Apollonius of Tyana

 A while back I was writing a blog post and could not remember his name.  Apparently my hard drive (my brain, that is) was temporaily locked up.  

He was born around 3 B. C. and seems to be the original that the Christians, Paul and Constantine used as their basis for the so called divine Jesus.  His name was Apollonius.  And we know for a fact that HE existed.  He was documented by various philosphers and writers of the ancient world.  

He traveled the ancient world, particularly that of Rome and Greece perfoming various healings, raising of the dead, and casting out unwanted spirited possessions.  He had a disciples, and even had a school.  He wrote books, and had books written about him, and though those works did not survive the Christians burning of books(some things never change, do they.  The Christians of the first through the third century A.D. were always burning libraries and destroying classical liteature and art.)But we know those works existed as the sophist Philostratus, mentioned them in his work Life of Apollonius.

Roman Emperor, Alexander Severus revered him.  Severus died in 235 A. D.  

So we have an earlier, historical, documented figure that did all the miracles that Paul and the later Christian founders attibuted to Jesus.  And unlike Jesus, let me again reiterate, is documented.

I know some of you are saying but Jesus is documented too.  And the answer is, no he is not.  Pointing to the Bible and claiming it documents Jesus is like using the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm to prove that Hansel and Gretel existed.  And it has been proven many times over that Roman historian who supposedly mentioned Jesus were later forgeries by scribes of the Catholic Church.  Josephus is a source used by the Christians to prove this.  But many, many modern scholars have pointed out the difference in the writing of this and believe that it was forged by Eusebius.  And they point to the passage written by Tacitus, "called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin", to claim Jesus existed.  Again, that only proves that there were folks calling themselves Christians, not proving there was a historical person named Jesus that was a savior and the son of God.  

So Paul who never knew or studied under Jesus and actually fought with the original disciples on Christianity, is the person who created Christianity for the Gentiles.  IF you read your bible, it is pointed out by Jesus himself that his brand of Christianity was for a sect for Jews ONLY.  So there were probably a lot of jewish street rabbi's named Jesus.  The evolution of the name goes like this: Yehoshua- Yeshua-(later became Joshua)-into the Greek Iesous which became the Latinized Jesus.  Now despite the Christians claims, we really have no authenic sources pointing to one particular individual as a historical Jesus.

Just like the early Christians appropriated the Torah and turned it into the Old Testament, they used the actions of Apollonius as a basis for their figure of Jesus.  And they appropriated the pagan religions for elements to add to their religion.

So there you go folks, Apollonious of Tyana, an actual historical figure who was used as the basis for Jesus.

The Martyrs of the United States: Or liars for Jesus.

 If one listens to right wing media, or reads it, one would be given the impression that there are federal forces going around arresting white men, and white Christians.  One would also assume that there were federal forces arresting Christians for going to church, singing Christian songs, and for saying Merry Christmas.  You would also be given the impression that children were being taught Critical Race Theory, which according to the right wing is a theory that white people are evil and wicked and that white children should hate themselves.

Of course none of that is true, but as usual the Republican Party and their religious fanatic base lie and push propaganda as easily as the rest of us breathe.  The American Taliban are liars for Jesus.  The only difference between the American and Middle Eastern versions are the Americans branch is Christian and not Muslim like their Middle Eastern Coherts.  

In actuality the Republicans and their American Taliban base are the aggressors, who when called out for their wrong behavior immediately scream they are being victimized and discriminated against.

They lie about everything.  They revise history to support their views and then push the revisions on school children, particularly their home schooled ones and the ones in their Christian Schools.  Then they try and outlaw actual knowledge in the public schools.

Because the truth is, the Republican Party is filled with 60% sociopaths who use the religious fanatics and the conspiracy nuts to retain power; 30% religious fanatics who wish to force their version of religion on the rest of us; and 10% mentally ill conspiracy nuts who are totally out of touch with reality.  They pack the courts with their judges, to make sure that the law is interpreted in a Republican way.  Be it constiutional, federal, state or local, these right wing judges help implement the Republican agenda.  Republicans pass laws to suppress voting, and gerrymander districts to help retain their power, even though the Republican Party IS a minority. They will tell you it's all based on the original intent of the Founding Fathers who created the Constitution, but they convieniently forget that the document was created with the ability to be admended to help reflect the growing and changing of a nation.  They also forget that the Founding Fathers were Deists, and wanted a strict wall between government and religion.  They also forget that the Founding Fathers were followers of the Enlightenment.  But hey, you gotta lie for Jesus.

