Orthodox Icon of the Apostle Paul
Herein, I will attempt to partially expose what "Christ" is like, in hope of clarifying certain aspects of the philosophy. By "Christ" I mean "Illuminated".
I will therefore assume, for the sake of the argument, that the New Testament is taken for granted, although for all practical purposes many segments are self contradictory if considered from a strictly logical perspective, since the early church has done a terrific job in cutting and stitching various segments in the NT books to fit its own less than honorable needs at the time. I will be quoting from the New International Version, as appropriate.
First, on the issue of "The Son of God", which has been tremendously misinterpreted: Jesus himself, never called himself "Son of God", and when there are indirect references to this, in a form of answers to tempting questions, Jesus himself was either too bored to answer directly and simply nodded "yes" to avoid further complications and to avoid worsening his already precarious position or simply called himself "Son of Man". (Matthew 26:64, Mark 4:60, Luke 22:70)
In either case, what Jesus meant with "Son of God", even when claiming this about himself indirectly, such as in Matthew 16:13, was not in any way arrogant or self-aggrandizing, since he explicitly mentions elsewhere that even such a testimony wouldn't be valid (John 5:31), UNLESS the person who testified knew where he came from (John 8:14) and especially if that person did not seek glory for himself. (John 8:14, 9:50, 9:54). Did Jesus seek glory for himself? Of course not. The fact that Jesus was "elevated" into the position of The "Son of God" in the sense we understand today, was essentially the work of Paul and not that of Jesus himself. If the fate of Christianity was left in the hands of Jesus himself, we, today, would probably not know shoot about the whole thing, except maybe through sporadic mentions about him from Tacitus.
The true meaning of "Son of God" can be understood only vis-a-vis passage John 10:34, which does the whole issue justice. Jesus asks: "...Is it not written in your Law: 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods',... (notice the "small caps" on the NIV to "differentiate" between the "godness" of humans and that of the "true" God, with "large caps"), what about the one whom the Father set apart...'?", etc.
The section above in combination with the sections in the previous paragraphs show clearly that Jesus did not consider himself superior to anybody, but he did indeed have some "additional" knowledge as to where he came from, in the sense of himself being "special" who is to serve some other purpose not understood by his contemporaries. Of course, most paranoids think in similar terms, so this poses an extremely difficult question which I am not about to tackle, because it opens a whole can of worms, which I am not in a position to deal with.
It is not my intention to explain Jesus' purpose here. This purpose is quite obscure even to myself. Personally I want to believe, but even after years of intensive Bible study, I have no clue as to what it all means, expect perhaps only insofar as certain "behavior" is concerned and even then I am not absolutely certain. It is my understanding that any reasonable human has the same questions and doubts as well.
It is also my understanding that such a reasonable/doubtful human can be a much much better "Christian" in terms of service to the fellow, than a missionary who goes to Africa determined to bring the "Word of God" to those poor, backwards oriented and savage inhabitants. God save us from "determined" Christians. They are indeed the messengers of Devil. Steer clear and away from them.
Now let us pass to the second most important aspect of "Christianity" and I put quotes around the word, simply because I abhor stereotypical classifications of "who" are the Christians or "what" they should be like as much as anybody here. Particularly in view of the fact that today, most of those who are called "Christians" are in all true reality staunch followers of Satan. I will, further down, attempt to define "who" or "what" a true Christian is, so until then please bare with me.
First, quoting Luke: 9:49: "'Master', said John, 'we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us'. 9:50: 'Do not stop him', Jesus said, 'because whoever is not against you is for you.'". The previous section shows how Jesus' own words directly contradict any stereotypical notions of "Christianity", whether they be preconceived notions that were already built at the time of his teaching or whether they are stereotypical notions as they stand today.
