Ticket to Heaven Daily Dose

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Have you not heard of that prophet who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessantly: “I have found God! I have found God!”

As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. “Have you not heard that God is dead?” said one. “Have you not heard that science explains the universe?” said another. “Are you an anti-vaxxer? A faith healer? A creationist?” Thus they shouted and laughed. The prophet sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O Earth – God lives! But how does God live? How did your best efforts not wipe God away? Have you not conquered the earth? Have you not reached the stars? Have you not discovered the building blocks of life? You abandoned God and bowed down to colourful rags, to men, and to intricate theories, crying out ‘Save me! You are my god!’.”

“You held festivals of atonement in Flanders and Dresden, sacred games in Auschwitz and Nanking. Is this how you, self-proclaimed murderers of all murderers, console yourselves after your supposed deicide? Do you not see that you are now perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?”

“Is there any up or down left for you? Male or female? Good or evil? Objective reality? Do you not hear anything yet of the noise of the seekers who have remembered God? Do you not smell the flowers that grow each spring? God lives. God will remain alive. That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed remains available to us. Remember the former things, those of long ago; for I have found God, and there is no other like Him. There has never been a greater discovery; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this discovery he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the prophet fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. “I have come too early," he said then; “my time has not come yet. The tremendous realization is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the hearts of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, perspectives require time even after information is acquired, before they can be understood and appreciated. This insight is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet it has been around them since the beginning.”

It has been further related that on that same day the prophet entered places of worship and there sang joyous psalms. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: “what are these buildings now if they are not the Kingdom of Heaven?” (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 7)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

The first student has no master, and must discover everything himself. He researches for 70 years, then writes his wisdom into a book before he dies. The second student reads the book, and in 7 years, he has learned 70 years of research. Then he does his own original research for 63 years and writes a book containing 133 years of research. The third student reads for 13.3 years, then does his own research for 66.7 years, ending up with 200 years. Imagine going further and further. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 10)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

A genius has three abilities, which are actually the union of amateur and scientist: 1. to know the state of the art, what is known and what is not known. 2. To be able to think "out of the box". 3. To be disciplined enough to concentrate on the tedium of a formal investigation of his wondrous speculations. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 11)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Few teachers understand that the study of history can never be to learn historical dates and events by heart and recite them by rote; that what matters is not whether the child knows exactly when this battle or that was fought, when a general was born, or even when a monarch came into the crown of his forefathers. No, by the living God, this is very unimportant. To ‘learn’ history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 12)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

The times in which our generation lives are not ordinary times. We dwell on the interface between two worlds — a world as it was and a world as it is meant to be. Everything is in place, all the infrastructure to bind the world together as one, the technology by which all of humanity can share deep wisdom, all that is needed so that the secret of oneness can be grasped within the human mind. The stage is set. All that’s left is for us to open our eyes. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 13)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

There is a dream which keeps coming back to me at almost regular intervals; it is dark, and I am being murdered in some kind of thicket or brushwood; there is a busy road at no more than ten yards distance; I scream for help but nobody hears me, the crowd walks past laughing and chatting…

… you are the crowd who walk past laughing on the road; and there are a few of us, escaped victims or eyewitnesses of the things which happen in the thicket and who, haunted by our memories, go on screaming on the wireless, yelling at you in newspapers and in public meetings, theatres and cinemas. Now and then we succeed in reaching your ear for a minute…

There have been screamers at all times—prophets, preachers, teachers and cranks— cursing the obtuseness of their contemporaries, and the situation-pattern remained very much the same. There are always the screamers screaming from the thicket and the people who pass by on the road… as long as there are people on the road and victims in the thicket, divided by dream barriers, this will remain a phoney civilisation. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 14)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

the halluci-nation

the human beings

the people

see

the spiritual in the natural

through sense and feeling

every thing is related

all the things of earth

and in the sky

have spirit

everything is sacred

confronted by

the a-lie-nation

the subjects and

the citizens

see

the material religions

through trauma and numb

nothing is related

all the things of the earth

and in the sky

have energy to be exploited

even themselves

mining their spirits into souls

sold

into nothing is sacred

not even their self

the a-lie-nation….alienation

(Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 15)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Voyager One, the NASA probe got to outer space today

With a platter made of solid gold for aliens to play

It makes its trip for all of us

A record of mankind's song

Ultimately superfluous

Because we don't get along

(Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 16)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

We're coming down to the ground

We'll hear the birds sing in the trees

And the land will be looked after

We’ll send the seeds out in the breeze

(Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 17)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 20)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

While music, dance, and language are widely known to be found in every human society, the optimistic belief in a better future is perhaps one of the original human universals. From the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in search of their American Dream to the five-year economic plans of the Soviet Union, from the blue-collar workers maintaining our infrastructure to the cavepeople who decorated rock walls thousands of years ago, the quest to make tomorrow better than today has been one of the hidden catalysts for every achievement ever made by human beings.

