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When we say Christianity, we should say Judeo-Christian, for these are two separate, and very different religions which together work as one.
The reason for this can be traced back to Josephus, Titus, and the many Jewish revolts of the First Century, but to explain this would require a new video.
The Old Testament gave us a dogma for a ruling class, the “Chosen People,” then the Romans added a Christian message, which will indoctrinate a meek, and friendly servant class, consolidating the master servant society we have always had.
“Thus Abraham our Father, peace be with him, is the father of his pious posterity who keep his ways, and the father of his disciples and of all proselytes who adopt Judaism.” Rambam’s Letter to Ovadiah the Convert.
Judaism is not a race of Semites, but a religion of converts, which permits anyone interested in being “Chosen,” to simply join up. Over the years these two contrasting dogmas, have been a system of genetic selection. Collecting dominant personalities into one religion, and the more servile, "meek," into another. This was excellent for the Master-Slave economies of the first and subsequent centuries, but is now inadequate for today's more educated and connected world. Judaism is the religion of people chosen to be the mediators and mercenaries between power and servitude, involved in government, media, and banking. Christianity on the other hand is the religion of the uneducated, ignorant, meek, and kind-hearted.
If you don’t want to be a master over others, or a slave to your master, the following religion may suit you.
It is not unprecedented to come up with a better religion, in fact all religions started this way.
Thomas Jefferson created the Jefferson Bible, officially titled "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," because he believed in a rational and ethical system of religion. He admired the moral teachings of Jesus but was skeptical of supernatural aspects such as miracles and the resurrection. By creating the Jefferson Bible, he aimed to distill the teachings of Jesus, focusing on his ethical guidelines and moral philosophy, while omitting the supernatural elements.
Long before Jefferson, Marcion, an early Christian theologian, established a doctrine known as Marcionism. This doctrine, part of what we call Gnosticism today, asserted that the God who sent Jesus Christ was not the same as the “vengeful” God (Demiurge) who created the world.
“Marcion declared that Christianity was completely unconnected to Judaism and entirely opposed to the scriptures of Judaism.”
In order to have a belief that matches our Western values of equality and justice, as well as to bring each of us closer to God, I suggest even further simplification than that offered by Thomas Jefferson.
A religion of only two keys, or principals, and a Trinity. All other teachings, although some contradictory, can be found in the Bible and elsewhere and is at the discretion of your local Church.
If your Ekklesia, or what we call Church, is an open, direct, and transparent Democracy, your community will fundamentally change for the better. I suggest an economic and faith based solution founded on a religion which is not reliant on faith, but on truth.
The First Key, Free Will
“In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way.” Baruch Spinoza
The first key to escaping our absurd existence, is to change our faulty concept of free will. I will not explain here why a reasonable person should see reality as deterministic, but if you think you have free will, you can study the neurology and physics which has proven the deterministic nature of reality. If we accept that all actions are causal and deterministic, we cannot blame others for their transgressions, and therefore, if we are reasonable, we have no choice but to forgive others when they harm us. This will put an end to Sin and convert the confessional into therapy.
Instead of a sense of vengeance against those who harm us, we can study the causal factors that produced the transgression, then engineer circumstances so that unfortunate acts will not recur, over and over again.
We can love those who harm us, “for they know not what they do,” love becomes an infinite pity.
If reality is deterministic, can we change what tomorrow will bring?
I believe that changes in awareness, and fundamental shifts in how we perceive reality, is as close as we can come to free will. Our self-perception and understanding of reality shape how we respond to future events. In other words, our beliefs create the deterministic path that we refer to as our future.
Repairing the human condition can be done through the ability to forgive, converting the idea of an “eye for an eye” to one of engineered solutions. If we believe that existence is deterministic, then there can be no sin, and we no longer need God, or a priest to forgive our transgressions. The solution for what we had once called sinful or evil is to simply fix the problem, and we are certainly clever enough to do that.
The Second Key, Sexual Competition.
The second key to improving the human condition lies in acknowledging the role of sexual competition in our evolution, and as the nature of our enslavement. As animals, our progress is shaped by the need to compete for reproductive success, driving us to survive and adapt. This struggle for sexual dominance not only motivates our evolution but also shapes the fabric of civilization.
A deterministic reality driven by sexual competition clearly points to a history of enslavement to desire and circumstance. Life is a deterministic chain of events that enslaves us, this must be recognized before we can hope to be free.
Human biology will not change, we will remain sexually motivated, what can change is an awareness of the fact, and with that a recognition of the absurdity. This awareness will force us to see love as an “infinite pity” instead of the sexual motivation it is. This will give us a deep concern for the tragic plight of the other and spur our impulse to engineer methods which will prevent future tragedy.
In order to build a religion and society that is functional, we first need individuals who understand these two key principles, that reality is deterministic, and is driven by sexual motivation. Then with individuals who seek the truth, and are reasonable, it would then be possible to build a political/economic framework that would produce a democracy that is direct and transparent. To achieve this change, we need a religion that incorporates these two principals, and preaches a belief and law based on them.
THE TRINITY
Any description of a religion must have a God, and this is understood through a trinity, not a divine trinity, but a trinity that is used to understand God within us, and around us.
First, and the first part of the trinity is of course God and is the same as understood by both Platonism and Christianity, unknowable. The object of faith is to know God, yet this can only be done by faith, as anything unknowable cannot be known.
The second aspect of the Trinity is the Logos, the word of God, or Nous, representing intelligence. This can be found through the Church in open and truthful discussions with others, and it can emerge from sources like the Bible, philosophy, science, or any other facet of human knowledge. The Logos is the word of God and can be very effective, but it remains speculative and can never become dogma, as God is ultimately unknowable.
The Soul is the same as the Holy Spirit and is the third aspect of the trinity. This is our means to comprehend God’s intentions, thus allowing us to align ourselves with God. Consider the Platonic-Christian perspective of a God beyond human understanding, where intelligence is a divine emanation, representing the truth of goodness. The sole path to God is through our capacity to reason, and reason is viewed as the means by which we uncover the truth, or Logos. With the development of our Soul being contingent on our quest for truth. Through our Soul and our individual pursuit of truth, we achieve freedom.
According to this view, the ideal community described by Christ depends on our ability to nurture our Souls and to know and comprehend God through the Logos, which the Platonists refer to as intelligence. Religion, in this context, becomes a personal quest to transcend worldly desires, aiming for cognitive and reasoned existence. A society, democracy, or economy cannot be humane or harmonious when its members are seen as mere instinct-driven beings, lacking in soul and engaging in base sexual competition.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 1 Peter 4
Although seemingly simple and straightforward with just two principles and a trinity, this concept is actually quite radical. If God is the Unknown cause, causality suggests that human behavior cannot be merely explained by free will. Instead, it is influenced by either the first cause, the absence of it, or the human modification of it. While the origin or creator is unknowable, we can understand certain aspects with some certainty. However, as Wittgenstein argued, there are limits to what we can discuss seriously. The second principle emphasizes our sexual motivations, revealing that we are often enslaved by our desires. Greater awareness of this fact will lead us to greater freedom and to fewer transgressions which affect others.