The Evil of Christianity

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Moral corruption and abuse are the inevitable destinations of religious sects. And they are all sects, regardless of their facade of respectability.

I recently watched Disciples: The Cult of T. B. Joshua, a series of programmes made by the BBC, about the Synagogue Church Of All Nations, led by the late ‘Daddy’ Joshua in Nigeria. You can watch the programmes on the BBC iPlayer where available and on YouTube elsewhere. When not preaching Jesus in the church’s massive auditorium, ‘Man of God’ Joshua was systematically and callously abusing, degrading and raping the vulnerable young women he had lured into serving the church.

Then today, I read of the sexual abuse of children, both historical and recent, by church leaders in a sect operating in Canada and the US known as The Truth. The abuse of some young boys and girls went on for years, leaving victims psychologically scarred and the perpetrators unpunished.

The Church worldwide has a serious, significant problem with sexual abuse that it consistently fails to address. There’s also the widescale abuse perpetrated in and by the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist and Anglican sects. It is usually left to journalists and secular authorities to take responsibility for rooting out and exposing the abuse. The Church itself covers up, obfuscates and makes excuses, the chief of which is that the sects in question, the leaders in question, are an aberration and not ‘real’ Christians at all. (No kidding. But then who is?)

Individual Believers will say – and there will be some who will say it in response to this post – that it doesn’t happen in their nice little church (you sure?) and dismiss abuse as something that happens only in misguided cults. The truth is that the Church hands power to charismatic, manipulative men who, provided they preach the true gospel (whatever that is), are elevated above secular law and, lacking in empathy, regard themselves as beyond moral constraint. They see themselves as answerable only to God, because the Bible says so, and he has anointed them with both power and authority.

It happens time and again in churches, sects and Christian cults everywhere. It is the surest sign that Christianity does not work and is, despite the honeyed words of its apologists, positively evil.

Mark and the Oral Tradition

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Paul never refers to ‘the disciples’, the term used for Jesus’ inner circle in the later gospels. Instead, he refers to the founders of the cult as ‘apostles’ (literally ‘messengers’). Cephas is described as an apostle, as is Barnabas (Acts 14:14) and Paul himself. Paul defines the term more specifically as someone who has been commissioned directly by Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:1; Galatians 1:1-2). Evidently he himself was not: he encountered the risen Christ only in his head. He felt this was more than good enough. For Paul it was the only qualification anyone needed to be an apostle. He cites others who had encountered Jesus in the same way:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15: 3-8)

What he goes on to say is crucial in understanding the nature of ‘the gospel’ that was in circulation in the years before Mark’s gospel:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed (1 Corinthians 15: 8-11; my emphasis.)

What they preached was their visions of a celestial Saviour. The witness of these visionaries of the risen Christ was the only gospel they knew and, Paul suggests here and elsewhere, the only one that was being transmitted orally when he was active. As we saw last time, he knew no other details of Jesus’ life, had none passed on to him and passed none on to others, except for these visions and the teaching he worked out from them – his ‘revelations’. Let me say that again: the visions of the risen Jesus were all he, Cephas and others knew. Paul says so categorically. There was no other ‘oral tradition’.

Paul builds his subsequent teaching on Jewish scripture, showing how his ‘revelations’ must be from the Christ because they comply with this scripture (even though he has to manipulate it to make it do so: in Romans 9, for example). Nowhere does he say he is referring to any history he has learnt, nor to anything passed on to him orally about Jesus’ teaching, ministry, life or miracles. Just the opposite in fact:

I want you to know… that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it; rather I received it (directly) by revelation from Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 1: 11-12).

About seven years after Paul’s death, a literate member of the one of the cult communities – known to us as Mark – decided to set down Paul’s teaching about the Christ in allegorical form. He tells us this is what he is doing several times in his gospel, including Mark 4:11-12:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (referencing and misquoting Isaiah 6:9)