Any "good Christian" today will tell you that it is utterly impossible for a "non-Christian" to "drive out demons" in the name of Jesus. Of course we all know that. In order to "drive out demons", a person has to have "direct" contact with God (Read, he has to be a church representative) and the ability to do so today seems to be, usually, directly proportional to the height of the exorcist/priest's tiara or hat.
Jesus' own words above, however, indicate quite the contrary: I can be a Sethian with red-painted nails, wear a sequin green hat and blue tie, have a beard that reaches all the way to Wisconsin, doing a "Tour de France" on top of Landowska's Playel harpsichord on wheels and still "drive out demons" by rotating a crank against a "demon possessed man" with the only proviso that I summon the name of Jesus.
Of course in any religious system where a compactification of knowledge is attempted, humans always try to impose rules, order and various ridiculous ceremonial aspects, (so that they can gain control of the believers) which when seen from the outside, usually provide the seeds for good and big laughs. Thus the various misunderstandings on "what" or "who" a real "Christian" is.
To dispense with the digressions, let's define the "who" first. Paul in Acts, in general, does a fine job segregating the "Christian" masses into various groups by appealing to some ridiculous definitions. However, occasionally he gets it right: Colossians 3:11: "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Skythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all". Ah. Something that makes sense, at last.
The above section has been misinterpreted by "Christians" around the world and continues to be misinterpreted to our day. However, the keen reader will recognize that the above definition is none other than the definition of how a true Christian should view the world. So, add the phrase "To a Christian, there is no Greek or Jew..." etc., and there you have it. Not to an "official" Christian. There is no such thing as an "official" Christian. Anybody can feel like a "Christian" if they want to. In fact, Paul's words can be taken to apply perfectly to Jews, Buddhists, Muslims or Hindus as well.
Another thing which is relevant here, and in particular relevant to the section above, is the definition of "Christian brotherhoods" at the time of Paul. These brotherhoods have nothing whatsoever to do with modern "Christians". In all reality and most likely, these "brotherhoods" just disappeared in the underground during the first years Christianity started to spread. Acts 4:32 and 2:44: "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had...".
It is easy to extrapolate from the above and realize that such "brotherhoods" do not exist today, therefore the definition of "Christian" in the Paulian sense is actually pretty much obsolete. The modern official "Christian" only likes to go to church every Sunday and if (s)he feels like it, gives a few bread crumbs to the resident church bum. No sharing of possessions, of course.
What Paul calls "church" or "the body of Christ", which subsequently in Revelation will play the role of the bride of Christ, therefore, has nothing to do with any "official churches" today, whether it be Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. What Paul refers to, is specifically those early brotherhoods, none of which are in existence today.
There is no mention of bishops, archimandrites, deacons, popes or any other such ridiculous titles. Paul refers to the actual body of the people who were members of those brotherhoods.
It is therefore easy for the keen reader to be easily convinced with certainty that any body in existence today that has been labelled "officially" as "Body of Christ" cannot be but bogus. Particularly in view of the fact that "church officials" often assume various privileges against the lay Christians, which directly contradict Acts 4:32.
Let us now pass into the exact definition: First, Jesus' own words: Mark 12:31, and again in Matthew 22:39: "The second (most important command) is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'.
Now, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding with the above command in our society and with how we define it or practice it. Apparently many people interpret the above to mean: Collect as much money and riches as you can by stepping against your brother and if necessary, kill him, so you can use his corpse as a ladder to step into higher and higher realms of success and fame.
I don't really understand why such behavior is necessary. We read elsewhere and in particular in Corinthians 13:4: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres..."
Apparently our society has severe problems with the above. Nature has similar problems too. The whole system is built using the directive of the "survival of the fittest", so what on Earth is really going on?
The above immediately creates a severe dichotomy insofar as Nature is concerned and asks you to take a stance. Either this fucking world is completely wrong or the Christian teachings are completely lunatic. There is no in between way. It's either/or. We cannot have both.
Let us examine the two possible cases:
1) The world is fucking wrong. Is this be possible?
