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Jan. 4, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
37:40
584 Jesus Part 1

His one unforgiveable sin

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Good afternoon, everybody.
It's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
It is 19 minutes to 6 on some damn day in December.
The fifth-ish?
Something like that. Anyway, I hope you're doing well.
It's time for us to take on our good friend Buddy J. Time for us to lift the Shroud of Turin a little and have a peek under the cosmic robes to see what kind of vacuous, giggling, nailed-up emptiness we can behold within the shallow and silly soul of the Savior of Mankind.
And I'm going to start by just sort of going over a couple of conventions where I'll There is no way to know what Jesus said.
History is a ridiculous challenge of conflicting opinions when you even have recorded history, right?
People don't even know why the US went to Vietnam.
People don't know or don't believe that they know what happened to the trade towers, what brought them down, whether it was munitions or Santa's misdirected reindeer or the CIA or bin Laden.
I mean, this is when you have all of the media in the world.
People still can't make sense of the world or figure out what the heck's going on with all the access to information that we have.
So the idea that anybody has a freaking clue what may or may not have been going on relative to Jesus and a couple of hundred years after his birth when there was extraordinary political and secular and theological pressures to invent nonsense about him.
There's nothing that is spoken of in the realm of Jesus that has anything to do with any kind of truth.
Did the man exist? Yeah, I mean, I have no doubt thinking that some lunatic existed who was probably fantastic with the spoken word and a real thunder and brimstone madman.
Because this is another thing you have to recognize about Jesus.
If we do say that he exists, then he was a thundering nutjob.
I mean, just an absolute cosmic barking mad as the British made.
Barking! Absolutely barking!
And if he had only barked, the world would be a whole lot better off.
But the challenge with Jesus is not that he's mad or not that nobody knows anything about him.
It's figuring out just how much of the nonsense that's written about Jesus is due to one rather central ungodlike thing that he did.
See, gods are generally supposed to be quite powerful, right?
I mean, that's one of the reasons that you worship a god.
In fact, really, that's one of the ways in which you know he is a god.
That he's, you know, more powerful than your average bear.
But one of the things that Jesus up and did, which was decidedly ungodlike and pretty much screwed everything up from the beginning onwards, One of the things that Jesus, the sort of central salient aspect about Jesus' life relative to what monstrosity Christianity turned into was this rather central and basic fact that he up and died.
That's really the most central thing to understand about Jesus and the weird and warped beliefs about him that sprang up after he did this rather ungodlike thing of getting tortured and nailed up and dying.
See, if I say, I'm the son of God, or the father of Zeus, or the brother of Freya, or the third cousin's roommate of some local leprechaun, then, you know, it's sort of imagined that I'm going to have some kind of powers.
And when people worshipped, when the Jews worshipped Jesus, maybe it was non-Jews as well, but when the Jews worshipped Jesus as the Son of God, as the First Coming and so on, then they assumed that he was one with the most mighty and all-powerful God that has ever been conceived of.
Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh.
And so nothing should be beyond him.
The miracles that are attributed to Jesus, not so big.
Not such a big deal in the miracle department.
There are many other gods and deities who do far, far greater things than Jesus did.
Loaves and fishes and burning bushes and one guy back from the dead, please.
So... The really shocking thing about Jesus is that he got nailed up and died.
He came off all dead.
That is the really shocking thing about Jesus.
And a lot of what is written down in the New Testament is a pretty substantial reaction to that rather ungodlike act.
I mean, if I say...
I'm sorry.
If I say that I am the master of time-based dimensions, that I have access to all of the unbelievable powers of the universe, and that I can do anything, I am at one with the all-powerful and that I can do anything, I am at one with and then I get dragged off to prison, nailed up on a cross, and bleed to death in a desert, that's a little bit of a trouble.
Troublesome thing to explain if you're a follower, right?
He is the most mighty God that ever lived.
He could take on any other God and kick their Greek or Roman or Vishnuish butt.
He is the most mighty of the most mighties, the most holy of the most holies.
