Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Ticket to Heaven Daily Dose
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)
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