Your arguments are compelling, but they are hinged on this world being black or white, right or wrong, good or evil….I would posit there is a lot more gray than most people of faith are willing to acknowledge… Even Heisenberg had some good traits.
It's a great comment Bagholder. I very much understand THIS world is very gray, and I think that speaks to the level of confusion that the enemy has sown into our reality. But I do believe there is a clear truth which we are absolutely unable to understand here because it IS so gray.
You were prescient in stating that you would lose some readers at the introduction of the christian mythic archetype. I was right there with you, and then hit the Jesus wall. But I still think you're onto something, but just have cause and effect reversed.
What I think you're describing are the Jungian archetypes. The psychological patterns forwarded through generations by our DNA. These stories are in our heads and our collective consciousness because evolution put them there over millions of years of being social creatures.
The Jesus mythology is an example of this, as are all the other mythic sagas you mentioned, including the avengers. There's so much down this path, but I think it's much more fruitful than believing in magic. Though I won't rule that out!
Hey Scott, great comment man. I love the way you're thinking, and I love the tone of the argument. Really appreciate it.
I think you and I, like you say, are coming from opposite cause and effects. You believe we've evolved these stories. I believe they've been given to us by a Creator.
Not sure how to meet in the middle other than to agree that we're here and now, we both understand there IS an archetype, and we can keep our eyes open to what clues that template gives us right now to life the human condition out of the gutter we seem to like wallowing in.
I agree. The Jesus Myth is just another example of the Hero/saviour archetype. Not to say that Jesus wasn't (or isn't) real, or significant... I do think we need to separate Jesus & his teachings from the religion of Christianity that is even more mythical again (and does not speak to me). Well before the time of Jesus, we had all the Old Testament stuff, and the mythological elements woven throughout the stories there - including God vs Satan.
The purpose of myth is to provide a map for us - and if the Jesus myth speaks to you, then it works. Myself, I like Star Wars (the original trilogy, not all the extra stuff).
And the bonus: nobody expects you to start worshipping any of these characters.
But oh how people DO worship these characters anyway, don't they? Go to any comic con or fan gatherings, and it's straight up worship. Which, to me, speaks to the fact that within humans, there is a universal need at the spiritual level for certain elements to make us feel alive. Things like worship, faith, hope, peace...my view is these came from a creator and are imbued in and through the very fabric of humanity as gifts, as guides. Which turns me right back to my belief that Christ IS the lens, the missing link that makes all other ideas and beliefs about our universe possible.
And I'm with you. The original trilogy was the best. My 15 year old son tries to convince me that the Ewan McGregor prequals are the best, and I just laugh at him. I appreciate the other parts of the story, but nothing beats the original 3. Talk about something in your DNA. As a young kid in the early 80s, the HBO theme and the intro to A New Hope are as much a part of me as anything else in my life.
Thank you for allowing me to express some different thoughts in commenting on your substack! And thank you for creating a space to have this conversation about matters of Spirit.
I agree with the essence of most of what you say, about Good and Evil, God and Satan, and the Spiritual Battle we are facing.
As for your comment on my own comment, I agree that faith, hope, peace - and love, and gratitude, and probably some other higher drives and states of consciousness too - are all part of what connects us to Spirit, our Creator. Worship, I am not so sure. In Yoga there is a path, Bhakti Yoga, which is the devotional path, and it seems to be a valid path to God. Christianity also has much of the devotional path. But humans seem to want to worship - and find salvation - in things that are clearly profane. Most lately, we have the truly perverted drive to find salvation in this medical injection being promoted everywhere - and it truly has all the elements of a religion. We have been warned against idol worship for good reason.
I can accept Christ as being a key principle, so I hope this gives us enough common ground!
One's spirituality is an intensely personal thing, and we do not all have to see or experience it the same way, I think.
There are many paths to God, many valid paths. And some misleading ones. But we are here on Earth to bring Spirit into this earthly realm, and to do that we must find out how to strengthen our connection with our own Spirit, find our own path to God.
