Man's Search For Spirituality - E Christopher Reyes (jenna bush book club .TXT) 📗

examination, whatever seemed to promote so good a cause ... the pretended miracles of the primitive Church were all mere fictions, which the pious and zealous Fathers, partly from a weak credulity and partly from reasons of policy, were induced to espouse and propagate for the support of a righteous cause.” ~Dr. Middleton, Letters From Rome.
Saint Martyr is a Gentile ex-Pagan of Samaria, turned Christian, and supposed to have suffered martyrdom in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in whose name he forged a most preposterous rescript. His principal works, in Greek, are his two Apologies, the first addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius [whose reply he also forged], the second to “The sacred Senate” of Rome; his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and his Hortatory Address to the Greeks. He describes himself and fellow Christian Fathers as “We who formerly used magical arts.” ~I Apol. Ch. xiv.
From the MacMillan Contemporary Dictionary we obtain the definition of Easter: "From Eastre, the Teutonic goddess of the dawn, whose rites were also observed in the spring."  The Easter eggs and bunny are pagan fertility symbols. The exact date of birth of Jesus is not given in the New Testament, but it is very unlikely that it happened in the winter, because the shepherds were out in the field at night, Luke 2:8-11, and this was not the custom in the winter, the rainy season.
BC 772-221-Olmecs in Central America developed Astrology and a calendar of 360 days equal one conventional year. 7,200 conventional years equal one baktun. 144,000 days equals one pictun, 2,880,000 days equals 8,000 conventional years.
They also built massive ziggurats with a ceremonial chamber at the apex to be closer to their god. Olmecs invented a game with a ball and a hoop at each end of a court [the precursor to basketball?] The losers in this ball game would pay with their lives. The winners, permitted to run into the crowds, claim any jewelry they can grab.
BC 763-A solar eclipse occurs during the reign of the Assyrian King Ashur-dan III that is calculated to have occurred on 15 June. This astronomical recording makes it possible to compute the eras of ancient kings using computers to back track through history to pinpoint significant events.
BC 721-705-King Sargon II of Assyria exiles the Jews after defeating Shalmaneser V. The Assyrians conquer the House of Israel and its ten Northern tribes which spreads scatters them as far as Nineveh where they repopulate parts now known as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Northern Israel is re-populated with the Assyrians own people who speak Aramaic in Assyrian dialect [Aramaic is the language spoken by Jesus]. These scattered tribes are later to be known as the “Lost Tribes of Israel.” -I Kings 17:1-6.
BC 700-Indra: Verdic god of storms, rain and battle, born of a virgin in Tibet.
BC 679-Aristeas of Proconnesus, mystic, poet, is said to have the capabilities and powers to leave his body and to fly while in this state of transition. Mentioned in the writings of Pliny, Maximus of Tyre, and Herodotus. He is the composer of the poem, “Arimaspea” that tells how he becomes possessed by Apollo and journeys to the Issedonians and encounters mythical griffins [winged lions].
“The Egyptians were the first who asserted the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal.” ~Herodotus, from: Alexandria: A History and a Guide, E.M. Forster [1879 - 1970], Anchor Books, 1961. 
Herodotus is the first to use the word ‘Chrestos,’ the meaning of which is applied to both things and persons, meaning ‘fated,’ someone who is doomed by an oracle, a sacrificial victim, or the ‘Word.’ ~Read The Gospel According to Thomas., by Raghavan Iyer, 1983.
The name ‘Christian” was first invented, by sneering, mocking Antiochians, as early as AD 44, but had not come into general use before their persecutions by Emperor Nero, occurring in the New Testament only three times, and only then with a negative connotation, the Christians being despised and detested for their atrocities and crimes. ~Acts 11:26, 4:16, 26:28, See also the works of Canon Farrar.
“People who believe absurdities commit atrocities.” ~Voltaire.
Regarding the Trinity, Tertullian declares, “Credo quia incredibilis est – I believe because it is unbelievable;” and, like Paul's, “I am become a fool in glorying," he vaunts thus his own folly: “Other matters for shame I find none which can prove me to be shameless in a good sense, and foolish in a happy one, by my own contempt for shame. The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed [to believe it] because men must needs be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried and rose again; the fact is certain because it is impossible.” ~De Carne Christi, ch. v; Anti-Nicene Fathers, iii, 525.
The Greeks already had their own gods, their own ‘Trinity,’ and their own ‘Logos.’ "But the Greeks speak of Him as the Logos, more befittingly than we do as the word, or speech: for Logos signifies both speech and reason inasmuch as He is both the speech and reason of God. ... Zeno represents the ‘Logos’as the arranger of the established order of things, and the framer of the universe. ... For it is the spirit of God which he named the soul of Jupiter. For Trismegistus, who by some means or other searched into almost all truth, often describes the excellence and majesty of the Word.” ~Lactantius Div. Inst. IV, viii-ix; Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. vii, 106-7.
