One of the most difficult parts of being a woman is perception. (Really any human, but I can’t speak to the male experience…) Depending on the viewer, I am a wife, sister, mother, lover, administrator, artist, writer, musician, Appalachian kitchen witch, agnostic, Methodist, businesswoman, benefactor, singer, failure, genius, angel, heretic and… and… and… (yeah, I know.)
Yup. I’m all of that. The best people in our lives see the whole person. They love us for everything we have been and will be. Rarely – all too rarely – we meet someone who intrinsically knows the depths and the heights of ourselves almost immediately, recognizes their kindred soul and latches on like a barnacle to the hull of an ancient wooden ship.
The Professor is one of only two men I have ever met who would cackle wildly to Meredith Brooks’ song and immediately look across the room at me and laugh even louder when I’d scream, “SHUT UP!” Somehow, through abuse, trauma, anxiety, depression, loss, love, pain, triumph and even a little surrender, I’m still me. I genuinely LIKE me. I’m never bored and few around me are either.
However, as I say so often in real life, “We’ve all got our shit.” GenX (and those so adjacent they scraped their nose missing the boat) is in an ice skating death spiral with our parents who won’t die and our children who can’t leave. We caretake, we earn, we work, we give, we worry, we shepherd, we beg, we plan… it’s fucking EXHAUSTING. The reward in the end is maybe getting by… but definitely losing our loved ones to death or adulthood.
When we find each other – those who genuinely vibrate on the same frequency as we do – we have a debt to pay to each other. We’ve been holding this shit in check since our mothers were ordering speed out of the back of Cosmo. We were supposed to be “slackers” and instead ended up with the world on our fucking shoulders.
The positive part is that we gave ourselves permission to love without apology. Bands, fandoms, books, D&D, cars… whatever it is, we’ve found ways to connect with our own kind. It’s said all the time online, “Never apologize for your passion.”
You can’t keep rowing if you don’t have a paddle. For some of us, those rowing the heaviest payload, we need more than one paddle.
I have a husband who is absolute perfection. He is smart, kind, a loving and engaged father, a generous lover and he has unending patience. I also have… a Professor. To me, he is the pressure valve on my life. He’s endlessly fascinated with my weirdness and never gets tired of my nonsense. He adores me as his twin flame and – here’s the shocker! – he loves my husband too, because my husband makes me happy. He balances me in a way I’ve never experienced.
So, I have two paddles and I thank the glorious Universe every day for that. I couldn’t figure out for so long why I was going around in circles. Now I know – I needed both. I won’t apologize for it and I won’t tell you that you need to be what I am either. I’m just telling you… if you need two paddles, there’s no medal for going down with your ship. When the waves take you, there will be no one there to tell you that your morals were stellar.
We don’t know what comes next after we go. This could be all there is, but I can tell you with certainty that I know My People. These two men are My People. These two men would bail me out of jail, kiss me when I’m sad, take care of me when I’m old and hold my hair while I throw up. I’m not dyin’ for anyone, but if I had to go, I’d have two hands to hold onto. That’s the definition of a blessing and they’ll pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.
Love you, kid. 💜
to be continued…
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
If misery loves company, then triumph demands an audience.
— Brian moore, irish novelist
Mr. Moore could not have stated a more apropos truth about human nature, all humans and their self-formulated projections upon others.
Yes, I demand an audience. Nay, I deserve an audience.
I have a glorious story to tell. A story of victory, a story of euphoric happiness, a story of defiance, a story of love and loves over many centuries including this one. But most of all, a story of orbit-reaching delightful joys that do indeed fall upon and for people the Universe deems worthy of such gifts, in plenty, despite those individuals in my life wish and pray upon me. Gleefully I laugh at them with a Cheshire-cat grin and lifted middle finger to their mythical fairy-tale god, lord, and hypocritical churches! Bwahahahaha!
I am so extraordinarily happy this day and it is never going away; impossible. That’s the best part.
Read it and weep, or read it and applaud. If the latter, then you likely comprehend and embrace the profound concept of compersion. Sadly, very few do in our part of the world. But that’s fear controlling them, not us.
Let the true story begin, again and again, without end! 🥰
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
When I had arrived at my assigned freaky-cartoony P51-pseudo-Tardis-machine thingy (above image)—and sent from her [Lenora], for me as the soon-to-be-pilot noticing the name on the side of the nose “Luscious Lenora”—I climbed in with a twinkled eye of sheer excitement. I reached over my shoulders to strap-in snug. And almost buckled-in the buckle when SUDDENLY it locked in all by itself!!! “Weird,” I said under my breath, “talk about convenience. Pretty fuckin’ cool.”
the cockpit of Luscious Lenora
Then I gazed at the cockpit instrument panel. “Huh? This is odd.” The Attitude Indicator had no horizon, no brown, no blue; just an arrow pointing forward/ahead. The Tachometer and the Airspeed Indicator both didn’t appear to have any top number or ceiling. “Okay, this may not go well” I said in suspicion. I looked further around the cockpit, QUICKER, trying to see what else might be… umm, MISSING? “Oh crap! Where tha fuck is the EJECT-BUTTON!?” Gone. Obviously whoever constructed this Hell-machine was horribly absent-minded. “WTF!” I try to unbuckle my straps. Can’t. Not even a slight give.
Then it hit me when my eyeballs wanted to pop-out. Sweating now.
Suddenly Lenora’s voice comes on some hidden speakers above and behind me.
[Note — the purple print are her words, her writing, (HAH!) her obvious unorthodoxy]
[Damn right they are, my love…]
“Hello Darling. Are you ready?” she said in this evil, menacing… HAWT voice,
to which I softly replied, “This is going to sting, isn’t it?“
“Only at first Cowboy.”