When you say the 'Jesus Myth' you don't get to then say that Jesus might be real. These statements contradict. Your comments make it pretty clear you haven't actually read the Bible. Why bother reading a book that has been printed, written about, and died for more than any other book? Jesus is not just another archetype - who else fits that one before Jesus? Christianity, at its heart, is the study of the Bible, the greatest historical document in the world. Sadly Christian churches have been taken over by the enemy as well, and has become lukewarm and censoring of the most important truths. The Bible in context with history and prophecy is far more fascinating, deep, and sublime than Star Wars could ever be. Expand your mind beyond mainstream and indoctrination. Read the Bible.
Thank you, Maggie, for reading my comment, for contemplating it, and responding. Those have become increasingly rare in this sorry time!
In fact, you are wrong. I HAVE read the Bible. And I will continue to hold that it is indeed possible to conceive of "the Jesus myth", and to believe that Jesus was a real person. In fact, it is almost inevitable - and to understand this, you just have to look a little bit down the corridors of history and see how we have mythologised so many of our heroes and villains - JFK and Hitler, Queen Elizabeth 1 and Napoleon, and so many more.
You tell me to read the Bible - I will tell you to delve into Greek and Nordic and other mythology. We have the Crucified God archetype in Odin, the Scandinavian God. We have Horus, the Egyptian Sun/Son god. I understand that you want to think of Jesus as special, and of course he is. But in fact, reading the Bible is what has turned me off Christianity, over and over. It is a chronicle of a lot of pretty grim stuff, incest, murder, fratricide, revenge. Apart from the actual teachings of Jesus in the 4 gospels, I cannot find anything much in the rest of it that is at all edifying.
So please don't patronise me in that way. I accept that you might find something different in the Bible, and in your own belief system. I have come to my own belief system through deep contemplation and spiritual connection over almost 70 years. Please respect that someone else might have arrived at a different position from you through an equally valid process, and not necessarily though indoctrination - I will not do you the disrespect of suggesting the same back to you.
Most people today have not read the Bible, so it is, unfortunately, a pretty safe bet that someone hasn’t. I stand corrected in your case. I met no offense, and ask for forgiveness for my sardonic reply. You say the Bible is grim, indeed, life itself is full of incest, murder, slavery, war, rape. The Bible reflects this in dealing with dire situations, and offers solutions: a place to stand. As this article, upon which we comment, points out, it is the basis of every story, all great literature, and the subject of endless scholarly endeavors. People from all walks of life, from Shakespeare to Jordan Peterson, have found inspiration and transformation there.
I once thought, much like you, that most of it was myth, that other religions have similar ones, that it was dark and violent, and that new age teachings were more comfortable. Then I began to study the history, the context, the psychological implications, the prophesies, the more recent archeological proofs, and all of my pre-existing biases and beliefs all fell away. (Reading C.S. Lewis helped too). As our world turned ever more to tyranny, war, inflation, shaming dissenters, etc., my search for truth gained momentum. I think what has struck me most profoundly, about my renewed interest in learning the teachings of the Bible, is how it has been so subtlety hidden, obscured, disdained, and scoffed at through the years. As censorship has increased in our society, it made me bold in seeking the hidden stories. The Bible is like the biggest secret manual for dark times hidden in plain sight.
From the Christian perspective, the other religions and mythologies – sun Gods, etc., are just pagan versions, bad copies (under the devil’s guidance) of the truth of the Son of God. The old testament is often overlooked by modern readers and so they miss the 100’s of references, prophesies, of the coming of Jesus; scripture Jesus himself said that He came to fulfill. Many people say that they like some of the words of Jesus, and that these, the words they see as inspired, make Him a great human being. However, if you don’t believe all of His words, He is a liar or crazy, and, in that case, not to be trusted at all. I pray you take another look. Blessings to you.