Our capacity to dream, to imagine, to plan, and to improve has elevated us to a position of almost total authority over the rest of the animal kingdom. This capacity has built palaces, castles, skyscrapers, and monuments. It has invented the steam engine, the lightbulb, and the internet. It has yielded science fiction, Walt Disney World, coconut cream pie, and prosecco. Perhaps more than anything else, however, our faculty of imagination and our sense of optimism have given us the concept of a utopia, an ideal society where hardship, poverty, and injustice no longer exist.

Although the word for utopia was only invented by Sir Thomas More in the sixteenth century, the search for a perfect society has been a central theme in Western thought for almost two thousand years. Indeed, ever since the characters in Plato’s Republic first explored the nature of justice and just societies through dialectical exercises, a great deal of Western intellectual effort has been devoted to envisioning optimal systems and governance structures.

Many of these efforts have been theoretical or philosophical exercises, such as Plato’s Republic, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, or Aldous Huxley’s innovative and subversive Island. However, other utopian projects have taken place in the real world and are responsible, at least in part, for some of the most pivotal movements in world history. The Bolshevik Revolution, for example, ousted the ruling class of tzarist Russia and implemented radical new ideas about economics and governance, a series of decisions which backfired magnificently, killed millions of people, hobbled Russia for decades, and had worldwide ripple effects throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Over one hundred years before the Bolsheviks took control of Russia, the American Revolution was also catalyzed by grievances regarding economics and governance. Much like the Bolsheviks, the philosopher-leaders of the American Revolution overturned monarchial rulers and established their own systems. Unlike the Bolsheviks, however, the Americans’radical and original ideas, which they outlined in a collection of founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, birthed one of the planet’s most powerful nations, one of its largest economies, and some of the most influential political ideas in the Western world. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 21)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Indeed, the history books and statistical records clearly demonstrate that the American attempt at utopia has been decidedly more successful than the Soviet efforts. Despite its many well-documented faults, in just a few centuries the “land of the free” and “home of the brave” has become a world leader in culture, science, technology, politics, and philosophy, as well as a leading military superpower and a primary food exporter. Immigrants from around the world flock to its borders, some even making dangerous and illegal crossings over the Rio Grande for a chance at a better life.

On the other hand, the Soviet economy was an overmanaged disaster with thousands of government offices vainly attempting to control all aspects of production and distribution, leaving many Soviet citizens without the ability to buy a car, a television set, or even many food items considered staples in the West. Furthermore, whereas the waves of illegal immigrants crossing the American border have triggered heated discussions about a border wall to keep people out, the “antifascist” Berlin Wall implemented by the Soviets was not constructed for defensive purposes, but to keep East Germans from fleeing communist rule. Dissenters and dangerous thinkers who could not escape to the West were imprisoned in gulags and worked to death in the frozen wastelands of Siberia.

An honest review of human history reveals that most utopian projects have not led to better societies, but to economic disaster, mass starvation, and even genocide. From Le Corbusier’s questionable attempt at an “efficient” architectural commune in France to the violently mechanistic attempt at agricultural utopia in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, it seems to be the case that individuals or nations with grand visions consistently end up in shambles. In the case of the Soviet Union, this can be both metaphorically and physically seen in the remnants of the Berlin Wall, torn down by East Germans in 1989 following decades of silent discontent. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 22)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Meanwhile, the American Dream has outlasted and outperformed every instantiation of communism that has ever been attempted. Whereas the ruins of the Berlin Wall serve as a stark reminder of the costs of compliance, the records of American achievement can be found in the etched walls of Virginia’s coal mines, have been immortalized in movies like Saving Private Ryan, and even include a star-spangled banner on the surface of the Moon.

Yet even the American attempt at utopia now seems to be failing, and inexplicably so. Despite its material wealth and accomplished history, the number of Americans dying from opioid overdoses each year is now equivalent to the number of soldiers who died in the entire Vietnam War, and the suicide rate of American youth between the ages of ten and twenty-four has nearly doubled over the last decade. Fourteen percent of American youth report experiencing serious psychological distress within the last month, and about one in ten have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. These themes are reflected in the statistics of other Western nations, with assisted suicide one of the leading causes of death in Canada and suicide devices now becoming available in European countries.