“You have already traveled very, VERY far. This will be the easiest trip of your life, my love. We’ve got this. I know you, you know me. Let’s finally just do what we do best… explore.”
The straps tightened, but it was more like an embrace than a restraint. She knew him from the vast forests of prehistoric Europe. He had had dreams of her since childhood as a flapper, gin-soaked and luscious.
“I would ask if you trust me, but I already know you do. You’ve been the pilot for so long for so many others who have needed you. Lay back, relax, and… just let me. This is simply a reunion. I need nothing from you but… you. I have missed you like a phantom limb…
I know where we’re headed and I know what you desire – it’s HIGH time you got it. And baby, I’m gonna give it to you.”
A pause of silence begins. I ask myself, Has she left me here? Inside this contraption, in which any concept of ‘deplaning’ is now out of the question. Then her music begins…
Without any movement from my clammy nervous hands, trim-knobs turn, the propeller lever moves forward all on its own, fuel-shutoff slams on, the two magneto switches flip on, what I think are the battery and generator switches they flip up. More unfamiliar, worst still unlabeled, unmarked switches… they pop on! “Oh hells bells.” Recognizing my few remaining minutes of life, I tell myself, “Self, piloting this freaky P-51 bird will not be my job today. This is clear.”
But in my excitement and sheer, sweaty thrills, I have gotten ahead of myself in the story.
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
The date is April 3rd, 2023, at 6:25pm. An evening that would turn my life upside down in the most spectacular ways possible. It was completely an unplanned online event I just serendipitously attended. I didn’t think I would stick around for even 30-minutes. I had other things I needed to do instead. But little did I know.
The music event was familiar to me, the musical tracks played by DJ Sunilique always invigorating, intellectually stimulating, emotionally and physically moving as if I was possessed by melodic notes and primal rhythms—ah, a home away from home. I am with my people, my songs, our fashion, our creed. Chatting amongst ourselves is food and oxygen for our Gothic, Steampunking, Industrial kinks and souls. We laugh often, love much in our own weird methods, and always welcome any. As I am joking with several of my witty friends, She cleverly joins in. Immediately we crack each other up. It seems to come fast and easy. About that time a private message pops up on my screen.
“Hmm, You sound fun!”
“So do you!” I replied immediately.
“You’re in TX?”
“Yes” dejectedly, “Sorry.” I hoped she wouldn’t hold that against me.
Since that afternoon, however, I have climbed into this surreal dimension inside this freaky-cartoony P51-pseudo-Tardis-machine thing she brought to me and it seemingly never runs out of happy-fuel. It has been a joy ride that I cannot pilot. I’m not sure I want to.
When you have found your home, you want to protect it with every fiber of your body, mind, and soul, with EVERYTHING you can possibly muster! You do everything within your powers to avoid its loss so no one can snatch it away. Why should ANYONE take that from anyone? Why would they want to, unless they are filled with hate, jealousy, and zealous self-righteousness.
Ahhh, but the Haters will try indeed. They refuse to except anything less than misery loving THEIR company if you do not believe, do not follow, and do not practice their lifestyle exactly as they do…
BWAAAAAA!!!! Fuck that and FUCK them!!! 🖕 I am totally free and I am with my kind, my people. You replace the previous ‘my kind,’ the indoctrinated robots, and make it so, SO much better. And it is so very good. Mmm, my life is very good and perfect right now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
to be continued…
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
After a wait of about 20-minutes, they called my 84-year old neighbor, originally from Spain and France, back to a patient room. She was there to see the neurologist about pain shooting up both arms into her neck when squeezing things with either hand or both hands, like her steering wheel when driving. This is why I took her to the neurologist.
For several minutes there in the lobby waiting room I was alone, with the exception of the receptionist behind the glass. It was a peaceful, quite relaxing few moments. I quickly browsed some of the WordPress blogs I follow and did a few “Likes,” but no comments, yet. I’ve learned not to comment while in places such as the doctor’s front waiting room. Often too many interruptions by elderly small-town folks, or younger, friendly country people; all strangers of course, at least to me. And the interruptions cause me to lose track of my train of thought. An old habit of mine surfaces too easily: I always give my undivided attention to those engaging me socially. A bad habit, I suppose. 😉
Several minutes later a car with a handicapped tag hanging from the rearview mirror pulls up to the lobby door outside. I watch to see if whoever might be getting out—in a wheelchair?—might need assistance with the two double-doors always wanting to close simultaneously on you while trying to enter. You know, not enough hands to hold both doors AND manage a wheelchair.
No need. The elderly lady who got out was ambulatory and stable. She grabbed her very nice red-n-black shawl out of the back seat then came into the lobby to check-in. I smiled and nodded at her as she sat down to wait. She warmly and politely said hello to me. I responded in the same and told her that I liked her eloquent shawl. She thanked me, saying she sometimes shuts the car door on it, not realizing it until she tries to walk away. We both chuckled, “Your car is very attached to you, huh?” She laughed, “Yes, something like that or I am too often absent-minded” she replied. I guessed she was in her late 70’s or early 80’s, but had good wit and humor about her that I appreciated.
Being the only two people in the lobby, we chatted some more. It was pleasant, short chat with humor sprinkled in. She shared that getting around now without her late husband—a war veteran of no less than THREE wars: WW2, Korean, and Vietnam—was slower, but quite manageable. She slipped in to her story that “God took good care of her and her husband in his last hours alive in her arms.” He had suffered the effects of shrapnel pieces in his head while in combat in Vietnam, then followed by a tumor and lymphoma cancer.