“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” –C.S. Lewis
No offence taken, and thank you for engaging with me in a respectful way!
Neither of my parents was a believer, but I was brought up going to a Presbyterian Sunday School, and later a Presbyterian-Methodist girls school - in the days before the Presbyterian Church amalgamated with the Methodists to become the Uniting Church and give up all pretence of meeting spiritual needs and focus on good works instead.
At an age when I was ready to be initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, I discovered that the Presbyterian Church had none (or not for lay people), and simply continued to exhort us to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved, or go to Hell for all eternity.
That was neither intellectually nor spiritually satisfying, and at the age of 13 - after a deep conversation with my best friend - I spent a sleepless night and finally reached a conclusion that I have not been able to fault in the years since: God gave me a brain, and would not punish me for using it.
At that point I left the Church, and in spite of several forays back into Christian belief I have never been able get past the central sticking point in all the permutations of Christianity that I have encountered: to accept Jesus Christ as my personal saviour, and accept that He died for my sins.
I am happy with my own very deep and personal relationship with my Creator, I embrace many of the mystical aspects of Christianity, and continue to find the central doctrines of the Christian church - at least those I have encountered here in Australia - somewhat puerile, and both intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying.
In the 4 books of the gospels, we lose a lot in the translation from Aramaic to Greek to English, and even the earliest version we have was written some time after the death of Jesus - but nowhere does it report Jesus as saying that people should worship Him, or that His death would somehow absolve us of our existential guilt. What He does say is worthy of study and contemplation, and in that sense He is a teacher. What the apostles said later, well, I don't know that that has the same stamp of authority, especially the apostle Paul who was a misogynist zealot by all account, and not one of my favourite people at all, and certainly not a spiritual teacher that I feel any inclination to follow.
All the other stuff appears to me to be mythical overlay, and eventually politically motivated (eg in choosing which of the books of the bible should be included) and just one of the many exercises in mind control that the Ahrimanic forces have subjected us to over the millenia.
But that is just me. I have no quarrel with those who do embrace the full thing.
The story of Jesus and His followers is a real story about real people and there is some archeological and historical proof. You should consider actually reading the Bible before offering criticism you heard somewhere. There are more copies printed than any other book ever - in fact it was the first book to be printed for a mass audience and people were murdered for doing it. The history lesson alone is enough to warrant study. The stories of the Bible are not written in our DNA, otherwise non-readers of the Bible wouldn't have missed the point so profoundly. Btw, 'evolution' is an outdated globalist, Darwinian concept based on an ideology of eugenics. Break the spell of humanistic indoctrination and actually read the greatest document ever written.
The reason why all stories of civilization are chaotic is because it's the civilizations that have writing tend to be super centralized which leads to control of the past.
The civilizations that were peaceful were eliminated from history. Even the Bible describes this, how before the 10 commandments it was so cruel that they needed these laws from god.
Some of them are so obvious that only an idiot or psychopath wouldn't do that naturally lol
If only one could deduce Jesus logically from archetypes. But one can’t - Christianity is merely consistent with that, not exclusive, and not causative (earliest). Every self-professed saviour suits that pattern.
Sad that the message of the Bible has so many people hitting walls and tuning out. The really terrible part is these comments show that they didn't bother reading the Bible, the most printed, studied, written about, copied, and inspirational book ever written. And that doesn't even get into how many people died to get the book printed and into the hands of the people. Sadly, most people, your commenters included, will just bias their thinking into some ignorant view that it is myth and that Christians are annoying. Keep speaking the truth sister. There is a spiritual battle going on, evil is real, and so is Jesus. We have been listening to a Biblical scholar on teachings of the Bible, quite a different experience than watch a televangelist. I am blown away by the consistency, beauty, prophecy, and truth of the words of the Bible. Walter Veith is a great teacher
Your arguments are compelling, but they are hinged on this world being black or white, right or wrong, good or evil….I would posit there is a lot more gray than most people of faith are willing to acknowledge… Even Heisenberg had some good traits.
