Who Decides What A Culture’s Values Are?

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Did you decide? Would you prefer to live in culture based on Christian, Islamic or Marxist values? According to some Internet Christians, these are the only choices available. Of course anyone with an ounce of sense and a modicum of honesty knows they’re not.

I choose to live in a society that is not dominated by cherry-picked Christian values, or indeed ‘values’ derived from any religion. I reject the claims of them all, including their demonstrably false notion that I and my fellow citizens cannot behave ourselves unless controlled by a morality imposed by an imaginary deity. Likewise, I don’t care to live in a culture determined by an extreme political ideology that serves only one part of society: usually the elites who devise the ideology in question.

Instead I choose, or rather was fortunate enough to be born into, a relatively liberal democracy, capable of determining its own values. These are largely secular and humanistic and include, amongst others, the rule of law, tolerance, and freedom of speech and movement. Of course the UK has never fully realised these aspirations but there has always been a sense, since the 1960s, that we were moving towards them. Perhaps I’m naive to think this, given the turbulence of the Thatcher years and President Blair’s mania for regulation, but overall it used to feel that we were moving gradually towards a fairer, more reasonable society.

It doesn’t now. The elites have embraced a wokeness that benefits a limited few and have redefined terms – ‘woman’, ‘crime’, ‘offence’, ‘hatred’ and ‘phobia’ among them – which has impacted negatively on personal rights and freedoms. They have reinterpreted the law so that it benefits vocal minorities while side-lining the majority. They have repeatedly reneged on promises and over-reacted to the crises of recent years – Covid in particular – by granting themselves greater powers to manage their own over-reaction; powers which, once each crisis has passed, they have declined to relinquish. The values of Britain today, as imposed by the governing classes, are overly woke and authoritarian. In my 68 years, I have never felt as micro-managed in my personal life as I do today.

So, I do understand why there are those who call for the return to what they perceive as Christian values or a cultural Christianity of church bells and hymn singing. I understand too the fear of some that the waning of Christian influence will see extreme Islamic values fill the vacuum. This seems to me to be a real possibility and one that would prove seriously detrimental and damaging to British society. However, attempting to resurrect nebulous ‘Christian values’ in order to prevent more intolerant ones from being imposed is no solution.

We need to be clear about our values and assert those we aspire to: tolerance, liberalism, democracy, freedom of speech, rights for all, equality under the law and, I would add, truthfulness, honesty, fairness, consideration and reasonableness. For a time, this may very well involve being intolerant of intolerance, whether derived from Christianity, Islam, wokeism or political ideology. In particular, we need to stop conceding ground to Islam and resisting the demands of Muslim activists when they conflict with the values and aspirations of the majority.

Perhaps none of this will matter to me, given I’m not going to be around for many more decades (if that). But I would like the Britain my grandchildren grow up in to be one that reflects humane, secular values. I fear for them that it might instead operate on the basis of oppressive, intolerant religious ones.

 

 

free speech

Why We Can’t Return To Christian Values

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There has been a spate of articles recently advocating for a return to Christian values in the UK. Some, like that by Madeline Grant, don’t specify which values they have in mind. Nonetheless, Ms Grant worries about these unspecified values being replaced by the ‘terrible new gods’ of wokeism, while Douglas Murray – an agnostic commentator I admire and enjoy a great deal – argues for the revival of Christian forgiveness. Elsewhere, Richard Dawkins repeats his call for the preservation of ‘cultural Christianity’ in the face of less ‘decent’ religions like Islam.

I’m sure there are good arguments to be made for exercising more forgiveness both in our personal and national lives, though the idea is not without its difficulties. Dawkins too is right to express concerns that the vacuum that may be left as Christianity declines might be filled with more unsavoury and less charitable values.

But what are the Christian values that these writers see less of in modern life? For Dawkins it’s the chiming of church bells and rousing hymns, which, as pleasant as these are (I would not like them to disappear either) do not have any bearing on our morals and values.