Fortunately, for me at least, the nice lady with clever wit never got on a preacher’s pedestal which all too often here in rural, Hill Country Texas far too many climb on while in public with total strangers, no matter the circumstances. A slight, serious pet-peeve of mine. I enjoyed our brief chatting. She was very well-mannered, kind, polite, and respectful of my own, unspoken beliefs and world-view, despite never asking me what they might be. I am fine with that lack of intrusion. It shows class in my opinion. If I want to boldly share MY own source of happiness—which she had no idea did not include God—then I can speak up. And I certainly would have had I chosen to do so. I can be equally bold and audacious if the situation requires it. I am not shy about it knowing full-well my beliefs, world-view, etc., are VERY unpopular and uncommon in this area of Texas and the South. 😈
I did not however. My better judgement told me to keep this all pleasant and respectful when among total strangers.
But all good things must come to an end, right?
Ten or fifteen minutes had passed and the lobby began filling up with 2-3 other elderly ladies followed by an elderly couple, the man/husband was an obvious showman. He jokingly told the receptionist that he just tags along with her; she’s the boss. And finished the comedy show at the window saying they were “newlyweds.” This got chuckles from all the other ladies in the lobby. Sharing how long they had been married, one lady responded: “Ah, so you’re oldy-weds then.”
This is the type of small-town country “friendliness” one can usually expect here. But beware. It has a double-razor’s-edge to it and can just as easily do a 180 on you. And sure enough our luck, my luck had run out in that peaceful, pleasant lobby chatting with the kind, classy lady.
The bold showman that just entered and sat down with his wife of near 50-years, quickly latched on to the polite lady I was having such an enjoyable time talking with. She was warm and engaging; that’s why he immediately seized the opportunity.
His opening line to the lady was a setup line for his next two audacious questions for a total stranger, and I quote:
Do you believe in God?
Do you believe in Jesus?
He closed his self-made pedestal introduction with “You need God, you need Jesus to get through this life.” And the man never even spent just two or three minutes simply and courteously speaking with the classy, well-mannered lady and listening to her at least twice as long! Had he just done that, he would’ve quickly realized the sheer stupidity of his first two opening questions to her—which ironically bordered on interrogation, in my pissed-off opinion with his lack of basic etiquette!
The lobby waiting room was turning into this…
As I sat there grinding my teeth, biting my tongue listening to this Snake Oil salesman, I said to myself, Mister, you better not address me with your presumptions and scam-sale, because if you do I am going to QUICKLY put you in your place and make you look dumb!
Just about that moment my delightful 84-year old neighbor who speaks five different languages fluently and reads/writes them as well… came out. She was finished with the neurologist, or the neurologist with her. I was literally SAVED by Rose! We call her Spanish Rose, because she is a wonderful firecracker of a tiger she is. 😄 Rose is very refreshing with her raw honesty.
I was so relieved she came out at that moment; my patience, blood, and blood-pressure was rapidly rising listening to this evangelical non-sense from this man. Believe me, my readied salvo-response to him would have silenced the entire lobby and office, including stunned looks from the clerical staff behind the window.
Here is my question to all of you. What would you have said (or not) had this total stranger of a loud-mouthed man asked you those two above questions?
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Due to the continued alarming rise ofProsperity Theologyin Texas, Bible-belt States, and the American Midwest since the 1950’s and more so through the 80’s and reaching the 21st century, I was compelled to write this post.
Current American Pentecostal-Charismatic waves of hyped emotional (sales) events, miracle-movements, and mega-church services with theatrical pastors, ministers, bands, and electronic-digital and lighting special-effects — e.g. Oral Roberts, Robert Tilton, Joel Osteen, or Kenneth Copeland to name just four — are rising and now threaten our once Constitutionally accorded church-free politics. It’s a 232-year old pillar of Constitutional Democracy: the Separation of Church and State. This is supposed to be taught and properly learned in every single American public middle and high school Social Studies classroom! If this is no longer the case, then I am disturbed and obliged again to publish yet another blog-post targeting the sham:fraudulent Christianity.
Sincere apologies to my more laid-back followers who enjoy my other subjects and the mantra “Live and Let Live.” I will return to those subjects, I promise.
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A Simple Question
Was Jesus a Jew? It is a straightforward question. It is a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no. But can he be both at the same time? Can he be a Jew and also be a non-Jew? If these three questions can’t be answered simply yes or no, then why or why not? There are approximately 2.18 billion people in the world today that claim the answer is very simple, but when each one personally explains, it becomes very complicated, very controversial, and includes fabricated history that will never be understood by any intelligent, neutral person. And certainly not by consensus of other 2.18 billion Christians (minus 1) world wide. Why is this? Why all the ambiguity?
Now THAT answer is quite simple: the three cancerous D’sto genuine, pure, authentic Messianism. What are they? They are deform, deface, and divert. In other words, ambitious Hellenic Romans were always on the lookout for a new cult, a new better God-Goddess, took a weird Jewish concept of Messiah(s) and they deformed it, defaced it, and diverted it into a wholly distinct and new, but illegitimate religion.
ROMAN REPUBLIC and IMPERIAL CULTURE The full history of Greco-Roman society undeniably demonstrates few-to-no delineations between matters of state, expansion, conquest, and religion. They were for the most part one in the same. There is one facet of Greco-Roman culture that can never be overstated and I must drive this home to you. The early Roman Republic, the Principate, as well as the final Imperial Eras all followed the same inclusionist arrangements as Alexander the Great employed on conquered peoples. In more precise terms, Rome, her leaders, officials, and her citizens always absorbed to some large or small degree foreign cults and practices from cultures they conquered and/or annexed. As victors, they generously modified them, rejected them, or overhauled them into an almost unrecognizable new religion/cult proud of their ingenious creativity with the gods for the envious glory of Rome. This was centuries-old Hellenistic convention over their vanquished or enslaved for all the world to see. Hellenist people always tinkered with, reinvented, and disassembled any and all new and foreign concepts or ideologies. In three words, syncretism on steroids.
