Historicity of Jesus - 2

ramana · 06-22-2009, 07:59 PM

Dhu, Can you expand on this in your blog?

QUOTEAlso, Christians cannot claim now that the Empire later took over the peaceful teachings of Christianity and distorted them with imperialistic tendencies. The imperialism of Christianity is inbuilt. All the profuse professions of "peace" and "liberation" are simply instances of colonial euphemism.


And this includes Romanisation of Europe which was another colonial project.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 06-24-2009, 09:45 AM by dhu.)

The following is a comment by Jit on HC to my post 440, followed by my reply. I will delete his comment shortly as it is a violation of policy.
------------

All the points you make in your two paras are by themselves totally
correct. But that has nothing to do with the historicity of a jew named
Yeshua, who came to be known as Jesus (Yeshua-->Iesus-->Jesus).
Understanding that this Jew was a historical character does not negate
the fact that Christianity was a mistake, and that Christianity has
always been the tool of imperialism.

For christians, Jesus' alleged non-historicity does not do very much in
destroying credibility of their claims. It is in fact the psychological
evaluation of the biblical characters -- jesus and the other prophets --
that in reality has cracked the foundations of the church in the west.
That is the one which is the correct approach, and strategically the
most powerful polemic. And there is really no reason to believe that
Jesus and the other biblical prohets could not have been historical
persons, and that their preachings and dogmas were not written down by
scribes long after their death. That will be like saying that someone
called yeshua never existed, but those preachings and narratives in the
bible could have of someone who went by the name of yeshua.

There have been a lot of writers who came up with this theory of the
non-historicity of Jesus, much before Rajaram started, and in a much
more sophisticated manner. But till date that does not answer all
questions, and that is cetainly not the appoach that conributed to the
collapse of christianity in the west. Moreover, There are postmodern
christian movements who are very much christian and very much
evangelical christians, without bothering very much whether their jesus
christ was a real person or not. There are modern christian writers and
theologians who do not progress with a history-centric stance that was
traditionally typical of prohetic monotheism. Liberal christianity is a
method of biblical hermeneutics, an individualistic method of
understanding god through the use of scripture by applying the same
modern hermeneutics used to understand any ancient writings. Liberal
christianity does not claim to be a belief structure, and as such is not
dependent upon any traditional church dogma or creedal staements. Unlike
conservative varieties of Christianity, it has no unified set of
propositional beliefs. The "liberal" brand of postmodern Christianity
denotes a characteristic willingness to interpret scripture without any
preconceived notion of inerrancy of scripture or the correctness of
Church dogma. A liberal christian may or may not hold beliefs in common
with traditional, orthodox, or even conservative christianity -- but
that is not mandatory, in fact that is rare.

The theology of liberal Christianity was prominent in the biblical
criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries. The style of scriptural
hermeneutics within liberal theology is often characterized as
non-propositional. This means that the Bible is not considered a
collection of factual statements but instead documents the human
authors' beliefs and feelings about God at the time of its
writingâwithin a historic/cultural context. Thus, liberal Christian
theologians do not claim to discover truth propositions but rather
create religious models and concepts that reflect the class, gender,
social, and political contexts from which they emerge. Liberal
Christianity looks upon the Bible as a collection of narratives that
explain, epitomize, or symbolize the essence and significance of
Christian understanding.

Rajaram's crude polemics will do nothing to stop the christian threat,
therefore. They will tell people like Rajaram -- "if the actual
historicity or the lack of it of your avataras, legendary saints, divine
beings and mythological characters, does not have any direct bearing on
the validity of your Hindu values and ideals as you claim, how does it
matter if for arguments ake we assuyme that christ never existed? They
will tell such uninformed poor strategists who dont bother to be
up-to-date -- "does you yoga sutras become invalid if it is by chance
proved that Patanjali did not exist? Were all of your charcters in
Ramayan and Mahabharat without exception historical? Were all of your
mythologies in your rig veda that you all rig non stop narration sof
historical events? are all the stories in all your puranas historical
without exception?"

