In 1966 John Lennon claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Lennon said: Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
Lennon uttered those fateful words at the height of Beatlemania. The British Invasion happened to also coincide with the decline of Christianity, especially in England, and especially amongst the younger generations. The mass hysteria of Beatlemania was analogous to religious ecstasy. Many fans truly saw the Beatles as musical messiahs. John, Paul, George, and Ringo reported that fans would bring sick people to their concerts, in the belief that the band had a divine healing presence.
Basil Venitis points out spirituality is the search for God, an ultimate reality, a transcendent dimension of the world, an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his being, or the deepest values and meanings by which people live. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It encompasses belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world. Spirituality is more personalized, less structured, more open to new ideas, and more pluralistic than religion.
Venitis asserts that spirituality is not related to religion. Many people define themselves as spiritual but not religious. Spirituals believe in the existence of many different spiritual paths, emphasizing the importance of finding one's own individual path to spirituality. Most people identify themselves as spiritual but not religious. Religion is a type of formal external collective search organized by churches, whereas spirituality is defined as an internal individual search.
God is a vision of the highest values of truth, justice, love, and goodness toward which we strive. In this sense, God is a standard against which to measure ourselves and our achievements. God reminds us of the relativity and limitations of our own ideas. God serves as a corrective to our biases and a basis for critical reflection. By bringing together our highest ideals in a single symbol, God provides a focus for personal devotion or communal worship.
Venitis muses that we experience God as love, light, power, and wisdom. The God we pray to is both transcendent and immanent, a part of us but also greater than us. Sometimes we experience God as a light that comes to us in the darkness. This light emanates intense love and compassion and leaves us feeling joyous and connected to all of creation. Other times, we simply hear God's guidance as thoughts. It seems similar to a nudge or sometimes a whisper. This guidance usually comes suddenly and clearly, and it can arrive while we are deep in prayer or simply going about our business of the day.
Let's face it, we are all victims of Abrahamic religions! Basil Venitis has proven that Abraham never existed! Nevertheless, the religulous tenets of the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are dangerous fairy tales and myths that have incited barbarous purges and holy wars that are still being fought. A talking snake? A man who lived inside a fish? A son of Roman rapist presented as the only son of God? Resurrection? Divine Revelations? Day of Judgment? Hell? Jihad? Adolf Hitler used to say that hoi polloi tend to believe big lies, not small lies!
These are favorite religious images presenting God as grudge collector, deserving ridicule. But those who believe in the end-of-days may be making a self-fulfilling prophecy of apocalyptic images of stampeding armies and mushroom clouds in the ruins of Megiddo, the Israeli site from which the Book of Revelation says Armageddon will originate.
Dodecatheos of ancient Greece was much better than the Tritheos of modern Greece. Venitis points out that Tritheos destroyed Dodecatheos and the Graecoroman Civilization. If Tritheos was not invented by Paul, we would have been on the Moon one millennium before! Jesus is a legend, born in Nazaret in April of 6 BC, whereas Christ is a myth, born in Bethlehem in December! Jesus never said he was the only son of God, but we are all children of God. Jesus was the founder of Nazarene Judaism, not Christianity. Resurrection is the biggest lie of Christianity. Misogynist Paul, Peter's boyfriend, is the founder of Christianity! Thomas Jefferson wrote that Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.
Venitis declares the most reliable Bible is The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazaret as it is formally titled. It was Thomas Jefferson's effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing lies as well as perceived misinterpretations added by the Four Evangelists. Jefferson cut and arranged selected verses from the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in chronological order, mingling excerpts from one text to those of another in order to create a single narrative.
The Jefferson Bible begins with an account of Jesus's birth without references to angels, genealogy, or prophecy. Miracles, references to the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, and Jesus' resurrection are also absent from the Jefferson Bible. The work ends with the words: Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There they laid Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
Venitis asserts that all bibles are fiction. Atlas Shrugged, a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States, is considered the modern Bible. This was Rand's fourth, longest, and last novel, her magnum opus. The book explores a dystopia where leading innovators and producers(Atlas) go on strike srugging, refusing to be exploited by society.
The Resurrection myth is based on the dying-and-rising god, a generic category for deities found within agrarian societies who are the focus of myths and rituals which represent the annual death and rebirth of the deity. All myths are echoes of rituals, and all rituals have as their primordial purpose the manipulation of natural phenomena by means of sympathetic magic. Carl Jung argued that archetypal processes such as death and resurrection were part of the trans-personal symbolism of the collective unconscious.
