 
Introduction to Genius Theory

Published by Bill Etem at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Bill Etem

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art by rebecacovers at fivver.com

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Genius Christians and he Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place

Chapter 2. Sacrilege.

Chapter 3. The Christian Zionists

Chapter 4. Matthew 25. 41-46.

Chapter 5. The ELCA.

Chapter 6. Don't Worship any Beastly false gods which lead people to Eternal Perdition.

Chapter 7. Culmination.

Introduction to Genius Theory

Chapter 1. Genius Christians and the Antichrist Sitting in the Holy Place

The idea that undiscovered geniuses are more or less ubiquitous, arises, to Christians at least, from the logic which says Christianity is a religion for the masses, and, furthermore, at the heart of Christianity is some logic which runs as follows: True Christians have the Divine Law described in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on their hearts. Recall Christ's words at the Last Supper - `This cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many' – Matthew 26. 28. What is this new covenant? Turning to Jeremiah 31. 31-34 we find:

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

The above is also the subject of Hebrews 8. Long story short, we Christians are supposed to have this Divine Law written on our hearts. Some might be comfortable going so far as to say that the people who have the Divine Law written on their hearts are able to teach theology and ethical philosophy with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. If you're not willing to go that far, still, if a person has the Divine Law written on his heart, then, you would think, he would be a great authority on the Highest Law in the Universe. And you would certainly have to be quite bright to be a great authority on the Highest Law in the Universe.

Well of course history offers no end of proof which says most Christians are not geniuses. A genius Christian by the name of Sir Isaac Newton invented the Differential and Integral Calculus, and he was the founder of Newtonian Mechanics, which defined modern mechanics prior to the innovations of Lagrange, Hamilton, Ricci, Levi-Civita and Einstein. Under the Newtonian Theory 43 seconds of arc per century in the advance of the perihelion of Mercury could not be explained. But under Einstein's General Theory of Relativity the 43 seconds per century of arc can be explained. But, more often than not, Christians don't strike one as great geniuses.

Still, Christianity seems to suggest that much of this is due to bad parenting and worse schooling, rather than to any limitations in brain power among Christians. I mean, Matthew 26. 28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34 mean that even the least of God's people can understand the Supreme Law of the Universe. 1 Corinthians 3. 16 says Christians are supposed to be living temples of God. So, in theory Christians are supposed to be quite exalted beings. But, in practice, things don't always look so good.

2 Thess 2 says the Antichrist will sit in the holy place. Many assume this means that the Jewish temple will have to be rebuilt in Jerusalem, so the Antichrist can sit in it, so the prophesy of 2 Thess 2 can be fulfilled. But under Christianity, the heart of a Christian is the temple of God. This is now the new holy place. So, if the Antichrist sits in the hearts of Christians, then he sits in the holy place. Can we find any evidence from history which says Christians have had evil sitting in their hearts?

Paul Johnson writes in `A History of Christianity', p. 273,

`In the West, the clergy had begun to assert an exclusive interpretive, indeed custodial, right to the Bible as early as the ninth century; and from about 1080 there had been frequent instances of the Pope, councils and bishops forbidding not only vernacular translations but any reading at all, by laymen, of the Bible taken as a whole...attempts to scrutinize the Bible became proof presumptive of heresy - a man or woman might burn [at the stake] for it alone.'

Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed. As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

The way in which the child abuse scandal which recently hit the Roman Catholic Church is evidence which says the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, is not perfectly obvious. Rome certainly does not teach the doctrine that child abuse is good thing. Various Bishops connived at evil. They didn't call the police on perpetrators because the publicity would be embarrassing to the Church of Rome, so they failed to protect children from perpetrators. But does this prove the entire Roman Catholic Church has fallen away from the True Faith? Even among the apostles there was a Judas. If one out of every 12 Roman Catholic bishops is a Judas, and if 11 out of every 12 is a True Christian who teaches the True Faith, then it would not be sane to renounce Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church asserts the confessions made in the confessional during the sacrament of penance must remain secret. The priest who hears the confession is said to commit sacrilege if he divulges these secrets to a third party, such as the police. A confessional system whereby the priest is allowed to notify certain people, but not the police, that a person who has made a confession is dangerous and needs to be watched might be a valuable system. I mean, under the current system, a priest might hear a man confess that he can't stop himself from raping little boys, or little girls, or women, or hear some sort of other confession to evil, and, under the current system, the priest is not allowed to tell anyone what he heard. If a violent criminal knows the priest will go straight to the police after he makes his confession, then the violent criminal won't make his confession. But if the violent criminal knows the priest will only tell a few people that the criminal needs to be watched, then, in moments of remorse, or in moments of fear of hellfire, the criminal will be motivated to make his confession. He won't make his confession if he knows the priest will go straight to the police, or if the people who are watching him go to the police. Most people naturally want vicious criminals captured and punished. But it's more important to first stop the criminal from hurting more people and creating more victims. There is logic which says it would be a sacrilege to violate a confessional system which did a great deal of good. If the system helped to keep violent criminals in check, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to ruin this system. The system would be ruined if the people sworn to only observe the criminal became aggressive and reported the criminal to the police. The system relies on the logic that even the worst criminals might fear hell once in a while, or they might suffer from a guilty conscience and moments of remorse, and therefore, in these moments, though the criminal won't be motivated enough to make a full confession to the police, he might be motivated enough to make a confession to a priest, and then his confession will result in his being put under surveillance. In fleeting moments of remorse or fear of hell, he will accept the surveillance as long as he knows he won't go to prison. The upshot is that the criminal won't make any more victims in the future, because people are now watching him, people who will not report him to the police. Since he's being watched he won't be hurting any more little boys or little girls by the evil urges which he can't control but which sometimes take control of him. If such a system was effective in protecting people from evil, then one might say it would be a sacrilege to do something which destroyed the system.