That's what they will tell Rajaram. Then they will ask him to convert,
and take part in their mission. Because most them are as comfortable
with the proposition of jesus and the other prohet's non-historicity as
much as Rajaram is. Only, for them, it is a better choice and nothing
less than a much needed adjustment (a "liberation" theology, so to
speak) in the post-modern, globalization age, from the burden of the
dark and shameful record of christianity wich otherwise they would have
to bear as a leagacy from their forefathers.

These are the opponents of today. The ones who in the past tried to
force down true historical christianity down the throats of
non-christians everywhere with the sword or the gun, are dead and gone.
In these present times, its these who are doing all the work, through
postmodern churches. Did Rajaram, or his admirers know that nowadays
there is christian communism, christian democracy, the christian left
and feminist theology? that nowadays these "liberation theology"
christians have united with their erstwhile antithetical worldviews --
communism, socialism, democracy, feminist empowerment? Apparently not.
That is why Rajaram and his likes are stuck with outdated polemical
strategies.
-----------------
Thanks for your comments.

The historicity or ahistoricity of Christianity is irrelevant to the arguments
which can potentially proceed out of this specific research. In fact, I had
removed Rajaram's more blatant allegations of Jesus' ahistoricity from his
quote. Here is the full quote which I came across ( I had deleted the portions
<<indicated>> ):

"<<<<<<The Jesus of Christianity never existed!>>>> ....In summary, the whole of
Christianity, including the story of the crucifixion of Jesus is a later
fabrication, created to gain support of the Roman Empire...........{which}
fabricated large parts of the New Testament to destroy the Jews of Palestine who
were in a constant state of rebellion against the Romans. The <<<<mythical>>>>
Jesus was created to facilitate this process. The fact that the Gospels are a
late fabrication by authors who were agents of the Roman Empire becomes clear
upon examining their language and content."

Rajaram's analysis is significant (only) in that he is (somehow) able to
correctly localize the 'monotheist' error to the Empire rather than to some
nondescript and essentially powerless "tribe" in Palestine ( which is in fact a
colonized victim ). His polemical stance can definitely use more finesse. It is
unrealistic to expect perfect argumentation at every instance. We should take
the worthwhile argumentations and expand upon those specifically. To belabor the
obvious, just because Rajiv Malhotra has elaborated a not-so-perfect
'ahistoricity' framework for the heathen traditions, does not mean that we
should dismiss his 'Axis of Neocolonialism' or his analysis of a (fluid) caste
non"system". Removing the polemical portions of Rajaram's statement, what
remains is an acknowledgement of the imperialist structure of Christainty right
from its inception. Such an hazy acknowledgement can be further turned into a
rock solid proof with the current researches. Specifically, it needs to be
demonstrated to the deracinated and deculturated Macaulayite sepoy that :

the horrific Imperialism (genocidal and deculturating record) of Christianity
can be linked causally to the truth claims of Christianity. That is, the
Christians should not be able to claim that "this is not the real Christianity"
when confronted with Christian criminal history (as catalogued by Deschner,
Achebe, History of Hindu-Christian Encounters, et al). (Currently, they can
dissociate their 'ideology' from their actions, with ease and at their own
discretion).

There is only one way to do the above and that is to redescribe the truth claims
of Christianity as instances of propaganda. Behind the "peace" proclaiming
Messiah is the real "peace of the graveyard" of the fulfilling Conqueror. Behind
the "Good News" is the addendum and fulfillment of the "Good News of military
victory". What matters is not the "reality" of Messiah or Conqueror, but rather
the necessary relationship between them of apologist and imperialist. The
dynamics between the sepoy (Jesus) -who demonizes his own people as aggressors-
and the Empire (Titus) -who remains hidden and protected from scrutiny- is
explicated and made plain by this research. Liberation Theology, which proposes
that the native is oppressed by his ancestral practices and can be saved by the
colonizer's "religion", is not a new phenomenon. "Liberation" has been embedded
in Christianity since its advent. Liberalism, Orientalism, and all other sundry
secularized masks for imperial action are similarly derived. To show that
Liberation is a Euphemism for Imperial aggression, one has to show the
relationship between sepoy and master in Early Christainity itself. This is
what is missing from the current discourse.