According to Total People, our values in the UK are Democracy, the Rule of Law, Respect & Tolerance and Personal Liberty. Certainly the UK has long regarded itself as a tolerant country – though those on the receiving end of intolerance in the past (early immigrants, gay people for example) might disagree – and we have always aspired to show respect without necessarily achieving it. Our morals on the other hand, especially with regard to sex (and Christians invariably mean sex when they talk about moral decline) have changed over the last 30 or so years, becoming more tolerant of, for example, same-sex relationships and less accepting of adulterous or abusive ones.

The question is, however, do we owe our values and morals to Christianity? I’ve argued before that we don’t. I’ve also tried to demonstrate that there is no time in the past we could pinpoint and say, ‘here’s where the country demonstrably and consistently upheld Biblical principles, showing us just how far we’ve fallen since.’ I applied this criterion to the USA when Don Camp suggested there was a now lost Christian golden age, taking random points in US history and demonstrating there never was a time when Christian values prevailed. Any such golden age is a myth, in the States, the UK and anywhere else. It always has been so; read Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth to see how far even early cultists fell short of his ideals. Christians themselves don’t and never have demonstrated the high standards the bible demands.

Why is this? Because Christian morals and values are impossible. Even those who think they live with the Holy Spirit in them fail, and frequently fail dramatically, to practise what they preach. They don’t love their enemies, a ridiculous expectation of Jesus’s that certainly can’t be extended to nations. Many of the righteous don’t demonstrate love for their neighbours (other than bombarding them with the gospel) and frequently showing an appalling lack of empathy for fellow-believers (take a look at the abuse that goes on in the church at large.) They don’t, in the main, sell all they have and give the proceeds to the poor; give to anyone and everyone who asks and give away their shirt as well as their jacket when it’s demanded of them. They do judge others but don’t – sorry, Douglas – forgive fellow-believers seventy times seven, let alone those of us they regard as the great unwashed. Perhaps it’s as well; what would a culture be like that repeatedly forgave its criminals, abusers and bullies?

The frequently ignored Golden Rule of ‘do onto others as you would have them do unto you’ predates Jesus by centuries, while the more realistic, secular version of it, tolerance and respect, likewise doesn’t derive from the Bible, Jesus or the church. This Holy Trinity of terrors demonstrate a marked absence of tolerance and respect for any positions other than their own and ‘personal liberty’ is not a concept known to them. Didn’t Jesus insist his followers become his slaves? His Father, meanwhile, is intolerant of everything human beings do and everything they are.

A Christian who commented on Grant’s article asked those who disputed her premise – that we need to return to Christian values – whether they would prefer to live in a country dominated by Christian, Islamic or Marxist values. I’ll leave his question with you – answers on a postcard please – and return to it next time.

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Death and Taxes. But mainly taxes

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Can I have a rant? I’m sick and tired of tax I have to pay in the UK to pay for others’ ill-conceived schemes and failures. I know a society depends on taxation for its services; taxation, in theory, ensures its successful operation. Here in the UK taxation pays for health care, policing, the justice system, defence, amenities, schools, welfare support, local services and the salaries of local and national government officials. However, British tax payers are currently paying the highest tax in 70 years – since World War 2 in fact.

Currently in the UK, average incomes are taxed at 20%. Purchases on everything except essential food items and children’s clothing are taxed at 20%, petrol at a staggering 54%, average house purchases at 5% while so-called green taxes are set at around 15%. Then there are local taxes, based on property size, road tax for those who drive and inheritance taxes that limit how much an individual can pass on to his or her offspring of money that has been already taxed. Plus the tax on alcohol (variable but around 25%), sugar tax (an average of 21p per litre of fizzy drink), house purchase tax (‘stamp duty’), inheritance tax and tobacco tax. It is estimated the average working person in the UK pays in the region of 40% of their income in tax.

