Why Jesus Used Hate And Fear To Destroy Family Bonds

[First draft] 
 

Someone going by the name "Drip Lord Mezaya"

 wrote: 

Religion is not Good for mankind.
It creates division rather than love and unity. I hate it

In reply, someone named Jayarathne Abeydeera

posted this comment:

In the Bible, Jesus says, "Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other!" in Luke 12:51-53. Jesus also says, "I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'" in Matthew 10:34.

Jesus' statement may seem shocking because it contradicts other promises that he would bring peace.

 However,
Jesus is challenging his listeners to repent and convert by denouncing injustice and wrongdoing."

Later, in that same post/comment, 
Jayarathne adds:
 "In choosing to see life differently—to embrace our true Oneness with God instead of accepting old beliefs of separation, guilt,(and) shame."

I want to engage with these statements too, here in this blog-reply. Because it actually is relevant. 

However, I'll wait until after I've addressed the first block from his post; so that we don't get distracted by it.

[Note: Jayarathne said other things in that same post/comment which I want to address. 
However,
I'll address those in a separate blog, since those are different (but related) assertions.
For this blog-reply, I want to stay focused on these arguments]

In reply (to the above-quoted statements, and also the parts that aren't quoted here) someone named "Francis George Roberts" said:
  "do you know how stupid this sounds?"


In a very surprising reply, 
Christian-apologist Jayarathne Abeydeera admits: 
"Definitely I agree with you."



My thoughts about these specific apologetics:
Let's take a look at an earlier verse in that same chapter.
Luke 12:

11 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”

And yet, here is "Jesus" (a primary character in Christian-religious folk tales; entirely absent from the Hebrew-religious folk tales).

Here, "Jesus" is failing to receive the very same guidance (from the holy spirit) that he assured his followers they are guaranteed to receive.
To be fair to the real-guy
(lost under a rotting avalanche of religious fish tales), 
we don't know that HE said ANY of these things.



However, in the context of these rumor-based stories, ...
Here he is
on the witness stand.
He's facing the court of public opinion and also semi-private cult opinion.
He's there to 'testify' on behalf of his religious-Mafia and his God-Father.
Per these Luke-Book rumors,...
He comes across as borderline incoherent and ultimately non-credible; aka "stupid". And even THAT is giving him too much credit. Because: Under what SOUNDS LIKE the random ramblings of an all-day-alcoholic, are the craftily woven efforts to ISOLATE cult-members from their families, to help maximize mind-control over that cult.

This is absolutely STANDARD for all cults. 

As for the apologetic spin on-offer, let's clear up all confusion about this. Nothing said in that chapter, and nothing inferred by context ... indicates he was trying (but failing) to convey the idea that:
by "dividing people" he meant for his followers merely to 'take a stand' against social injustice and crime being committed by family members.  
Instead, the Jesus-character (in these rumor-stories) 
is COMMITTING social injustice, and COMMITING crimes (against humanity), and calling upon all of his cult's members to do the same. According to verse 46,
"The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers."

He's calling upon his cult's members to embrace the SPIRIT and the HOPE of violent retribution
against everyone in the world (and their children),
on Trash Day; 
calling upon his followers to think of 'the world' (everyone who isn't either IN their cult, or at least willing to JOIN their cult) as being disposable. 

And for what crimes?

For the "crimes" of "disbelief", inadequate beliefs, wrong-beliefs, "lukewarm"-ism, and failing to abide by binding religious laws. 
[Although, the different bible-writers each had their own list of which rules are obligatory and which aren't] 

[Note:
Additionally, condemning outsiders for the crimes of:
 being born with a magical sin-curse, 
 and (in the case of non-Jews) 
being born non-Jewish.] 
 
Per the "gospel"-rumors,
and per the consensus of scholars whom rely on those rumors (because they have nothing else to go by), ... 

 Jesus "came only for the Jews".
His entire message was only for them.

 Decades later, Saul/Paul created a new Judaism-themed religion where 'anyone can join'. 

 Decades after that,
anonymous "gospel" writers tried to create yet-another new religion.

They were canceling-out Paul's idea of a Judaism that anyone can join ... by offering a religion that isn't Judaism at all (instead, a replacement) ... but which Jews can join.

The "gospels" were competing (not cooperating) attempts to create:
 the opposite of Paul's religion.
 [ Not opposite 'in every way', but opposite in several very important ways] 

As for what's written in the book we call "Luke", ... That entire chapter only has one theme.
It's a running list of 'sayings' the writer heard (rumors) about Jesus saying ... specifically regarding WHO has value, WHO does not, and what cult-members are supposed to DO, to make sure they maintain having value (in the eyes of their deity).