The vile Jew crucifies his own spiritual Messiah while the physical Conqueror
remains hidden. We all know about the first part, but what about the second
part???

Psychological explanation of prophets as done by Somers and Elst will not lead
to success. That Jesus was a raving lunatic ("real" or imaginary) or that
Mohammad was a raving lunatic (and a pedophile to boot) is ad hoc and trivial
argumentation. At any rate, this same type of argumentation has been applied to
Ramakrishna, Rishis, Devas, and so on, by the Donigers. They will always counter
by saying that the prophets were agitated and violent because they were, after
all, pursuing the Truth. The only way to counter is to state that when they
meant "Truth", it was to degrade and demean the colonized subject; that it was
in fact insincere and propagandistic bombast. Raving lunatics can not forge
Monotheist Empires.

Bertrand Russell in fact accused Marx of insincerity in his expostion of the
doctrine of Communist Liberation while comfortably seated in Great Britain.
Even in the recent Nepali Color Revolution, we saw such instances of propagating
insincere "liberation" and "democracy" against the 'Hindu dictator" oppressing
his own people. This western propaganda emanated out of the same western
operatives who birthed Christian East Timor.

They have tried and will try to dismiss heathen Hindu narratives and practices
as similar instances of propaganda but the Ghent group has rightly described our
narratives as experiential narratives. Experience, whatever it may be, cannot be
propaganda. They will always apply "equal equal" tactic of blaming native
culture of the same crimes and disposition. We can cannot let opportunities go,
just to avoid approbation.

The confusion between the "domestication" of the native and his "liberation" can
only be swept aside by showing the imperial side of Christianity during its
birth moments. Such confusion ails all secular, Macaulayites, and sundry
quasi-christians. Also, we can get a good idea of the original inculturation
tactic and revisionist history tactics and make parallels to the current
colonial Macaulayite education project. The Aryan is the normed Indian, a
colonial construct posited as the agent of ideological-historical change in the
subcontinent and the foreshadow of the Empire. The Similarly, the Israelite is
the normed native Canaanite.

I urge you not to dismiss this work off hand. Please take the time to inquire
into the possibilities. There are two threads at India-forum on this topic.

The Ghent group has stated that all that is necessary to destroy Christianity
and expose the Monotheist error is to discover a people "without religion". To
forestall such a development in the European "encounter" with India, the
disparate traditions in india were systematized as the Religion of "Hinduism".
A false history was imposed as part of the colonial education project to support
this construct; the absence of which would have resulted in a repudiation of the
Monotheist error. And systematizing the native's "past" as "history" was
definitely a part of this preemptive project. So, in my view, Historicity was a
ruse necessary to hide a possibly more fundamental error. At any rate, when
historicity is referred to by Rajiv's group, they are referring to ideological
history, eg where South Indians are portrayed as fundamentally culturally and
ideologically antagonistic to North Indians. This is clearly colonial
revisionist history. A similar violation of the native culture by the colonizer
can be surmised in the "Israelite's" constructed opposition to the Canaanite.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 06-24-2009, 09:55 AM by dhu.)

QUOTEKrishna says:

Had to share this Quranic gem

Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly. Quran 5:82

-It says it right there folks! Muslms are to align with the Christians over the Jews and Hindus. I cannot believe I never came across this verse before.

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 06-27-2009, 09:46 PM by acharya.)