Beyond the psychological misery experienced by large portions of North American society, the average person faces significant economic challenges that impact their quality of life. With the amount of wealth controlled by the Western middle classes quickly eroding and large corporations now investing in residential housing, home ownership is becoming a distant dream. Indeed, it is estimated that over half of young adults still live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression, and that the majority of those who do live on their own find their living situation hard to afford. Moreover, the savings of the average household are exceedingly slim, with fifty-six percent of families reporting that they would be unable to find one thousand dollars to cover an emergency.

Even people with careers that provide for their material needs find themselves facing unprecedented levels of unhappiness, with eighty percent of employees reporting feeling disengaged at their workplace. The top regrets of dying Westerners are centered around themes of working too hard, sacrificing one’s individuality, and neglecting important relationships, indicating high levels of life dissatisfaction. Burnout in many professions, particularly nursing and teaching, has become widespread, leading to a shortage of critical workers and ongoing systemic pressures on education and healthcare systems.

In addition to the psychological and economic troubles faced by the West, the political atmosphere in Western nations is strained nearly to the point of breaking. Ongoing conversations about race, gender, and sexuality have driven rifts between once-amicable political factions in many countries, with influencers on both sides making use of genocidal rhetoric and politicians refusing to collaborate or reconcile. The divide has become so deep, and the rhetoric so violent, that both the United States of America and Canada now qualify for inclusion on genocide watchlists. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 23)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Perhaps most distressingly, the West seems to have lost its capacity to even engage with the kinds of bold ideas necessary for utopian visions, leaving its nations mired in short-term thinking and bitter disputes over policy issues. Consider, for example, that in the late 1940s, an American schoolteacher named John Reber drafted an ambitious plan to build two dams in the San Francisco Bay area, supporting new land development, the creation of freshwater lakes, and new transit routes. Despite the vast changes this would have made to the geography of San Francisco, Reber’s plan was taken so seriously that a scale model was built by the government to prototype his suggestions.

In contrast to San Francisco’s enthusiastic engagement with the Reber Plan, the Walt Disney resort in Florida is an underappreciated casualty of the West’s inability to pursue grand projects. Although it may be one of the world’s most popular vacation destinations, Walt Disney originally intended the “Florida Project” to be a twenty-thousand-person Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow complete with underground tunnels for cars, a circular design, and a wide range of urban planning innovations meant to serve as a testing ground for future cities. Unfortunately, following Disney’s unexpected death in 1966, the company abandoned his bold vision for the project and instead built another theme park, a much safer option that delivered predictable shareholder value.

In response to the West’s loss of interest in visionary ideas, which seems to have occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley has diagnosed Western society with a case of indefinite optimism – an optimistic belief in a better future without any specific plan to get there. In business contexts, this manifests as a vague commitment to shareholder value and a myopic concern with certain dollar figures, which often remain disconnected from more practical matters of innovation, market leadership, organizational integrity, or company mission. The ill-fated attempts of brands like Bud Light to capitalize on cultural movements are a symptom of this lack of vision, as marketers with a sense of definite optimism would have a unique story of their own to tell instead of a variation of someone else’s narrative.

Even science fiction, a Western literary genre known for depicting expansive and fantastical visions of futuristic societies, has lost the optimistic and imaginative themes that were common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Whereas readers of decades past might have entertained themselves with H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come, they are now treated to dystopian and apocalyptic themes through written works like The Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale, or movies like The Matrix, Avengers: Endgame, and even the charming Wall-E. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 24)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

The simultaneous collapse of North America’s mental health, economic prospects, political discourse, appetite for innovation, and even sense of optimism has raised serious concerns among experts, many of whom now refer to the situation as a crisis with no clear cause or solution. While researchers have found some contributing factors to the current state of Western civilization, such as the dramatic rise in smartphone use among modern teenagers or the over-systematization of childcare and education, the problems seem to be too interrelated and complex to solve.

Attempts have been made to understand the issue, with Canadian psychologist John Vervaeke referring to the West’s current predicament as a meaning crisis attributable to the misinformation, underdevelopment, and cynicism which has become endemic in Western nations. Philosopher Terry Patten differs slightly by describing the situation as a meta-crisis, alluding to his view that the psychological, spiritual, and economic catastrophes are too inter-related to allow for the identification of root causes. Regardless of the terminology, both theorists are gravely worried about the sudden loss of meaning, significance, and continuity experienced by Western individuals in the post-internet era, which seems to be connected to technology and childcare, but in ways that cannot be fully explained.