In any event, that's not the system Rome uses. Rome says it is a sacrilege for a priest to ever tell a third person what he heard in the confessional. This means that if a priest hears a man confess that he rapes little boys or little girls, then the priest must keep the man's confession absolutely secret. He can't tell anyone. Can't tell the parents, can't tell the police, can't tell anyone. Rome says he commits a sacrilege, a mortal sin which leads the offender to hell, if he tells anyone. Christ and the apostles never taught the doctrine that the secrets of murders and rapists had to be kept secret. Now, on the one hand, the confessional system adopted by Rome is an attempt to celebrate the Eucharist in a worthy manner, whereas other churches make little or no attempt in this regard. 1 Corinthians 11. 27 is very clear. It only stands to reason that a church falls away from the True Faith if that church celebrates the Eucharist in an unworthy manner, such as by giving the bread and the wine to people unworthy to receive communion. Scripture is silent on this issue of keeping confessions secret. Common sense tells us that if priests are scrupulous in not telling the police about pedophiles they learn about in the confessional, then, pedophiles will be encouraged to come forward and confess to priests, and this is a good thing, but then the priests have to be able to tell someone so that children can be protected from the pedophiles. If the priest is forbidden to tell anyone, then how are children going to be protected from the predators? There is simply no basis in scripture for Rome's doctrine that confessions made in the confessional must be kept strictly confidential. Rome's logic for teaching the doctrine that the absolute secrecy of the confessional extends even to people who confess to evil crimes against children is simply the following: The Roman Catholic Church is God's True Church, and God's True Church says the priest hearing a confession commits a sacrilege if he violates the secrecy of that confession. When God's True Church announces a doctrine, especially one taught for century after century, don't rebel against it, you risk hellfire whenever you rebel against God's True Church.

The above makes sense unless of course the church claiming to be God's True Church, the Church which leads people to heaven, is actually a false church which leads to perdition.

We were on the subject of how it is that Christians are supposed to have the Divine Law written on their hearts. Recall we also have a scripture which say `ye shall know them by their fruits.'

Henry Thomas Buckle wrote in `History of Civilization in England,'

`Now and then a great man arose [in the Middle Ages]...who thought that astrology might be a cheat, and necromancy a bubble; and who went so far as to raise a question respecting the propriety of drowning every witch and burning every heretic. A few such men there undoubtedly were; but they were despised as mere theorists, idle visionaries... until the latter part of the sixteenth century, there was no country in which a man was not in great personal peril if he expressed open doubts respecting the beliefs of his contemporaries...men who are perfectly satisfied with their own knowledge will never attempt to increase it. Men who are perfectly convinced of the accuracy of their opinions, will never take the pains of examining the basis on which they are built. They always look with wonder, and often with horror, on views contrary to those they have inherited from their fathers; and while they are in this state of mind, it is impossible that they should receive any new truth which interferes with their foregone conclusions.'

I made a playlist on You Tube, 1300+ clips, search on `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog'. If you ever read Michelet's chapter Picture of France you might have marveled at the way he describes the genius of France. I'm trying to give a Picture of Modern Civilization, or at least a Picture of Politics and Pop Culture, with this playlist. In one section I must have 10 to 20 clips on airline disasters. They say that airline regulations are written blood. So often, people had to die, planes had to crash and burn, before regulations were made to make airline travel safer. These airline crashes are symbolic of something besides planes crashing and people dying. You see, a religion is supposed to transport your soul from this life to a beautiful heaven. But if you subscribe to a false religion then it is like you are in a plane that crashes and burns. The false religion you are in will not transport your soul to any beautiful heaven. False religions lead one straight to perdition. What you want is the True Religion, the True Faith which leads people to heaven.

A huge issue in looking for the True Faith is the question of the Divinity of Jesus. Is Jesus God?

Those of us who are Christians say Jesus is God. We point to scriptures such as Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, John 1. 14, Colossians 2. 8-10 and 1 Timothy 3. 16. If you can't trust the New Testament when it tells us that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary...If you can't trust the New Testament on this matter, then what is left of Christianity?

Those of us who are Christians say that if you are in a religion which denies that Jesus is God, if your religion commits blasphemy and says Jesus is a false god, then it is as if you are in a plane that is about to crash and burn. Your false religion will never get you to heaven but it will deliver you to eternal perdition. And of course, non-Christians will insist it is blasphemy to say that Jesus is God, and the non-Christians will say that those of us who are Christians are lost in a false religion, they say it is as if we are in a plane that will soon crash and burn, we are heading straight to hell, unless we renounce our so-called false religion.