What does the government do with all the money it collects? Too much of it pays for government bungling:

  • The mess made of the Covid pandemic when almost 10 billion pounds of public money was wasted – thrown away – on unusable PPE equipment. More tax payers money is now being spent on destroying that same equipment, while the Covid Enquiry, set up to discover just how badly the government bungled lockdown, is currently costing tax payers a further 156 million pounds.
  • Approximately 10.3 billion pounds was lost on the government’s Covid support scheme in 2012-22 due to ‘fraud and error’. In the same period, a further 40 billion pounds was wasted on other government schemes, none of which it was capable of operating with any degree of competence. 

  • The government’s inability to control immigration, both legal and illegal, despite numerous promises it would do so. I have a great deal of sympathy for those fleeing danger (though many who claim asylum in Britain are actually coming from France) but the UK’s services – those mentioned above – simply cannot cope with the increased numbers. Asylum seekers are initially accommodated at a cost of 8 million pounds a day, 1.3 billion pounds per year, in hotels and houses bought or rented by the government’s appointed agencies. It takes about 18 months for the Home Office to assess whether applicants can stay.

  • The 537 million pounds of tax payers’ money the government gave to China between 2009 and 2021. This apparently funds private enterprise in a country known for its disregard of human rights, one which the government itself has recently said poses a major threat to world security. It is currently donating a ‘reduced’ amount of 10 million a year. Why? Is this little more than protection money?

    Last year, the UK also gave £33.4 million to India, a country with its own space program. The amount is set to increase to £57 million next year. The UK government claims that much of this is for ‘business investment’. But again, why?

  • The 480 million pounds being handed over to French authorities in return for them preventing smugglers leaving French shores with illegal immigrants in unsafe rubber dinghies. The French authorities fail to do this but the British government continues to pay them.

  • The subsidies government hands over to private business, like the train companies that now receive more tax payers’ money than they did when the system was in public ownership.
  • The bailing out of failing banks in loans, only a small fraction of which is ever repaid despite the extortionate amounts the banks continue to pay their executives in bonuses.
  • Redundancy payments made to those in failing private businesses: the Body Shop is the latest to benefit from tax payers’ largesse.
  • Paying not just the salaries but the pensions of civil servants, bureaucrats, politicians and police. (Disclosure: as a former teacher, I paid, together with my employers’ contributions, for my own pension.)

  • The generous pay increases MPs award themselves. The latest only a few weeks ago was 5.5%. Local councillors meanwhile awarded themselves 20%, again payable by tax payers. The bars and restaurants in the Houses of Parliament are all subsidised in the same way, as is the heating of MPs’ second homes.

  • The endless expansion of the civil service, some of whom are currently considering striking because they have been told they must turn up at the office two days a week. This, they say, is an imposition too far, contravening the basic human right to work at home in their pyjamas (or something.)
  • Failing to get people back into work and paying those who will not work, often over entire lifetimes.
  • Unnecessary green policies. Britain has little need, despite the ranting of a few excitable extremists, to rush headlong into unsustainable green policies. Green taxes are, in theory at least, passed to multi-billion pound industries, that are more than capable of doing so for themselves, to develop more sustainable energy sources.
  • For the government’s failure to reform the NHS, which, it is estimated, employs as many administrators and bureaucrats as it does clinicians and medics, the people who actually deliver health care.

Tax payers’ money is not the panacea for all the problems politicians have failed to resolve. Liberally throwing tax payers’ hard-earned cash at whatever problem arises should not, on every occasion, be the first resort. It ought to be the last. It is easy to spend other people’s money, without accountability, and easy to waste it. When it runs out, it is equally as easy to increase taxes to extract still more from the masses. This is precisely what happened last year when taxes were, yet again, raised ‘temporarily’.

There is nothing I and ordinary hardworking people can do about this unjust, exploitative arrangement. We can vote against the current governing party and perhaps, as seems likely, have it replaced with another who will tax us just as much, or, as seems likely, more. They will then waste our money on other self-serving, hair-brained and ultimately fruitless causes.

End of rant.

 

 

 

Crime the Newspeak way

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Reports coming in of a burglary in progress, Sarge.

Burglary, you say? Not our responsibility, son. The householder will be insured, don’t worry.

But, Sarge…

Stop stressing, son. We’ve got more important things to deal with.

