The Gospel According to St. Johnpipe :^}

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Re-titled for humorous clarity - 02 Jan 2008 - This is Parody, not Conspiracy Theory folks!

"Pull up a chair, son, got a yarn ta' spin ya'.

"This is about the old days, and how the politicians torpedoed the work of the Knowledge worker known from the before times as Isha, but more commonly known by the Greek translation of his birth name, Yeshua, as Jesus Christ.

"Now this here teacher, Isha, he went down to the waterfront one day, called out to some waterfront toughs, "Come here; I want to make you fishers of men".

"Isha, you see, was a Kshatriya-Brahmin, a "Warrior-Teacher", a Karma-Yogi and Knowledge worker, teaching and upholding Truth, loving God and respecting Self. And the tough guys were impressed, as they hadn't seen anyone this smart and bright around their neighborhood in quite a while. So, they 'jined up with Isha, and followed him around everywhere he went, listenin' to his stories, memorizin' them and passin' them 'round to folks.

"He knew herbal medicine, and used to treat sick poor people for free, which naturally upset the doctors who would only treat you if you gave them money.

"He also didn't like the way most of his peers was screwin' around with each other's old ladies, and tellin' the rest of us to behave ourselves, so one day he went out into the square and hollered at them "You're a bunch of M____r F_____s", just as loud as he could, so none of them would fail to hear him.

"Now, at first I couldn't quite figger' out why the Romans got so mad at him as to nail him to a tree a little while later; after all, he said one of their soldiers "had more faith than he'd found anywhere in his own tribe," but then, they mighta' thought he was tryin' to infiltrate their army, and I guess this remark pissed off his peers at him even more.

"At any rate, they did kill him, although there's rumors he was a powerful yogi and tricked them by goin' into a coma, then slippin' away to India.

"But, he did leave a bunch of new teachers behind, the ex-fishermen and other assorted working men he had picked up before all the dramatic stuff happened. One of these guys, name of Peter, Isha told him, "You're the foundation of my church".

"Now, only trouble, the Roman government was paranoid of all this business, and never had been too happy with a bunch of the commercial fishermen and other assorted workers going off on holiday with some Jewish Hippie, and within two years of his alleged death they had sent a bureaucrat name Saul to infiltrate and disrupt this new movement.

"Well, this Saul character, he changes his name to "Paul", comes along sayin' he'd talked to Isha's ghost, and the ghost had appointed him Chief-Christian. Next, he goes 'round tellin' anyone who would listen that "My gospel is the only true gospel"

"Pretty soon he started gettin' really dirty, and started writin' hate letters to the churches that Isha's folks had started, accusing them of "Doing the Work of Satan!", and the SOB started sowing dissension left and right!

"I tell ya', son, ya' gots' to watch out for them guvmint' bureaucrats, 'cause they'll try to screw ya' every chance they get!

"'Course, he did a good hatchet-job, all right. Only took 3 centuries for them Christian's to end up as somthin' like fourteen different sects! And, that made it that much easier for the Roman guvmint' of that time to take over the Christian's churches, and make Christianity the state religion of their empire.

"Now the way they did this son, was their chief politician, Constantine, organized a little convention, which he called the "first church meeting at Nicea," a little Mediterranean resort where he was staying at the time.

"He had put up a platform, with planks to suit the various delegations. And he said, "Sign here ...", and if ya' knew what was good for ya', ya' signed! He encouraged them to sign, you see, by subtly pointing out that they would find it easier to walk down the steps when they left, with their heads on their shoulders, than underneath their arms.

"At any rate, they make Saul's alien Greek theology the centerpiece of their new, state religion, to replace their old Roman theology, which sounded just like the Greek theology they were adapting now, complete with the same old pagan stuff, you know, "Divinely Conceived, Born of a Virgin, Taught mysteries of the flesh and blood, and had Conquered Death!"

You see, the pagans always said that Man is created by Lust, and that only "special" people were "divinely conceived", but Isha had taught folks that we're all divinely conceived, seein' as how his dad was divine, and he was the same one as, (whispers, 'done our mum's too,' so to speak.")

"Oh, yes, and that other major pagan practice, worshiping the ghost of a dead guy, which was contrary to the dead guy's teaching in the first place!

"Of course, this new "religion" of worshiping the dead guy's ghost had a great appeal to all the superstitious ordinary folks, and the poor sods didn't know any better, so they fell for it, but I'll bet Isha's dad isn't goin' to be too happy with the way them churches still keep the faithful ignorant, telling them "Worship the Ghost of God's Dead Son, put your dollar on the plate, and you'll get your reward in Heaven".