He can maketh the sea, rise, and change places with the land.
He can causeth people's heads to explode in a scannereth kind of manner.
And he can do anything.
Really? The man can do anything.
thing.
He's my soul brother.
And then the God you worship is all powerful, gets nailed up and dies.
It's pretty funny when you think about it.
All-powerful. I mean, I'm not trying to make fun of the fact that some insane religious nut got himself nailed up and died.
That's not a pretty way to go, I'm sure, but when you think about it, a lot of the New Testament is just a massive, desperate explanation as to the fact that this all-powerful God couldn't even fend off a couple of Roman guards and a nail.
It's all powerful unless you're wearing a Roman kilt, in which case, ooh, it's kryptonite.
God can't do anything to save himself.
So... And I bet you, I bet you a million souls that these Jewish guys were standing around saying, no, use your power!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Use your power. Use your power.
They're just Roman guards.
They don't even believe in God.
They're not Jewish. They have no power relative to you.
Just, you know, snap your fingers, dude, and get off the cross.
Now that would be a pretty cool miracle.
And the whole time he gets arrested, right?
The whole time he's going through the court system.
He's like, no, I'm preparing for something big.
Don't worry, there's going to be a big show at the end.
Oh, I'm going to do something really cool.
I'm going to make the crucifix take off like a rocket.
And I'm going to fly around and I'm going to flatten them and there'll be exploding colors and big birds in the sky.
And then everyone will go to heaven.
Don't worry. I'm just...
I've decided not to use my powers yet.
That's what's going on.
Because they say, well, you know, Jesus, you're the son of God.
You can do anything. Why are you sitting in the jails?
Well, I've decided not to use my powers yet, you see.
I'm biding my time.
I'm waiting for a really big show.
I'm waiting. You know, it's like a sports movie, which you don't know about yet, but they'll be around in a couple of thousand years.
It's like this sports movie.
You say, "What I'm going to do is, I'm going to pretend that I'm down and out.
Like Rocky, like the boxers, and you think they're down and out." And then, right at the end, they do this big turnaround, the crowds cheer and so on, right?
So, yes, I'm letting them have their way with me.
I've decided not to blow up their heads yet.
I've decided not to levitate and walk through walls and do all the things that are child's play for any self-respecting God.
I'm not going to do that yet.
Because that's not my scene.
That's not my thing. That's not dramatic enough.
I'm going to bide my time.
I'm going to go through this travesty of justice.
All their followers are like, cool.
Okay, great. So he's going to do something really cool later.
But right now, this god of ours, he's just decided to sit in this cell.
I kind of wish he was doing something now.
I mean, just between you and me, I... I kind of wish he was doing something now because it seems a little odd for the god of the multiverse who created the very earth itself to not walk out of his prison cell.
I hope he's not nuts.
I hope he's not just some insane guy who thinks he's a god.
I've never seen him do a miracle myself.
One of the ways that we could figure that out Would be, you know, I'm not asking for him to invent another son or anything like that, but if he could sort of see his way clear to walking through a door or something, that would...
I mean, that would help, right?
I mean, he's asking for a lot, this faith thing.
Anyway, so... So, you know, the trial goes on, and he's still sitting in this...
Oh, no, I'm going to wait. I'm not doing it yet.
I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the right moment, the big moment, right?
And then...
And then he's dragged out and the sentence, oh, he's going to get crucified.
It's like, oh, wow, okay, so he's going to wait for this really big show.
He didn't mention the crucifixion stuff.
I'm sure he knew it was coming. He's God and all, right?
So this guy, he's going to pull off a big show.
Don't worry about it. Something big's going to happen, right?
It's going to be cool.
Oh, man, you're going to have to see this.
When my boy comes out, he can just do the most wild things.
So then they put the crown of thorns on this guy, and then he's, you know, just this lonely, bizarre, freaked out, mentally deranged religious nut, right?
I am God! I am the son of God and the daughter of the dawn, and I am a sister to the Keebler elves.