Yes, it certainly is, if the Creator of this universe is evil, paranoid and/or ill-intentioned. In fact, the entire universe conspires and testifies for this. The predator chases and eats its prey, people acquire power in order to control other people, the sun has power over and controls the solar system, the center of our galaxy has control over the entire galaxy, black holes devour other stars and super-clusters eat smaller clusters. To summarize, everything "eats" something else in order to survive.
As if this was not enough, "growing older" for all of us, implies becoming uglier and weaker, whereas in all reality growing older should be the very opposite: We should become wiser and more beautiful, more powerful, more hopeful, more loving and more luminous externally, which would be the result of us having gained all this knowledge and experience. Instead, we grow older to be fucking old farts, ugly, depressed, diseased, weak and unable to deal even with even every day's mundane problems.
So, something is very-very wrong here. Nature clearly has followed some sort of initial plan in order to create life and whatdayaknow? This plan sucks. What can we conclude from this? That if there is a Creator, this Creator sucks as well.
Now let us examine the second possibility: The Christian teachings are lunatic. Is this possible?
Here, we have to make an important distinction: Jesus himself never advocated the creation of any religion, much less the creation of 300 different "Christian denominations" and sects. If we are to believe the NT, all Jesus did was cure diseased people, lepers, schizophrenics and epileptics and cursed the hypocrites of his days.
The true conspirator of the entire religious mess we are in, seems to be Paul and the first church fathers who took the NT and made it into a way to control the masses. Before you knew it, bishops and archimandrites were fighting over such nonsense as whether Jesus is "equal" to God, whether the "Holy Spirit" proceeds via the "Son" or via a concealed air duct attached to God's head, whether Mary was a virgin or not and other similar nonsense which baffles theologians even until this day.
My favorite is the composition of the Trinity. There are three separate "Gods" in there, who are all distinct individuals, yet they are but one God. The famous 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 principle. There isn't even a Mathematical/logical model that can describe this.
Poor Jesus, did his best to relieve some of the more elaborate pain in this society and all he did was show humanity that just talking about love is akin to trying to move a truck using bubbles. Again, if we are to believe the NT, he showed in practice what love was all about. It is about healing, about forgiving, about turning in fact the other cheek to your enemy and yielding to evil. Paul summarizes it pretty well above. He gave for free and asked nothing in return. He did not ask for extravagant wages when he healed all the schizos and nuts of his days, nor did he condemn the whore who the "wise elders" were ready to stone to death.
And of course, he got what he deserved: The cross.
We, as a society, have a very fine and honorable tradition in killing quickly anybody who teaches or perpetrates new and strange doctrines, particularly if those doctrines prove to be beneficial to the fellow human being. My ancestors forced Socrates to drink hemlock, because he was advocating the silliness of the sophists and philosophers. The "church" chased Galileo because he claimed that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Romans under the blessing of the Jews, crucified Jesus, because the poor chap said "love your neighbor as yourself".
These and other similar events, prove that this society is pretty much fucked up. Our principles are fucked up, our ideals and our beliefs. And the culprit is of course, either Nature or The Creator, name it as you please.
All in all, human behavior is either insane or paranoid or inconsistent or all three together. For every ideal, noble idea, virtuous aim or bit of wisdom there will always exist its opposite: The root of all evil: The NEGATION. No wonder the "Church" has used even this, to portray Satan as evil, because he NEGATED the validity of God's Words and actions.
Whatever the problem, it seems that Christianity has lost its initial innocence. Today we are bombarded with hundreds of "denominations" each advocating a specific tenet. Not a single one of these cares about the people in the Paulian sense. Things are made worse by greed, corrupt church officials and desire for power. No wonder then, rational people have such serious problems with the Christian doctrine.
A Christian, should ideally be someone who just believes in Christ. Instead, a Christian today is made to look like an fool in the hands of mass manipulators and assimilators. That's most certainly not the idea Jesus had in mind, if he ever had one.