Its so frustrating that the people responsible for inventing the original kernel of Christianity were smart enough to more or less perfectly predict the way in which their own creation might backfire, purposely built in instructions on how to deal with that scenario, and it still didn’t work. Really paints a hopeless picture for humanity’s ability to keep systems intact. But I think it also nicely illustrates the problem with building your system on this “noble lie” (the existence of god, essentially, in this case). Falsehood is like a crack in the edifice which just keeps spreading and eventually makes room for all kinds of stupid crap to seep in.
It helps to remember that (a) most of the New Testament wasn’t officially canonized for 300 years, so it went through quite a few writers rooms before being formalized at Nicea.
And (b) the bulk of Christian Lore was cribbed from neighboring local religions and mythologies, so they really did have to be careful to warn people “No no no, that Egyptian god Horus may look like Jesus but he’s a fake one. And then the Persian military god Mithra is a fake one too. And the Virgin Birth of Athena from Zeus’s head? The Dionysus story of being born from Zeus’s thigh? Not what we’re looking for.”
A lot of the proscriptions and prophecies of the Christian Bible had already happened within the history of the region. Often repeatedly. Even the testament of Revelations, which predicts all sorts of calamities and torments mixed in with signs and portents, was mostly saying “What happens if everything bad about my perspective of modernity was cranked up to 11 and happened all at once? And also, I’m high as shit.”
Its so frustrating that the people responsible for inventing the original kernel of Christianity were smart enough to more or less perfectly predict the way in which their own creation might backfire, purposely built in instructions on how to deal with that scenario, and it still didn’t work. Really paints a hopeless picture for humanity’s ability to keep systems intact. But I think it also nicely illustrates the problem with building your system on this “noble lie” (the existence of god, essentially, in this case). Falsehood is like a crack in the edifice which just keeps spreading and eventually makes room for all kinds of stupid crap to seep in.
It helps to remember that (a) most of the New Testament wasn’t officially canonized for 300 years, so it went through quite a few writers rooms before being formalized at Nicea.
And (b) the bulk of Christian Lore was cribbed from neighboring local religions and mythologies, so they really did have to be careful to warn people “No no no, that Egyptian god Horus may look like Jesus but he’s a fake one. And then the Persian military god Mithra is a fake one too. And the Virgin Birth of Athena from Zeus’s head? The Dionysus story of being born from Zeus’s thigh? Not what we’re looking for.”
A lot of the proscriptions and prophecies of the Christian Bible had already happened within the history of the region. Often repeatedly. Even the testament of Revelations, which predicts all sorts of calamities and torments mixed in with signs and portents, was mostly saying “What happens if everything bad about my perspective of modernity was cranked up to 11 and happened all at once? And also, I’m high as shit.”
Yes.
No.
It’s like Bene Gesserit level shit