Mark did not depend on any oral tradition for his information about Jesus’ life because apart from the ‘announcement’ built on Cephas’, Paul’s and others’ visions there was no oral tradition. Mark took Paul’s teaching and like him, used Jewish scripture as the basis for the story he developed from it. Thus, Paul’s ‘revelation’ of a bread and wine ritual (1 Corinthians 11:23-27) becomes the Last Supper (Mark 4:22-24); Paul’s teaching about forgiveness becomes Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness; Paul’s dispute with Cephas leads to a gospel Peter who is bungling and disloyal; Paul’s mention of The Twelve in 1 Corinthians becomes, with a miscalculation, the disciples; Paul’s instruction to obey the authorities (Roman’s 13:1) becomes Jesus’ (Mark 12:17); Paul’s, and Jewish scriptures’, promise of the spiritually blind (2 Corinthians 4:3-6) being helped to see becomes Jesus’ miracles of healing; Paul’s predictions about the end of the age (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) become Jesus’ (Mark 13); Paul’s talk of the coming of the Christ in person (1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11) becomes Jesus’ prophecies about the Son of Man appearing (Mark 14:61); Paul’s vision of the risen Christ becomes the resurrection. And on and on. There is nothing in Mark’s gospel that doesn’t derive from Paul’s teaching, and Jewish scripture in turn. it is, in short, made up.

All of this accounts for the absence of any resurrection appearances in Mark. His gospel ends with the discovery of the allegorical empty tomb and leaves off there because it is where his audience came in, as it were. They had been converted by hearing of the ‘appearances’ of the celestial Christ to Cephas and those Paul lists in 1 Corinthians. They already knew how the story ended or, more accurately, how it had begun: with those visions.

Later, Matthew, Luke and John would take Mark’s allegory and use it as the basis for their gospels, adding new, invented material of their own. The myth, in both the technical and popular sense, was born.

Paul and the Oral Tradition

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Much is made of the oral tradition that it is said informs the material in the synoptic gospels, and possibly John too. The tradition of conveying the events of Jesus’ life and the things he said goes back to Jesus’ original followers – the disciples and the apostles (the terms are not necessarily interchangeable) – and continues with a high degree of accuracy, at least until AD70 when the first gospel was written. 

Which must be why we find so much detail about Jesus’ life in the letters of Paul, from his first letter, 1 Thessalonians, written circa AD55 to his last, Philippians (now an amalgam of several letters), written about 62. Paul was aware of the stories about Jesus – as all converts were – and affirms so many of the details of his life in his letters, passing on the vital stories and the traditions associated with him, in written form.

But not in our reality. Our Paul knows nothing of the details of Jesus’ life. Not once does he quote him or refer to the events of his life before the resurrection. There is nothing of the oral tradition. Nowhere in his letters does he draw from it; never does he say he knows for a fact that Jesus said or did a specific thing while on Earth.

Even after his meeting with Cephas and James, a full three years after his conversion, Paul relays not a single thing he learnt from them. After the encounter, he continues to promote only his own revelations and says nothing of what he learnt about Jesus from the man who supposedly spent three eventful years with him.

Fourteen years later, Paul meets again with Cephas and encounters other apostles for the first time. On this occasion, he and Cephas argue about justification and Paul comes away grumbling that ‘those leaders added nothing to me’ (Galatians 2:6) What? Not even stories about their time with the Master? Apparently these weren’t as important as disputes about soteriology.

Later still, Acts tells us that immediately after his conversion, Paul stayed with ‘disciple’ Ananias and other ‘disciples’ for several days. Did Ananias not know any of the oral tradition that he could pass on to Paul? Details about Jesus’ life, a saying or two or an account of a miracle? Apparently not. (This might be because the story is pure fabrication. Paul tells us himself, in Galatians 1: 16, that immediately after his conversion he ‘did not rush to consult with flesh and blood’).

Surely, though, he must have heard some of the Jesus story from those he persecuted prior to his dramatic conversion. If he did, he didn’t see fit to include any of it in his letters. Likewise, Paul had contact with cult communities he didn’t himself establish, such as that in Rome. Surely they conveyed some of the stories about Jesus that they had had passed on to them. He appears too to have known at least one other evangelist:  Apollos. If these other believers did pass on stories of Jesus from an ultra-reliable oral tradition, why didn’t Paul see fit to include any of them in his letters?

So what were Paul’s sources? Certainly not the oral tradition, nor Q, the hypothetical sayings gospel, which he likewise ignores. If the gospel was being spread orally from the time Jesus lived, by the apostles and other preachers, and was being passed around the fledgling cult communities, why did Paul know nothing of it? If in fact he did, why did he choose to ignore it in favour of his own inner-visions? Did he consider it of such little value?

