Was Jesus an Atheist?

I had a dream the other day.  I half imagined that in all the misquotes, reconstructions of the Jesus story to fit the new Constantine retrofit to his imperial fascist purposes, that Jesus’ real crime, if he really existed, was not that he claimed to be the messiah and or the son of man/god.

Jesus, if he was a true revolutionary, was ready to overthrow the state.  His real crime was atheism.  Or, at least the atheism as defined in Roman terms.  They are the ones that had to sign off on any execution.

The big deal with the Romans/Italians is the opera.  While on the surface Rome was tolerant to everybody’s petty gods, the real god was the state and the real power of god was the emperor, head of the army.  Not to believe in the emperor or pay tribute or give sacrifice or worship or respect was in fact to establish your non-verbal assertion that you did not give a damn about the state.

Taxes are one thing.  An empire starts to die when people start to dodge their public responsibility.  Gold is one thing, the other thing is respect or at least the tacit consent of the governed to the government set up.  Respect meant not only paying taxes but engaging in the secular religion of patriotism, of group identity and tribal solidarity.

One of the main criticisms we see in the few unfiltered, uncensored historic documents about the way the Romans had to first deal with the Jews and after them the early Christians was their sense of the abstract.

The fact that the Jews did not have an idol in their main temple must have been an odd sense of reality and or religion in the traditional set up of such things in those days.

In a sense, the Jews in Palestine were one issue to the Romans.  The other no doubt had to do with every local Jewish town within every large Roman city, and in particular Rome.

So in a sense, the Jews, like everybody else in Rome, had to come out in the open at least once a year to give tribute and sacrifice to the Emperor and symbol of the state.  After the emperors started calling themselves gods and building temples and idols of themselves in their temples, they put people like the Jews on the spot.  Tribute to the head of state was in a technical sense worship of a false non-Jewish god.

Tensions in the Jewish town in Rome had the emperor Claudius throw them outside of the city walls where they built another ethnic enclave. It was the fact that this Jewish town did not burn down in 64 C.E. that got the rumor mills going about the Jews starting the fire and the subsequent revenge against them.

 

Further rewrites in decades and centuries to come will have the fire blamed only on the Christians, a few, if any that existed, and that which probably lived on the edge of the Jewish town.

It is the later Christian propaganda about 64 C.E. that clouds, eliminates historic focus on the Roman pogrom against the Jews of Rome. This event I think was a remote spark of the rebellion in Palestine that traveled back there and started officially two years later as a continuation of Nero’s improvised urban renewal project and real estate fire sale within Rome.

The Jews themselves in Palestine had their own problems with the Romans wanting statues of their emperor/gods put inside the Jewish Temple.

 

No doubt there were negotiations, bribes, riots but in the end Rome ruled in Palestine and puppets rulers both secular and religious were put in place to act in the name of Rome.

So, the truth about Jesus might well be that on a macro level, he had no respect for the state.  No respect for the Temple priests and he wanted a revolution to replace them in a revolution, no doubt more violent than peaceful.  I cannot imagine a Mahatma Gandhi succeeding in civil disobedience against the state back then.  That what crucifixion was for.

So, Jesus, perhaps betrayed by some of his own followers, more likely betrayed by spies in his ranks, put him first in front of the Temple priests, no doubt because he was or posed in some capacity in the role of a rabbi in his day to day existence among the masses.

When Constantine hijacked the Jesus movement, no doubt it was easier to write the final scenes of the gospels as Jesus committing blasphemy in the eyes of the defunct and despised Jewish state and religion.  More retro PC anti-Semitic material for the Constantine crowd to make and frame the virtues of a new Jesus god who was anti-Jewish, anti-old religion and pro-Rome.

No doubt the temple police picked the trouble maker of Jesus up and delivered him to some sort of formal religious hearing.  No doubt the puppet Jewish priests handed Jesus over to the Romans and no doubt he was labeled as somebody who did not respect or support the priests and or the ruling religion of the state.

In other words, he was an atheist of sorts.  Of course, I believe he had his own private personal perception and beliefs regarding the God thing, mixed with his public beliefs, political and or religious. His popular front with the poor people was probably the real reason for his elimination by the state and its cronies.