Properly rule-obedient slaves of the Father have value;
even more value than "five sparrows" (worth roughly two pennies).
 
Per the anonymous author of "Luke", who was repeating (and augmenting) rumors about 'things Jesus said', ... No other humans have value; except their POTENTIAL-FUTURE-VALUE as potential converts.

So when he talks about turning cult-followers against their loved ones,
he's talking about fostering cult-mentality, black-and-white, morality-polemic thinking. In that worldview/values-system, anyone who is not (sufficiently) pleasing to the GodFather, ... is an enemy.

In other words, the cult leader says "anyone who is not with me" is automatically "against me".

In fact,
verse 4-7 really tries to drive this point home.

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.

5 But I will show you whom you should fear:
Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

This is the "wrong doing" he wants his followers to hate and fear.
These are the PEOPLE he wants his followers to hate and fear.
This is the dividing line that entire chapter is talking about.

Anyone who doesn't embrace the teachings and identity-politics of their cult ... is a threat to the SOUL;
a spiritual leaper, who should be: * vocally and personally denounced,
* fought with (about it),
and then (if the family members refuse to capitulate to the moral-authority of the Jesus-cult) ... * left behind; as to "let the dead bury the dead".

So you are correct to surmise that he's turning his followers into antisocial morality-police, who will refuse to play nice (or even keep actively being FAMILY) with family members who are wrong-doing.

But the point you might have missed is:

The wrong-doing they'll accuse family members of is
limited to this "crime":
being guilty of inadequate ideological and/or behavioral compliance with their racist, authoritarian, doomsday cult. At the core of that gross dysfunction is scientific illiteracy. Such religions/cults have always misunderstood the reasons WHY literally everyone else reasons differently about the meaning of life and the best ways to live. Chalking all those differences up to outsiders being "wicked" is psychologically destructive, and socially destructive. It's Dunning-Kruger morality. They understood so little ... that they didn't understand how much there is ... waiting to be discovered. As a result, they spoke as clued-in experts on topics they were dead-wrong about. This is VERY understandable for ancient barbarians. But it's not even excusable if we assume a literal Omni-Being is authoring that abusive and ignorant nonsense. - Because they would know better. --------

Lastly, as promised, let's engage with the 2nd block of assertions. 

Let's clear up any confusion about this stuff too.

1. "In choosing to see life differently" 
--
 
First, everyone sees life somewhat uniquely. 

As a general concept,
this is not some novel/new approach to life. 
It's standard, for humans. 
 Everyone tries to be at least a little unique.
Everyone tries to conform at least a little too.
And everyone ends up with a unique way of seeing some things. 

Now, I realize the larger statement (as quoted) does offer a short list of somewhat-specific ways in which Jesus was trying to propose new ways of thinking.

In fairness, I am about to address those specifics. 

First, even if we imagine Jesus taking a stand against "old beliefs of separation, guilt,(and) shame.", 
we couldn't get away from the fact that the entire Hebrew Bible has been endorsed BY Christians as only concepts taught to humans BY "God". 

So then we should be asking ourselves "Why would a perfect Omni-everything BEING ... teach humans the wrong way to think?"

 It would mean that "God" created a problem, thereby causing all the disasters which flowed from that problem, 
and then blamed his Hebrew victims for those consequences,
and then sent Jesus to simultaneously endorse and reject that entire way of thinking. 

That doesn't just sound crazy.
It is crazy. 
 
As for the Jesus-character in the various "gospel" stories?

He let his culture shape the rough form his mind was molded into.

He also allowed unhealed psychosocial traumas give his mind even more specific details in the shaping/sculpting of his mind-castle.

Examples?
Feeling:
* oppressed by Rome,
* oppressed by leaders of his own religion,
and
* abandoned by his "earthly" father. 

He also allowed poverty to shape his psychology.
Thus, he was perpetually at-odds with "the man"; who he kept wanting to 'stick it to'. 

As a deeply emotional reaction, 
he imagined a 'reality' where his 'real Dad' was the most powerful being in the universe.

His 'real dad' was going to eventually give Jesus enough POWER that Jesus could then 'turn the tables' on the wealthy and powerful people who spent so many years making Jesus feel 'less than'. 

"Just you wait and see!"; as he shook his righteous fists at wickedly-successful people.

All the while, they were only thinking and behaving according to how human psychology was "designed" (per a magical curse) to think and behave.  
 
Also, this does seem to be a common trope for cultural heroes. 

Just like Gandhi, 
the deeply wounded pride of a covert vulnerable narcissist ... drove him to stage a rebellion;  primarily for himself, but secondarily "for the people" he identified with. 