While these diagnoses offer valuable insights into the nature of the West’s current crisis, the reality is that these confusing collapses should be attributed to unacknowledged problems within Western thought that have been outstanding for millennia. Indeed, an honest review of the Western intellectual project reveals a mind-bending level of fraudulence, corruption, conjecture, and ignorance that has left the average person deeply confused about fundamental matters of human nature, human history, and the laws of the universe. Over the past couple of centuries in particular, this confusion has cascaded into philosophies, religions, scientific pronouncements, expert consensuses, textbooks, government policies, and even artistic expressions that are hostile to human life, ultimately resulting in the meta-crisis now troubling Western researchers.

In much the same way that Marie Antoinette’s out-of-touch perspectives cost her a perfectly good head during the French Revolution, without an accurate understanding of human nature or the laws of the universe that govern social living, any nation or civilization will inevitably collapse under the weight of its own ignorance. This is what happened to the Soviet regime, as frustrated citizens began tearing down the Berlin Wall while bureaucrats micromanaged pointlessly destructive whaling programs. In a similar sense, this is also what happened to the Catholic Church following the celestial discoveries of Bruno and Galileo, and to the countless failed attempts at liberal communes that have been made in recent history. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 24-25)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Throughout her address to West Point’s graduating class of 1974, the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand emphasized the importance of philosophy to daily living, pointing out that the things that people believe to be true will dictate what they think should be done, and of course will influence how they behave. The beliefs people hold also dictate the kinds of public policies they will support, the kinds of politicians they vote for, and the kinds of corporations they do business with. One modern-day example of the hidden influence of philosophy is the metaphysical belief in climate change, which has influenced Western nations to spend tremendous amounts of time, money, and effort on things like electric vehicles, solar power, wind turbines, and other fossil fuel alternatives.

A more historical example of philosophy’s tremendous influence on Western society is the Declaration of Independence, which makes three metaphysical claims in its preamble that can be seen to form the justification for the entire American project. Indeed, the “self-evident” and “inalienable” rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in the Declaration have served as not only a constant point of reference for American leadership throughout the generations, but as guiding principles for the living of American life and the evolution of American society. Even if different groups within the country’s body politic differ on how best to facilitate these rights, to question any of them is tantamount to sacrilege and heresy in American discourse.

Unfortunately for Western civilization, although the metaphysical claims made by the Declaration of Independence are decidedly more realistic than the Soviet perspective, bubbling beneath the surface of Western thought, and therefore beneath America’s founding documents, are a series of misconceptions, delusions, theories, and outright lies that, as can be plainly seen by the current series of catastrophes, are threatening the integrity of the entire utopian endeavor.

Beyond incorrect metaphysical claims made about human life and the universe, the West’s epistemology, or way of knowing, is also corrupted. While governments and institutions within Western nations claim to be operating according to the best scientific knowledge available, the reality is that much of what is “known” about the universe is a matter of scientific conjecture or expert consensus, not provable fact, and that a great deal of our “knowledge” is fraudulent, misrepresented, or based on information taken out of context. This means that for any Westerner to gain a proper appreciation of the world they live in, it becomes necessary to not only question the West’s metaphysical claims themselves, but how that body of knowledge was acquired in the first place.

Thus, to meaningfully address the crisis faced by Western civilization, it becomes necessary to critically review the entirety of the Western intellectual project, the metaphysical assumptions it has made, how it arrived at those assumptions, and what amendments must be made to rectify the worsening catastrophe. However, with reference to scholarship in many disciplines, including thermodynamics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, media ecology, expertise studies, history, anthropology, and religious studies, it is possible to not only identify the root causes of the current crisis, but also the forms of the solutions that could salvage deeply troubled Western nations and ensure a genuinely utopian future. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 25-26)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Although this kind of radical juxtaposition of subjects might seem unorthodox or overambitious, the synthesis of the West’s vast stores of accumulated knowledge is both a long-awaited development and necessary for continued advancement of the intellectual tradition. Following the fragmentation of Western scholastic effort into highly focused disciplines over the last several centuries, and the countless discoveries that have been made since, many luminaries have called for researchers to balance specialization with reconciliation by spending more time finding relationships and agreements between different fields of inquiry.

Among these voices are Cardinal John Henry Newman, the founder of University College Dublin, who emphasized the importance of cultivating learned minds that could systematize and reconcile new information with what is already known. They also include feminist scholar Camille Paglia, highly critical of the exclusion of biology from the field of women’s studies, and lawyer Brian Muraresku, whose investigation of psychedelic mushroom use in the ancient Near East involved a blend of archaeology, history, and chemistry that has since become known as archaeochemistry. Over the past couple of decades, other chimeric disciplines have emerged that blur lines between disciplines in much the same way as Muraresku’s efforts, among them the field of biophysics, popularized by Erwin Schrödinger, and biologist Edward O. Wilson’s controversial sociobiology.

