The Conversion Agenda

"Freedom to convert" is counterproductive as a generalized doctrine. It fails to come to terms with the complex interrelationships between self and society that make the concept of individual choice meaningful. Hence, religious conversion undermines, and in extremes would dissolve, that individual autonomy and human freedom.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Did Jesus accept the Jewish god?

By M.S.N. Menon

No, but this has remained a well-kept secret to this day! Jesus, an advocate of ahimsa, could never have accepted the violence and cruelty of Yahweh, the god of the Jews. He ridiculed the idea of punishing god.

Karen Armstrong, in her book The History of God, says of the Jewish god: “This is a brutal, partial and murderous god, a god of war. He has little compassion for anyone but the Jews. He is simply a tribal deity.”

Had it not been for St. Paul, it is said, the Christian community would have remained a mere Jewish sect. But Paul, an eminent Greek scholar, was above to propagate the Christian faith in the Greek and Roman empires.

The Christians could not explain their religion to the Romans, for Christianity was neither a religion in the Roman sense nor a philosophy. Now wonder, there were few takers for Christianity in Rome except the slaves. The Roman aristocracy spurned it. The Roman emperors suppressed it.

But violence was natural to the people of the region. They had a saying: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!” Jesus rejected it.

Even the Greek gods were sanguinary and violent and often deceitful, jealous, vindictive and dissolute. But the Jewish god was the most notorious among gods of violence and cruelty. Even Baal, the Cannanite god, was a shade less cruel.

To the Romans, Christianity was a barbarous creed. They saw Yahweh as a ferocious, primitive deity, who interfered in human affairs in an irrational manner.

There is the story of one Marcion (100 AD-165AD), who set up a rival church in Rome. He collected a huge following. He asked: how could a good god create a world manifestly full of evil and pain? Marcion was appalled by the history of Yahweh and his cruelty.

What is more, Jesus had revealed that another god existed. He had not been mentioned in Jewish scriptures. The other god—the god of Jesus—was simply gentle and good, merciful and forgiving.

People wanted to turn away from the world of Yahweh and the Old Testament to the world of Jesus, but this was denied by the church.

The popularity of Marcion showed that had touched upon a common anxiety. At one time, it seemed as if he was going to found a new church.

The people of Rome did not know what to make of the Jewish god. Indeed, most people in the Greeco-Roman empire found this Biblical deity unworthy of worship.

Thus, again in 170 AD, the Pagan philosopher Celsus condemned the concept of “chosen people” and the proprietorial way in which the Christians saw their god. He tells them that god is universal—i.e. god is of all men.

By the 2ndc AD, some cultured Pagans were able to adapt Yahweh to the Greeco-Roman ideals. Thus Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), who had perhaps his education in Athens, created a “quite” god.

Then, how did Yahweh survive in Christianity? Because Constantine, the Roman emperor, got himself converted to Christianity (he believed that Yahweh was responsible for his victory in a war) and made Christianity the religion of the Roman empire. With that all opposition died down. Under the Holy Roman Empire, criticism of Christianity became felony. It could even invite the punishment of death.

Not this alone. In the face of the Islamic onslaught on the Christian world from the 6th c onwards, the Christians were forced to close ranks. With that Europe truly entered the Dark Ages. I am reminded here of a similar experience in India. In the face of the Islamic onslaught, says Nehru, India withdrew into a shell. For nearly a thousand years, both Europe and Indian remained in the Dark Age.

A thousand years lapsed before Christians began to talk again of the atrocities of the purgatory and hell, presided over by Yahweh (Jehovah).

After the Age of Reason and the Renaissance, religion was almost out of fashion. But it came back to Europe because political tyrants were in need of the unscrupulous priests.

Throughout the Christian world, there is a quiet revolution taking place—a revolution that seeks to marginalise the Jewish god—and to place Jesus and his doctrines at the centre of Christian life. This is welcome. Then what becomes of the Ten Commandments? “They are mere lumber,” says George Bernard Shaw.

Karen Armstrong says even atheism is better than having the Jewish god. “A god who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd,” she says. She goes on: “A god who interferes with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant…An atheism that rejects such a god is amply justified,” she says.