With this understanding, let’s consider what actually was done to Jesus’ full Jewishness, steeped in the full meaning of Torah, 3-D’d by the post-74 CE Patristic Church Fathers and Archbishops.
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You Can’t Pre-select Your Pedigree and Un-Pedigree Your Pedigree ————
Tactic #1 – DEFORMING the FAMILY HERITAGE Here’s the shtick. If you are a biological offspring of two parents, you cannot un-biologize your biology from them. You will always have their genetics, and their parents’ genetics, and so on. You also cannot unfamilialize your family heritage… unless you are given up for adoption or kidnapped as an infant; then maybe, just maybe that is possible. But biologically you will always have at least a microscopic measure (or more) of your family’s genealogical heritage.
Ah, so we DO have a simple answer to Was Jesus a Jew? Yes. Yes he was. It’s that simple. He can never not be a Jew! Period!
However, between the end of the First Jewish-Roman War (74 CE at Masada) and the First Council of Nicaea convened by and for Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 CE to imperially make “Christ” (as opposed to Yeshua/Jesus) one-in-the-same with the singular Almighty God/Yahweh. Jesus was re-branded or Constantinized by one Hellenic Roman emperor (a Gentile man at that) into a/the God of the Universe. See the meaning and purpose of the Roman symbol of Jupiter holding Earth, the Globus-Orb. This was a common Greco-Roman tradition of superior dominance and Apotheosisthat Constantine understood, believed, and enforced. Hellenic Gentile Archbishops and upper-echelon Romans increasingly wanted to be separate, distinctly above, a step-ahead of the God’s first Chosen People (Jews; all Jews) and overhaul their dead Messiah and make it their own living God-Christ in good Greco-Roman tradition—defying all logic they shuffled around, pedigreed, pseudo-pedigreed AND un-pedigreed the historic Jewish Tannaitic Messiah for their theological pedigree of a Greek Christ.
SIX REQUISITES FOR JEWISH MESSIAHSHIP According to Ezekiel 37:24-28 in the Tanakh, as well as corroborated in the books of Zephaniah, Isaiah, Micah, 1 & 2 Chronicles, 2 Samuel, Jeremiah, Psalms, Genesis, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, there are six (6) requisites for the Jewish Messiah(s):
He must convince the entire world population to acknowledge and worship one God: Yahweh. (Isa 11:9, Isa 40:5, Zeph 3:9)
If any Jewish claimant failed to fulfill even one of those requisites, he was NOT a/the Messiah(s). Period, no exceptions. Historical Jesus did fulfill #1, but never fulfilled the remaining five. Regarding his genealogy and #2, Hebrew Scriptures unequivocally states that a Jew’s genealogy and tribal heritage are established exclusively through one’s biologicalgenetic father (Num 1:18, Jer 33:17). Hebrew Scriptures says nothing about anything outside of those parameters, much less exceptions for invisible male sperm from deities. And the Messiah’s maternal line is irrelevant as claimed in Luke.
There are two more critical problems with the New Testament Gospels’ not aligning at all with Messianic requisites. First, attempting to prove Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph’s lineage as recorded in Matthew 1:1-17, specifically 1:11-12, is not possible, a Greek mistake by the Gospel authors’ because of Jeremiah 22:30! Authentic Hebrew Scripture has King Jeconiah leaving no descendants; none.
So said the Lord: Inscribe this man [Jeconiah] childless, a man who will not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper, [or by] sitting on the throne of David or ruling anymore in Judah.
This disqualifies Jesus as Messiah. Second, the genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 make matters worse and more embarrassing for the Hellenic Gospel authors, scribes, and editors. As mentioned, a Jew’s tribal-membership is established only by the paternal bloodline. Hence, Luke 3 is immaterial. But for the sake of indulgence, lets look closely at Luke’s portrayal of Mary’s genealogy, Jesus’ mother. Luke 3:31 reads:
…the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David…
This genealogical version in Luke also contradicts the Messianic requisite in 1 Chronicles 22:9-10 in the Tanakh—the Messiah(s) is/are to descend from Solomon, not Solomon’s brother Nathan. Lastly, Jesus never came close to fulfilling the other four requisites. Renowned biblical scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan along with many others agree that the antithetical versions of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are later retrofits to bolster Greco-Roman Messiah-to-Christ agendas. I completely agree with them based on the broader historical contextual factors influencing schisms of the time-period between zealous Judaic-Messianism and ascending Roman Christology.
From this wider lens outside the 2nd thru 4th century Apostolic/Patristic Church Fathers’ heavy biases, we can see the nascent Hellenic Fathers and bishops struggle to grasp Jewish Messianism-Eschatology in its proper setting. Or they had no desire to understand it from the Jewish Second Temple period. Lazy, arrogant, perhaps by the time of Marcion, Irenaeus, and Tertullian they had more pressing Earthly priorities. Nonetheless, they were predictable. They simply took liberal license to deform Jewish Messianic concepts and requisites to implement centuries-old Hellenistic Roman-centric interpolations and extrapolations for their Greek Neo-Christ caricature.————
Overhauling and Rewriting History: For the Victor Go the Spoils ————
Tactic #2 – DEFORMING JEWISH MESSIANISM This will be a very quick introduction of setting the scene, putting in place the background to how the early Hellenic Roman Church deformed Jewish Messianism. It must be accepted as fact that not one single Apostolic-Patristic Church Father of earliest Christianity was born a Jew. From Clement of Rome to Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna, through 7-8 more over the next four centuries, to John of Damascus and Isidore of Seville in the 7th and 8th centuries, not one revered Greek, Latin, Syriac, or African Church theologian had any Jewish heritage or education whatsoever! What does that say about any Gentiles understanding proper Second Temple Judaism/Messianism?