Aside from founding new fields of inquiry in biology, Edward O. Wilson enjoys credit for the reintroduction of consilience into the modern academic lexicon. This word, with etymological connotations of parts jumping together or unifying, was invented by British polymath William Whewell in the 1800s to refer to circumstances where multiple lines of independent inquiry all converge on the same answer. The concept was revisited to great acclaim by Wilson in his 1998 work Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, which introduced many readers to the value and potential of interdisciplinary inquiry for the first time.

Although it is not a word or concept most people are familiar with, the truth is that much of the physical sciences operates, at least implicitly, on consilience. For example, the Darwinian observations which gave rise to evolutionary theory are compatible with Gregor Mendel’s work on gene transmission, which itself is compatible with what is known about chemistry and basic biological processes, which in turn seems compatible with many laws of physics. Yet, while the sciences all enjoy a great deal of mutual compatibility, Wilson observes in his work that the relationship between the sciences and humanities is almost nonexistent. He further observes that many of the world’s most pressing problems, such as ecological, all require deep collaboration between the arts and sciences – and therefore the unification of all human knowledge.

While such a lofty goal may seem like something to be accomplished by luminaries and geniuses in the far-flung future, it is proving to be an urgent and necessary project given the fumbling, stumbling, and crumbling that has become endemic in Western nations. Thankfully, while a comprehensive revision of the West’s accumulated knowledge reveals that some inconvenient and painful corrections will have to be made, it also demonstrates that the information, tools, technologies, processes, and wisdom required to facilitate utopia have already been discovered. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 27-28)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Although the roots of Western civilization stretch back to Athens and Jerusalem, modern Western society sits on the branch that begins with the Council of Nicaea. This convention of early Christian leaders was held to decide, among many other controversies, on the divine nature of Jesus and the date of Easter.

The Council of Nicaea was one of the key events that set into motion the Holy Roman Empire, which dominated European culture and intellectual activity until the Renaissance over one thousand years later. Because of its position as the seat of European religious belief, Christianity’s influence on the West has been profound, from inspiring artistic works like Dante Aligheri’s Inferno and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, spurring the construction of architectural marvels like La Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, and perhaps most importantly, giving the Western world its metaphysical and ethical foundations.

The importance of the Christian worldview to the West cannot be understated. Aside from its many vectors of cultural and spiritual influence, Christian ethics can be found littered throughout Western jurisprudence, including laws named after the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the criminalization of homosexuality as an abomination, as well as implicit value judgements surrounding crime, guilt, and punishment. Even developments within the Church, such as the Protestant Reformation, spawned contributions like legal positivism, or the view of legal systems as a means, not an end.

Unfortunately for the West, and as many Christians are now discovering thanks to the internet, Christianity is a violently fraudulent and incoherent mess that has bamboozled and terrified generations of well-meaning people. Ever since Bruno and Galileo challenged the Christian cosmology, the world’s largest religion has been forced to make a series of compromises with European science, and particularly since the advent of Darwin’s theories, has been under outright assault by atheist philosophers like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.

The rise of science, combined with the ongoing failure of Christian apologists to justify the existence of evil and suffering, the confusing nature of their Trinitarian deity, and other metaphysical and theological quandaries have caused one in four Christians to begin doubting their faith. Christian affiliation in the younger generations most subjected to these influences has plummeted, with the last few decades seeing the rise of a demographic who define themselves as spiritual, but not religious. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 29)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Despite these growing insecurities, also marked by the rise of alternative church aesthetics, secretly agnostic pastors, and an openly atheist Canadian pastor, the Christian populations of many nations such as Poland, Canada, and the United States still represent one of the largest political and social influences in the West. The partial collapse of Christian faith over the last two decades has activated some of the evangelical and activist wings of the faith, and street preachers have begun appearing on the corners of many cities as Christian rapper Bryson Gray conquers the Billboard charts with a grassroots Christian fanbase.

While a casual observer might think that Christianity has at least several decades left before it eventually crumbles, the reality is that unlike many other world religions, it explicitly claims to be the continuation of another religion – Judaism. Indeed, whereas the Christian faith claims may be a matter of belief from any other perspective, whether Christianity’s doctrines are consilient with the so-called “Tanach” is something that can be objectively tested.

Most unfortunately for the many Christians who have spent their lives, and even life savings, in pursuit of Biblical knowledge, an honest review of the evidence reveals that the doctrines and texts crafted by the early Church fathers intentionally savaged, butchered, and corrupted Jewish scriptures. Moreover, they instantiated one of the first major corruptions found in modern Western thought by injecting Greek philosophy into Jewish spirituality, a desperate metaphysical fusion that has manifested in tremendous spiritual confusion amongst Christian laypeople and clergy alike.