This playlist I have, which aspires to be a collection of videos which are analogous to Michelet's Picture of France – again search on `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog' - has lots of clips which pertain to politics in the USA. And politics and religion intersect. So much of our politics pertains to the abortion issue, where, in the USA, the Conservative Catholics, Conservative Jews and the Conservative Protestants are on one side, the pro-life side, and nearly everyone else is on the other side, the pro-choice side. Romans 14. 12 says everyone will have to stand before God and give an account of himself. The Conservative Christians suspect that you will do better in your big interview with the Creator of the Universe, and will be better positioned to escape hell, if you are pro-life rather than pro-choice. Therefore, Conservative Catholics prefer the Conservative Protestant Donald Trump over both the Liberal Protestant Hillary Clinton or the Liberal Catholic Joe Biden, because DJT can be counted on to put people like Justice Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, people who might reasonably be expected to outlaw abortion in the USA.

After the abortion issue so much of our politics revolves round the private sector vs. public sector war. The Republicans' favorite public sector workers are found in the defense industry and in the police. The Democrats' favorite public sector workers are school teachers and university staff. Democrats want to defund the police. Republicans want school vouchers, which is a way to defund the public schools. Democrats want big pensions $$$ for people who do menial public sector jobs. Republicans want more billions spent on more aircraft carriers, more fight jets, more bombers etc. The money flows from the private sector to the public sector, via both parties, in a manner which buys votes from people in the public sector, that is, buy votes from people making money off of the taxes paid by people in the private sector.

But abortion is the pre-eminent political issue in the USA. Just remember, you don't want to get tossed into hell, after your big interview with the Creator of the Universe - recall Romans 14. 12. Don't adopt a position on the abortion issue which will anger God.

Getting back to this playlist, `The NBA on NBC to Catching Fire – Poison Fog' lots of the clips ask you: What is an evil lie and what isn't an evil lie? Is Black Lives Matters just an evil Commie / Anarchist outfit? What do you think: Are All Cops really and truly Bastards? Are all white people privileged white people who deserve to have their money stolen from them? If the whites stole it from the Blacks shouldn't the Blacks steal it back?

Got lots of clips on climate change. Is a person a big evil liar, and is he a big evil liar who is helping to destroy the planet if he opposes Greta Thunberg's agenda? Or is the Green New Deal just an evil Commie plot that will destroy the fortunes of millions of people? I had a great clip from Stephan Molyneaux on climate change, but then You Tube censored all of his videos. I had lots of his clips in the playlist before he was censored. There are some clips on spygate, on sexual assault in the US military, some clips on the private sector vs. public sector war, some clips on gay marriage, Lesbian sex, some clips from classic movies, some from Vanderpump Rules, Real Housewives of Orange County etc. I know, it doesn't sound like the playlist will be anything special, like Michelet's Picture of France. But Michelet simply took the centuries of drama coming out of France and edited and re-assembled his encyclopedic knowledge and voluminous notes on France into literary art. The literary art could not have been produced if not for the centuries of great events coming out of France. There is actually a huge amount of genius shown in the clips in the playlist. It took lots of genius to make the movies and the music, the TV drama and the political drama etc.

Moving on to the next issue, the issue of the cross, I'm pushing the doctrine that the cross is evil: it reflects the evil perpetrated over the centuries by people under the cross. I'm pushing the doctrine that no church under the sign of the cross is God's True Church, so every church under the cross is a false church, every church under the cross leads people to heaven. So, if you are in a church which embraces the cross, then it is as if you are on a plane which is about to crash and burn.

And, of course, most Christians would say my anti-cross thinking leads one straight to hell.

Suppose they are right. Suppose, to attain heaven and elude hell, you must: 1) embrace the doctrine of the Trinity, you must worship Jesus as God, and, furthermore, 2) You must embrace the cross.

The next thing you will have to do is find God's True Church. There are lots and lots of issues besides the cross, and abortion, climate change, and Black Lives Matter, and the Divinity of Jesus. You will need the True Church to guide you through all these many issues, so that you don't make a slip-up, and end up in hell. For instance, 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 say you drink damnation into your soul if you celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. The True Church will guide you so that you don't celebrate holy communion in an unworthy manner. Some things are obvious. Read 1 Corinthians 6. 9-10. Then don't do those things and don't take communion if you are doing those things. And don't take communion with people who do those things. Don't celebrate holy communion with Sabbath violators, with people who take God's name in vain etc. A lot of things are easy, but some issues are not easy, especially when you are trying to decide how long one must be excommunicated for various sins. Suppose a guy commits murder in cold blood on Monday and claims he has repented on Thursday. Well you obviously would not celebrate holy communion with such a person. But how long do you keep him excommunicated? Also we are afflicted with a press which doesn't always tell the truth about people. We have to sort out who is guilty of libel and slander and what isn't. And no doubt there are many innocent people languishing in evil jails throughout the world. And the True Church must try to find out who is falsely imprisoned and liberate them. There are lots and lots of such issues, but, ultimately, the True Church guides people to heaven, and false churches lead people to perdition.