Like what, Sarge? Stopping those Save The Planet extremists from bringing the motorway to a standstill?

Don’t be daft, lad. That’s not our concern either. They’re entitled to disrupt whatever they like. It’s a human right so long as they’re supporting some cause or other.

But what about when they damage public property, Sarge? Shouldn’t we intervene then?

Not likely! We don’t want to be seen as the unenlightened tools of an authoritarian state.

Like we were in Lockdown, you mean?

That was different.

But what about the vandalism? You know, when they throw soup at old paintings and cut them up with knives?

Self-expression, son. They’re entitled.

So vandalism’s not a crime anymore?

Only when it’s motivated by hate. Then it’s a hate crime – obviously.

What about shop-lifting then? There’s been a lot of that lately.

Dear, dear. That’s totally different, lad. Shops are insured and can always pass the cost of a bit of light pilfering onto paying customers. It’s not a problem that need concern us.

None of this is as simple as I thought it was going to be.

You’ve got to get your priorities straight. That’s the key.

What do you mean, Sarge?

What you need to be concerned about is whether what somebody’s written on social media is a hate crime. And let me tell you, it usually is.

Right.

You’ve been on your 10 day Hate Speech Detection training, haven’t you? You should know all this.

I found it confusing, Sarge. I wasn’t sure that criticising God-botherers or misgendering someone was really, well… hate. And I couldn’t tell either whether somebody just expressing their views was what you’d call hate speech.

Listen, son. As a rule of thumb, it’s all hate speech. Or, as we’re going to be calling it from hereon in, ‘a non-crime hate incident’.

But if it’s not a crime, Sarge, why are we bothering about it? I mean, aren’t we supposed to be dealing with, you know, real crime?

What, you mean petty things like burglaries and thieving, anti-social behaviour and vandalism? Don’t be daft, son. That’s not what we’re about any more.

But I thought…

You see, that’s your problem right there, son. You’re not being paid to think.

But…

I’m putting you down for 10 days Non-Crime Hate Incident training. We’ll soon have you licked into shape, don’t you worry.

But, Sarge…

_______________________________________

The Scottish Government’s foolhardy Hate Crime Act comes into force today, April 1st.

Canada introduced such a law earlier this year.

Who’s next?

 

The Great Resurrection Scam

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Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 (circa AD 49-51)

Paul said that because Jesus died and rose from the dead others would too. How does this follow?

He also claimed that all a person had to do to be sure of a spiritual resurrection was to believe that Jesus had already risen (1 Corinthians 15:20, AD 53-54), How did he know this? Almost certainly it came to him in one of his visions and his subsequent ‘revelations’ (‘the Lord’s word’ as he puts it in the letter to the Thessalonian sect).

Possibly, though less likely, he learnt it from the Christians he persecuted prior to his conversion. If so, where did they get the idea from? That the cult members in Thessalonica had to ask Paul what would happen to those who had passed away suggests this wasn’t a significant concern prior to this point. Paul and other early believers thought the Messiah/Son of Man was going to appear within their lifetimes (‘we who are still alive’ etc). It was only when cultists started dying off in noticeable numbers, and the Lord remained a no-show, that it started to become an issue. Paul had to make something up. And make it up he did.

Just suppose…

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Let’s imagine that the gospels were all written by eye-witnesses or the associates of eye-witnesses. Let’s suppose that prior to their composition there was a vibrant oral tradition that accurately preserved the Jesus story and his teaching in particular. Let’s suppose that Paul learnt what he knew of Christianity initially from the early believers he persecuted and then, following his miraculous conversion, from his meetings with the disciples. Let’s suppose that the later books of New Testament were written by people who knew Jesus personally or were really by Paul. Let’s suppose that everything in the bible was inspired by God and is truly his word. Let’s imagine that as result of all this, everything predicted and prophesied in the gospels, in Paul’s letters and the later ones by apostles, came to pass.