It's a great comment Bagholder. I very much understand THIS world is very gray, and I think that speaks to the level of confusion that the enemy has sown into our reality. But I do believe there is a clear truth which we are absolutely unable to understand here because it IS so gray.
You were prescient in stating that you would lose some readers at the introduction of the christian mythic archetype. I was right there with you, and then hit the Jesus wall. But I still think you're onto something, but just have cause and effect reversed.
What I think you're describing are the Jungian archetypes. The psychological patterns forwarded through generations by our DNA. These stories are in our heads and our collective consciousness because evolution put them there over millions of years of being social creatures.
The Jesus mythology is an example of this, as are all the other mythic sagas you mentioned, including the avengers. There's so much down this path, but I think it's much more fruitful than believing in magic. Though I won't rule that out!
Hey Scott, great comment man. I love the way you're thinking, and I love the tone of the argument. Really appreciate it.
I think you and I, like you say, are coming from opposite cause and effects. You believe we've evolved these stories. I believe they've been given to us by a Creator.
Not sure how to meet in the middle other than to agree that we're here and now, we both understand there IS an archetype, and we can keep our eyes open to what clues that template gives us right now to life the human condition out of the gutter we seem to like wallowing in.
I agree. The Jesus Myth is just another example of the Hero/saviour archetype. Not to say that Jesus wasn't (or isn't) real, or significant... I do think we need to separate Jesus & his teachings from the religion of Christianity that is even more mythical again (and does not speak to me). Well before the time of Jesus, we had all the Old Testament stuff, and the mythological elements woven throughout the stories there - including God vs Satan.
The purpose of myth is to provide a map for us - and if the Jesus myth speaks to you, then it works. Myself, I like Star Wars (the original trilogy, not all the extra stuff).
And the bonus: nobody expects you to start worshipping any of these characters.
Love the comment Mara!
But oh how people DO worship these characters anyway, don't they? Go to any comic con or fan gatherings, and it's straight up worship. Which, to me, speaks to the fact that within humans, there is a universal need at the spiritual level for certain elements to make us feel alive. Things like worship, faith, hope, peace...my view is these came from a creator and are imbued in and through the very fabric of humanity as gifts, as guides. Which turns me right back to my belief that Christ IS the lens, the missing link that makes all other ideas and beliefs about our universe possible.
And I'm with you. The original trilogy was the best. My 15 year old son tries to convince me that the Ewan McGregor prequals are the best, and I just laugh at him. I appreciate the other parts of the story, but nothing beats the original 3. Talk about something in your DNA. As a young kid in the early 80s, the HBO theme and the intro to A New Hope are as much a part of me as anything else in my life.
Thank you for allowing me to express some different thoughts in commenting on your substack! And thank you for creating a space to have this conversation about matters of Spirit.
I agree with the essence of most of what you say, about Good and Evil, God and Satan, and the Spiritual Battle we are facing.
As for your comment on my own comment, I agree that faith, hope, peace - and love, and gratitude, and probably some other higher drives and states of consciousness too - are all part of what connects us to Spirit, our Creator. Worship, I am not so sure. In Yoga there is a path, Bhakti Yoga, which is the devotional path, and it seems to be a valid path to God. Christianity also has much of the devotional path. But humans seem to want to worship - and find salvation - in things that are clearly profane. Most lately, we have the truly perverted drive to find salvation in this medical injection being promoted everywhere - and it truly has all the elements of a religion. We have been warned against idol worship for good reason.
I can accept Christ as being a key principle, so I hope this gives us enough common ground!
One's spirituality is an intensely personal thing, and we do not all have to see or experience it the same way, I think.
There are many paths to God, many valid paths. And some misleading ones. But we are here on Earth to bring Spirit into this earthly realm, and to do that we must find out how to strengthen our connection with our own Spirit, find our own path to God.