And so they put the crown of thorns on the guy, right?
He's like, oh, cool.
I bet you he's going to make these people's hands explode and that crown of thorns are going to spin up and start rotating and belching forth fire and we're all going to go to heaven.
It's going to be cool. And nothing happens, right?
It's like, oh, okay.
Man, I wish you'd do something.
This is getting beyond suspenseful to the point where it seems kind of ridiculous, right?
Anyway, so then Christ is dragging his sorry ass and his heavy cross through the streets.
And he's like, wow, he doesn't look that strong.
Right? He must be faking it because he's all-powerful, right?
He's the all-powerful son of God.
And so I thought he would be able to lift this thing a little bit more easily.
But he's staggering along and he's bleeding.
And he kind of just looks like a guy getting tortured.
I mean, this is a grave shock for the people who've given up their families and their children the way that Jesus commands and followed him into the middle of nowhere.
And, you know, at some point they're going to go, well, he doesn't look very God-like.
The guy's bleeding. He's staggering along.
I mean, he's dehydrated.
You'd be a mess, right?
It's not like they treated you well in the Roman prisons of the day.
And so he's dragging the cross along.
And then they get to the place.
And he's like, oh, well, now.
Now for sure. Now for sure he's going to do something.
Oh, I know what. I know what he's going to do.
They're going to lay him down on the cross.
And they're going to try and pound nails into his hands and his feet, but those nails are going to shatter as if they are being pounded up against diamonds or quartz or something like that.
So that'll be really cool, right?
So then they watch this guy, their god, their personal, magnificent, all-powerful deity gets laid down on the crucifix.
And they're like, oh, this is going to be cool.
Or, you know, the nails are going to go through his hands and his feet, but he's just going to get up anyway and brush his hands off, and there'll be no blood, and it's just going to be amazed.
They'll fall back in wonder, and this is how it's going to go down.
Right? So then the Romans take their god and put him down on the crucifix, and they grab their nails, and they drive them through his hands, and they drive them through his feet.
The guy screams out in agony and blood spurts everywhere and he's shrieking and screaming and so on.
And, you know, he's probably soiled himself at this point.
That's a lot of physical trauma for the body to go through.
And they're like, oh, my God.
What the fuck is going on?!
They're mutilating this god of ours and he's not doing anything.
He's all powerful. He's supposed to be the son of God who's watching and sees everything and what the hell is going on?
He's just dying and bleeding in front of us.
And, you know, I'm sure some people just went, well, you know, maybe he's just some insane religious guy.
You know, I mean, maybe he's not a god.
Of course, there are the diehards.
Ah, it's a test of faith, you know.
There shall be great rewards for those who stay to the bitter end and have faith in God.
And then when Jesus gets down off the cross, we shall be the ones to sit by his right-hand side and we shall be able to fondle the altar boys in heaven and so on.
So they stay, right?
This is what these religious nuts jobs do.
They stay, and their god gets hoisted up, and he's bleeding, and he's screaming, and he's shit himself, and he's just in a wretched, wretched state.
And they're like, wow, you know, God's really testing this mofo, right?
I mean, they're really putting him through the wringer.
And, you know, he could do stuff, but he just kind of looks like the two thieves next to him, and they're just dying in the sun.
And some vulture comes along and pecks out the cosmic eyeballs and stuff.
And so these guys have given up everything to follow this man-god who can't even get himself off a cross and looks like he's just kind of dying like everyone else.
That's a bit of a shock to the system.
You know, people don't really like that.
I mean, how comfortable are people admitting that a man God like George Bush is just an idiotic, moronic, homicidal whack job?
Well, they have tough time with it, right?
Oh, well, you know, he's the president.
He was just giving bad information.
He's a good guy. He's trying to do his best.
It's a tough job, but you want it?
So people have this amazing ability to just hang on to their illusions and absorb all evidence that comes along.