There are a few prime polemic examples in chronological order of composition. First, is the Epistle of Barnabas (70 – 132 CE) author unknown. The revered Greek Father Origen considered this epistle authoritative, but not canonical. This epistle is a radical anti-Semitic treatise. Most scholars place its composition in Greek Alexandria. As early as Chapters 3-4, the author(s) accuses Judaism of misunderstanding their own Laws and to stop celebrating the Jewish Sabbath, but instead celebrate the Christian Sunday, Jesus’ resurrection. This is a harsh slap on the Jewish face by a Greek Gentile. By Chapter 6 the author was telling Jews how to interpret their own Pentateuch, prophets, and Ketuvim!
Second would be the Greek Christian Aristides in his Apologia(123 – 124 CE). Aristides attacks the gods of various nations as inferior including Greeks, however, gives tiny credit to Jews for worshiping angels and ritual laws. But high praise is given to Christians for tracing their lineage back to Christ practicing pure benevolence and love. Hence, Judaism is minimized.
Early Greek Church Fathers
Third is the Greek Aristo of Pella and his Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus (c. 140 CE). This letter no longer exists, but is mentioned by Greek theologians Celsus and Origen, and indirectly too by Eusebius and Jerome as an exchange/debate between a Hebrew-Christian and a Jew of Alexandria. According to these Greek Fathers Aristo showed why God turned His back on Jews for crucifying Christ—a wrong exegesis of Genesis and Psalms with Galatians 3:13—so God used Emperor Hadrian to shamefully banish them from Jerusalem and Judea.
Finally, there is Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho(n) (155 – 160 CE). He explicitly lays out that current Christianity, as he perceived it at that time—and as a Greek academic of Socrates and Plato—was the new law of God for all of humanity forever. Dialogue with Trypho sets out to audaciously substantiate his Greek Jesus was the Messiah-Christ. Justin utilizes a considerable amount of Jewish Aggadic material which renders his Hellenic portrayal of the Jewish philosopher Trypho imaginary and his concessions to Justin impossible.
Tactic #3 – DEFACING and VANDALIZING MESSIANIC JUDAISM After many key figures and groups of Temple Judaism and Palestinian Judaism were exterminated or dismantled and pushed out of Jerusalem and the Levant by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and irrevocably at Masada in 74 CE, Hellenic-Herodian traditions favored by Gentile Romans were primed to fill the socio-religious void left behind by Vespasian’s seven Roman Legions.
Dr. Isaac W. Oliver, Ph.D, of the University of Michigan and Judaic-Religious Studies at Bradley University, reassesses “The Way” Movement and earliest Christianity like this:
It would seem that the liminal status of Messianic Judaism is still hard for many, whether secular or religious, to swallow, but the movement’s presence reminds New Testament scholars of all stripes and colors about the primary role that early Jewish followers of Jesus played in the formation of the Jesus Movement. As Joel Willits points out in his treatment of Revelation, readers approach the New Testament (or any other text for that matter) with certain presuppositions, which “are often the most determinative factor in an interpretation.”[36] These include sets of questions and interests that exist even before a given text is encountered, prioritizing certain matters of inquiry above others and thus conditioning the reading process and its final interpretive outcome. Not surprisingly, when some “Gentile Christian” scholars studied New Testament passages as Acts 15; 21:20-24 and 1 Cor 7:7-14, they overlooked what these passages might have meant or implied for Jewish followers of Jesus, focusing instead on the Gentile Christians addressed in these writings. Messianic Jews have naturally handled the same passages with other questions and priorities in mind, being interested, similarly to many of Jews who wrote the documents now contained in the New Testament, in faithfully maintaining their identity as Jewish followers of Jesus. Their drawing attention to these neglected issues should be welcomed as a further contribution toward the ongoing endeavor of reassessing much of early Christianity, a thoroughly Jewish phenomenon, whose Jewishness was more pervasive lasting than previously thought. (emphasis mine) — Oliver, Isaac W. “MESSIANIC JEWS AND THE EARLY JEWISH FOLLOWERS OF JESUS.” Hebrew Studies 57 (2016): 367-75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44072311.
It cannot be stressed enough how prevalent was the increasing number of Hebrew discrimination treatises by Greek Christian theological Fathers after 70 CE and 160 CE with Justin up to and beyond the early 8th-century CE with John of Damascus. From all aspects, traditions and Hebrew scriptures it is/was impossible for Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus) to be the/a Messiah. For a complete view of the Greco-Roman Fathersdefacing Second Temple Jewish Messianism and the context that Jesus’ Movement participated, click here and here.
Unfortunately, Jews from the mid-Roman Era to Late Antiquity to Post-Classical Era Jews around the Eastern Mediterranean along with their Tannaitic, Oral Torah, Mishnah-Tosefta Judaism were practically wiped-out… to later be replaced by Hellenic literature, i.e. the canonical Christian Bible and non-canonical corpuses. Fortunately, not all Talmudic literature and commentaries were destroyed by Vespasian’s Legions, anti-Semitic Church Fathers and acolytes, or hidden and lost forever! The Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran are the most prolific, epic lens into Judaism prior, during, and after the life of Jesus. They are some of the most treasured, authentic scrolls in all religious literature of the world secondary only to the Gandhāran Buddhist, Kesh Temple Hymnal tablets, and Hindu Veda texts. Modern intellectuals do indeed have a litmus-test library to reliably and objectively test the juggernaut’s integrity, to peer under the Goliath’spteruges/skirt if you will, that is/was Roman Christology/Christianity!