Because we’d have to imagine this. Even if everything we’ve supposed was true, none of the prophesies, predictions or promises have materialised in reality. Not one. No Son of Man beaming down from heaven while the disciples and Pilate were still alive, (as he promises in Mark 9:1 and Mark 14:62 respectively), no visit from the Messiah while Paul and his acolytes were living (1 Thessalonians 4:17), no final judgement, no Kingdom of heaven on Earth, no Christians performing miracles greater than those attributed to Jesus. Not even any ‘new creations’ imbued with the Holy Spirit (‘by their fruits shall ye know them.’)

Apologists put a lot of effort into explaining away these failures, some even arguing the Kingdom is actually with us now (how incredibly disappointing it is if this is the case!) Most disappointing of all is that no Christian has ever resurrected from the dead. Not Paul, not Peter, Mary Magdalene nor any other early follower, and no-one since: not Martin Luther, Charles Wesley, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham nor any bishop, minister or evangelist who has ever lived. All have remained resolutely dead, just like everyone else who has ever ‘fallen asleep’ and everyone who will in the future.

However much Christians want to insist the Bible is true, accurate and God-breathed, in the end it simply doesn’t deliver.

Religiophobia?

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Is criticising Christianity and the way some people practise their religion a form of Christophobia? Strictly speaking a phobia is an irrational fear of whatever precedes it, as in homo-phobia, trans-phobia, Islamo-phobia and the like. In the accusations of whatever-phobia we hear today – and they invariably are accusations – ‘phobia’ seems to have come to mean ‘hatred of’; a hatred of Christianity and therefore of Christians; of homosexuality and therefore of gay people; of trans-people; of Muslims and so on.

Reasonable criticism of belief systems is not hatred. I don’t and am sure I never have had a hatred of Christianity or of any other religion. I certainly have views about Christianity as a seriously flawed, cock-eyed superstition (I hope I’m not giving my position away too early.) Reasonable criticism of it, mockery even, is perfectly legitimate, for reasons I’ve outlined before, just as criticism and mockery of any belief in the fantastic is legitimate. Ideologies based on belief in imaginary beings do not automatically merit respect nor do they have a de facto immunity from criticism. The same applies to those who subscribe to such fantasies, particularly when they attempt to force them on others. Calling out believers on their inconsistencies and hypocrisy is perfectly reasonable.

Is it fair then to express critical views of homosexuality and by extension of gay people? Of course. We are not immune from reasoned criticism, though much of it doesn’t qualify as ‘reasoned’; we have suffered much from emotional reactions to our existence and still do. (See Bruce’s recent post in which Republican North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson rants about godless homos. When comment deteriorates into vitriol it becomes an incitement to hatred and, sometimes, violence. When this happens, the modern sense of phobia is justified.)

Islam is as irrational as Christianity and other religious belief systems. It is as legitimate to criticise and, when appropriate, to condemn Islam, just as it is Christianity. It is reasonable to question Muslim’s treatment of women, to insist it is inappropriate, particularly in a Western context. It is appropriate to oppose Muslims’ opposition to Western values rather to accede to their opposition to, for example, freedom of speech or the teaching of evolution and sex education in schools. It seems increasingly to me that in Britain we are conceding too much to Islam and to Muslims because we fear both the accusation of Islamophobia and, not entirely irrationally, a disproportionately aggressive response. Reasonable criticism of a belief system and those who subscribe to it is not hateful. We have a duty in a largely secular society to say so. To resist irrational belief in the supernatural when that belief, be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other of the 4,200 religions human beings have dreamt up seeks to impose itself on others is neither hateful nor irrational. It is essential.

I‘d write more about Islam if I knew more about it. I’m disinclined to learn more, however, having already wasted much of my life in thrall to that other ‘great’ religion, the one I spend so much time deconstructing here. Who needs to know more about another? Saviours, Prophets, Gods, angels, signs and wonders – they’re all equally meaningless. Instead of claiming they’re victims of Christo/Islamophobia, religionists would do well to develop thicker skins as we ‘abominations’ and ‘perverts’ have had to do. They should ask themselves whether criticism of their practices and worldview is justified. They might just find it is.