And so... This guy, Jesus, just sitting there dying on the cross, screaming and shit himself, pee running down his leg, dung hanging off his foot, birds floating around pecking at him, and he's not doing a goddamn thing, right? This is really tough for the believers.
But they think, well, this is a real freaking test of faith.
Man, oh man, if I didn't know how this movie was going to end, I'd really be nervous right about now.
But I have faith that I know how this is all going to go down.
It's all totally clear to me.
And so, right just before he dies, this is going to be how it goes down.
There's going to be angels. They're going to squint into the sunlight.
I don't want to miss their arrival because it's going to be a beautiful thing.
There's going to be angels. There's going to be winged chariots.
There's going to be paths of fire leading up to heaven, and we're all going to go, and everything's going to be wonderful.
And And these flies are going to go away.
The hot sun's going to stop beating down on my religion-baked, addled forehead.
And everybody's straining, looking around.
Where are the angels? What's happening? Are they coming from the ground?
Are they coming from the sky? Is that a light?
What's going on? And then, of course, one of the soldiers sticks a spear in Jesus' side, and he just bleeds, and they dice for his...
I mean, there's all the myths.
Who knows, right? But let's just go in with the myth.
They dice for his robes, and...
And then Jesus does the unthinkable.
Jesus does the incomprehensible, the unthinkable.
He just fucking dies.
But before he dies, he raises up his head and he says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Because obviously Jesus thinks he's a god.
And so he thinks he's looking for the winged chariots more than anyone else.
Because he's lived his whole life thinking he's a god because he's just that sane.
So he's looking, oh my god, this is really hurting.
I'm like, I'm okay now.
You can come and take me off the old cross now.
I'm ready to go.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Anytime now would be fine.
And he just fucking dies.
What the fuck are you going to do if you've given up Judaism and you're on the hunt as a heretic and a whole bunch of your friends have been eaten by lions in the Roman amphitheater?
What the fuck are you going to do when your supposedly immortal, perfect, all-powerful God just dies like a hamster nailed to a tree?
What are you going to do? Well, those who retain even the slightest shreds of sanity go find themselves some other god that's slightly more plausible.
Because I think you can say that if a human being is the immortal reincarnation of the all-powerful god, that one of the negative tests would be that he doesn't die or god doesn't let him die.
I mean, that would be a negative test.
So, if you have even a If you're even on a spam acquaintance mail-out list to reality, you're going to go, well, I guess that's not the one, right?
It's like they say in the life of Brian, I say you are the Messiah, Lord, and I should know I've followed a few.
But you're going to go, well, you know, shame, good speaker, nice beard.
Looks good with his legs to one side, nice hair, kind of hippy-dippy eyes, though it's probably an afro.
But not the one.
You know, because if he was the one, he wouldn't be dying and puking up all over himself and bleeding and crapping himself and dying like a dog, and he obviously is a little bit disappointed that God didn't come down to save him.
So I guess I'll go follow me some dandelion fluff and call that God, and then I'll stop worshipping my little toe, and then I'll...
Do something terrible to my dog.
So if you have even the most passing acquaintance with reality and testable hypotheses, you're going to go, well, it's a shame because, boy, I've just given up everything, but I guess not the case, right?
Not the God we're looking for.
Thank you. Try again.
And... Yet, if you are truly faith-based, bigoted, insane, religious nutjob life form, then you're going to say, ah, okay, so he died like a hamster nailed to a tree.
I guess this is a really tough test.
Yeah. Ooh, the test continues.
Because now that God has allowed his only begotten son who has come down to earth to take the form of a man to die and has not come down to save him, either this means that Jesus wasn't a god but just an insane religious guy, or it means that the test continues!
Yes! Let's get the daily insanity behind door number three, Alex.
So, then they say, well, it's a test.
The test continues. And then, they take the body off the cross.
I'm sure the Romans are more than happy when people take their industrial waste and dispose of it.
I guess their organic waste and dispose of it for them.
And then, so they take, they put it in a, they put it in a cave or some damn place, right?
A tomb or a sepulchre or a mausoleum or something.