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” could not have been possibly been said by Jesus.  It was no doubt another standard Eusebius of Caesarea fraudulent type insertion into Constantine’s approved gospels three hundred years later.

Was Jesus an atheist?  I think yes. 

I think yes in a public timeline sense in that he did not believe in the belief systems already in place at the time.  He was against the theism of common popularity that supported oppression in his homeland.  

His own personal beliefs and or his search for a new understanding and definition of the Deity were no doubt quite a different matter entirely.

Failed States of Israel and Palestine ?

If God is an energy, then I perceive a connection of energy waves and in the same direction or at a same intersection at present.

A curious thing happened in Poland a little over a week ago. Somebody stole the infamous death camp sign over the entrance way to Auschwitz – “Arbeit Macht Frei” – “Work Will Set You Free”. The saying and the truth about Auschwitz are at two different ends of any communication spectrum. Over a million men, women and children died there at the hands of the Nazis – mostly Jews but also “Roma Gypsies, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war.” No accurate count, only guesstimates of the numbers of this inhumane act toward humanity. The records were destroyed. Who would want to keep records of such things, such evil things.

Polish Police Find Stolen Auschwitz Sign

The thieves were caught. The sign was broken into three pieces. One story is that some collector was willing to pay two to three million dollars for this historic artifact. One has to wonder if the collector had an agenda whether it being admiration for the Nazi killing machine or for the up close and personal memento of the twentieth century holocaust. Or perhaps a billionaire needed to fill a space on the wall of his or her private art gallery in an east side Manhattan townhouse and thought the object a good investment. Once displayed, discerning wealthy guests could make an offer and a profit might be made. It, the sign, is representative of an impressive piece of human history – sad though that history may be.

All that aside, I have to wonder if perhaps the sympathy towards the Jewish entity as a faith and people has worn off in time. The Pope went there to Auschwitz and made a politically correct speech about how the Holocaust should never happen again. But did he mean it? Yes of course he did. But sometimes words and actions have opposing energies.

One has to wonder when the energy of a sacred object such as this stolen sign – when did it turn into secular energy and a prize to be carted away and sold. The death camp is a museum and visited by all people on an international scale. The thieves appear to have been local. Their parents or grandparents no doubt lived down the road and probably did not know what went on in Auschwitz. But human nature tells me that these locals in the 1940s no doubt heard rumors or made up stories. Making up stories or passing around rumors is one thing. The true horror of it all is something quite on a different scale and scope.

The present German born Pope recently signed off on Pope Pius XII and put him on the road to sainthood. Some, in fact many would disagree that Pius XII is saint material. Controversy still surrounds his knowledge and actions public or secret in reference to the rounding up of millions of European Jews during the first years of his rule. The Vatican Archives are not yet fully open to public scrutiny as to what the Pope knew and when he knew it or why he was so silent within his walled castle of the Vatican.

So too, the never complete, perhaps failed state of Israel reached an anniversary yesterday regarding the twenty two day pogrom – Operation “Cast Lead” - against the Palestinians in Gaza of one year ago. This attack on the next door neighbor of Israel cost the lives of 1,000 adults and 400 children. It all took place while America was paralyzed in an economic disaster and between the changing of the guard at the White House.

Sad that the Jews have built walls between themselves and their neighbors. Sad that walls keep others out – out of sight – and walls also traps those within. Is the walled state of Israel a giant Ghetto that replaces the historic presence of Jews in European culture to a place of confinement in the middle east? I hope not.

In any case, whether walled up in the Vatican or walled up in Gaza, who is to say who knew what and when they knew it. Who killed and who died and who pressed the buttons to agitate a response is subject to stories and rumors. Human nature being what it is, there is probably a little bit of truth in everything. Truth is perhaps an energy and a sign of the inner light and energy of God within both Jews and Arabs in the so-called Holy Land.

Perhaps the stealing and recovering of a sign from Auschwitz is not the energy of an angel but a true sign to look hard at the words, actions and historic content of things at hand as well as being a reminder of things past – bad things that got worse – because nobody took a stand and said – Enough is Enough!

Humanity must be recognized as humanity no matter what the propaganda or political agenda dictates. The value of every human being as a child of the light and energy of God must be recognized and respected by all. ALL.