3rd person) hath sent me (1st person).”
The concept of a Trinity is however much older, fully expressed in Zoroastrian:
Ahura Mazda (the Father), Spenta Mainyu or Vohu Mana (the Holy Spirit), and Asha Vahista (the Logos, or Son):
In the Egyptian ” Hymn to Amun” it’s written:
In Buddhism, the Trikāya doctrine says that a Buddha has three kāyas or bodies (from wiki):
1. The Dharmakāya or Truth body which embodies the very principle of enlightenment and knows no limits or boundaries;
2. The Sambhogakāya or body of mutual enjoyment which is a body of bliss or clear light manifestation;
3. The Nirmāṇakāya or created body which manifests in time and space.
Toaists treach of The Three Pure Ones who are regarded as the pure and singular manifestation of the Tao and the origin of all sentient beings. They are also called the Three Pure Pellucid Ones, the Three Pristine Ones, the Three Divine Teachers, the Three Clarities, or the Three Purities.
In Hinduism, the trinity (Trimūrti, or The Three Forms) is of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. These three-in-one are called “the Hindu triad” or the “Great Trinity”
In the Hindu Puranas there is this passage:
In response, the three-gods-in-one (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva [or Shiva]), replied,
And the concept is also found with the Greeks. Aristotle wrote:
‘All things are three, and thrice is all: and let us use this number in the worship of the gods; for, as the Pythagoreans say, everything and all things are bounded by threes, for the end, the middle and the beginning have this number in everything, and these compose the number of the Trinity'”.
Lastly, who said Paul started Christianity to make money?
I’m not sure what point you were trying to make with all of that.
I’m sure it will make perfect sense when JZ eventually pastes his entire book on JB’s blog. I hope JZ gives Carmen a refund.