When you say the 'Jesus Myth' you don't get to then say that Jesus might be real. These statements contradict. Your comments make it pretty clear you haven't actually read the Bible. Why bother reading a book that has been printed, written about, and died for more than any other book? Jesus is not just another archetype - who else fits that one before Jesus? Christianity, at its heart, is the study of the Bible, the greatest historical document in the world. Sadly Christian churches have been taken over by the enemy as well, and has become lukewarm and censoring of the most important truths. The Bible in context with history and prophecy is far more fascinating, deep, and sublime than Star Wars could ever be. Expand your mind beyond mainstream and indoctrination. Read the Bible.
Thank you, Maggie, for reading my comment, for contemplating it, and responding. Those have become increasingly rare in this sorry time!
In fact, you are wrong. I HAVE read the Bible. And I will continue to hold that it is indeed possible to conceive of "the Jesus myth", and to believe that Jesus was a real person. In fact, it is almost inevitable - and to understand this, you just have to look a little bit down the corridors of history and see how we have mythologised so many of our heroes and villains - JFK and Hitler, Queen Elizabeth 1 and Napoleon, and so many more.
You tell me to read the Bible - I will tell you to delve into Greek and Nordic and other mythology. We have the Crucified God archetype in Odin, the Scandinavian God. We have Horus, the Egyptian Sun/Son god. I understand that you want to think of Jesus as special, and of course he is. But in fact, reading the Bible is what has turned me off Christianity, over and over. It is a chronicle of a lot of pretty grim stuff, incest, murder, fratricide, revenge. Apart from the actual teachings of Jesus in the 4 gospels, I cannot find anything much in the rest of it that is at all edifying.
So please don't patronise me in that way. I accept that you might find something different in the Bible, and in your own belief system. I have come to my own belief system through deep contemplation and spiritual connection over almost 70 years. Please respect that someone else might have arrived at a different position from you through an equally valid process, and not necessarily though indoctrination - I will not do you the disrespect of suggesting the same back to you.
Most people today have not read the Bible, so it is, unfortunately, a pretty safe bet that someone hasn’t. I stand corrected in your case. I met no offense, and ask for forgiveness for my sardonic reply. You say the Bible is grim, indeed, life itself is full of incest, murder, slavery, war, rape. The Bible reflects this in dealing with dire situations, and offers solutions: a place to stand. As this article, upon which we comment, points out, it is the basis of every story, all great literature, and the subject of endless scholarly endeavors. People from all walks of life, from Shakespeare to Jordan Peterson, have found inspiration and transformation there.
I once thought, much like you, that most of it was myth, that other religions have similar ones, that it was dark and violent, and that new age teachings were more comfortable. Then I began to study the history, the context, the psychological implications, the prophesies, the more recent archeological proofs, and all of my pre-existing biases and beliefs all fell away. (Reading C.S. Lewis helped too). As our world turned ever more to tyranny, war, inflation, shaming dissenters, etc., my search for truth gained momentum. I think what has struck me most profoundly, about my renewed interest in learning the teachings of the Bible, is how it has been so subtlety hidden, obscured, disdained, and scoffed at through the years. As censorship has increased in our society, it made me bold in seeking the hidden stories. The Bible is like the biggest secret manual for dark times hidden in plain sight.
From the Christian perspective, the other religions and mythologies – sun Gods, etc., are just pagan versions, bad copies (under the devil’s guidance) of the truth of the Son of God. The old testament is often overlooked by modern readers and so they miss the 100’s of references, prophesies, of the coming of Jesus; scripture Jesus himself said that He came to fulfill. Many people say that they like some of the words of Jesus, and that these, the words they see as inspired, make Him a great human being. However, if you don’t believe all of His words, He is a liar or crazy, and, in that case, not to be trusted at all. I pray you take another look. Blessings to you.
“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” –C.S. Lewis
No offence taken, and thank you for engaging with me in a respectful way!