An icebox! And then the natural stuff happens, right?
Somebody says, I'm going to move the body, and then we'll say he came back to life, told the stuff, and then ascended to heaven on wings of angels.
And people will always...
Good people do good things.
Bad people do bad things.
But as some were quoted, it takes religion to make good people do bad things.
And so the person says, well, clearly I'm motivated to do this by God.
So I'm going to steal the body and run it through some early rock-driven, coal-fired Cuisinart and drink it in anticipation of transubstantiation.
And then I'm going to tell everyone that Christ came back to life.
And what's that Gary Larson cartoon that he never published?
Christ cooking to meds like, man, I feel like hell.
I feel like I've been dead for three days.
So then people steal the body and then everyone says, ooh, did you see that?
Christ came back from the dead and then ascended on the wings of angels.
It's like, no, I didn't actually see that.
And why is there God goo on your hands?
Sorry, just cooking something with my cuisine out here.
And he says, no, I don't, I didn't see it.
Oh, you missed it. Oh, it was great.
Came back from the dead. Said, there are now those among you who shall not taste of death before I return again.
So, you know, don't wait too long.
He's coming back and then we're going to go to heaven and if you don't believe, you're going to go to hell and so on and so on and so on.
So, I mean, it's all just a pack of lies, right?
I mean, the guy died like a dog and somebody sold the body.
I mean, this isn't what happens to insane religious people when you have equally insane and Pseudo-statist religious secular authorities.
But if you understand that Christ performed the unforgivable sin of dying and rotting, of dying and rotting, this son of God and heavenly choir lord of the host of angels and all that...
He did the one unforgivable thing that God is not supposed to do, which is get killed and rot and look pretty much human.
I mean, that's definitely not on the resume.
I'd love to do that one day, just go in for a job interview and say, well, I'm God.
It's like, well, can you make me get the job?
Well, why don't you just force me to get the job then?
Well, I don't like to use my power that way.
Well, why are you telling me that you're God?
Well, I just think you need to know.
But aren't you then interfering with things in the same way that you would be if you forced me to get a job?
Oh, don't make me smite you.
Not that I would, because I don't do that anymore, but it's too much of a mystery for your little head to understand.
Love to try that. Never will.
So it's important to understand what terrifying psychotic shock rips through the cult when the god gets himself nailed up and dies like a dog.
Kind of fucks with the premise a little, doesn't it?
The master of everything and all power and can do anything except prevent his own torture and murder.
That looks, you know, pretty much human.
So, and this is something that, you know, with all due respect to Dickie D., Richard Dawkins doesn't so much get, right?
He says, oh, well, Christ was an ethical innovator and his turn-the-other-cheek thing anticipates Martin Luther King and Gandhi, those fabulous icons of humanity and getting no one killed and causing no great harm.
That Christ's profession of nonviolence predates Gandhi and Martin Luther King by almost 2,000 years.
Well, whoop-de-fucking-do.
That's missing the whole point.
I mean, that's missing the whole point.
Of course Christ has to be non-violent!
he got killed!
I mean, what are they going to say?
Oh yeah, Christ preached an eye for an eye and smite your enemies in an Old Testament manner.
But then, you know, when two guards held him down, he kicked around for a bit, they nailed him up, he shat himself, and he died!
Well, of course he's not going to be able to talk about an eye for an eye.
He died! He wasn't a mighty warrior king!
And isn't it funny, eh? They talk about the lineage of Christ, like he's descended from kings, when, of course, it was God who poked Mary, according to the translation.
So the lineage doesn't have much to do.
Joseph's got nothing to do with it, right?
Joseph's just the biggest dupe in history.
Oh, God, huh?
Well, was he good?
Because I've got to tell you, I have a little bit of performance anxiety now.
I mean, he invented the clitoris.
What the hell am I supposed to do with it?
I think it's, what, the elbow, the knee, something like that.
So, it's not too shocking that the people who write about Christ a couple of years after he's dead say a few things, right?