The New Age movement in America rejects the Jewish god. It believes, like Adi Shankara, in Monism—in a god without form. The problem is: the Christian faith has to be lived. But can the rampant consumerist society of the West live the Christian life? This is the crux of the Christian predicament.

12 Comments:

At 7/21/2008 10:57:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very good blog! Some fine points indeed! The sick Christian missionary wants to convert India. He destroyed the Americas, Africa, South Korea, and now wants to destroy India.

I've also created a blog to stop these parasites:

http://stopchristianmissionaries.blogspot.com/

I'm going to bookmark your blog. Keep up the good work!

 
At 7/23/2008 01:59:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

entire world is set in order including the speed of earth,its path,rotation which goes exactly in defined speed/axis. god creation
is common to all-example a lion eat
deer in forest which is its food.
same time an elephant eats only vegitation in forest and do not kill animals for eating.
jesus protrayed as god is sheding his blood for the sake of sinners.
so he dies for people. how come a god who set a defined rules for everything from plants,stars to animals/birds,from man to female
set in orderly world could die in cross for them. this looks like a
story of imagination half cooked and half backed. christianity talks of only human beings and no reference about animals,birds,
mammals,marine life ect which are
projected as gifts to humanbeings
in bible.pity people still believe
without realising the truth and reality.christianty has no answer to inquality,inequity,social dis
parties,differences,disorderly life
of human beings and animals/birds
ect as a matter of fact all living beings.christianity is curse to the society.

 
At 7/24/2008 10:15:00 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Gandhiji also endorsed non-violence, so does it mean he is against law and justice, which treats humans as inhumanly as possible? what did he do to remove such a thing ?

Justice per se may seem harsh and inhumane, so is the God of Old Testament. Show me a single verse from the bible where you feel God of Jews acted unjustly! Challenge!

If you did some research you would have discovered that Jesus itself means Yahweh is the savior ? (Yeshua). He always pointed to the God of Bible. He is not a Indian politician/teacher who does not practice what he teaches.

as per the comments by some other regarding God only for Jews, When God created man, Adam, was he a Jew ? Was Abraham a Jew ? Such comments show the caliber of the author and people who quote it!

Christianity is based on reason, reasonable faith, in contrast to other Indian religions based on "Blind faith".

 
At 7/24/2008 10:22:00 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Grace - Deserving something which we dont deserve.
Mercy - Not receiving what we deserve.

we beleive, the dispensation we are in is the "Grace Period".

Please read the book of revelation in the Bible, to see the God potrayed in this book. Then come back and post another article on how ferocious/zealous is the God (Jesus) of this book is.

 
At 7/25/2008 03:41:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

danny singh said christianity is based on reason,reasonable faith
in contrast to other religions of india which are blind faith.
danny singh has not read the bible
new testament of all four gospel
book.you can find the wordings
''i am come to the world not with peace but with sword'', all idols worshippers must be condemed to hell while only belivers of me will be taken to heaven with me.
there are plenty of violence,sex,
cruel,immoral ect in bible which
you can see in website-
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
www.losingmyreligion.com
www.truthdig.com
www.evilbible.com
www.anglefire.lycos.com
you can not find out any truth in
the religion of desert

 
At 7/25/2008 10:18:00 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Dear Anonymous,


"''I am come to the world not with peace but with sword'',"

Can Jesus who condemned "eye for an eye..." could he preach using the sword ? In Mt 26:52 Jesus says "..for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Does History record disciples using swords ? On the contrary they were martyred, gave up their lives willingly.

"there are plenty of violence,sex,
cruel, immoral ect in bible which"

Great you know a lot about Bible!

You are free to ignore the ten commandments!

You are free to ignore how the people were punished for such crimes!

You are free to the reason for destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I believe a honest reader will read the commandments and incidents where it was violated.

You free to call Bible filled with violence, sex...