And how does one find God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, Matthew 16. 13-19? There are thousands of churches under the sign of the cross. Are they all the True Church? Aren't some of them false churches? Don't some of them lead people to perdition? Does every single church you encounter lead people to heaven? Check out the section on churches in the Yellow Page of any large city. It goes on for page after page listing numbers for different churches. Every one of these churches claims to lead people to heaven. But you have to use some common sense! It makes no sense to think everyone of them is the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

There was a journalist, his name escapes me at the moment, who moved next door to Sarah Palin and her family. He was a published critic of the Palins but he was also a friend of William F. Buckley Jr., hence he was not one of those Democrats who is hostile to all Republicans, but he was rather delusional when he tried to explain that his moving right next door to the Palins was not a provocational move, when any fool can see it was some sort of provocation! Anyway, in his book about the Palins, he gives a list of all the various Christian churches in Wasilla, Alaska. It's somewhat comical to read the names of all these churches, in a town at the ends of the earth, which aspire to be God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock.

Yes, my books push the idea that Christianity is true but they also push the doctrine that the cross is evil. I'm saying it is a sacrilege to say the cross is sacred to God. It is a sacrilege to say that things which God says are evil are sacred. So, of course, most Christians would say I've slipped into sacrilege, and into satanic heresy, and have put myself on the road to perdition, by saying the cross is evil. Most Christians say that God says the cross is sacred, and so, if in fact God says the cross is sacred then it is a sacrilege to say the cross is evil. But then, on the other hand, if God says the cross is evil, then it is a sacrilege, a sin which leads to perdition, to say the cross is sacred.

I say these Christians under the cross have been led astray, they have fallen into satanic heresy, they are on the road to eternal perdition. My books give lots of extracts from famous historians documenting the evils perpetrated over the centuries by people carrying crosses, and I'm saying these evils are reflected in the cross.

My strongest argument against the cross pertains to these 3 angels from heaven mentioned in Revelation 14. 6-11. The 3rd angel mentions people who have an evil mark on their foreheads or right hands burning in hell forever. So, my reasoning says that if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand then you will never be shipped off to eternal hellfire in punishment for the sin of having an evil mark on your forehead or right hand. So, this sort of reasoning got me thinking that the cross is just one of the many symbols that you don't ever want to put on your forehead or right hand.

It's a strange sort of situation. Suppose the cross is sacred to God. Suppose the cross is the holiest symbol in the Universe. Suppose the cross is the seal of God mentioned in Revelation 9, and suppose you have people coming at you saying stuff like: `Please, Please put the mark of a cross on your forehead because doing this will save you from the tortures described in Revelation 9, because the cross is the seal of God which saves you from the tortures described in Revelation 9.' But suppose you are fearful to put the mark of a cross on your forehead – perhaps you are not 100% sold that the cross is the seal of God which saves one from the tortures described in Revelation 9. Then the fans of the cross might be calling you a gutless coward and a satanic heretic if you refuse to put the mark of a cross on your forehead. It's a really strange sort of deal, because, though these people who are calling you a gutless coward and a satanic heretic, if they are right about the cross, if you must put the mark of a cross on your forehead to escape the tortures mentioned in Revelation 9, then these people are your friends, even though they are calling you nasty names: gutless coward, satanic heretic etc.

Of course, on the other hand, if the cross is evil in the sight of God, if putting the mark of a cross on your forehead will cause you to be tortured forever and ever in hellfire, then, obviously, you don't want to listen to those people who are calling you a gutless coward and a satanic heretic should you continue to refuse to put the mark of a cross on your forehead. They might be saying to you they have spoken directly with God on this matter with the cross, they might seem to be quite zealous and pious, they might give you the impression that they are good Christians, but if they are misinformed, if they are making a big slip-up with the cross, and if they lead you to make a big error with the cross, one where you end up burning in hell forever... It is all sort of simple. I mean Revelation 14. 11 is quite specific in saying that these people who have an evil mark on their foreheads or right hands are tortured in hellfire forever and ever, so if you have no mark whatsoever on your forehead or right hand then you can't possibly be shipped off to hell to burn forever and ever in hell for the sin of having an evil mark on your forehead or right hand.

Do you sort of see how there was a change in Christianity in the 4th century? There were always false brethren, going back to Judas, but the people under the cross began to celebrate communion in an unworthy manner when they began to celebrate communion with some very evil people in the 4th century. Recall what 1 Corinthians 11. 27-29 says about celebrating communion in an unworthy matter: you're drinking damnation into your soul. The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years and so the Nazi swastika is no good. The people under the cross celebrated communion with people who perpetrated evil for century after century. Gibbon writes of the 4th century Catholic Emperor Valentinian and his judges,

`They easily discovered, that the degree of their industry and discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of executions that were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained by perjury, or procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity, but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in ignominious and cruel tortures...The expressions which issued the most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were, `Strike off his head;' `Burn him alive;' `Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;'....He could behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the praefecture of Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.'

So, obviously, if the cross is indeed the mark of the beast then every church under the cross is a false church which leads people to perdition. If the cross is the mark of the beast, then when some church under the cross tells you that you have nothing to fear if you put the cross on your forehead, but then when you end up burning in hell forever, because of that cross on your forehead, because the cross is the mark of the beast, then, obviously, it wasn't God's True Church which led you to burn in hell forever and ever. It was just some worthless false church which leads people to eternal perdition which gave you the bad advice which led you to burn in hell forever and ever.

Christ told us He knew the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews but are a synagogue of Satan. This gives us a precedent. We are given an example of Jews who are quite sincere when they claim to worship God not Satan, yet, Christians at least can understand that if one refuses to worship Jesus as God, when in fact Jesus is God, then one can be said to be in a synagogue of satan.