And to make it worse, these right wing fanatics don't even know the history of Christianity.  They forget that Christianity was originally a Jewish Sect that was hijacked by Paul/Saul (who did not know, nor study under the so called Jesus) who created his version of Christianity for gentiles, something that set him at odds with the original Jewish Christians.  Nothing, other than the name Jesus is part of the original Jewish Christianity.  Paul and those who followed after him, took information from various and assorted Pagan, Greek,and  Roman religions, Mithraism, and the Jewish religon to flesh out Pauline Christianity.  They stole many Jewish religious texts to create the Bible, the issue though, they took said religious texts out of their original order, and did not take the rest of the texts that were used to help interpert the meanings.  So they just made up their own interpertations.

The history of Pauline Christianity, or the Christianity we have today is filled with nothing but violence and suppression of others.  First you had the Catholic Church which was created by Constantine the Great, which in it's creation was filled with violence in the murder of other Christian Sects who didn't agree with them, the murder of Pagans and Jews.  Then the Eastern and Western Catholic Churches began to have problems and by the 6th century had separated into the various Orthodox branches and the Roman Catholics.  They fought with each other and the Jews and the Muslims and the various other non Abrahamic religions.  All the Abrahamic religions fought with each other and everyone else.  Then in 1517 when Martin Luther created the Protestant religion, that added to the fighting.  Soon you had all the various Protestant religions, the Roman and Orthodox Catholics, and the Muslims fighting each other, the Jews.  By this point the Pagan religions had been pretty much wiped out and driven underground, and the Jews were pariahs who were murdered for being Jewish.  Nations fought with other nations about religion, there were religious wars within nations and sometimes entire villages were wiped out.  All of this led to our Founding Fathers trying to create a government FREE from religious interference in the government and in the lives of others.  But if you are a Republican, you don;'t know that.  Because the liars for Jesus make sure your head is filled with lies and propaganda claiming that the United Stated founded for Christians and on Christianity and the Bible.

The rot of religion is once more trying to infiltrate into government and turn a democratic republic into a theocracy.  Make no mistake no one is safe.  Because once religion takes over a government, nations devolve and people are murdered.  Because even though you may be a Christian, you probably won't be the right kind.  In other words you are a heretic.  So let's kick these Republicans and their nutjob base to the curb.  They like being victims, so I say let's give them a reason to cry.

Remember the motto of the Republicans is "Rights for me, but not for thee."  In other words, their right to do anything, trumps your rights.  You gotta practice their religion, raise your kids their way, including educating them.  And you better live like they tell you to, cause only they know God and Jesus and their will.  

So unless you want to live in the Dark Ages in the 21st century, kick out the Republican Party, let them cry when they lose, they do the victim act so well.

The Goddess, Spring, the Bunny and the egg.

 

The Goddess, Spring, the Bunny and the egg.

Once upon a time long, long ago when the earth was young and our ancestors still believed in the Goddess and magic the Goddess came to earth and.....

It had been a long, cold winter and the earth would start to waken from her slumber when the cold, and darkness would push back and try and make her return to sleep.  The people were scared that the cold and dark would be victorious and they begin to petition the Goddess to hurry and arrive with Spring.  When the Goddess would arrive with Spring she would travel to and fro in her chariot which was pulled by a beautiful rabbit.  After one particular cold snap the people begin to worry.  They went to the Priestess and begged her to do something.  The Priestess sat and thought and she petitioned the Goddess to please hurry.

Soon they noticed that the cold and dark was receding and high up in the sky they could see an object appearing in the area where the Sun would rise.  Suddenly upon the Earth appeared an object that resembled a beautifully decorated object that resembled an egg.  It opened up, and out stepped the Goddess.  As her foot touched the earth, warmth and light begin to appear.  The people were so happy to see her.  They begin to sob and cry with relief that she had finally come. 

She began to speak and held in her hand an egg that was colored and decorated with designs and symbols.  My children, I hold in my hand the symbol of rebirth, rejuvenation and renewal. In keeping with the movement of the planets and the seasons, at times I bring Spring early, and sometimes I must come later.  But as a sign to you that I will soon bring Spring with it's renewal of life, and fertility, with it's warmth and light as a sign for you to remember and not despair I will send my faithful Rabbit, who draws my chariot with a remembrance to you that I will soon arrive.  He will carry this symbol decorated to remind you that I am coming and will arrive when the movement of the heavens show me is the proper time.  At this the Rabbit and his family begin to give to every person an egg from the Goddess.  Each was wondrously colored and decorated.  The people begin to dance and cheer.

And that is why we have the Bunny and colored eggs.  To remind us that the Goddess is coming soon and the colored eggs are her reminder to us of her promise of arrival is soon.