Religions, scams, and hoaxes succeed because they exploit powerful psychological processes. These processes are the very ones that have enabled humans to survive and create art and technology, but also trasform Homo sapiens into Homo suckers.
Venitis points out the Holy Light is a hoax that occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, the day preceding Orthodox Easter. Criticism dates at least to the days of Islamic rule of Jerusalem, but the hoax is encouraged by Israel, because of the significant revenue it brings to Jerusalem. The culrpit, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, recites a specific prayer, puts off his robes and enters alone into the sepulcher to perform the chemical hoax. The congregants subsequently chant Kyrie eleison(Lord, have mercy) until the 33 sensitive candles tied together ignite chemically inside the alleged tomb chamber of Jesus.
Venitist Joe Nickell traveled to Toronto to investigate a weeping icon in a Greek Orthodox church. In front of a dozen television, newspaper, and radio reporters, Nickell collected samples of the tears for Toronto police lab analysis. The police termed the icon a fraud and concluded that the substance of the tears was olive oil. Last fall, over 20,000 people visited the church to witness the pseudomiracle, donating an estimated two million dollars. The priest of the church has been accused of perpetrating the hoax and stealing the money from the church's coffers.
The Shroud of Turin had first appeared in about 1355 at a small church in Lirey, France. According to a bishop's report written in 1389 to the Avignon pope, Clement VII, an artist admitted he had cunningly painted the image of the crucified Christ on the cloth. Stylistic and iconographic elements corroborate a medieval artistic origin. So do modern carbon-14 tests, which yielded a date range of circa 1260—1390, consistent with the time of the reported forger's confession. Famed microanalyst Walter C. McCrone had previously determined that the image had been rendered by an artist using red ocher and vermilion tempera paint.
Venitis notes Charlatan Saint Padre Pio's stigmata started with carbolic-acid misuse! Pio and some of the other friars at San Giovanni Rotondo were administering injections to boys who were ill with influenza. Alcohol not being available, an exhausted doctor left carbolic acid to be used for sterilizing needles and injection sites, while neglecteing to tell the friars it had to be diluted. As a result, Pio and another friar were left with angry red spots on their hands. Not only Padre Pio continued inducing his stigmata with acid, he also misused funds and had sex with female parishioners in the confessional. The founder of the Catholic university hospital in Rome branded Pio an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people's credulity.
Basil Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, points out three brats at Fatima of Portugal hoodwinked about conversations with Pseudovirgin Mary! The Fatima pseudomiracle has been described in many very different ways. Some claimed that the sun spun pinwheel-like with colored streamers, while others maintained that it danced.
Most likely, there was a combination of factors at Fatima, including optical effects and meteorological phenomena, such as the sun being seen through thin clouds, causing it to appear as a silver disc. Other possibilities include an alteration in the density of the passing clouds, causing the sun's image to alternately brighten and dim and so seem to advance and recede, and dust or moisture droplets in the atmosphere refracting the sunlight and thus imparting a variety of colors.
The effects of suggestion were also likely involved, since devout spectators had come to the Fatima site fully expecting some miraculous event, had their gaze dramatically directed at the sun by Lucia, and excitedly discussed and compared their perceptions in a way almost certain to foster psychological contagion. Even Lucia's own mother declared that her precocious daughter was nothing but a fake who was leading half the world astray with pseudomiracles and pseudoapparitions of Virgin Mary!
The Holy Grail is an imaginary cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, which clergy hoodwink to possess miraculous powers. Some Britons claim Joseph of Arimathea received the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sent it with his followers to Great Britain. Some Spaniards created an unholy myth that Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ's blood while interring him, and he sent it to Spain.
The unholy quest for the Holy Grail makes up an important segment of Arthurian myths. The myth combines Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers. Hundred unholy cathedrals all over Europe hoodwink the faithful, displaying hundred variations of the Holy Grail! These fake grails do not belong to cathedrals, but to museums of hoaxes. Holy Grail hoax is the perfect unholy tool for fleecing Christians, writing fiction, and producing movies.
Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens plan a legal ambush to have Pope, the unholy father, arrested for crimes against humanity. They have asked a distinguished group of human rights lawyers headed by Geoffrey Robertson to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over the cover up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The Pope does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, because the Unholy See is recognized by the United Nations only as an observer State, not a regular State. Church's Augean stables need to be comprehensively cleaned up now.