These questions matter, as we’ll see next time when Mark decides he’ll set the Jesus story down on paper.

If not Metaphor, then what?

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I’ve been arguing that everything in Mark’s gospel is metaphor (because he says so) but there are some pronouncements credited to Jesus in the synoptic that do seem to read as if they’re not. These look as if they are meant to be taken at face value: 

Mark 9:1 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

Mark 10:21. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

Matthew 5:39. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Matthew 5:40. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

Matthew 5: 43-44. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Matthew 6:24. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6.25. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Matthew 7:6. Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Luke 6:30. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

Luke 14:26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple.

Perversely, these are the very commands that most Christians insist are intended metaphorically. This includes those who oppose the idea that, Jesus’ parables excepted, the gospels are in any way symbolic. I know from experience that they have any number of unconvincing arguments of why Jesus doesn’t really mean what he is made to say. For example: ‘these pronouncements are too severe and impractical to be taken literally’; ‘the verses are being taken out of context’, and ‘they have a deeper spiritual meaning’ (oops – that’d be metaphor, wouldn’t it?). Ask these same folk if the statements are therefore metaphorical and you can expect to be met with barrage of abuse.

If they’re not metaphorical, why do we not find Christians striving to live according to them: renouncing wealth, giving to all who ask, selling all they have, resisting no-one, judging no-one, hating family, becoming a slave and having no care for their own welfare for the sake of the kingdom that Jesus promised was imminent.

Because they don’t believe him. Easier to disregard his words about the kingdom arriving within his disciples’ lifetime and the instructions for living in the short time until then. The hard stuff is treated as metaphorical when it makes demands on Christians themselves.

Possibly they’re right. I’d suggest that the pronouncements like those above were not Jesus’s at all. They’re cult-speak; the extreme demands of cult leaders seeking to control their acolytes. In case this sounds like an about face on my part, let me assure you it isn’t; I’ve long argued that among the metaphor and the reworking of Jewish scripture, the gospels include copious amounts of early cult rules.

Whether they’re metaphor or extreme demands once imposed on cult members, no-one today takes much notice of Jesus’ commands. What does this tell us about their worth? What does it tell us about Christians from the earliest days until now? What does it say about their willingness to crucify themselves (definitely a metaphor) in order to follow him?

Real or Metaphor?

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Don has been asked repeatedly by Ark to ‘explain how to tell the difference between real and metaphor in a biblical context’.

Don has so far evaded the answer, gifting us instead his lectures about how we don’t really understand figurative language (I didn’t publish the latest), or telling us it all depends on whether the event described somehow feels real.

Let’s see if we can’t pin him down to a direct, unequivocal answer. Please tell us clearly, Don, whether the following account, from Acts 1:9-11, is real or metaphorical and how you know.

Now when (Jesus) had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.”

No prevarication now, Don. None of your ‘it could be both’ bluff, nor your ‘it’s stylized history that isn’t really history’ evasiveness. No answering by turning the question back on us or suggesting we’re all too dumb to understand.

Is it real or is it metaphor, and how do you know?

Bible Study

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Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (Mark 3:1-6)

Greetings, my beloved Brethren. Today we are going to look at God’s Holy Word as revealed to our dear brother in the Lord, the one who will one day be called ‘Mark’. We’re looking specifically at the passage above, because some of you have expressed difficulty in discerning the full import of the text. I have to say I’m surprised at this. You only have to bear in mind Mark’s rule of thumb that everything in his gospel is a metaphor, which, when looked at with discernment, reveals a previously hidden mystery: 

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12, referencing Isaiah 6:9)

Our passage today begins with the Lord healing a man with a withered hand, which should straight away alert us to the fact we are dealing with metaphor. All of the healings in the gospels are. They stand for something more significant than any actual healing.

Some of you might already have made the connection between the use of ‘withered’ here, with its use in another story (Mark 11-12-14), where Jesus withers an unfruitful fig tree. Of course, no actual fig trees were harmed during this miracle. The fig tree and its withering are metaphors.