And of course the logic can be extended to the myriad of Christian churches. Suppose some Christian church is not God's True Church. Suppose it is a false church. Then it leads people away from heaven and to perdition. This is satanic so the false church is satanic.

The Roman Catholics worship a version of the Trinity who says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, who says the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. But if the True God says Rome leads people to perdition, because Rome is a false church not the True Church, then the Roman Catholics do not worship the True God. The Roman Catholics worship a god who Rome leads people to heaven, who says it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church.

If the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then the Roman Catholics worship the True God, and we should all obey Rome and worship the God of the Roman Catholics.

But if the True God says Church of Rome is a false church not the True Church, if the True God says Rome leads people to perdition, then the Roman Catholics worship a false version of the Trinity, they a trinity, but it is not the True Trinity, so they worship a false god. They worship a version of the Trinity who says Rome is the True Church, who says Rome leads people to heaven, and that's a false version of the Trinity, if the True God, if the True Version of the Trinity says, the Roman Catholic Church is a false church which drags people down to eternal perdition. So Rome worships an evil beastly false god who leads them to eternal perdition, if the True God says the Roman Catholic Church is not the True Church, if the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition.

The same sort of logic can be used with every Christian sect. The True God either says the Eastern Orthodox Church is the True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the True Church which leads people to heaven, or else the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church which leads people to perdition.

Same as with the Roman Catholic Church. We have a Case 1 and a Case 2. The Eastern Orthodox worship a god who says the Eastern Orthodox Church is the True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the True Church which leads people to heaven. Case 1 says that's true. Case 2 says the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is not the True Church, Case 2 says the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church which leads people to perdition, Case 2 says the Eastern Orthodox worship an evil false god, one who will lead them to perdition, because the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church leads souls to perdition.

So, to review. If the Eastern Orthodox Church is God's True Church, if the Eastern Orthodox Church leads souls to heaven, then the Eastern Orthodox worship the True God. The Eastern Orthodox Church worships a god who says the Eastern Orthodox Church leads people to heaven, because it's the True Church. But if the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church not the True Church, if the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church which drags souls down to perdition, then, the Eastern Orthodox are worshipping a false god and are leading themselves to eternal perdition.

So, do you see how there is a Case 1 and a Case 2 with every church? Take a church, choose anyone you want to choose. Case 1 says that Church is God's True Church, the Bride of Christ, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the True Church which leads people to heaven. Case 2 says that church you chose is not God's True Church, it is not the Bride of Christ, it is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, it is a false church which leads people to perdition and it is not the True Church which leads people to heaven.

Turning to Protestantism, there's the god of the 16th century Calvinists - a god who smiled as Servetus was roasted alive. Did Luther worship the true God? Luther was a big heretic, from the modern Conservative Protestant perspective. He said Christ and the archangel Michael were the same person. That's heresy right there. Luther rejected the Book of Revelation, the Epistle of James etc. More heresy. Paul Johnson told us in `A History of Christianity' that Luther burned witches - this means he tortured and burned women who were accused of witchcraft but who were probably innocent - whether they were innocent or not, we still have Christ's words `let him who is without sin cast the first stone'. And we know that Luther sided with the rich nobles when they crushed the poor peasants.

When an ELCA person falls to his knees to worship God, he actually worships a false deity - a false deity which supports gay marriage and the pro-choice position - because, obviously, everyone knows that the God portrayed in the Old and New Testaments rejects gay marriage and the pro-choice position. Whenever a person claims to worship the True God, but in fact worships a false god, and false gods are beastly because they lead people to perdition, then this person might be said to worship this seven-headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13.

A problem with modern Protestant Fundamentalists is that they don't obey the New Law. The Ten Commandments are part of the New Law, part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet, there are no end of people who claim to be Protestant Fundamentalists who work on the Sabbath Day, and when you tell them that they are violating the Sabbath, they tell you that you are being `legalistic', they tell you Christ freed us from the Law, and they tell you that you don't understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The New Testament doesn't quite say that every rich person is damned, but it comes very close to saying that. Note especially Matthew 25. 31-46, Luke 3. 11, Luke 6. 24, Luke 16. 19-31 and Luke 18. 25. I Corinthians 11. 5 tells us that women must have their heads covered when they pray - and men must have their heads uncovered - but does every Protestant Fundamentalist obey St. Paul's teaching here? Over the centuries one can find no end of corrupt clergymen under the sign of the cross who said that one was hostile to the Holy Spirit if one was hostile to the African slave trade. It's true that St. Paul and St. Peter told slaves to obey their masters. They could hardly tell them to launch revolts against their masters and then suffer the tortures which the Roman Empire gave to slaves who launched revolts. St. Paul and St. Peter did not want anyone to launch raids to capture slaves - they didn't like slavery - but the Roman Empire was a huge heathen slave empire in the 1st century - the only thing Peter and Paul could do was tell the slaves to endure their chains, to hang in there and strive to attain the Kingdom of God, and not rebel against their masters. But the defenders of the African slave trade - Popes and Protestants - twisted the scriptures in a corrupt way to justify their support for the African slave trade.

If Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy fell away, if both lead souls to perdition, because both fell away and neither is the Church which Christ founded on a rock - if both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy fell away, perhaps the Protestants sects also fell away?

The following two extracts from Buckle, one dealing with the fury of the English in imposing the Church of England on Scotland, and the other pertaining to the suffocating zeal of Scottish ministers imposing their version of Presbyterianism on Scotland, reveal to us how terribly far astray a church can wander when the lost sheep are led by lost pastors. Henry Thomas Buckle wrote in `History of Civilization in England,'

`For, the reigns of Charles II. and James II. were but repetitions of the reigns of James I. and Charles I. From 1660 to 1688, Scotland was again subjected to a tyranny, so cruel and so exhausting, that it would have broken the energy of almost any other nation...The people, deserted by everyone except the clergy, were ruthlessly plundered, murdered, and hunted, like wild-beasts, from place to place. From the tyranny of the bishops...they abhorred episcopacy more than ever...Sharp, a cruel and rapacious man...was raised to the archbishopric of St. Andrews. He set up a court of ecclesiastical commission, which filled the prisons to overflowing...In 1670, an act of parliament was passed, declaring that whoever preached in the fields without permission should be put to death...In 1678, by the express command of government, the Highlanders were brought down from their mountains, and, during three months, were encouraged to slay, plunder, and burn at their pleasure, the inhabitants of the most populous parts of Scotland...They spared neither age nor sex...they even stripped them of their clothes and sent them naked to die in the fields. Upon many, they inflicted the most horrible tortures. Children, torn from their mothers, were foully abused; while both mothers and daughters were subjected to a fate, compared to which death would have been a joyful alternative. It was in this way, that the English government sought to break the spirit, and to change the opinions, of the Scotch people...The bishops...were known to have favoured, and often to have suggested, the atrocities which had been committed...in an address to James II., the most cruel of the Stuarts, declared that he was the darling of heaven, and hoped that God might give him the hearts of his subjects, and the necks of his enemies.'

The following from Buckle's `History of Civilization in England' inclines one to think that living under savage Highlanders and English bishops would be preferable to living under the Presbyterian divines of Scotland,

`According to the Presbyterian polity, which reached its height in the seventeenth century, the clergyman of the parish selected a certain number of laymen...They, when assembled together, formed what was called the Kirk-Session, and this little court, which enforced the decisions uttered in the pulpit...was more powerful than any civil tribunal. By its aid, the minister became supreme. For whoever presumed to disobey him was excommunicated, was deprived of his property, and was believed to have incurred the penalty of eternal perdition...The clergy interfered with every man's private concerns, ordered how he should govern his family...spies were appointed...Not only the streets, but even private houses, were searched, and ransacked, to see if any one was absent from church while the minister was preaching. To him, all must listen, and him all must obey. Without consent of his tribunal, no person might engage himself either as a domestic, or as a field labourer...To speak disrespectfully of a preacher was a grievous offense; to differ from him was heresy; even to pass him in the street without saluting him, was punished as a crime...All over Scotland, the sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed after the same plan, and directed to the same end. To excite fear, was the paramount object. The clergy boasted, that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord...They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would be roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues. They were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions writhing and howling around them. They were to be thrown into boiling oil and scalding lead...surrounded by devils, mocking and making pastime of their pains...These visitations, eclipses, comets, earthquakes, thunder, famine, pestilence, war, disease, blights in the air, failures in the crops, cold winters, dry summers...were, in the opinion of the Scotch divines, outbreaks of the anger of the Almighty against the sins of men...According to this code, all the natural affections, all social pleasures, all amusements, and all the joyous instincts of the human heart were sinful, and were to be rooted out. It was sinful for a mother to wish to have sons...it was sinful to please yourself, or to please others...When mixing in society, we should edify the company, if the gift of edification had been bestowed upon us; but we should by no means attempt to amuse them. Cheerfulness, especially when it rose to laughter, was to be guarded against; and we should choose for our associates grave and sorrowful men...It was a sin for a Scotch woman to wait at a tavern; it was a sin for her to live alone; it was a sin for her to live with her unmarried sisters...It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday; it was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered, or your beard shaved...To go to sleep on Sunday, before the duties of the day were over, was also sinful...Bathing...was a particularly grievous offense...Durham, in his long catalogue of sins, mentions as one "the preparing of meat studiously, that is, when it is too riotously dressed for pleasing men's carnal appetite..."...To be poor, dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in misery, and to leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils, and sores, and diseases of every kind, to be always sighing and groaning, to have the face streaming with tears and the chest heaving with sobs, in a word, to suffer constant afflictions...was deemed a proof of goodness...Thus it was, that the national character of the Scotch was, in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and mutilated.'

So, again, you see the problem here. It sounds so pompous and prideful and sinful and anti-Christian to say that you teach religion and ethics with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. If you are a phony Christian, if you do not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart, then you certainly don't teach religion and ethics with the authority of God.

But if you are a True Christian, if you do have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on your heart, then you ought to be honest, and you should not tell falsehoods, and you ought to admit that you do teach religion and ethics with the authority of the Creator of the Universe. And if some people say that this lofty claim of yours means that you are proud and pompous and sinful, well, what would you expect out of the damned? The damned will slander a saint such as yourself! What's so surprising about that?