One of the most famous verses in the entire Bible is the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of John:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Originally popularized decades ago by the unorthodox ministry of Rollen Stewart, a sports fan with a rainbow wig and a sign simply reading “John 3:16”, this verse elegantly sums up the most salient aspects of Christian faith and doctrine.

Although many of them may not realize the true source of their faith, Christians believe in the Jewish concept of the Messiah, an extraordinary Jewish man who will bring about an era of enlightenment and world peace. Specifically, they believe Jesus of Nazareth to be that Messiah – who, as said in John 3:16, they think is uniquely special as the “son of God”.

Christians relate to Jesus as their personal savior, as the central doctrine of their religion states that the only way to Heaven is to believe in the efficacy of the blood sacrifice allegedly performed by Jesus, who the Gospels depict as dying by crucifixion for the atonement of humanity’s sins. Failure to understand, believe in, and be thankful for this sacrifice, in the Christian worldview, means one will certainly be burning forever in the underworld. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 29-30)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Although a full refutation of Christianity can and does take many volumes, there are several obvious issues with these doctrines when the Jewish perspective on their own religious scriptures is concerned. By affirming the Tanakh as divine scripture by incorporating it into their own Bible, Christians have left themselves defenseless against the many contradictions to their doctrines found in their so-called Tanach. For example, John 3:16 specifically claims that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s “only begotten son”, which conflicts with verses from the Tanakh that precede Christianity:

“This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son…” (Exodus 4:22)

“The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” (Psalms 2:7)

Moving through the rest of John 3:16, there is the issue of God allegedly allowing this “only” son, Jesus of Nazareth, to become a human sacrifice to atone for the otherwise-unforgivable sins of humanity. Even a cursory reading of the Jewish scriptures will reveal that this is no route to salvation within the Jewish faith:

“Fathers shall not be put to death because of sons, nor shall sons be put to death because of fathers; each man shall be put to death for his own transgression.” (Deuteronomy 24:16)

“The soul that sins, it shall die; a son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and a father shall not bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” (Ezekiel 18:20)

As can be clearly seen, any religion that claims to be based on Jewish scriptures cannot also claim to be based on an act of human sacrifice, as Jewish principles hold that every human being is responsible for their own sins and cannot intercede on behalf of another. Indeed, this fundamental aspect of the Christian faith simply is unjustifiable given the religion’s self-stated roots in Jewish doctrine and prophecy. Moreover, even sacrifices of animals are even seen as only being conditionally acceptable in the Jewish faith, as reiterated throughout the Tanakh:

“Of what use are your many sacrifices to Me? says the Lord. I am sated with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle; and the blood of bulls and sheep and hegoats I do not want.” (Isaiah 1:11)

“For I desire loving-kindness, and not sacrifices...” (Hosea 6:6)

(Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 31)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Another aspect of Christian doctrine that is deeply offensive to Judaism, aside from their claim that the God of Israel accepts human sacrifice for purposes of atonement, is the Trinity. Essentially, Christianity has claimed since about the second century that the Creator-being depicted in the Tanakh is one essence with three distinct personas. On its face, this is absurd from a Jewish perspective, as the central prayer of Judaism and the first words that religious Jews learn as children are an affirmation of the Jewish deity’s singular oneness, not trinitarian nature:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

However, as Christianity continued to spiral into a personality cult and began to elevate their alleged Messiah to divine status, the early leaders of the Church were forced to figure out how to make sense of Jesus’ alleged divinity given God’s status as a unitive in Jewish scriptures. Their subdivision of God’s oneness into a trinitarian structure was their best philosophical justification for Jesus’ divinity, successfully causing Christians to look past several verses that contradict their trinitarian doctrine:

“God is not a man that He should lie, nor is He a mortal that He should relent.” (Numbers 23:19)

“The Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but saw no image, just a voice.” (Deuteronomy 4:12)

“I will not execute the kindling of My anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not a man…” (Hosea 11:9)

Thus, the entire idea that Jesus is somehow divine, or even part of a trinitarian entity that places him on equal footing with the Creator-being described in the Tanakh, is outrageously blasphemous within Judaism and is a further indication that Christianity is not a legitimate religion, but rather a splinter cult that has violently appropriated Jewish texts. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 31-32)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Astoundingly, the superstar street preacher worshipped by four billion people worldwide would not have even qualified as a Jewish prophet, much less the Messiah or the “son of God”. Not only are Jews expected to follow the exact stipulations of their religious laws, from the major observances like the Sabbath to the little things like hand-washing, both of which Jesus is depicted as ignoring, but a stipulation of someone being the Messiah is that he will catalyze a worldwide acceptance of Jewish law, not corrupt it for two thousand years:

“Moshiach will be a man who possesses extraordinary qualities. He will be proficient in both the written and oral Torah traditions. He will incessantly campaign for Torah observance among Jews, and observance of the seven universal Noahide laws by non-Jews. He will be scrupulously observant, and encourage the highest standards from others.”