Underpinning it all?
 Ego fragility
and Magical thinking. 

Gandhi wasn't thinking in some genius social-strategy sort of way.

He was thinking how his Hindi mom taught him to think. 

If you can control the weather by emotionally blackmailing the magical forces which govern the weather, by harming yourself (violence against the self) via hunger-strike, ... until they finally give in to your demands, ...
then surely you can control a society the same way. 

Gandhi got lucky with his timing;
 in the context of changes his society was already struggling to make. 

The same holds true for the timing of Christianity.
And for the underlying motives of their "visionaries". 

Thus,
in that great "vision", 
Jesus gets the MOST glorification and power;
while his people just get 'a lot'. 

Heavily factoring into the mix of factors that shaped his mind, ...

Profound mental illness helped shape how he thinks.

He didn't even TRY to resist it, because he thought the voices in his head were his 'real Dad' who just happens to be a literal deity and 'the bestest God ever'. 

He spent the rest of his self-destructive life 
obeying the voices in his head, 
while he tried to earn a permanent respect and acceptance from "Him". 

The voices in his head,
according to the "gospel"-rumors, 
told him what to think, say, and do in the world.

They were given "identity", as an 'upgrade' and surrogate for the father he felt abandoned by. 

 To capture and convey the subtly-obvious essence of how his Unresolved Daddy Issues helped CAUSE his mental illness, ...

To also realize 
how he then 'made friends with that monster
(until it finally drove him to suicide)... 

 I would paraphrase it this way:

"Screw my earthly dad. I don't need him anyways. Nuclear family sucks. Rage against them all! 
 All I need is my REAL DAD,
who is the voice I hear. 

And since I set the standard for how everyone else should think and behave, ...
that's all ANYONE really needs".
 
But he didn't come to these ideas 'of his own accord'.
 
In fact, that literary character is not making a free choice at all.

Neither is he empowering anyone else to make a free choice.

This is one of the big things which all literal versions of "Christianity" get wrong:
 
Consent.

 See past the 'white knighting' and love-bombing.

His message is SATURATED with blatant attempts to COERSE compliance under extreme threats.


Acting as-if those threats are a 'friendly warning' is a play straight out of the Mafia Thugs Playbook.

 "That's a nice soul you have there.

Well, ok, ... not nice; but potentially useful.

It could BECOME beautiful and lovely, with our help. 
And I know it already has some value to YOU. 

It would be a shame if something ... BAD happened to it". 

=========
2.
—to embrace our true Oneness with God instead of accepting old beliefs of separation, guilt,(and) shame."

Finally,
my thoughts on this other block of apologetics:

First, 
let's be CRYSTAL CLEAR about this:

All throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible(s), ... 
 they PROMOTE and, in fact, DEMAND separation, guilt, and shame.

They aren't saying "those are bad".
They are saying "embrace those ways as GOOD; as deeply as you can".

Whenever a "believer" says otherwise, they are lying to your face.

Whenever a fan agrees with Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, etc)  
they are being mentally lazy, 
social-norm sycophants.

 They just want to preserve the 'familiar comforts' of established sociopolitical hierarchies. 
And that's largely because they don't understand the cost everyone is paying to maintain those. 

Also, ... 

Try to understand the term "God".

Christianity doesn't get to call dibs on the term,
nor on anyone else's life.

In a very general sense of the term,
the word "god" or "God" 
just means:

 The invoker is so awe-struck and enamored by
a.)  a conceptualization,
and
b.) by their own feelings being provoked by (whichever) conceptualization,  
that:

They feel emotionally moved
to place a "crown of words" atop the metaphorical head of that concept; 

 a crown called "God". 

This is what deists, pantheists, and theists have in common. 

The deist "God" is an impersonal but self-aware entity'.
It doesn't give a shit about us.
 It MIGHT not even realize we are down here. And wouldn't care, even if it realized we're down here. 

The pantheist "God" isn't a literal BEING at all.
 It's basically "sexed-up atheism". 
It's just someone being overly romantic and poetic about how they feel about the ecosystem and/or the cosmos. 

The theist "God" is personal and personally involved. 

These uses of the term "God" have nothing in common EXCEPT that they refer to the human's own feelings. 

However,
all the Abrahamic religions do something God-Awful with the term "God". 

Those religions (or "totally not religion", as they now prefer to be called, for marketing purposes) ...
are religious ecosystems dedicated to
* self-infantilizing,
* power-worshipping,
and
* Narcissism-emulating.

To become "one with "God", in that context,
means to lose yourself willingly, out of instilled self-loathing. 