Tactic #4 – DEFACING ALL OF JUDAISM As more and more new unanticipated theological, eschatological, and scriptural problems and contradictions arose against early Christian Church leaders and bishops during the 2nd, 3rd, and early 4th centuries in connection with their Christ versus Yeshua bar Yosef’s Messianic Jewish heritage, Hellenic-Pauline Gentile Church leaders recognized they had to further depart, distance themselves, and sever all ties from Judaism and their Messianic doctrines to appear legit to all non-Jews. Enter the imperial Roman fathering of blatant anti-Semitism.
Martin Luther
The presstitution that the Palestinian Jews killed Jesus Christ is categorically and unequivocally wrong. Greco-Roman Christians instigated the resentment, humiliation, and stigmatization of Jews from 70-74 CE through at least the 17th-century, and Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation and his book On the Jews and Their Lies carried it to a darker abyss. Case and point:
Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them be forced to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies. […]
…we are at fault in not slaying them…
Of course at the turn of the 20th-century came the Holocaust. And today in the 21st-century the U.S.’s nagging centuries-old problem of white-supremacist, neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate, anti-Federal militias, and Christian-Identity groups keep feeding the monsters of discrimination, persecution, and hate. But let us return back in time to the Roman Principate-Dominate Era in the Eastern Mediterranean.
New Bed-Partners: Hellenic Overseas Judaism & Roman Social Welfare ————
Tactic #5 – DIVERTING NON-ROMAN RESOURCES into ROMAN RESOURCES Once Rome’s imperial frustrations—from Vespasian through the following three emperor’s up to Hadrian then Titus—of radical Jewish-Messianic zealots in Palestine were vanquished and surviving pockets of Jews lost all desire for independence, diversions from the actual facts of Jewish-Roman history as covered above were increasingly rewritten to accommodate a stronger, Monistic, orthodox Roman Church with a Roman Messiah, or Christ. Emperor Constantine made Greco-Roman Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and seized upon the most opportunistic silver-lined social crisis in Roman Principate history: imperial socialism. With the aid of softer, more liberal Hellenic-Herodian Judaism, that is… not of the old Palestinian, Maccabean-Hasmonean Second Temple sectarianism, Constantine and his Greek Archbishops stabilized the internal fracturing and split of the empire via theological orthodoxy for almost two centuries.
Yet Constantine’s ecumenical commissions could not stop the self-inflicted hemorrhaging. As the golden age of imperial Rome faded, her aggressively ambitious nobility and aristocracy grew more corrupt, more greedy, and created a power-vacuum that was filled by the Greco-Roman Catholic Church. In 380 CE the Hellenic-Hispanian Emperor Theodosius the Great goes even further by declaring any pagan or non-Catholic Christian religion/cult heretical and illegal. One more step remained before non-Catholic/Christians, now all Jews included, were openly oppressed, persecuted (see Part II: Christian Persecution of Jews by James E. Seaver) and punishable by imprisonment and torture. This had begun in 392-395 CE.
Today, these three cancerous D’s above illegally incarcerated inside modern Protestant evangelical-fundamental Christianity and Catholicism. They have developed a vaccination of an antibiotic resistance/impunity upon the masses because far too many scholars, secularists, and intellectuals are not injecting the antibiotic of authentic, verified Second Temple Judaism/Messianism and Sectarianism as it applies directly and indirectly to Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus) the Nasoraean/Nasari. Jesus was most certainly closely associated with the Nasoraeans/Nazarenes/Nasara, the Ebionites, and the Essenes of Qumran. Some of Jesus’ authentic teachings in the Synoptic Gospels reflect themes of these three rural Jewish sects. However, Jesus was most certainly NOT the Hebrew Messiah! The later Greco-Roman “Christ™” caricature as shown here is a Hellenic impostor, a fraud of true Jewish Messianism!
What can moderate, or indifferent, neutral, independent observers and thinkers do today who, like me, are surrounded daily by a majority of scammed, duped Christological Faith-Followers, but don’t know how to dialogue with them? My first suggestion is to ask them my initial question above: Was Jesus a Jew? My second suggestion… commit fully, 110% to be a forensic investigator and specialist, similar to your favorite film/TV detective or homicide character, trying to solve your best friend’s murder. To be fair, have the Christological Faith-Follower to be your mature and civil companion in the investigation. It’s quite proper to hold them accountable to their commitment. It will show their level of integrity and honor, or lack of. Right?
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼ ————
The Timelessness of Modern Forensic Science ————
Why has forensic science become an increasingly reliable, trusted, and needed investigative component in criminology the last 20-years? The immediate answer to that is that prior to late 20th-century criminal trials/justice many defendants were falsely accused, setup/framed, and sentenced for crimes they did not commit. If you did not know people in high places to help, if you were disliked/hated, the presented (false) evidence painted a guilty verdict for the accused. In other words, unethical immoral men in positions of law-enforcement, law practice, overseeing judges, were able to manipulate legal cases according to personal and outlaw bias/ideology. This included the personal freedom or license to specific selected elite members for their self-defined enforcements (backed by authority) to exercise their own personal bigotry. Forensic science reduces or takes away man’s egocentric corruption, bias, and immorality.
What is forensics to the 21st century Spiritual-seeker?
From the 16th century, when medical practitioners began using forensic science to writings in the late 18th century that revealed the first evidence of modern pathology, to the formation of the first school of forensic science in 1909; the development of forensic science has been used to uncover mysteries, solve crimes, and convict or exonerate suspects of crime for hundreds of years.
Small sampling of disciplines in forensic science
The extraordinary scientific innovations and advancements in forensic science have allowed it to become a highly developed science involving a number of disciplines and thousands of specialized forensic scientists in everything from DNA and botany to dentistry, anthropology, seismology, meteorology, and many more.