The tree, you see, is a metaphor for the Jewish system of worship, the old Covenant of the Law. This had reached the end of its life. It was fruitless and God was done with it. He was in the process of replacing it with salvation through Grace. All of this is represented metaphorically by Jesus cursing the fig tree and causing it to wither.

So it is in our passage today, except this time, God offers healing to the Jewish nation. He is nothing if not gracious, reaching out and offering acceptance into the new Covenant, expressed here as the healing of a withered hand. You won’t have missed the fact – again symbolic – that the healing occurs in the synagogue, the Jews’ place of worship. We might also remember Deuteronomy (6:8) where the Lord God instructs the Jews to wear his Law on their foreheads and, more significantly, to tie them to the backs of their hands. But now their hands have, metaphorically speaking, withered away, just as the fig tree will.

God knows of course that few will accept his proffered healing, insisting instead of labouring blindly under the old Covenant. The rest of the story reflects this stubbornness and the incalcitrant attitude as the Pharisees – metaphors for the Jews as a whole – round on Jesus and castigate him for breaking the Sabbath laws in healing the man – in spiritual reality the Jews themselves. That Jesus heals on the Jews’ sacred day is metaphorical too, demonstrating as it does that all the old laws are now surpassed. Jesus, and more importantly his followers – you, my dear brethren – are no longer under the yoke of that law but have new freedom serving Jesus under his new yoke, which is easy to bear. At the end of the story, the Pharisees – the Jewish leaders of our own time, lest we forget – leave to plot against the Lord; in reality against us. With his help we will of course bear this persecution stoically.

So you see my brothers, this story was written for you, to remind you that you are saved. You are the New Covenant. The Old has passed away. You can follow Jesus’ example and do good, yea, even on the Sabbath. You need not fear the Jews or others who might persecute you because the Lord is with us. The Jews, on the other hand, will soon be cast into outer darkness when he comes in person. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

I hope this has made clear to you the mystery hidden in this part of Mark. I know there will be some of you who are not sufficiently advanced in their understanding of the mysteries, being still babes in Christ, and may yet object to this exposition of the deeper secrets of the Lord. So be it. But don’t say you haven’t been made aware of the Truth.

Next time, if there are those who need to know more of the mysteries hidden in God’s new revelation, we can look at the next part of Mark, though I trust that you are, by now, developing sufficient spiritual insight to discern for yourselves the hidden mysteries embodied by the gospel’s metaphors.

Announcement

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The story so far…

While he used to argue vociferously that the gospels are history – remember they must be history because Pilate and Herod are in them? – our resident apologist has backed away from this position. He says now they’re not history as such but are only ‘like’ history, which means they’re ‘historical but not written as histories’, whatever this means. He derides the likes of Ehrman and Tabor for their inability to recognise this (newly invented) fact. These no-nothings make a category error when they confuse the gospels with history.

I suspect Don wants to reclassify the gospels because he recognises they make rather poor history. It’s safer to pretend they’re designed to be something else, something that doesn’t require external evidence to verify it: ‘announcement’, for example.

This, however, merely sidesteps the question of where the gospel writers got their information from. Don has previously argued that the gospels are based on eye-witness reports, Peter’s dictation to Mark and a reliable oral tradition. But conjecture like this is only necessary if the gospels are history. If they’re not, but are ‘announcement’ instead, then their sources need  be neither historically reliable nor demonstrable.

If the accounts are ‘announcement’ rather than history then where does their ahistorical, announced information come from? Fortunately, Mark gives us a clue:

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11-12, referencing and misquoting Isaiah 6:9)

In fact, the gospels’ ‘announcement’ is conveyed by a story constructed from supposed prophecies from Jewish scripture and the immediate concerns of the early cult communities, expressed in metaphors of the gospel writers’ making. All of the internal evidence supports this conclusion. In fact, the source of the gospels’ material is the same as Paul’s and that of other writers in the New Testament. Here’s how the great, self-appointed apostle puts it: 

My gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ [is] according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages, but now is made visible through the prophetic scriptures and is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, for the obedience of faith. (Romans 16:25-26)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor 15:3-8)

Compare this with:

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 14:21)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24:25-27)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Gospel Jesus in Luke 24: 25-27)

(Paul) reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. (Fictional Paul in Acts 17:2-3)

The revelation of the Messiah and the secrets and mysteries revealed to Paul and the other apostles are ‘explained and proved’ in their entirety by ancient scripture. But, these scriptures in and of themselves do not prophesy the kind of Messiah the early apostles envisaged. Rather, the scriptures are retrospectively pressed into service to match the revelations of the Messiah that Paul and the others experienced.

