According to an Ipsos Poll taken at the end of December 2020, (based on a “knowledge test” where respondents were given 10 true or false statements about historical events), 83% of Americans do not believe that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media”. That’s the good news. The bad — “while only 17% said it was true, another 37% said they didn’t know (emphasis all mine)”. Think about that (because you can) — “essentially half of Americans believe it’s true or think that maybe it’s true“ that utter nonsense could be “reality”. Take this to the bank: utter nonsense is NEVER reality. Stone cold fact: the Trump-directed insurrectionists who tried to overthrow our democratic republic on January 6, 2021 were, to a person, motivated by bullshit. That is the kindest way to put it.
These grown people — who make adult decisions about their lives everyday — life and death decisions, too — staked everything (their lives, their futures, the country’s future as a democratic republic — the majority of us be damned!) on a story. As we’re learning from their communications — that’s a problem right there: they were communicating with each other as they did this; that means it was a CONSPIRACY — this entire tragedy was built upon a framework manufactured exclusively from grade A prime bullshit.
Wow… who could imagine such a thing ever happening? It’s… it’s absurdity on steroids. And the scale of it! WOW! Surely such a thing’s never happened before where just enough people believed rubbish and then did something terrible because of it. Hey — is this sarcasm font working? I can’t tell… The history of human beings is the history of bullshit causing mayhem. Hey — didja ever hear the one about a crazy, deranged, murderous group of people who bought the fiction that “THE Jews killed Jesus”?
Talk about a story that’s gotten way more play than it ever deserved.
But, then, “THE Jews murdered Jesus” was part of a larger invention — that Jesus was a messiah, a half-man, half-god, conceived by the union of a body-less deity and a virginal human female. You really can’t take anything away from Paul The Apostle here. HE invented Christianity, not Jesus (Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew and never in his wildest dreams ever imagined that a non-Jewish CHURCH would arise from his teachings hell bent on persecuting Jews first and foremost). Anyone who thinks a Jewish, “Do unto others” preaching Jesus would think the Spanish Inquisition was just the right thing to make those Jews behave… you finish the sentence. I’m reaching my bullshit tolerance limit.
But, try staring into eyes that either condemn you for killing “their lord” or insist they’ll “pray for you” in hopes that the Jew-hating Jesus in their heads will enlighten you. Get that? It ain’t Jesus they want to transmit from them to you, it’s their hatred — in the form of Jesus. Or, as they think of him “McJesus”. That’s really how most Christians now think of Jesus — as a McMascot. You drive in hungry for the “Do Unto Others” but drive out loaded down with dogma and bullshit — none of it satisfying the craving you drove in with. Do you see how much worse that makes it? The Jesus Jews are accused of personally betraying is hyper-fictitious.
For the record — I take nothing away from Paul. He was a genius! The reason he couldn’t sell his version of Jesus to the Jews in Roman Palestine is because it wasn’t Jewish enough. Paul needed to “square peg, round hole” Jesus into a bunch of messiah prophecies that had been around in the Jewish culture for hundreds of years. Reality check: these are PROPHECIES, not data points. If we’re going to base real decisions on them, it sure would help if they bore some resemblance to the real world we all have to live in. Paul didn’t have that problem though. When he took HIS version of Jesus to the gentiles, they had no basis for comparison. They had no background in or knowledge of the Jewish texts that Paul referenced. They were or said whatever Paul said they were or said.
If THE Jews were responsible for murdering Jesus, who were the gentiles to argue? They weren’t there — but, then, neither was Paul.
The other thing Paul created — to his infinite credit — is the genius idea that if you are willing to believe in the Jesus Paul invented, you can beat death. That’s it: that’s Christianity’s sales pitch in a nutshell. Believe what we’re telling you (every last bit of it!) and you, too, can “live forever”! Maybe not “live” the way you think of “living” but “live” in a way we’ve imagined for you — where you get to be with your loved ones forever, Amen. In Greco-Roman world with minimal science but bounteous gods, no one had ever given gods that kind of power before.
Made up stories becoming “A Reality” doesn’t just happen. First, the stories have to be made up. Then they have to be propagated. For that to happen, they have to be believed. They have to transcend entertainment (stories told around the campfire) and become the basis for a whole belief system: Eve committed the “original sin” and that is why people deserve what they get. It’s why Jesus “died for our sins”. But then again, Jesus rose from the dead — and you can, too — if you’d only believe in “Jesus”.
From a basic storytelling point of view, this simply doesn’t add up. Think about it: either God (deity that he is) saw a way to “forgive humans their sins” and devised this remarkable plan (have sex with a virgin, hope the kid survives to adulthood in a world where that’s not terribly certain, hope his ministry catches fire, hope that between the Romans and the Jewish authorities, they’ll find a way to get Jesus crucified so he can rise from the dead in order to die for humanity’s sinful ways) or, after the “sex with a virgin” part, he pretty much improvised everything. Those are the two story possibilities Christianity needs us to buy.
If God planned for Jesus to die for humanity’s sins then what Judas does is part of God’s plan, right? If Judas doesn’t “betray” Judas, the Romans never come, Jesus never dies (for anyone’s sins) and, perhaps, he lives a long, happy life, preaching “Do Unto Others” until dying of old age in his bed. His message is no less important or impactful: “Do unto others”. It’s just all the ooga-booga that winds up on the cutting room floor. If Jesus NEEDS to die for the story logic to work then Judas, really, is a kind of hero. Ditto the Jews.
The luxury of writing fiction is you never have to back anything up (so long as your audience will go with you). Once Paul struck a chord in his audience, they wanted more. “Really, Paul? We, too can rise from the dead like this Jesus-Fellow can? Tell us more!” That’s how storytelling works. Paul wouldn’t have done himself any favors as Christianity caught fire to suddenly ask: “But, what would Jesus do?” That’s because Paul’s invention had little to do with Jesus and everything to do with Paul. Jesus’s version of Jesus was entirely human. Paul’s version of Jesus wasn’t. His was fictitious!
Here’s the key: never mind if Paul’s version of Jesus was fictitious, aside from Paul no one was trying to sell Jesus outside of Palestine. No one else except Paul was trying to sell Paul’s invention. But, Paul was succeeding! What he was selling, other people were buying. It didn’t matter to them that they were buying “feelings” and not “facts”. It’s just a fact about facts — they never sell half as easily or successfully as feelings.
What a damned shame they’re not the same thing.
Jews poisoned the wells and caused the Black Death. Black people are naturally less intelligent than white people. Mexicans are rapists and women don’t mind being grabbed by their pussies. Donald Trump “won” the 2020 election but baby-eating, pederast-performing, elitest Democrats stole it.
Oy. Does it really need to be said? Feelings in the absence of facts are dangerous things. Yeah, it DOES need to be said. And repeated until IT becomes the Truth.