Many Christians often cite the miracles depicted in the Gospels as proof of Jesus’ divinity and spiritual authority, but Jewish scriptures stipulate that even miracle-workers and diviners who encourage the transgression of the religious laws are to be ignored and punished:

“Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, ‘Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them,’ you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul… And that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream shall be put to death; because he spoke falsehood…” (Deuteronomy 13:1-4, 6)

Furthermore, what these verses are specifically referring to is the very stringent prohibition on worshipping anything aside from the Creator-being worshipped by Israel, which Christians attempt to circumvent by saying Jesus really is that being, just in a different form or persona. However, when confronted with parts of the Gospels where Jesus is depicted as praying to “God the Father”, such as the scenes in Gethsemane, it becomes clear that Jesus is a separate entity of some kind that the Christians are ascribing worship to. This is further betrayed by the many prayers and songs addressed to Jesus specifically, and not to who Christians would refer to as “God the Father”.

This, within the framework of Judaism, is idolatry, and is considered one of the worst sins a human being can commit. This is especially the case given that Jesus is documented as routinely breaking Jewish law, disrespecting the Pharisees and their teachings, and encouraging others to follow his example. He cannot be a Jewish prophet, he could not have been the Messiah, he is not divine by the standards of Judaism, and anyone who believes that Christianity is logically and honestly based on the Jewish Tanakh has been swindled by the most sophisticated cult the world has ever seen. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 32-33)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Beyond the glaring inconsistencies between Christian doctrines and the “Tanach” that Christians claim their religion is derived from, there are several errors, misquotes, and even outright falsifications made by the authors of the New Testament that seem to have been deployed or knowingly perpetuated to fool people into accepting Jesus as their savior. Indeed, the first chapter of the Gospels includes such an error, with the author of Matthew explicitly citing Jewish prophecies in support of the claim that Jesus’ virgin birth was foretold in the seventh chapter of Isaiah:

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel…’” (Matthew 1:22-23)

Of course, this is not the case – a proper reading of the relevant prophetic work in its entirety reveals that not only is this prophecy contemporaneous to Isaiah, even naming King Ahaz in the seventh chapter, but that the original verse was corrupted through a mistranslation!

About two centuries before Jesus’ lifetime, when Jewish scriptures were translated into noncanonical Greek, the word for “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14, which is “almah”, became the Greek “parthenos”, which means virgin. This mistranslation seems to have cascaded into the Book of Matthew, whose author was working from the Greek translations – not the original text. This mistranslation then became canonized into the Christian Bible as the Church formalized its documents, an error that was not even admitted until recent years. Thus, even though this verse is a mainstay of many Christmas worship services to this day, the prophecy for Jesus’ alleged virgin birth simply does not exist and never has:

“the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call...” (translation of Hebrew)

ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν, καὶ καλέσουσι τὸ…

Similar issues can be found in the writings of Paul the Apostle, whose letters to the early churches constitute much of the New Testament, the beginnings of official Christian doctrine, and the religious groundwork for doctrines like Original Sin and human sacrifice. Among other falsehoods, Paul erroneously claims in Romans 9:25 that the kind of relationship the Jewish scriptures depict God as having with Israel has since been extended to all nations following Jesus’ alleged sacrifice. Paul justifies this theological position by making selective references to verses in the Book of Hosea and other prophetic writings, ignoring the reconciliatory verses and presenting only selections excoriating the Jewish people to give the impression that their covenant had ended.

Such underhanded practices have, unfortunately, become commonplace in Christian thinking, as even laypeople will unthinkingly and unwittingly quote pieces of Jewish scriptures that they believe support their doctrines:

“But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’” (Isaiah 41:14)

Myopic readings of this verse would seem to imply that the Jewish people have been abandoned due to their transgressions and sins, thus opening the door for Christianity’s “new covenant” made through Jesus’ death on the cross. However, to take this verse in isolation of the surrounding context is an act of intellectual thuggery, as can be clearly seen by the verse directly following it:

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” (Isaiah 41:15)

Christian theology, evangelism, apologetics, and philosophy are full of such sleights of hand, many of which have flummoxed one in six Dutch clergy members into silent agnosticism. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 33-34)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

While it is understandable that people born and raised in Christian environments could be bamboozled into believing past the contradictions within their own holy text, the unfortunate nonsensicality of the West’s metaphysical foundations have caused tremendous damage since Nicaea’s bishops decided to endorse the Trinity.