"At any rate, it wasn't long before this new church started huntin' down all the folks what was too smart for their own good, and started killin' them in all kinds of mean, nasty and ugly ways, such as burnin' them at the stake. 'specially aspies like you and me, young fella! Yeah! Didn't like smart folks that could see though 'em, ya' see, really didn't like us at all!

"Funny, I recall old Isha sayin' that 'the Kingdom of Heaven Lies Within Ya', so ya' can live there all the time, right here in this world, all ya' gotta' do is have your heart in the right place, and do what he said and "uphold the law", meanin' that part of the commandments where it says to "Love God with your Mind...".

"Of course, that was one part of the commandments the churches didn't particularly stress, 'cause they didn't want a lotta' young folks like you getting Jesus like, and chasin' them out of the temple like Isha did!

"Now, them politicians did such a bang-up job, them poor Christian's are all split up today, bitchin' at each other, instead of being unified, loving God and Truth and respecting Self, and they're still worshiping the dead guys ghost, instead of his Knowledge, like he asked them too.

"Why, one day, back in the sixties, the Bishop of Virginia came to our mission, back when I was a teenager like yerself. Well, you should of heard him; he musta' been like that fellow Isha said to "You're not far from the Kingdom of Heaven", 'cause he says to our congregation "If Jesus walked into National Cathedral today, the first people to cry out for his blood would be the hierarchy of our own church!"

"Well, I tell you! I really admired that fella! He wasn't nobody's fool, and he was brave and truthful, and I really felt for him, havin' to work around all them feather-merchants that run the church.

'Course, he upset the old biddies and the self-righteous bigots, but he got my respect, fer' dern shur. Ya' see, he had seen the same stuff that old Dostoevsky saw, when he wrote 'The Grand Inquisitor', where he portrays Jesus as walkin' in on the Spanish Inquisition.

"Jesus sets himself down and has a long talk with the Inquisitor, and at the end of their talk, the Inquisitor theatens to have Jesus executed by his own order the next day. Jesus just kisses him on the cheek and walks away.

Anyway's, young fella', that is how the Roman guvmint' did a hatchet-job on Christianity!

Your Obedient Kshatriya-Brahmin,

Last edited by johnpipe108 on 02 Jan 2008, 11:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, "Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment." This is the guy you're blaming for dividing the Church?

Before you go quoting scripture out of context, study what biblical scholars have to say on the subject. It's several serious pages of scholastic work, including the search for the historical Jesus.

Truth is a hard thing, but the Truth Shall Set You Free.

Good Seeking, capture the Golden Snitch,

Your Obedient Kshatriya-Brahmin,

i think paul messed up christianity more than anyone

Far as I'm aware, the chaos in the early church occurred because Peter and his guys were teaching people that they needed to follow both the laws of Moses (like circumcision and not eating pigs or other "unclean" animals) plus the laws of Jesus, and Paul was only making them follow the laws of Jesus (who never made an issue of circumcision, and was reported to say things like, "Nothing which enters a man from outside can render him unclean"). Paul was preaching primarily to people who weren't Jewish, and most of whom had never even heard of Moses, and trying to get them to follow Christ. He saw no reason why they should have to be circumcised (something a guy has to do when he converts to Judaism) when they were becoming Christian, not Jewish. This rubbed some Jewish people who converted to Christianity the wrong way, and it caused a fair amount of chaos and occasional riots.

That's the only thing like division that I can think of which involved Paul personally. Were you talking about that kind of division? Or were you talking about what led to the formation of the various Protestant churches? Because I don't see where any of that was Paul's fault.

I doubt seriously that Paul was secretly working for the government to undermine Christianity. Why would the Roman government send him to infiltrate the Christians and then turn around and throw him in prison and execute him? If his motives were truly to serve the Roman government by screwing with Christianity, why the crap would he, knowing he was to be executed by said government, continue writing all those letters from behind bars to his various congregations?

It's nobody's fault.

"Judge not lest ye be also judged by God."

It's simply what happened, and parody and satire are the tools of the humorist, and always have been.

Everything that happened was God's will, of a Negative past, to prepare the humanity for a Positive Existence.

"It is always darkest before the dawn ..."

"Happiness is the best weapon, Truth the most dangerous ..."

That is why the great philosophers, such as the late Will Roger's, always use humor to tell the Truth.

He always said "I never met a man I didn't like".

He told the Truth about the political world, without hostility, and made them laugh at the Truth within themselves.

Obeisance to the Goddess Saraswati within you,

Your Obedient Brahmin,