Final Judgement

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‘So,’ the-God-who-is-above-all-others boomed at me, ‘did you hate your family in order to follow my Son and further my Kingdom on Earth?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I replied. ‘I love my family and I wasn’t going to hate them to follow you or anyone else.’

God tutted, a sound like a clap of thunder. ‘Mark him down in the book,‘ he growled to the grotesque creature beside him. It was like something out of a third-rate horror film with bat’s wings and multiple eyes. It dutifully scratched away in the large book it held open in front of it.

‘Did you, then, accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour?’ asked the Almighty.

I squinted, my hand over my eyes as the dazzling light that obscured his face almost blinded me. ‘Once. Yes,’ I admitted.

‘I suppose, once is good enough. And after that did you lead a blameless, righteous life?’

‘I doubt it. I did my best but righteousness wasn’t particularly high on my agenda.’

‘Another black mark,’ God said to his ugly angel. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his shiny visage turned again in my direction, ‘did you feed the hungry, visit the sick and clothe the naked?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Did you? Or having created us, did you just abandon us to manage as best we could, all the time carping about how we were going about it?’

‘You see my dilemma, don’t you?’ he said, suddenly acting all reasonable. ‘You gave your life to Jesus sixty-five of your Earth years ago and I am bound to honour that; you know, ‘once saved always saved’, as I promise somewhere or other. It’s just that it doesn’t look as if you’ve upheld your end of the bargain.’

‘I thought you did it all,’ I said.

The Almighty sighed, his perfumed breath gusting through the great hall. ‘Did you, for example, manage to avoid fornication, gossip, unnatural sex, thievery, rebelliousness, drunkenness, drag acts, adultery, coveting (whatever that is) and, erm, sex.‘

‘Most of it. Not so much the sex that you seem so obsessed with. As I’m sure you already know, being omniscient and all that, I was in a same-sex relationship before you killed me off.’

‘Christ!’, he spluttered, the Heavenly sputum drenching all who were present. ’You do know this excludes you from my special club, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Have you never read what old whatsisname said about this sort of thing? He warned you.’

‘I don’t care what old whatsisname said. I don’t care what you think either. I’ve treated other people fairly, tried to be kind and helped others when I could. I’ve never cheated or taken advantage of anyone. I’ve never taken a life and I haven’t, unlike you, ordered a murder. If that’s not good enough for you, then that’s your problem, not mine.

‘You think so?’ he sneered. ‘Not when I hold all the cards.’

‘Do you know,’ I said, with nothing left to lose, ‘You’re the worst excuse for a God imaginable. And you are imagined. You’re petulant, impetuous and unjust. Your solution to every problem is to torture and kill people. Your so-called salvation plan is muddled and contrived…’

‘Enough! Take him below!’

A cartoon demon appears by my side and prods me in the ribs with his pitch-fork. I wake suddenly and sit bolt upright in the pew. ‘You were snoring,’ Dennis says. We’re at the funeral of a friend who, for some reason – insurance maybe – insisted on having it in church. The minister is still delivering his soporific eulogy, hardly mentioning our friend and droning on instead about Jesus.

‘Sorry,’ I whisper to Dennis. ‘I just saw God. In my dream, which I know is the only way you can see him.

‘Shush,’ hisses the octogenarian American in the row behind.

‘Dreams and in your imagination,’ I can’t resist adding.

 

How the Bible tells us the Resurrection was nothing more than Visions

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I’ve written about this before, but want to pull together some strands that demonstrate the risen Jesus was a vision or hallucination. He appeared only in the mind of others: the New Testament tells us as much.

Exhibit 1. Paul writes of the appearance of the risen Jesus, whom he sees as a ‘life-giving Spirit’, being ‘in’ him (Galatians 1.16). Paul has more than one such vision, including his trip to heaven recounted in 2 Corinthians 12.2, which he refers to as his ‘revelations’.

Exhibit 2. Paul implies in Corinthians 15.5-8 that others who have experienced the post-mortem Jesus ‘saw’ him in exactly the same way he did. For Paul, there was no difference between his inner-visions and those experienced by the so-called apostles.