 
At 7/26/2008 01:16:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

danny singh is good in sermoning with jesus golden words.jesus according to an average hindu,is a good soul like gandhiji,ramana rishi,ramakrishnar or any good saint but definetly not to be protrayed as god.a god can not die
in cross sheding blood,then who will rescue the human race.
lord vishnu took ten avatar in different yugas in different forms
but went to vaigundam directly from earth.it did not die in cross
and sheding blood. st paul propogated a new theory of christianity which took the world by branding all human race as sinners.hindus consider themselves as blessed to be born as human and hence do not believe in god washing
out our sins in one stroke like
christians believe jesus would wash their sins with his blood.
still washing even after 2000 years
means blood is still ozzing out from his immortal remains.but christians believe jesus will come again second time.that means he will again face same fate in cross to shed blood for washing present generation sins of people living now since past 2000 years.that is why they hold crosses in every places waiting to crusify again.

hindus go to temples to pray god for betterment in life and merge with them upon end of their life.
that is why,while hinduism can explain with the law of karma, humanrace inequality,inequity,
social differences,disparities in life,lifestyle changes ect based on
their karma in previous janmas with
their immortal souls taking births
after death many times till it merges with god finally in moksham.

christianity has no answer to this becouse it believes only in mortal
soul attached to the body and hence
deads are taken to place of worship before buried for having to wait on the day of judgement when jesus is supposed to arrive them for pick up. can dannay singh
who might have been converted from hinduism explain in details what he understood about christianity rather than believing in brainwashed theory of pastors and priests who do their job for their masters in west and america.

 
At 7/27/2008 06:57:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are you related to GSK Menon ?

 
At 7/30/2008 11:53:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

who is gsk menon ?

 
At 8/05/2008 04:57:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Please do not refer to Jesus Christ as if he really existed. It is time we stopped playing defense and started aggressively exposing the truth about this "one and only way to salvation".

There is a lot of evidence that Jesus did not exist at all, that the Roman Caesar Titus built up the story of a Messiah (a Christ, literally) to be told to the Jews of that time. The intent was to fool the Jews so that they would accept this Messiah as their saviour, and the Romans had made the story such that the Messiah was forgiving of the Romans. So the Jews who accepted this Messiah would forgive the Romans too. This would be great for the Romans, since the Jews were very rebellious and anti-Roman at that time.

Here are some sites:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCNJf83bqjs

http://www.christianaggression.org/

Discussions with Christians are always about defending our Dharma; Christianity and Jesus are taken as an established fact. Why is that so? Evidence is mounting that there was no Jesus. None whatsoever. "Jesus" was only a story, an invention of Romans to subdue the Jews a couple of millenia ago. Joseph Atwill describes all this quite well through his book (link #2) and his interview (link #3).

If we treat "Jesus" as a real character, even if we call him crazy etc., the "believing" christians will only say, "here is one more Hindu out to malign my Christ", and their faith will only get stronger, since Christianity is built upon martyrdom and victimhood feelings. But when a white guy himself says that Jesus was a hoax (see links 2 and 3), and another website run by white people (link 1) says jesus never existed, the "believer's" world receives a severe jolt.

So please say "the Roman invention Jesus" of the "hoax Jesus" or something like that every time you mention jesus. And point people to the sites above.

Doing so will be much more beneficial than a million letters that just vent exasperation at the christocult's devious ways.

We are no longer going to act like some miserable beggar trying to get invited to a party, pleading to the people who mockingly keep him at a distance.

We will pull the carpet out from under Christianity's feet.

Thanks.

 
At 8/06/2008 03:04:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks your comments.full agree with you and endorse your view.it looks this is the only way to weed away the parasites in the earth.
i give some more website-

www.joyofsatan.org

 
At 8/27/2008 11:24:00 AM, Blogger Shahryar said...

I think Danny Singh is an idiot who, unlike me, has never read the entire BIBLE (Big Idiotic Book of Lies and Errors!)

Vedanta is based on reason and experience and is totally practical in its approach to spiritual practice.

Christianity and all adharmic/Abrahamic faiths are BLIND FAITH and no more!

I discovered the truth when I first read the GAYATRI mantra: "We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this universe; may He enlighten our minds."

Damn sight more intelligent then "Father who art in heaven, etc."

 

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