Neither of my parents was a believer, but I was brought up going to a Presbyterian Sunday School, and later a Presbyterian-Methodist girls school - in the days before the Presbyterian Church amalgamated with the Methodists to become the Uniting Church and give up all pretence of meeting spiritual needs and focus on good works instead.
At an age when I was ready to be initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, I discovered that the Presbyterian Church had none (or not for lay people), and simply continued to exhort us to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved, or go to Hell for all eternity.
That was neither intellectually nor spiritually satisfying, and at the age of 13 - after a deep conversation with my best friend - I spent a sleepless night and finally reached a conclusion that I have not been able to fault in the years since: God gave me a brain, and would not punish me for using it.
At that point I left the Church, and in spite of several forays back into Christian belief I have never been able get past the central sticking point in all the permutations of Christianity that I have encountered: to accept Jesus Christ as my personal saviour, and accept that He died for my sins.
I am happy with my own very deep and personal relationship with my Creator, I embrace many of the mystical aspects of Christianity, and continue to find the central doctrines of the Christian church - at least those I have encountered here in Australia - somewhat puerile, and both intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying.
In the 4 books of the gospels, we lose a lot in the translation from Aramaic to Greek to English, and even the earliest version we have was written some time after the death of Jesus - but nowhere does it report Jesus as saying that people should worship Him, or that His death would somehow absolve us of our existential guilt. What He does say is worthy of study and contemplation, and in that sense He is a teacher. What the apostles said later, well, I don't know that that has the same stamp of authority, especially the apostle Paul who was a misogynist zealot by all account, and not one of my favourite people at all, and certainly not a spiritual teacher that I feel any inclination to follow.
All the other stuff appears to me to be mythical overlay, and eventually politically motivated (eg in choosing which of the books of the bible should be included) and just one of the many exercises in mind control that the Ahrimanic forces have subjected us to over the millenia.
But that is just me. I have no quarrel with those who do embrace the full thing.
The story of Jesus and His followers is a real story about real people and there is some archeological and historical proof. You should consider actually reading the Bible before offering criticism you heard somewhere. There are more copies printed than any other book ever - in fact it was the first book to be printed for a mass audience and people were murdered for doing it. The history lesson alone is enough to warrant study. The stories of the Bible are not written in our DNA, otherwise non-readers of the Bible wouldn't have missed the point so profoundly. Btw, 'evolution' is an outdated globalist, Darwinian concept based on an ideology of eugenics. Break the spell of humanistic indoctrination and actually read the greatest document ever written.
The reason why all stories of civilization are chaotic is because it's the civilizations that have writing tend to be super centralized which leads to control of the past.
The civilizations that were peaceful were eliminated from history. Even the Bible describes this, how before the 10 commandments it was so cruel that they needed these laws from god.
Some of them are so obvious that only an idiot or psychopath wouldn't do that naturally lol
Alphabet vs the goddess lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QQuD62RxrU
Thanks Robert Rob! Love the title for your Stack, Sane rants. Lol. I'll check out this video. Appreciate the feedback.
In the morning and thank you for your courage.
If only one could deduce Jesus logically from archetypes. But one can’t - Christianity is merely consistent with that, not exclusive, and not causative (earliest). Every self-professed saviour suits that pattern.
Sad that the message of the Bible has so many people hitting walls and tuning out. The really terrible part is these comments show that they didn't bother reading the Bible, the most printed, studied, written about, copied, and inspirational book ever written. And that doesn't even get into how many people died to get the book printed and into the hands of the people. Sadly, most people, your commenters included, will just bias their thinking into some ignorant view that it is myth and that Christians are annoying. Keep speaking the truth sister. There is a spiritual battle going on, evil is real, and so is Jesus. We have been listening to a Biblical scholar on teachings of the Bible, quite a different experience than watch a televangelist. I am blown away by the consistency, beauty, prophecy, and truth of the words of the Bible. Walter Veith is a great teacher
; https://adtv.watch/search?q=walter+veith