Archive for church “fathers’

Choosing What to Believe

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, history, humanity, life, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010 by chouck017894

Most of the writings that are known as the New Testament were established by canon around 200 CE.  In this process the “fathers” of Christianity were highly selective in the choices of their scriptural literature, often rejecting some parts within a literary work or even rejecting complete works of the same general tone.  This gathering took place to set up the politics to be structured into their faith system and it required careful pruning and rejection of many literary works that were in use by outlying Christian cults that were springing up throughout the Roman Empire.  The “fathers,” in their zeal to impose a management system upon as many seekers as possible, indulged themselves in a pick-and-choose orgy of various works that often proved to be too contradictory.

With politics of the struggling faith system always in the back of their minds the “fathers” therefore found the Gospel of John to be tolerable but cast aside similar works such as the Dialogue of Thomas.  The Gospel of John happened to be written in such a manner that it could be utilized (read altered) to promote certain policies that the “fathers” favored.  Gnostic-like works such as the Dialogue of Thomas and similar works encompassed a much broader and freer acceptance of religious practice than the power-seeking “fathers” liked.  The “fathers” wanted the people to become totally reliant upon the dictates of church representatives.  If seekers believed that one could approach the power that was personified as “God” only through his son-agent, and the church was the son’s representative, then the church had to be obeyed. 

Thus the Gospels that were not rejected survived simply because they served the political needs of the newly emerging authority-seeking priest class.  The shapers of the Christian cult in 200 CE followed the example of priest-authors devoted to Yahweh in the 7th century BCE in Jerusalem who understood that the basic institutional structure of their religion had to have the apparent support of “authorized” scriptures.

The political platform upon which episcopal authority (church government) campaigned and  overran the more natural and honest religions at that time was the insistence that each person had to have a means beyond their own personal power to approach the creative primacy that was/is personified as “God.”  In this way the concept of “salvation” became totally a churchly matter and no longer a personal affair between each person and the Creator.  This irrational intrusion of the church being thrust between a seeker and the Absolute had to carry the appearance of being divinely ordained if it was to become an influencing factor over the masses.  And this is what accounts for the selection of Gospels that have been held out for nearly 2000 years as God’s approved pathway to heaven.  It was simply coincidence that those painstakingly selected works allowed for the souls of seeker to be held hostage as a means of financial resources and political muscle for the church.

2 Comments »

Keep ’em Dumbed Down

Posted in Atheist, Bible, Christianity, culture, enlightenment, history, humanism, life, logic, nontheism, prehistory, random, religion, science, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2009 by chouck017894

Knowledge or expanding one’s intelligence was not exactly a high priority in the early Christian movement. The pursuit of gnosis (Greek, meaning knowledge) was actually regarded as heretical by the early shapers of church thought such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and others. The pursuit of knowledge was regarded as a threat to the fledgling sect because those who sincerely wanted to know how the seen and the unseen interact would always ask too many unanswerable questions. This trait to seek out rational explantions is what is referred to in the book 1 Timothy 6:29 (written c. 103-105 CE) as “falsely called knowledge.”

This approach was introduced into the emerging movement’s literature with the character of Paul (c. 84-90 CE) who is presented as seeking to reach and shape adherents from the throngs of common people, i.e. the lesser educated masses. If one doubts that the struggling movement that was to become Christianity sought to keep people in ignorance look more closely at the New Testament for enlightenment. Matthew 10:16 (written c. 70-75 CE) equates wisdom with evil! Matthew 10:19 and Mark 13:11 (revised c. 70-80 CE) instruct persons not to study a problem but to pray and ask for divine guidance. In 1 Corinthians 3:15 (written c. 94-100 CE) it is declared that wisdom is foolishness! And the Roman mindset is disclosed in 2 Corinthians 10:5 (c. 100-105 CE) stating that every thought must be a slave of god—meaning that the church would do the thinking for each person. And because confession was regarded as good for the soul, it is admitted in 1 Corinthians 1:18 and in 2:16 that Christianity was directed to the ignorant, not to the learned and wise.

Wisdom and the quest for wisdom was regarded by the early church “fathers” as a menace, and later theologians captivated by this aversion to seeking genuine wisdom sought to rewrite history by declaring that pre-Christian Gnosticism had attached itself to Christianity like a parasite and drew sustenance from the narrow tenets of the movement! The Gnostics may have early-on expected the young movement to embrace a more rational system of belief, but they refused to knuckle under to what the Gnostics rightfully perceived as being the perversion of supernaturalism that was being marketed as “Gospel.”

Gnosticism sought to reconcile different beliefs through rational study using such interests as Greek philosophy, Jewish cabalistic mysticism, Babylonian mythology, Mithraism, and Persian dualism as inspiration. The Gnostics believed salvation was made attainable by resisting the temptations of the material world that such beliefs encouraged; the Christians and Jews, on the other hand, kept their tight focus on the material advantages harvested in life even as they condemned them.

There are few devoted Christians today who recognize the influence that Gnosticism had on Christian writings, for the church brought all its might to bear to eradicate Gnosticism as a “hated doctrine.” But the “fathers” were unknowingly outmaneuvered—and that is shown in the material presented as the book of Revelation (written c. 135-138 CE), which is a reworking of ancient Gnosis once taught by Pagan mystics. Certainly by c. 135 CE.  the character of Jesus had undergone dramatic psychological changes from the earlier portrayal of him as a gentle teacher, and in the final installment of the NT, Jesus acts more like  the son of the Demiurge who in an orgiastic frenzy passes judgment upon a ravaged world to bring his followers back to materialism (new Earth, new Jerusalem, etc) and his dictatorial order.

1 Comment »