In their view,
there is only being of great and innate worth (according to "his" own opinion).

Thus, "He" seeks to gradually copy/past himself over the human; until there's nothing left but shallow reflections of himself. 

Created from the minds of clinical narcissists and psychopaths, ... 
and then spread to other minds wherein it feels like a separate person and a super parent, ...

"God" becomes the masked alter-ego of every person who gets tricked into the character-roll of "messenger". 

It's a hijacked part of each converted-person's own mind. 
And because it's not a healthy persona, 
it perpetually generates social and psychological dysfunction. 

Their "God" is a severe clinical Narcissist.

Just like any Narcissist, 
his social "identity" (what he presents to others) is only a grand mask he hides his own emptiness behind. 
 
"He"  is the will and character
of the person who spread it to you.

"He" is also of the other religious people who keep telling "Him" what to say (over you). 

"He" is also a hijacked and partitioned part of each host-person's own mind. 

And yet, 
the host-mind is not self-aware and honest enough to take an accurate 'personal inventory'.
They can't.
Because they're trying to avoid how empty their sense of "self" really is. 

Although, they can BECOME ready, if they ever accidentally heal and grow past that cowardice.
 This is what leads to "de-conversion". 

In effect,
such religions create a form of Multiple Personality Disorder. 

Infected people become their own domestic abuser;
-under whom they suffer
(and enjoy)
Stockholm Syndrome. 

Like any other domestic-abuser/Narcissist/white-knight, 
... the proposed arrangement is a great thing for HIM, since HIMSELF is the only person 
is the only "person" he is capable of loving.

So the more you echo him, the more he feels "good" about you,
the safer he feels around you,
and the more control he has over you. 

What he calls "love" is just a way of saying you make him feel good and safe. 
 But it's not a love "for you;
 because "you" as a person are not valued.

In that psychosocial paradigm,
you are valued only as a utility. 

There's a world of difference between these two ideas about "love". 

It's a shitty remedy for any ego-damaged human's inability to love themselves and others. 
 
That's what these religions are really talking about, when they say things like: 

 "We were created in the image of God",
and then "fell from that glory",
and barely have any of that glory today (as sin-stained carnal-people),
and then saying "we can be restored that glory" ... partly NOW (if we join the only correct religion), 
and then fully in Heaven. 

 So then "God" will look at these tiny mirrors of his own glory, and say "I love you; without any reservation."

In other words, they CREATE shame (mostly on irrational premises).

And then they offer to cure the shame they create; 
by killing the patient. 
And then stuffing the VOID where their soul used to be ... with a copy-pasted echo of "Him"
 
After the patient is body-snatched by a socially-spread, invasive mind-virus.
 which overwrites each person it spreads to, ... 

Each of those monsters then 'go out' into the world
to delete other people's essence-of-self, so they can write their own ego OVER the other person.


We have no way to verify how many Abrahamic fundamentalists and moderates are clinical Narcissists.

To be very carefully clear on this point, ...

They are NOT all clinical narcissists.

However, they have all been trained
by their bibles and their church-culture 
to emulate clinical Narcissism. 

It's why they habitually gaslight.

It's also why they can't be reasoned with. 
 
All clinical Narcissists are monsters.
But the really smart monster will spend a lot of time being "nice" in public. 

Everyone who is NOT a clinical Narcissists but has temporarily adopted that way of 'being', 
is functioning AS a monster. 

When that happens, the person is playing that character on the human stage, because they've tricked into thinking it's a good way to be. 

Again, only SOME religious people really are monsters. But it's really easy for them to blend in, in a religious environment where everyone (to varying degrees) is unwittingly emulating that disorder. 

Only the most strategic monsters are religious. 

Destroying, in the name of "helping".

Replacing, in the name of "preserving".

This is how monsters procreate.

Their victims become a copy of them.

- Not in every way.
But enough to count as a living tribute to their ego's boast "I was here. And I copied the essence of my personality onto others, so that I may live on through them".
  
If enough of the host survives, 
the host will eventually realize what happened and then take back ownership of their life. 
 Otherwise, they will not.

Authoritarian religions are just more effective at this form of "procreation" than anyone else. 
 
They have mind-hacking tools it took thousands of years to develop and refine. 

Among these? 
Gaslighting;
as a way to market their shame-creating and shame-exploiting religion as a cure for shame. 

All that "cure" will cost their victims is:
literally everything. 

 And among the first things each new Borg Drone will lose?
Disposable people; like parents, children, siblings, cousins, etc,; 
so that converts can make a clean space for a different kind of family. 
 
 
This is what the anonymous authors of "Luke" and "Matthew" were on about.