This is Don’s ‘announcement’: secrets and mysteries founded not on history but on revelation expressed through metaphor and the misapplication of scripture.

Christmas Quiz!

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See how you do in this year’s Christmas Quiz. Most of the questions are related to subjects we’ve discussed during the year.

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

a) The virgin conception and birth

b) Bethlehem as Jesus’ birth place

c) Herod’s massacre of the Innocents

d) The ‘Holy Family’s’ flight into Egypt 

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

a) God’s insemination of Mary with Holy Semen

b) Pregnant Mary visiting Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the child she’d christen ‘John The Baptist’ (sarcasm, for those who can’t tell)

c) The visit of the shepherds with their symbolic gifts

d) The visit of the magi with their symbolic gifts

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

a) The archangel Gabriel visiting Mary

b) Joseph’s dream convincing him Mary hadn’t been sleeping around behind his back

c) The no room at the inn scenario

d) Jesus being laid in a manger

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

a) The Roman census that entailed pregnant women trailing off to their husband’s ancestral home

b) The angelic host appearing unto shepherds

c) The Star of Bethlehem hovering over Jesus’ place of birth / home

d) Jesus’ birth occur during the reign of Herod the Great (died 4 BCE) and while Quirinius was governor of Syria (appointed 6 CE)

         5. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the      gospel stories?

a) They’re equally fanciful

b) They’re all metaphorical

c) They’re invented, largely based on ancient Jewish scripture

d) There’s nothing historical about them either

        6. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

a) They’re gullible

b) They’ve switched off their critical faculties

c) They believe whatever they’re told

d) They feel compelled to argue that all of the fanciful stories about Jesus are true

 

Answers:

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

All of them are based on what Matthew found in Jewish scripture and shoe-horned into his Jesus fantasy.

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

All of them. You don’t think such blatantly symbolic events really happened, do you?

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

Oh come on, what else could they be?

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

None of them.

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the gospel stories?

They tell us the gospel writers – Matthew and Luke as far as the Christmas stories are concerned – were more than happy to invent stuff for metaphorical purposes and to make it look like prophecy was being fulfilled when it wasn’t. If they were prepared to do this for the Nativity them why not for all of their other stories, the resurrection included?

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

Yup, they’re all of those things. And they won’t be happy till they’ve inflicted their damn fool views on you too.

So how’d you do? Well done to everyone who got full marks. Try to do better next time the rest of you. It really wasn’t hard.

A very merry Christmas to both my readers. See you on the other side.

Beyond The Grave

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A few years ago, a friend of mine was working in his front garden when he spotted what he was sure were a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses further down the street. He aimed to back inside before they reached his house, from where he could safely ignore them. But he timed it badly and before he knew it, the JWs were upon him.

My friend was under some stress at the time so when they asked him, ‘Wouldn’t you like to live forever?‘ he responded with, ‘Good God, no. This life’s bad enough. Why would I want it to go on forever?’ This took the wind out of their sail though didn’t divert them from their sales pitch for very long.

I’ve been in the same state of mind myself, and maybe you have, when life was so difficult I spent far too much time contemplating whether being dead might not be a better option. Thankfully, I couldn’t really contemplate doing anything about it, and was aware of the effect it would have on my loved ones if I did, but nonetheless I spent too much time considering – desiring even – my own non-existence.

I was pretty sure this was what awaited after death. I hadn’t, by this stage of my life, the conviction of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and mainstream Christians that a better life, one that would last forever, lay beyond this one. Instead, I made radical changes to my life in the here and now, to lift myself out of the slough of despond in which I found myself.

I love life now. It isn’t without its difficulties, not least the physical problems that come with older age, but I enjoy it to the full (apart from supermarket shopping). Having found my pearl of great price, I hope life will last for many years yet. I can’t guarantee it will, of course, so I make the most of every moment, surrounded by people I love and who love me.