Full disclosure: the author of this review is a former Catholic altar boy (unmolested), was briefly enrolled in a Franciscan seminary, had eight years of Jesuit college/graduate school education, and is now what President Obama referred to as a "non-believer" in his inaugural address. In his own full disclosure, author Bart Ehrman relates that he attended a fundamentalist Bible college, furthered his theological education at Princeton, and is currently a professor specializing in New Testament studies at the University of North Carolina. He also states that he is agnostic, though specifically stating that it was not his study of the Bible that led him from evangelical Christianity to this alternate state of conviction.

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)
by Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman 

QUOTEPicking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teachesâand it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:

Â Â * The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works

Â Â * The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later

Â Â * Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions

Â Â * Established Christian doctrinesâsuch as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinityâwere the inventions of still later theologians

These are not idiosyncratic perspectives of just one modern scholar. As Ehrman skillfully demonstrates, they have been the standard and widespread views of critical scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators, and anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting forâa clear and compelling account of the central challenges we face when attempting to reconstruct the life and message of Jesus.



I certainly have no idea what evangelical christians are talking about when they site dubious books to counteract the arguments that are plainly reasoned out in Bart Ehrman's amazing "Jesus, Interrupted". How could they possibly "pass-over" the evidence that the Bible is full of contradictions? Once again, they draw from the well of "if one can explain it away, it must not be a contradiction" that I learned in Bible college. No matter how absurd the reasoning, it poses no problem to the "true believer". I'm so glad that I no longer have to bend like a pretzel in order to keep alive the notion that the Bible is inerrant. It took 15 years of careful research till I could accept the things that are in this book. I would also highly recommend "The Jesus Mysteries" to round out the picture. Ehrman is genius at pointing out the human fingerprints that are all over the pages of scripture. One can almost get inside the mind of the various authors who wrote it, as they try to construct a believable narrative of Jesus' life. Over the years there have been attempts to smooth over the falsehoods, both by copyists and by translators. Still, I just don't see how anyone could not follow the clear-eyed Ehrman as he illustrates the contradictions that scholars have long known about. This should be required reading for any fundamentalist. Obviously those reviewers who find fault with this book on religious grounds are unfortunately mesmerized by their reverence for the Bible.

HareKrishna · 06-28-2009, 01:50 AM

QUOTE(dhu @ Jun 5 2009, 02:28 AM)para 1

-The crime of the native is that he has been normed as deviant.


thats troubleing
even the racism(as communism) is the secularised version of christianity -the people of the lower race are in fact the secularized version of the devils.

dhu · 06-30-2009, 12:20 AM

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

07-09-2009, 06:58 PM

Has this book has been discussed,

This analyses OT

How Darius Founded Judaism.-Â© Dr M D Magee

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/judaism/index.php

This site has many articles on Judaism and Christian Origin.

ramana · 07-09-2009, 10:10 PM

Thats very informative. So there are two theories of Moses -Egyptian (Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism) and this one which says he is a fictionalized alter ego for Zoraster.

Wish it was in one download as an e-book.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-10-2009, 05:39 PM by Husky.)

askwhy is a bit like the truthbeknown site ("acharya s"). It is a few truths mixed with a lot of fancies.
It's not scholarship, but rather 'new agey' writing.

QUOTE(ramana @ Jul 9 2009, 10:10 PM)So there are two theories of Moses -Egyptian (Freud in his book Moses and Monotheism) and this one which says he is a fictionalized alter ego for Zoraster.[right][snapback]99580[/snapback][/right]Michael Kalopoulos' site has another theory on Moses and all the OT patriarchs. Site is called thegreatlie.com or something.

ADDED:
Hey, apparently it's only in archive now?
http://web.archive.org/web/20080117095858/...reatlie.com/en/
via http://freetruth.50webs.org/A1.htm

But Kalopoulos has a book: Biblical Religion, the Great Lie
Sample chapters (PDF) linked off http://web.archive.org/web/20080117095858/...reatlie.com/en/

His new site looks totally different and is entirely in Greek now (it says "No translations available"):
http://www.greatlie.com/en/

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-12-2009, 12:22 PM by dhu.)