The same forensic methodologies can be used in finding the means, motive(s), and opportunity, then establish the relational and full contextual dynamics between the victim (Jesus the Jew) and all known offenders and possible/probable offenders. Case solved. Then you are liberated completely to avoid the traps, deceptions, and fraudulent claims made by Christianity, or more accurately Christology. If you think you need more help, try my page Why Christianity Will Always Fail. You are also welcome to contact me personally via my Contact Dwain page.
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼ ————
For further expansions and reading on the ruse of Christianity:
It is called Quantum Entanglement and it has just been proven more true, repeatable time and again with the same identical results (so far), and so must exist as a law, if not near-law, in Quantum Mechanics. The implications of this being law are massive!
Why massive? Let me first share what experiment just took place further proving the truth of quantum entanglement, or what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” and what was done and what it means, then I will discuss the possible implications, particularly for ethics and morals.
Two Distant Separate Quasars Judge Proceedings
The old guard, i.e. classical physics and/or philosophy, hold that for an event or action at one point to have an influence at another point, something in the perceived space between those points such as a field or unseen supreme being must arbitrate the action. To exert an influence or force, something, e.g. a wave, energy, or particle, must travel through the field between the two bodies, carrying the information/influence. Therefore, the principle of locality implies that an event/force at one point cannot cause an instantaneous, simultaneous result at another point. This also implies then that Quantum Mechanics violates either locality or realism, and models of Hard Determinism. More on this later.
What is undeniable and already happening is the dawn of Quantum Supremacy. What is Quantum Supremacy? Currently, and over the last decade or more, conventional supercomputers and microprocessors like the phone in your hand or laptop at your office do computations using bits-flipped like a coin with heads and tails; 1’s and 0’s and various binary combinations of those 1’s and 0’s. Polarity is another way of looking at it: positive and negative combinations. The bigger the calculation, the more bits/coins (size and time) the microprocessor requires in today’s supercomputers. With quantum bits/processing (Qubits or Qb’s) they are a combination of 1’s and 0’s, or heads or tails as if the coin was constantly spinning on its axis showing both sides: the more qubits, the greater the processing power.
A Quantum computer
What these calculating speeds mean is that Quantum Supremacy can make so many large, various calculations simultaneously that the number would exceed all the atoms in the entire observable Cosmos. The observable cosmos is currently measured at about 93-billion light-years in diameter. Try to imagine the number of atoms in that space. Quantum Supremacy is essentially reaching or is on the doorstep of consciousness. These quantum computers and quantum encryption rely on quantum entanglement being real, a law of nature!
Since the 1920’s and 1930’s Quantum physicists have theorized various forms and possible laws pertaining to the activity, behavior, and makeup of subatomic particles and their predicted or probable condition at any given time. However, old habits and stubborn ideologies and traditions die hard. Dare I say they sometimes appear immortal, divine, impervious, and immeasurable.
Not anymore, or not so much.
Many scientific experiments have been made to test the veracity of quantum entanglement. All of them in their specific parameters have so far shown that quantum entanglement is real, but quite difficult to consistently explain. The nagging counter-argument has always been the freedom of choice loophole. This loophole basically means or purports that a hidden classical variable (God?) can or does influence (in degrees) how a curious experimenter/observer measures a subject, or in this case an entangled particle. Is that too confusing to wrap your head around? No worries. Here’s a tangible analogy.
Imagine the Universe as a bar-pub with 20 different beers listed above the bartender for you to drink. You think you can order any of the 20 beers, but then the manager from the back tells you, “We’re out of the lagers,” and so it turns out only thirteen of the beers are really on draft. You still have the freedom to choose from the remaining thirteen beers, but you were over-counting your degrees of freedom while unexpectedly reducing your chance of excessive inebriation! Woohoo! A good thing, right? Eh, depends on the size of the beer-drinker, his or her thirst, and the size of beer-glasses, and whether you have that much money to pay… or find your mouth by the time the 10th or 12th beer-glass is served and gravity kicks in like a MoFo! Get the loophole picture? God or gravity does not want you drinking so many good beers.
But in February 2018 our favorite pub-bar was completely redone, restaffed, restocked, and redefined. Sorry Jim, John Zande, and Arkenaten. Using the William Herschel Telescope in conjunction with the Galileo National Telescope—both a half-mile apart from each other—at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in La Palma, Spain in the Canary Islands, a team of physicists led by Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna and David Kaiser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focused on two different High-Redshift quasars billions of light-years away (7.8 and 12.2) in order to determine whether the light-photons are more red or blue than a baseline. Since those photon-lights of the quasars being measured by the telescopes are actually over 7.8- and 12.2-billion years old, the likelihood that some classical mechanism, process, or loophole could intervene/interfere with their tests are precisely 10 ¯²°, or 1 in 100 billion billion. There is no conspiracy because the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. However, there are probabilities as tiny and as far into outer space as you could impossibly imagine!
D. Rauch (Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 080403)
For the purpose of quantum entanglement, determinism, and the speed of light, what Zeilinger’s and Kaiser’s two 15-minute experiments—of over 17,000 and 12,000 pairs of entangled photons—showed was that the photon quasar pairs were indeed quantumly entangled even while located billions of light-years apart. Therefore, it is only a 1 in 100 billion billion chance that quantum entanglement does not exist. Like it or not, it is quite real and to Einstein’s chagrin, it is faster than the speed of light. Want a more layman’s description of that speed? If you could travel the speed of light, you could go around the entire Earth 7.5 times in one second. I’ll give you less than a minute to catch your breath.