Chapter 2. Sacrilege

Don't commit sacrilege with the cross, or with anything else for that matter. Sacrilege, without repentance, is a sin which leads one straight to eternal perdition. Don't call evil things sacred. Don't call sacred things evil.

The Church which Christ founded on a rock will teach you to not commit sacrilege. You just have to find it.

Is any church under the sign of the cross the True Church? Has every church under the sign of the cross fallen away from the True Faith? Does every church under the sign of the cross lead people to perdition? Why might a sane person see evil in the sign of the cross? Christ and the apostles never used it for a symbol. Why would the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob say a representation of a pagan instrument of torture is sacred? Paul said the cross of Christ is sacred. Christ's sacrifice on a cross is sacred, but to declare that a representation of a pagan instrument of torture is sacred to God is what? Truth? Sacrilege? Christ and the apostles never used the cross as their symbol. The Nazis perpetrated evil for a few years and we say the Nazi swastika reflects that evil. The tyrants under the sign of the cross perpetrated evil for century after century!

Henry Charles Lea, the pre-eminent authority on the Inquisitions, wrote in his 'A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages' (Macmillan, 1922),

`We have only to look upon the atrocities of the criminal law of the Middle Ages to see how pitiless men were in dealing with each other. The wheel, the caldron of boiling oil, burning alive, burying alive, flaying alive, tearing apart with wild horses, were the ordinary expedients by which the criminal jurist sought to deter crime by frightful examples...An Anglo-Saxon law punishes a female slave convicted of theft by making eighty other female slaves each bring three pieces of wood and burn her to death....In the Customs of Arques, granted by the Abbey of St. Bertin in 1231, there is a provision that, if a thief have a concubine who is his accomplice, she is to be buried alive...In France women were customarily burned or buried alive for simple felonies, and Jews were hung by the feet between two savage dogs, while men were boiled to death for coining. In Milan Italian ingenuity exhausted itself in devising deaths of lingering torture for criminals of all descriptions. The Carolina, or criminal code of Charles V., issued in 1530, is a hideous catalogue of blinding, mutilation, tearing with hot pincers, burning alive, and breaking on the wheel...As recently as 1706, in Hanover, a pastor named Zacharie Georg Flagge was burned alive for coining...So careless were the legislators of human suffering in general that, in England, to cut out a man's tongue, or to pluck out his eyes with malice prepence, was not made a felony until the fifteenth century, in a criminal law so severe that, even in the reign of Elizabeth, the robbing of a hawk's nest was similarly a felony; and as recently as 1833 a child of nine was sentenced to be hanged for breaking a patched pane of glass and stealing twopence worth of paint [this sentence was commuted]...It has seemed to me however, that a sensible increase in the severity of punishment is traceable after the thirteenth century, and I am inclined to attribute this to the influence exercised by the Inquisition over the criminal jurisprudence.'

If both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy fell away from the True Faith, if both lead souls to perdition because neither one is the Church which Christ founded on a rock - because they both fell away - perhaps some Protestant sects have also fallen away?

The Roman Catholic crucifix is an image of the Roman Catholic version of Jesus. And the Eastern Orthodox crucifix is an image of the Eastern Orthodox version of Jesus. Let's look again at Rome. We have a Case 1 and a Case 2. Case 1: The Roman Catholic version of Jesus is the True Version, the True God, the Second Person in a Divine Trinity. Case 2: The Roman Catholic version of Jesus is a false version. The True God says Rome leads souls to perdition because Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. The True God says Rome has fallen away from the True Faith and therefore Rome leads people to perdition. The True God says the Roman Catholic crucifix is an evil symbol, because it is the image of the Roman Catholic version of Jesus, a version of Jesus who says Rome is God's True Church, but that's a false version of Jesus if the True God / True Jesus says the Roman Catholic leads people to perdition, says Rome is a false church. So, the key is to somehow determine what the True God thinks about the Roman Catholic Church.

Case 1 says that the True God says Rome leads souls to heaven because Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, therefore you would have to think the True God has no big issues with the Roman Catholic crucifix, so you would have to believe that Rome is right when Rome says the crucifix is the sacred image of the True God.

Case 2 says the True God / True Jesus rejects Rome, in Case 2 the True God says Rome leads people to perdition because Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, says Rome is a false church. So, in Case 2, the Roman Catholic crucifix – which is the image of a version of Jesus who says Rome leads people to heaven, when in fact the True God / True Jesus says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition, again we're in Case 2 here, therefore the Roman Catholic crucifix is a symbol of a false version of Jesus, the symbol of a lie, the symbol of a false god, hence it becomes a suspect for the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 and 14.

In Case 1 the crucifix is a holy symbol. Because Case 1 says Rome is God's True Church. If Rome is God's True Church then you can trust Rome when Rome says their crucifix is sacred to God.

In Case 2 the crucifix is an evil symbol, it is the image of an evil deity, an evil and corrupt version of Jesus who promises he will lead you to heaven but in fact he will lead you to perdition. In Case 2 the True God says Rome is not the True Church, not the Bride of Christ, not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. In Case 2 the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to heaven. So the Roman Catholic crucifix, the image of a version of Jesus who says Rome is God's True Church, who says Rome leads people to heaven, is the image of a false version of Jesus, an image of a false god, if the True Jesus / True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to perdition. And images of false gods remind you of the image of the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 and 14.