Solomon,

OT is a unified work (by committee), which accounts for the variant styles with singular "purpose". Just think how many centuries of interpolation in native texts during British period was required before output of one slumdog movie for the masses in English. OT/NT was no small project and it extended from the Greek period when the foundation was laid. Persians are being wrongly implicated for various reasons, least of which is anti-semitism and '300' type motivations. This material is *extremely* radioactive. Care should be taken not extend its scope into Indo-Iranian where it does not in the least belong. Gmirkin gives the right context. Wesselius explains the Darius connection in the narrative. Moses is the fulfillment of the failed enemy monarch Darius as given in Herodotus. Geopolitical context of OT is Seleucid (Shem) and Ptolemaic (Ham) successors of Alexander's Empire, built upon the remains of Darius' Persian Empire.

The prophets are given encounters with Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Cyrus and make these native representatives as their (immoral) serviles. It does not mean that Cyrus and Darius are the originators, just as Gurus or Shankara are not the partisans of monotheism. Monotheism has a property of blaming the heathen reaction as a reaction against the heathen culture itself. Bhakti movement which was a corrective response to certain perception changes about their being leaders of the "religion" in India (needed by the religionists to mark the "leaders" for elimination), is now being redescribed as a response to degradation within the heathen culture itself and as an escape from the heathen culture and a foreshadow of the project. OT is similarly an impulse to backproject a monotheist sensibility onto native societies and native narratives (back into 'history').

**acharya** · 07-11-2009, 11:53 AM

QUOTE(dhu @ Jul 10 2009, 05:18 PM)Â Monotheism has a property of blaming the heathen reaction as a reaction against the heathen culture itself.Â

Can you explain this in detail

This is fascinating

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-12-2009, 09:22 PM by dhu.)

Monotheism has a property of blaming the heathen reaction as a reaction against the heathen culture itself. This is seen in such instances where the native response cannot be obliterated, in the standard way, by deeming it as oppressive.

The usual characterization of the native resistance is that the native resistance is the real oppressor of the native, rather than the colonizer; the native culture is deemed as 'immoral' and 'fallen' and responsible for its own eclipse, and any elements supporting the heathen framework are reactionary and illiberal. The mask here is worn by the Colonizing Empire; and the liberal enacts the mask for the Empire by terming the native as the real aggressor and, by implication, the Empire as benign. The Orientalist "loves" the native soul even more than the native resistance and wants to save the native from the depredations of the native resistance.

When this fails or even simultaneously, an orientalist characterization of the native resistance itself is undertaken. This is the stage where, for example, white Liberals assume the voice and "don the clothes" of the native resistance. It is Orientalist "love" enacted "upon" the native resistance and not just with the unsaved native soul. In facetious terms, the native resistance is deemed as the "bitch" of the liberal (and of the Empire). The Empire is openly deemed oppressive and the implicating mask is transferred to the native culture whom the native resister wanted to alert. Now the sant-sipahi, originally fashioned to retaliate against the colonizer, is deemed as exposing the hypocritical (the prototypical abrahamic normative 'sin') mask worn by the native culture. And the manmukh-gurmukh anti-colonial discourse is deemed as "anti-idolatry" and antithetcial to native culture. Remember the latter century Bhakti 'movement' (Gurus, Ramdas) was concomitant with the native militarized response which broke the back of the monotheist Empire; but in the subsequent colonial discourse 'Bhakti' was transformed into a liberation from the immoral native culture itself, and a foreshadow of the subsequent colonial "liberation"!!

More broadly, the Sikh nationalist and anti-colonial movement was turned against the native culture. Please see Jasdev Singh Rai's video where he characterizes the Sikh movement as a movement against the secular state (which was presumably later subverted against the native culture).

