Religion. What It Is. And What It Costs.
When people in Christian religions
are proud to let us know
they aren't in a religion.
[#Marketting]
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Let's be clear about this:
The Story of Jesus is The story of a tragically unwell man losing his battle with mental illness. Christians have completely misunderstood that character in those stories. They also misunderstand why the Jewish and Roman authorities wanted him dead. He challenged their religious authority and their qualifications to interpret their religious laws. -Laws which, according to Matthew 5:18, would remain in effect until the sky and land we walk upon no longer exist.
Just as importantly, he was seen as someone making a false claim to being the Jewish messiah. They didn't care that he hung out with undesirable people. Granted, they probably did care that he had his own followers. But none of his followers were socially or politically powerful. His followers certainly would have included politically powerful people, IF he had actually gone around healing the blind and raising the dead. But he didn't. Those legends took decades to grow to those extremes. So the real person (whose real biographical data has been lost) was (evidently) never able to attract empowered people into his obscure little Jewish sect. Thus, no record remains of his life. We only have later legends to draw from. Now, am I making assumptions about Jesus? Yes. I am assuming there was an actual person to start with. But I used Occam's razor for that. And then I learned of how scholars use that same principle... to extrapolate the most probable explanations about how and why those legends were constructed.
In any event, according to those legendary stories, ... The locally dominant Jews didn't tolerate challenges to their authority. The Romans felt the same way. And that's the nature of the criminal charge waged against him; - that he was plotting to overthrow Caesar, as someone posturing as the promised military leader of the Jews. And yet, when that particular Jesus (a common name, for a common man, making a common claim as a rightful leader of the Jews) died ... That actually proved he was not the promised military messiah of the Jews. He died without DOING and BEING what that messiah was supposed to do and be. AFTER Peter had a (very common) post-bereavement hallucination (<--- link) [the most probable theory, of all posited theories] ... Peter then spread that rumor to others. And then other people took his word for it. That's when their small Jewish cult began to reinterpret the life and death of their leader. Likewise, and out of necessity, they began to reinterpret the Jewish texts in a new way; as a way to SALVAGE their previously discredited bid to become the special, true, and dominant Jewish sect.
Thus, the foundations of a new religion were laid. They'd still need help from Saul/Paul, and the later gospel writers, to help change it into something they could mass-market. But none of those writers made the switch to a no-rules/non-religion. And if you're a Christian, then neither have you. You haven't transcended anything for so long as you are in a "totally not a religion" that still has: *A list of "totally not rules" that people must abide by, in order to have a true relationship with your deity [examples: Everyone must: * think certain required things about Jesus, * only say nice things about The Holy Spirit, * correctly understand what the Holy Spirit is, * abstain from premarital sex, etc etc]
Clearly, everyone realizes that willfully living in ways that violate those "totally not rules" ... risk being: rejected by your deity, committed to eternal consequence, and seen/treated as spiritual lepers by other believers (again, more consequences). What else reveals you haven't actually "transcended" religion? *Authoritarianism. *Totalitarianism. *Sexism. *Gender-roll stereotypes (worse yet: celebrated as moral truths). *Speaking of children as property of parents. *Advocating for the "totally not religious" indoctrination of children (and very ironically: in the name of Free Will). *Demonizing everyone who isn't a proper part of your "totally not a religion". *Evading moral accountability; via scapegoating your failings onto an innocent martyr. *Fosters irrational shame among emotionally vulnerable victims, as a means of thought control and behavioral control. *Presuming to know what any deity thinks about anything. *Validating the entire notion of any human speaking with special moral authority ... merely on the basis of claiming (without proof) that a deity (or any other spooky Mystical Power) authorized (or otherwise imbued) some randomly chosen, fallible men to speak on that Power's behalf. How many predators, over the past 6000+ years, have taken disastrous advantage of that platform?
Surely you can understand how unwise it was for anyone to build and validate any such platform. What else incriminates your cult? *Functioning as a global extorsion/protection racket. *Selling fraudulent afterlife/fire insurance.
*Dishonestly marketing that fantastically expensive (and still fraudulent) insurance as "free".
Religion anti-educates. It sabotages each next generation's ability to function autonomously in the larger world; as a way to trap people into perpetual dependence. Christians learned that from the Jews. And later, the Muslims learned it from Christians.
What else is stupid about your "totally not a religion"?
*Celebrating a collection of ancient religious lore that dignifies owning (and abusing) other humans as property.
*Undermining the common commitment to help make this into a better world (safer, healthier, more harmonious);
- by speaking of this world as disposable
and redirecting people's priorities to a wished-for next world.
*Contributing to the divisions in our world. How? By perpetuating toxic and divisive ideals throughout human social systems. *Painting all others as part of a "the world" that you have disdain for; but calling that disdain "love". *Orwellian word-game propaganda, where you ascribe purely positive adjectives to your deity ... which are the opposite of how your stories describe him. A "Loving Father" who commanded various people to be violently slaughtered for various stupid reasons. A perfectly self-sufficient, invulnerable, self-confident Father ... who reasons, speaks, and behaves as violently insecure. etc.
You gotta know how ridiculous your ingroup signaling is. The religious uniforms, the we-special stories, the ingroup language, ... You may as well go one stunt further; with a secret handshake.
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