The Ethical and Moral Implications of Quantum Entanglement
Earlier in this post I mentioned that Quantum Mechanics violates either locality or realism, and models of Hard Determinism. The origin of Determinism, and most certainly Hard Determinism can be found in several ancient Bronze and Iron Age, Classical Age, Post-Classical, and Early Modern civilizations and their histories. One of those civilizations or cultures that heavily influenced our Western Civilizations was ancient Judaism, Judaeo-Christianity, and Medieval-to-Modern Christianity. One consistent theme throughout all three of those aforementioned cultures was the implied and Scriptural sovereignty and foresight of their Judaeo-Christian God “YHWY” or Yahweh. In other words and for our identification and distinction here, God is causa sui, or a self-caused cause, timeless, the beginning of all beginnings in need of no cause to be. The overwhelming (canonical) Scriptural corroboration for this follows:
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”(Exodus 3:14)
Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.(Psalm 90:2)
“For I, the Lord, do not change…(Malachi 3:6a)
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. […] Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.(Psalm 139:1-13)
And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.(Hebrews 4:13)
And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…(Hebrews 1:3)
The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.(Psalm 103:19)
Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.(Matt. 10:29-31)
What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”(Romans 9:14-15)
Also Romans 8:28-39; Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:8; and 2 Timothy 1:9-10 and many more.
Clearly, according to the Jewish and Judaeo-Christian or Christian “God” of their canonical Bible there is no room for freedom of choice or free-will. This is also called Incompatibilism. No doubt, there will be thousands of other Christians, preachers and scholars alike (Wayne Jackson), screaming “foul, lies, and apostasy” at me. Yet, as shown by the above passages “God” is in complete and total control of everything and ultimately you. We are merely players acting out our preconceived programmes according to their Holy Scriptures and wildly enough, this is also believed and taught by some non-Christians. This thinking and imposed determinism (apostasy?) was further defined and defended by the creation of at least 10 classic dogmas, three that I emphasize deserve special attention:
Being – from Parmenides and Plato to Heidegger and Sartre, all Becoming and Time has been seen as a corrupt this-worldly illusion, preventing us from seeing the Great Chain of Being. All events are extratemporal and simultaneous in the eyes of God. Aquinas’ totem simul.
Necessity – Necessity is often opposed to chance. In a necessary world there is no chance. Everything that happens is necessitated. Nothing is contingent. From Leucippus to the Stoics, Leibniz, and Spinoza.
Analysis – from Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid, Archimedes, and Galileo comes the powerful train of thought that everything can be explained by analytical mathematical functions. Newton’s mathematical laws of motion for celestial bodies was the crowning achievement for analysis. For William Blake, breaking things into their component parts to analyze their workings was “murder to dissect.”
Certainty– Descartes’ quest for an undeniable fact on which he could erect the Truth of Philosophy and the Christian Religion.
Logic – Logical determinism is the simple idea that events in the future must be as true or false today as they will be after they happen. Aristotle doubted this in his famous discussion of the Sea Battle.
Causality– Aristotle and the great Scholastic thinkers imagined a causal chain from the First Cause to the present moment. Although David Hume said we could not prove causality from mere appearances of Regularity, he nevertheless believed deeply in Necessity, above as the 2nd bullet-point.
Physical – The first great determinism was that of the earliest physicists and philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. For them there was nothing but atoms moving through a void. Later the Stoic physicists based physical determinism on the Laws of Nature or the Laws of God, since they identified Nature with God via General Revelation.
Mechanism – If classical mechanics could explain the motions of the heavens as the result of natural laws, the same laws might explain human beings, including the individual mind and society. Enlightenment philosophers wrote of “Man as Machine.” Planetary motions and mental processes were compared to mechanical clockworks.
Reasoning – The idea that the universe must be rational—because its designer was rational, because thought would not be possible without reason, because natural laws must be rational, etc.—convinced many thinkers that reason allows only one future, and only one possible choice for the rational will.
Truth– The idea that one man, one religion, or one state possesses the One Truth (Monisms like 1 Corinthians 1:10) has been one of the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.
(Abaco Bum, Flikr, Public Domain)
Some of these past thinkers, reformers, revolutionaries, prophets, preachers, apostles, philosophers, patristic fathers and what have you, would turn these dogmas into indivisible, lowest common denominator fundamentals, or immutable laws that all knowledge, thought, or the best science could not exist without one or more of the ten being unequivocally “true.” Bold? Misguided? Ignorant?
As Quantum Physics, Mechanics, and Computing become more understood, more refined, and harnessed beyond the speed of light to the point of consciousness, it would be an understatement to say humanity is near or undoubtedly at an unprecedented place in history. With quantum entanglement and computing anything is or will be possible because observed measurements (moral/ethical judgments) can never be more than probabilities. Hard Determinism denies any randomness in the operation of the world. Old guard traditionalist and Monists deny chance. They turn their eyes away from the underlying chaos in the universe. Probabilities and subjectivism makes their stomachs ill and their skin crawl. As William James succinctly described, Determinists or if I may, Absolute Certainists(?), have antipathy to chance and adequate probability.
Quantum entanglement and supremacy forces them to see the magnificent kaleidoscope of ergodic, creative phenomena that can build adequately determined information-blueprints in spite of, and basically on top of, our perpetual chaos. Hah! Ergodic procedures control, contain, constrain, and co-opt entropic chaos, using it to their own teleonomic ends of biological creativity, and, in the case of animal intelligence, human freedom. In a few words, Monism or classic Determinism, especially hard determinism, or causality is just plain ignorance and there is now ample evidence proving it does not exist. But there will always be hard-line deniers of pluralism and uncertainty.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore,”Martin Luther believed. I guess then it follows Luther’s logic that Quantum Entanglement is God’s invigorating libertine, huh? Mmm. Oh the rampant debauchery of it! Be still my thumping heart and nether parts!
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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it
Many scientific experiments have been made to test the veracity of quantum entanglement. All of them in their specific parameters have so far shown that quantum entanglement is real, but quite difficult to consistently explain. The nagging counter-argument has always been the 
The Professor's Convatorium 