Exhibit 3. The author of Acts creates a story out of Paul’s first vision, the famous account of his conversion on the road to Damascus. It’s a fabrication of course, told differently each time it’s referred to Even so, Luke retains the visionary nature of the experience: Jesus is a bright light and a disembodied voice.

Exhibit 4. The other sightings of the risen Jesus in Acts are visions. When, for example, Stephen is about to be stoned (Acts 7:54-56) he sees in his mind’s eye the heavens open and Jesus sitting at the right hand of god. Other New Testament encounters of the resurrected Jesus, such as John’s Revelation, are explicitly said to be visions.

Exhibit 5. Many of the sightings of the risen Jesus in Matthew and Luke are not of a real, physical human being. Those who experience him see him materialising in locked rooms, vanishing at will and floating up into the clouds. None of these events actually happened; they are the gospel writers’ literary realisations of visions experienced decades earlier, and they retain the hallucinatory qualities of those experiences.

Exhibit 6. Remaining with the gospels’ accounts of the risen Jesus, there is the strange phenomenon of those experiencing him failing to recognise him. Mary in the garden thinks he’s the gardener; the disciples on the road to Emmaus don’t know its him until he breaks bread; the disciples mistake him for someone else on the shore until he tells them how to fish properly. Most damning of all, some of the inner circle of disciples doubt it’s Jesus they’re seeing in their collective visions (Matt 28:17-18). Again, these stories preserve the tradition that the earlier visions weren’t always recognised as Jesus. And why wasn’t he? Because he was an hallucination

Exhibit 7. The risen Jesus has to prove who he is. According to Acts 1:1-3, he ‘presents himself’ his followers, some of whom have wandered around aimlessly with him for three years, and has to convince them he is who he appears to be. And, the text suggests, it takes him forty days to do it. This makes no sense. A far better explanation of this story (and it is a story) is that having experienced their visions of something-they-took-to-be-the-resurrected-Jesus (bright lights? Disembodied voices?), his followers set about convincing themselves that what they experienced really was their former Master. This they did by scouring the scriptures to find ‘proof’ that the Messiah would die and rise again. We know this is how their thinking worked. The same process was used to create the gospels and is evident throughout the New Testament.

Exhibit 8. Dead people stay dead. They do not resurrect.. This is not an a priori assumption. No corpse has ever revived after 36 hours or indeed any other period of time. We know this experientially, statistically and scientifically. Only in stories and religious myth do the dead return. This is what we are dealing with here: stories and myth that flesh out the visions and hallucinations of a few religious zealots.

The Myth

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Some people see the myth and think it’s true.

Others see the myth and believe it conveys deeper truths.

A few see the myth for what it is…

Myth, like all those other stories about dying and rising god-men.

Myth, like those stories about supernatural beings who never          actually existed.

Myth, like the stories in which real people undergo apotheosis after          their deaths.

Despite the contemporary Christian assertion that no-one in the ancient world considered the gospels to be myth, Justin Martyr, writing circa AD150, was moved to address the charge:

When we say that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.” (Apology 21, my emphasis. You can read more here)

And how does Justin explain the similarities between the gospels and pagan myth?:

For when they say that Dionysus arose again and ascended to heaven, is it not evidence the devil has imitated the prophecy? (22:55, my emphasis)

The devil did it! It was ‘diabolical mimicry’!

Except we know it wasn’t. Early cultists created their own myth(s) using ‘prophecy’ from Jewish scripture and common mythical tropes to create their own god-man stories. Which isn’t to say Jesus didn’t exist – after all, Augustus existed, undergoing an imaginary apotheosis after his death – but it does mean gospel Jesus, the Son of God, the third person of the Trinity, is as much a fiction as all those other characters who were deified after their deaths. Which begs the question, why create a mythic character if Jesus was really so impressive to begin with? Unless of course he wasn’t.

Some people see the myth and think it’s true.

Others see the myth and believe it conveys deeper truths.

A few see the myth for what it is.