They say, well, he was pretty much do what your enemies told you to do.
Right? He got nailed up and died.
Of course, that's what his philosophy was.
Oh no, he was all about the nonviolence, right?
Well, how are you going to explain it if he wasn't?
Yet people think he was some sort of ethical innovator, despite the fact that...
I mean, he obviously wrote nothing down, and he had the philosophical skills of a spent turnip.
And they think he had some massive insight.
Oh, turn the other cheek, and if your enemy asks you to walk a mile with him, walk an extra mile for him.
If he asks for your cloak, give him your shirt too.
And if he nails you up, just submit.
Because that's how they'll know you're a god.
Because you die like a dog like everyone else.
So they had to explain why.
Why their god died.
I mean, it's like unprecedented.
It's unprecedented that your God gets nailed up and dies.
I can't think of another example.
I mean, there's, you know, the eternal death and rebirth nonsense that goes on in a variety of religions, and there's lesser things like the phoenix that burn up and regenerate and so on.
But the actual God himself and Christ is considered to be at one with God and the Son and the Father and the Holy Ghost and the mystery of the Trinity are all one, blah, blah, blah.
But he's the only god in history who got killed by a bunch of unshaven, unwashed, uneducated, smelly Roman guys.
I mean, a couple of Italian lads nailed up God and killed him.
I mean, that's not particularly deific, really.
So, yeah, of course they had to teach some non-violence.
They had to preach non-violence, because, you know, quite a lot of non-violence in getting nailed up and killed, right?
Kind of a lot of resistance going on there when you get nailed up and killed, so...
It's not too shocking, and it was certainly no ethical innovation.
It was no, well, we've decided to surmount the Old Testament.
Jesus Christ, the Middle Ages should be proof enough of that, that there was no, oh, love thy neighbor.
And of course, by neighbor, Christ only meant other Jews.
He certainly didn't mean, he commands the death of all the other people.
So, of course they're going to say that Christ preached non-violence, because Gaia fucking nailed up.
Not so much with the violence.
I mean, if you don't do it, you can't preach it.
If you don't resist evil, you can't preach resist evil.
Oh wait, no, an eye for an eye.
No wait. Oh well, it's whatever the hell you want, right?
So, that's the one sort of major thing that comes out of the unforgivable sin that Christ allowed, which was to not be so godlike as to get himself nailed up and killed.
Now, the other thing, of course, that happened in Christianity that's quite fascinating is normally you worship a god because the god is powerful.
Right? That's sort of the idea, right?
And this god, not so much with the power, right?
Can't even resist the strapping young Italian lads nailing him up and, you know, dying.
And even he himself says, my god, why have you forsaken me?
Right? So how do you deal with the doubt that he got killed?
That he's just some idiot Jew boy who had wild, insane delusions of grandeur?
Well, how are you going to keep the cult going when the god gets strung up and killed?
And this is the genius of Christianity.
And the genius is really only because they invested so much hope and faith in a guy who got killed in such a brutal manner.
And this really is the genius, right?
So normally you'll worship a god because that god is powerful.
Woden can slay enemies at a distance with a simple belch of his fart.
So you worship him because of that.
Now here we have a god who's about the least powerful god in the history of the universe, right?
can't even stop himself from getting nailed up and so how are you going to get people to worship him if it's not out of fear and a respect for that power?
And here we have the flip from paternal to maternal religions, and this is the fantastic and genius switch that Christianity pulled.
How do you get people to worship a god when that god is so feeble that he can't even avoid crucifixion?
How do you get people to worship a god when that god has no power?
What motivates people other than power?
Ah, yes, my friends, the guilt.
Ah, that wonderful, tasty, deep dish souffle pan pizza cheese crust Catholic mountain of guilt.
That's how you get people to worship a god.
Now that's hellishly ethical innovation.
Well, you don't worship him because he's powerful.
You worship him because he died for you.
Now that is an innovation in the realm of theology.
Getting people to worship a god.
Not because that god is powerful.