There can be no mistake that the Christ was and is founded upon the Pagan Myth, as the old Greek “Logos” of Heraclitus and the ancient philosophers who gave it a face-lift and declared it ‘Inspired’ by the Greek priest who wrote the first chapter of the “Gospel according to Saint John” and worked his way up into the “Incarnate Son” of the old Hebrew God for the consumption of the religiously famished Christians as the most sacred Article of Christian Faith. Their most Holy Saint John expounding upon the old faiths and declaring, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” ~John 1:1-3.
The doctrine of the Logos was a Pagan invention of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived 535-475 years before Christ, and had never heard of Christ. From the word the science of Logic takes its name; and on it the first principle of Stoicism and the Christian doctrine of “The Word” are based. “The Word, ‘Logos’ [Greek: Logos; Lat. Verbum] is the term by which Christian theology in the Greek language designates the Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Before Saint John had consecrated this term by adopting it, the Greeks and the Jews had used it to express religious conceptions, which, under divers titles, have exercised a certain influence on Christian theology... It was in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos appears for the first time, and it is doubtless for this reason that, first among the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus was regarded by Saint Justin [Apology, I, 46] as a Christian before Christ. ... It reappears in the writings of the Stoics, and it is especially by them that this theory is developed. God, according to them, 'did not make the world as an artisan does his work -- [although Genesis 2 says he did] but it is by wholly penetrating an matter that He is the Demiurge of the universe.' He penetrates the world 'As honey does the honeycomb.’” ~Tertullian, Adv. Hermogenem, 44.
“This ‘Logos’ is at the same time a force and a law ... Conformably to their exegetical habit, the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the ‘Logos,’ e.g. of Zeus and above all of Hermes. ... In the [Apocryphal] Book of Wisdom this personification is more directly implied, and a parallel is established between Wisdom and the Word. In Palestinian Robbinism the Word [Memra] is very often mentioned... It is the Memra of Jehovah, which lives, speaks, and acts... Philo's problem was of the philosophical order; God and man are infinitely distant from each other; and it is necessary to establish between them the relations of action and of prayer; the Logos is here the intermediary... Throughout so many diverse [Pagan and Jewish] concepts may be recognized a fundamental doctrine: the Logos is an intermediary between God and the world; through it God created the world and governs it; through it also men know God and pray to Him... The term ‘Logos’ is found only in the Johannine writings... This resemblance [to the notion in the Book of Wisdom] suggests the way by which the doctrine of the Logos entered into Christian theology.” ~From the Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9, pgs. 328-9, Note: Paul spoke not of knowing God but of being known by God. ~1 Corinthians 8:3; Galatians 4:9.
There is nothing new under the sun as the Logos is entered into Christian theology. It was definitely not created by Christian theologists nor the Church Fathers, nor was it ever ‘Inspired,’ as declared by some Christian groups. In the admittedly forged ‘Book of Wisdom,’ which is none the less continues to be part of the ‘Inspired’ Canon of the Roman Catholic Bible [Douay-Rheims], the ‘Pagan Demiurge’ becomes, ‘Divine Wisdom’ and “Paralleled” with, “The Word” of the Hebrew God, and “Is the Memra of Jahveh, which lives, speaks, acts.” The Jewish philosopher Philo evolved it into “An intermediary [Mediator] between God and the world, through which God created the world.”
This Pagan notion reverberates as, “There is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.” ~1 Timothy 2:5, Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless, 1930, from the Bank of Wisdom, www.bankofwisdom.com.
The Church will condemn and put to death those who do not accept this Holy Doctrine declared by the Vicars of Christ and blasphemy laws of England and later a number of Colonial American States will decree imprisonment for ridiculing the ‘Most Holy Mystery of Christian Faith.’ Father Lactantius pursues the incontestable Pagan “Proofs” through his seven Books, and so attempts to vindicate the truth and divinity of Christianity.
The eminent Doctor Lactantius concludes with his strange turning away from that which was unclear to the Pagan Emperor, assuring him of the overthrow now of all error, and the triumph of the new Catholic Truth, a new history that will supercede all others, “But all fictions have now been hushed, Most Holy Emperor, since the time when the great God raised thee up for the restoration of the house of justice, and for the protection of the human race... Since the truth now comes forth from obscurity, and is brought into light!” ~Lactantius Div. Inst VII, xxvi; p. 131.
The Apostolic Constitutions (7.2) forbade all non-procreative genital acts, including anal sex and oral intercourse. The sensual art displayed by prostitutes consisted in making full use of sexual techniques which would increase their clients' pleasure. Therefore Lactantius will condemn sodomy, oral intercourse and prostitution. Divin. Inst. 5.9.17. One technique was perfected by prostitutes, which considerably increased the pleasure of their partners and was also contraceptive. Lucretius' description of prostitutes twisting themselves during coitus [De rer. nat. 4.1269-1275] was reverberated by the Babylonian Talmud. ~Ketuboth 37a: 'Rabbi Yose is of the opinion that a woman who prostitutes herself turns round to prevent conception'.

“Truly religion is the cultivation of the truth, but superstition is that which is false. ... But because the worshippers of the gods imagine themselves to be religious, though they are superstitious, they are neither able to distinguish religion from superstition, nor