While the disdain that Friedrich Nietzsche had for Christianity is difficult for many Westerners to fully appreciate, the German philosopher who swung a hammer to the West’s religious foundations correctly perceived that the philosophies encoded in Christian doctrines were hostile to human flourishing. One of the most harmful ideas within Christianity is the concept of Original Sin, which characterizes every human being as irredeemably wicked, sinful, and unlovable by the Creator – this is hardly the foundation for a positive self-image, nor does it provide the optimistic foundation for a prosperous and thriving culture.

Yet, Christians firmly believe that because the Biblical Adam and Eve transgressed a commandment to eat from a forbidden tree, not only did evil, death, and suffering come to Earth as a punishment, but that every human born after that was an heir to this fallen legacy. According to the Church, ever since Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, every human child was destined to born into a fallen state and require redemption through acceptance of Jesus’ alleged atonement sacrifice.

Moving beyond cultural relativism to issues of truth and fiction, what has been taught to generations of Christian children – by their own parents, and their parents before them – is a poison pill that sabotages every possible notion of human nobility. Under Christian metaphysics, which ruled the West for centuries and is still influential today, every newborn baby, face purple before their first breath, is a wretched creature that can only be accepted by its Creator through human sacrifice.

When one appreciates the folkloric maxim that one’s treatment of others is related to one’s own selfimage, suddenly the Crusades, the witch hunts, the pogroms against Jews, the Canadian residential schools, and the generations of spiritually traumatized ex-Christians make much more sense. Indeed, despite its stated intentions of being a loving and kind religion, the metaphysical beliefs that Christianity enforces on its followers facilitates unbalanced thinking and paradoxical differences between speech and action, which usually manifests in “wounded healers” and perverted priests.

Without the doctrine of original sin, however, Christianity would be forced to retreat to the Biblical positions found in the original Tanakh, where each person is responsible for their own transgressions and has the potential for being a righteous man or woman. There would be no need for a fervent belief in the saving power of Jesus’ alleged sacrifice, and no need for Jesus to be a divine, sinless, superhuman figure. In essence, without original sin, there would be no Christianity. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 34-35)

[Hrvatski Noahid]

Beyond the anti-human ideas that are core to Christianity, people who adopt it as a belief system are often left flummoxed by paradoxes they notice within Christian doctrine or become dismayed at the tragedies of life that occur despite their faith. There are many things that one might hesitate to ask their local clergy member, especially if their family goes to the same church and there is a possibility word might get around about their doubts. For example, how could a perfectly good and loving God allow people to die by the millions in the Holocaust, Holodomor, and other catastrophic events? Why do babies get leukemia? Why did my son die in a car crash?

Although some erudite answers to tragedies exist within Christian thought, the truth is that Christians ultimately must blame the existence of evil on Adam and Eve’s transgression with the forbidden fruit, absolving their trinity of any direct responsibility for the evil that exists in the world. Yet, this still begs the question of why these things are allowed to happen in the first place, which is a dead end for all but the most inventive Christians.

The issue of evil, and other philosophical quandaries like it, leave Christianity’s metaphysical foundations on shaky and inconsistent ground. The split-minded doctrines help explain, in part, why Christian organizations continually fail to live up to their stated principles, including the longstanding existence of pedophile rings within the Catholic church and other deep compromises of moral integrity. Moreover, upon receiving a serious challenge from Darwinian theory, the West’s loss of its justification for evil catalyzed a shift towards nihilism in large demographics of society, perhaps foreboding the eventual rise in suicide now being experienced. As Nietzsche correctly intuited, even though Christianity is a counterproductive and harmful religion, the existential constraints on humanity’s powers and freedoms implied by an omnipotent Creator turned out to be one of the only things between Europe and mass slaughter.

Another popular criticism of Christianity, made popular by Karl Marx, is that it is the “opiate of the masses”, an allusion to the pacifying and stupefying effects of its doctrines. Indeed, by redirecting a believer’s overall locus of control from the believer to their false savior, and by perpetrating an intentional and cunning series of obfuscations, misrepresentations, lies, and threats of eternal damnation, Christianity has managed to terrify and confuse Western countries for hundreds of years, largely based on the threat of eternal punishment for noncompliance and insufficient faith.

For many Christians, even some clergy members, being raised from birth to misinterpret plagiarized and corrupted Jewish scriptures suggests that their predicament is an honest mistake. However, reviewing the history of the early Church reveals that Christian leaders intentionally pulled Jewish scriptures out of context and warped them to suit their needs. (Ticket to Heaven by Zachary R.J. Strong, PDF version, p 36)