Basil Venitis asserts that Magdalene, Jesus's wife, is the most important person of Christianity. She was the smartest and best apostle. She was the only apostle who could understand Jesus completely, and that's why all other twelve apostles were jealous of her. Magdalene is the first bishop of Christianity. Nevertheless, misogynist gay bishops of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church defamed Magdalene in order to restrict hierarchs to males, transforming church leadership to a gay club.
In June 326, Great Constantine had his eldest son Crispus, by Minervina, put to death by cold poison. In July, Constantine had his wife, the Empress Fausta, killed at the behest of his mother, Helena. Fausta was left to die in an overheated bath. Nevertheless, Constantine and Helen, the most sinister apes of planet Earth, are the most popular saints of the Church of Greece, the most corrupt Church on Earth!
Venitis notes this sinister Church is established by the stupid constitution as the official religion of Greece, the most corrupt country on Earth! The clergy's salaries are being paid by the stupid government. All students in primary and secondary schools in Greece are required to be brainwashed with religulous propaganda. Liaisons between the sinister church and stupid government are handled by the stupid Ministry of Education. There is even a religulous party in the Greek Parliament for stupid citizens, which gets 6% of the popular vote!
Mount Athos in Northern Greece is known as the Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain. This religulous World Heritage Site is home to twenty Orthodox wealthy monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic State within the sovereignty of Greece. Venitis points out Mount Athos, considered the foremost Academy of Homosexuality, got involved in myriad financial scandals in cahoots with the government of Greece, the most corrupt government on Earth. The Vatopaidi Monastery, built during the second half of the 10th century, is considered the richest and the most corrupt monastery on Earth, infamous for grabbing lands! Renown Arianna Huffington once sent her billionaire hubby to visit Mount Athos, and he came back an elightened gay!
The most corrupt bishop on Earth was Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, aka ayatollah Christollah, godfather of Chrysopege mafia, archbigot of Balkans, master of perjury, trial-fixer, chauvinist, antisemite, racist, grand robber, nymphomaniac gay, Vesuvius of vanity. Christollah's civil name was Christos Paraskevaidis. Christollah walked on dead bodies to reach the ivory throne, and he led a skulk of crucifoxes to devour the flock of faithful sheep.
Christollah organized myriad scandals, manipulated Greek justice, manipulated the election of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, tried to manipulate Greek politics, and tried to impose the religion specification on IDs. Christollah asked students whether they wanted to be minced meat or meat, explaining that foreigners want to turn Greeks into the meat-grinder, while meat is a solid thing! Christollah frequently criticized the principles and values of what he characterized the atheist Enlightenment, and which he contrasted to Christian values!
Basil Venitis, twitter.com/Venitis, points out Chrysopege means Golden Fountain, but angry Greeks spell it Chrysopyge, which means Golden Buttocks! Bishop Kallinikos was the founder of Chrysopege and the spiritual father of Cristollah. Kallinikos tried to rape a cantor, chasing him around the Holy Table in the Piraeus Cathedral! Bishop Panteleimon of Attica was withdrawn from duties for sex orgies with young men and embezzlement of five million euros. In the wake of suggestions by fellow members of the unholy synod that he resign, Panteleimon's reaction was very revealing: If I speak, there will be an earthquake. I'll take many with me to my grave, including Christollah and Chrysopege! Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos predicted that a tsunami was coming and it would reach Christollah himself.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Greeks were shocked to hear Christollah attribute the attacks to despondent men who acted out of despair caused by the injustices of the Great Powers! In 2004 he criticized globalization as a bulldozer that is out to demolish everything, on account of those who want to rule the world without resistance or obstacles! In 2003, he fell out with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, and Christollah' name was stricken off the Diptych of the Orthodox Church as a punishment. Christollah died of AIDS on January 17, 2008.
Stung by myriad charges of clergy sexual abuse, corruption, orgies, and coverup that reach the pope, patriarchs, and archbishops, churches face a crisis of empty pews and empty coffers. Churches need to address their own failures, acknowledge their own guilt, ask for forgiveness, and heal as a family. Those leaving Christianity outnumber converts by four-to-one.
Imagine is a song written and performed by John Lennon:
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one.
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