Would I like my life to go on forever? Certainly, but I know it won’t. There is simply no evidence life continues after death. Assurances that it does in religious texts is no evidence at all. Even if it were, the type of eternal life suggested by the Bible, worshipping a needy, despotic God for evermore, is not the way I’d like to spend eternity.

Ask Christians how they know they will and the best that can come up with is that the Bible tells them so or that Jesus promises they will (which amounts to the same thing.) Ask them where this everlasting life will be lived and you’ll get one of two answers: in heaven or here on a restored Earth, once Jesus ‘returns’. The earliest writings in the New Testament support the here-on-Earth scenario. The later ones – perhaps because their authors had begun to realise Jesus wasn’t coming back any time soon – start, like John 14:2, to hint at a celestial existence.

No Christian – no non-believer either – has survived death to face eternal bliss or eternal damnation. Some will tell you that rising from the dead happens in an ethereal way immediately following death. The soul (or whatever) is resurrected either to be reunited with God outside of time and space or thrown to the demons in hell. The biblically savvy, like the JWs, will tell you the resurrection will not occur until Jesus’ return at some point in the future. Significantly, both expectations occur off-stage: the first in a undemonstrable plane of existence, the second in a future that never arrives. Both are wishful thinking, scenarios dreamt up by those frightened of their own non-existence.

The offer of everlasting life is one of the New Testament’s most pernicious lies. The idea is not to be found in the Jewish scriptures that make up the Christian Old Testament. It is a later development, dreamt up by extremists who convinced themselves, on the basis of a few visions, that God would ensure their continued survival, just as he had Jesus’s.

If this isn’t how the promise of living forever came about, then what is the evidence there is an existence beyond death? Empty assurances by first and second century cultists are not it.

  • Show me someone other than Jesus – whose ‘resurrection’ is metaphorical at best – who has risen from the dead.
  • Show me evidence that ordinary human Christians have already gone on to eternal life.
  • Show me, if you don’t subscribe to this view of immortality, the souls who rest with God awaiting a future resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 6:9-11).
  • Show me just one human, Christian or otherwise, who has gone on beyond death.
  • Prove that the promise of eternal life is real.

Jesus’ Ungrateful Slaves

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Jesus really liked telling stories about slaves. It’s as if he’d no objection to the inequitable arrangement of one person owning another. You’d think, if he really was the Son of God, he wouldn’t be quite so ready to assume unquestioningly, the zeitgeist of his day that decreed slavery was acceptable; necessary even. His being a man of his time, incapable of thinking beyond the assumptions and indoctrination of his culture might suggest he wasn’t a heavenly being at all. Either that or his creators, the writers of the gospels and the likes of Paul, were incapable of seeing beyond the zeitgeist and so made their god-man in its image.

In any case, they have Jesus tell a parable in Matthew 18:21-35 about forgiveness, which is populated once again with slaves and a slave owner. The story, in which a slave is forgiven by his master but fails in turn to forgive a fellow slave, ends with the following:

…after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And his master got angry and handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. So My Heavenly Father will also do to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart.”

Of course, the slave owner, referred at the start of the tale as ‘the king’ is – predictable metaphor alert – Jesus himself. He’s fond of casting himself in the role of kingly slave owner, with ordinary mortals his slaves. As we’ve seen already, this is the favoured analogy of New Testament writers to describe the relationship between their manufactured saviour and themselves.

Actually, the moral of the tale in this instance isn’t too bad; if you’re forgiven much it’s not unreasonable to suppose you could, in turn, forgive others their more minor offences. But this isn’t quite enough for Jesus’ script writers who have him drag jail, torture and retribution into the story. These, Jesus concludes, are the very things his wonderful Heavenly Father – based on the despotic rulers of the time – will inflict on anyone who doesn’t forgive as generously as they might.

What hypocrisy! Forgiveness is all according to Jesus but his Heavenly Father, he says with relish, will torture unforgivably anyone who doesn’t comply. What were the cultists who created this awful malicious character thinking? Jesus and everything to do with him is anti-human and soul-destroying.

As for me, I’d recommend forgiving others where you can, learning from the experience (once bitten twice shy and all that) and moving on. You won’t, whatever you do, be tortured by a fictitious, vindictive slave owner and his bullying idea of a god.