This latter stage is what is seen in Daniel's encounter with Darius, the great monarch. The great monarch is shown as benevolent but powerless, and easily fooled. Daniel tricks Darius into sacrificing his own soldiers and Dariusdoes not even realize his mistake but pays obeisance to the Monotheist Deity. And the glowing terms imparted to the benevolent fool Darius are now mistaken for Darius' empathy and involvement with the monotheist agent Daniel by Darius' heathen heirs themselves! It is like saying that Shivaji himself approved and initiated the colonial project.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-12-2009, 07:57 PM by dhu.)

QUOTEDebates over blood strike close to home in Indian Country. If you want to discredit someone, all you have to do is say, "He's not really Indian." Casting such doubt has the potential to destroy the reputation of a formerly well-respected Native American leader. That is the legacy of FBI/COINTELPRO operations against the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s -- a technique known as "bad-jacketing," which destroys a grassroots organization from within by causing internal conflict. The resulting need to prove "Indianess" through blood quantum -- and tribal enrollment via a system imposed upon us by the federal government -- has led Native people to commit a self-inflicted statistical genocide.
[right][snapback]99622[/snapback][/right]

**acharya** · 07-12-2009, 10:20 PM

QUOTE(dhu @ Jul 11 2009, 06:32 PM)Â Remember the latter century Bhakti 'movement' (Gurus, Ramdas) was concomitant with the native militarized response which broke the back of the monotheist Empire; but in the subsequent colonial discourse 'Bhakti' was transformed into a liberation from the immoral native culture itself, and a foreshadow of the subsequent colonial "liberation"!!Â

This is exactly the communist narration in India!
The communist have been doing this reinterpretation of Indian history including Ghaddar movement to give it a native oppression slant.

ramana · 07-13-2009, 04:36 AM

QUOTE("Dhu")Bhakti movement which was a corrective response to certain perception changes about their being leaders of the "religion" in India (needed by the religionists to mark the "leaders" for elimination), is now being redescribed as a response to degradation within the heathen culture itself and as an escape from the heathen culture and a foreshadow of the project. OT is similarly an impulse to backproject a monotheist sensibility onto native societies and native narratives (back into 'history').



Am reading JL Mehta's "Advanced History of Medieval India" which has this very line of reasoning in the chapter on Bhkti Movement. He says that the Bhakti movement was a mirror of the Ismalic fundoo movement which was classless!

Dhu thanks for waking me up.

HareKrishna · 07-19-2009, 11:25 AM

IS know that gnosticism is older then christianity
But are there evidences that christian-gnosticism is older then classical christianism?

dhu · 07-20-2009, 12:51 AM

QUOTEA.Moron

Lots of Mahanta, Guru Maharajs are nothing but rapists. Would you blame Bhagwat Gita for their crimes.
There is nothing wrong with The Bible, it is a Holy book; but of course the there were lots of Pope who had raped, produced Children and stolen money. The Bible is not responsible for their crimes.
-----------------------------
S. Singh

>>The Bible is not responsible for their crimes.>>

This is a nice fantasy. Unceasing Antisemitism and Heathen baiting is the sole lesson to be derived out of the bible. The Bible was constructed to replace the history of a conquered people and that is why it fits so well with western colonialism.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-23-2009, 01:35 AM by dhu.)

QUOTE(acharya @ Jul 12 2009, 10:20 PM)This is exactly the communist narration in India!
The communist have been doing this reinterpretation of Indian history including Ghaddar movement to give it a native oppression slant.
[right][snapback]99637[/snapback][/right]


Communist movement has one primary goal and that is to deny "radicalness" (attractiveness) to the real native movements like Hindutva, and to keep these movements alienated from anti-colonial discourse in the eyes of the colonized. Anti-colonial radicalness is to be posited solely within the communist/liberal wing of the colonial edifice and thus tightly controlled (amidst false colonial categorizations). The Sepoy must be seen as the one imparting freedom whenever the colonial edifice adjusts its shape.