But because that God makes them feel guilty, that's incredible!
That you have to hand it to the Christians.
That is something, that is the kind of insight that just doesn't come along every day.
So, if the God so feebly gets nailed up and dies, how do you get people to respect him and to want to worship him and follow him?
Well, you say, well, he died for you.
He surrendered himself to you.
Original sin, what they used to call, was it...
Ancestral sin before the 12th century or whatever, right?
They used to call it ancestral sin.
And then Augustine, I think, invented the term original sin.
He died for you!
He died for you! He died for you!
This guy gave his life for you!
You have to follow him! Would he have died in vain?
Would God have let his only son die in vain?
He died for you so that you will be free of original sin.
That's genius, my friends.
That is something that is...
I mean, they've almost earned 2,000 years of buggering children.
I mean, that is just astounding in its innovation.
Normally, you'd give up on a god, right?
You'd go like, well, this guy's pretty sad, right?
But to come up with something that says...
Guilt! Well, this is the flip from the paternal religion of war, which is the Old Testament, to the maternal religion of obligation and guilt.
I mean, well, let's not even worry about the gender stuff, right?
So, suddenly, instead of having a God who can smash your enemies, you have a God who makes you feel guilty because he sacrificed for you.
I mean... I mean, Jesus...
Ah, he's just this Jewish mother.
He's just this Jewish mom.
Just guilting you.
Oh, I got a crick from staring at the phone waiting for you to call.
I cook and I bake for you.
I hold myself on a cross for you and this is all I get.
Oh, man. But that's really special.
I mean, that's a really glowing intellectual black triumph.
And this is why, if you start looking at the New Testament in this slide, why is the New Testament so different from the Old Testament?
Because the God got killed in the middle, right?
I mean, of course you're going to have to switch tactics a little bit.
I mean, that's something that you kind of have to address that.
I mean, if you're doing a sales presentation of some product, some blender, and you turn the blender on and it explodes and blows your arm off, it's not very likely that you're going to continue in the same vein.
You're going to have to, oh, it's supposed to do that.
I mean, who wouldn't want a charcoal stump when you're brewing up some God juice?
So, naturally, they have to switch tactics because pretty much the negative proof reared its ugly head and the God they worship...
Shad himself and died.
And all of that looks pretty much suspiciously human.
And that's something that people who look at the New Testament don't kind of get, right?
Because it's so hard to see outside of all of the myths that we've been given.
But that's the real truth behind the New Testament and why it's so different from the Old Testament.
You know, you've You've got a body on your hands, right?
I mean, you've got a body.
And the body is the God.
And now, of course, if God is dead, which, of course, is what happened when Christ, the nutjob, got himself nailed up and killed, if God is dead, then your cult dies with it.
But these guys managed to make a go of it.
And that's incredible. I mean, if you can keep a religion going when your God gets murdered and dies in agony, crying out that God has forsaken him...
That's pretty sweet.
That's work, man. That's some effort.
I mean, that's some mad, crazy, insane effort, but you've got to hand it to people who can do that kind of stuff and pull it off.
That's quite amazing. And that's the root of it.
People go, oh, they're confused about the New Testament.
Well, Christ is love thy neighbor, but then there's this other stuff.
It's like, well, of course, he's going to have to say submit to violence.
Well, of course, they were talking to the Jews who were slaves back then.
We'll talk about that a little bit more another time.
But if you take this approach that the New Testament is this big, mad scramble to justify the fact that God got killed, But you should still worship him, but not because he's powerful, because he's not, because he got killed, but because he died for you.
This is the amazing thing, that if you look at the Old Testament, it's all about spreading your seed and being a he-man and raping and so on, and the New Testament's all about guilting the shit out of you, because...
He sacrificed himself for you.
So anyway, I hope that you're doing well.
I would really appreciate some donations.
It's been a tad dry over the Christmas season and into the new year, so if you're enjoying these podcasts, I would really appreciate it.
If you could hurl some money my way, it does make my day.
And thank you so much for listening.
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