When the native movement grows too strong despite these measures, disaffected elements are co-opted and are shown to actually be rebelling against the native culture itself, instead of the colonizer. Thus, the decolonizing movement is turned against the native culture itself. This is done by positing any external mark (5 K's, jewish cap) as the differentiating feature between the native resurgent group and the native culture's "masses". The nativized response is turned into a separate and distinct outgrowth from the native culture, which in turn is shown as an ungrateful host. The Khalistani is thus radicalized against the native host culture.

The alienation of Sikhs from Hindus is a clear case:

Hindu-Sikh Relationship
By Shri Ram Swarup

The "exclusivism" of Jews is another such instance of motivated transformation by the colonizer. It is impossible for a colonized people to transform themselves thus on their own. They must be normed by an external colonizing force. In the case of the Jews, the colonizing force possessed a theoretical normativism nursed in the academy. The line was Socrates > Plato(Glaucon) > Aristotle(Nichomachean).

QUOTE
In this revolutionary thesis of how the Pentateuch was written, Gmirkin argues, for example, that the biblical exodus story was a Jewish response to Manetho's anti-semitic story of the expulsion of lepers from Egypt, and not the other way around as has traditionally been supposed. 

The writer misses the point the "Jewish response" itself was a colonial endeavor when the original domestication of the canaanite failed (Manetho, which was probably a more pedestrian affair than social engineering). Manetho even attempted to make a false historical equivalence between the narrative of Moses and an appropriately selected external entity, the Hyksos; and Josephus commented upon the same at a later time in Contra Apion.

The Israelite was the disaffected nativized response, disaffected from the native culture, and disaffected due to the colonizer's machinations. The lineage of resisters was transformed into a succession of prophets of ideological change, all linearly(!) progressing towards the colonizer's utopia.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-20-2009, 06:38 PM by Husky.)

Dhu, for you, in case you had not yet seen this. Clearly shows how communism=christianism=secularism ('separation of state and church'):

http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor199422
QUOTEPerhaps the most quoted "reason" for connecting atheism to communism comes from Karl Marx's statement:
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."

This statement does not come from his communist philosophy, but rather from his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It also does not express a statement about atheism or about the absence of a god, but rather an observation about religion. Note that many people who believe in god but who renounce religion agree with that statement. Pure individualist Protestantism, for example, correlates precisely with Marx's statement.

Karl Marx makes this clear from his own observation:
Â Â "It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.... The emancipation of the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from religion."
Â Â --Karl Marx (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, Braunschweig, 1843)

That doesn't sound atheistic at all. At all.
That' why all communism - be it in Bharatam or the rest of Asia - tends only towards christianism: because communism is a protestant subcult, it derives from protestantism. Just like fascism, including nazism, is a catholic subcult - derives from catholicism.

ADDED:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/facts.htm#anchor199422
QUOTEMyths about communism & atheism

During the Nazi era along with German Catholics in the 1920s and 30s, and through the 1950s American anti-communist hysteria, right wing fanatics helped fuel the idea that communism meant an absence of religion and a promotion of atheism. Today, this myth still lives in the minds of many political conservatives and religionists. However, nowhere in the Communist Manifesto or in USSR's Constitution (even during the height of the cold war) does there occur any mention of atheism. Nor did the USSR ever exterminate religion. On the contrary, nothing in Communism disallows (christian) religion. Noteworthy appears the fact that the Communist Manifesto (i.e., Manifesto of the Communist Party) compares Christianity with socialism:

Â "Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy, water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat."Rest at link.

Liberation theology is like S American catholics trying to reconcile protestant tendencies with catholicism. Vatican does not approve of liberation theology - except for use in heathen countires. It is not happy with its application in S America. Catholic church/vatican likes fascism well enough though, because it is the political image of the church. Fascism is the same as the medieval christian 'secular' arm of the catholic church.

ramana · 07-23-2009, 12:26 AM

There is a key book called "Warfare in the Ancient Near East" by William Hamblin. It discusses warfare from early antiquity till 1600BC. Its 544 pages long and is a good read to understand the difference that normative religion brought to the lives of the Near Eastern people.

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