Matthew 24. 27 tells us the Second Coming of Christ will be like the lightning which shoots from east to west. So, if one respects Matthew 24. 27, and I have been over and over and over John 14. 23-26 in my books, which says that those who love Christ keep His words, then a good Christian will not reject Matthew 24. 27. If one accepts Matthew 24. 27 one ought to be able to discern false messiahs from the True Messiah.

Chapter 3. The Christian Zionists

For some exercises in rational thinking we might look at some exposition which I've cut and pasted from Chapter 1 of Constitutional History of the Western World. What do you think: is it Anti-Christian to reject Zionism? Zionism is the philosophy which says the Jews have a right to live in peace in the Holy Land. The argument runs as follows: If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' - then Christianity says one is damned, that is, one is damned if one never repents, if one persists in rejecting Christ's words at the Last Supper. If one accepts those words which Christ announced at the Last Supper, `For this is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins of many' then one will accept Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Again, the new covenant is first mentioned in the Bible in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

If one accepts Jeremiah 31. 31-34, then one will also accept Ezekiel 36. 24-28. This is because one will accept one Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews if one has already accepted a different Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. Ezekiel 36. 24-28 has God saying,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

This scripture has two parts. Christians don't believe that it makes any sense to say that the first part of Ezekiel 36. 24-28 was fulfilled when the Jews returned to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because, Christians don't believe the Spirit of God was soon put into the Jews after the Babylonian Captivity, because, a few more centuries after the return from the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus railed against Jews and their evil ways, and of course Jesus was crucified with the approval of a great many Jews, and therefore Christians don't believe that God put His Spirit inside the Jews after God gathered the Jews into the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity. But, if we turn to the Zionist movement in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, we might get better answers when we look for answers to the meaning of Ezekiel 36. 24-28.

It's true that, as of July 2015, Christians don't believe that God has put His Spirit inside the Jews. But what do we read in Ezekiel 36. 24-28? First, God will bring the Jews back into the Holy Land, and, then, a little later, He will put His Spirit inside the Jews, and will cause the Jews to walk in God's Statutes and to keep them.

Christians have no way to interpret Ezekiel 36. 24-28 other than by the doctrine which says that God will bring the Jews back to the Holy Land, and then, a little later, God will put His Spirit into the Jews, and this Spirit will be a Christian Spirit. If this Spirit was not a Christian Spirit, then Christianity would be a false religion, and, as you might recall, Christians don't proclaim Christianity to be a false religion.

Ezekiel 36. 24-28 obviously supports Zionism. If one rejects Zionism then one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28 then one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34. That is, if one rejects one Old Testament scripture which says God will put His Spirit in the Jews, and write His laws on their hearts, then one will reject another Old Testament scripture which says God will write His law on the hearts of the Jews. So, if one rejects Zionism one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28. If one rejects Ezekiel 36. 24-28 one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34. If one rejects Jeremiah 31. 31-34 then one rejects Christ's words are the Last Supper. If one rejects Christ's words at the Last Supper - `this cup is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins,' - then, Christianity says, one is damned.

Therefore, Christian logic says: unless you repent, you are damned if you oppose Zionism.

One will not be able to sell this pushy conclusion to people who reject Christ's words at the Last Supper, but Christians ought to be able to grasp the logic at work here.

Pope Pius X, the most recent Pope to be canonized, was hostile to Zionism. He reasoned that Zionism was hostile to the will of God unless the Jews converted to Roman Catholicism. Well, if the Church of Rome is the True Church, if the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, then Pope Pius X certainly won't be damned for his anti-Zionism. But if the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded upon a rock, if the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then Rome does indeed lead people to perdition. Rome sort of clarifies matters for us. If Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, then there is an argument which says one is acting like an idiot if one refuses to profess and obey every official Roman Catholic doctrine. It doesn't matter if she makes a few mistakes. As long as she is God's True Church then you win if you obey her in all things, and you lose if you rebel in any way against God's True Church. But, on the other hand, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads people to perdition because Rome has fallen away and Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then there is an argument which says one is acting like an idiot if one refuses to renounce Rome.

Isaiah 59. 20-21 is another Old Testament scripture which is similar to Ezekiel 36. 24-28 and Jeremiah 31. 31-34. Isaiah 59. 20-21 states,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Christ Listed Foolishness as a sin in Mark 7. 22. Furthermore the Parable of the Talents refers to maximizing the spiritual and intellectual gifts God has given us. Christians are not supposed to be lost and confused. If one is a fan of evil laws, or idiotic laws, then, one obviously doesn't have a Divine Law written on ones heart. If one advocates insane ideas then one simply can not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart.

Consider the insanity shouted at us from the jacket of Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews. Mr. Johnson is an excellent historian, but, unfortunately, one of his editors did him a disservice, and this editor's nonsense runs as follows:

`This provocative 4,000-year survey covers not only Jewish history but the impact of Jewish genius and imagination on the world. The Jewish invention of ethical monotheism led to the evolution of Judaism with its democratic philosophy and its notion of equality under the law. The Jews also played a major role in the creation of the modern world.'

It is absurd to write in praise of the `Jewish invention of ethical monotheism,' because, in Scenario 1, in the scenario where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exists, it is blasphemously absurd to speak of the Jews inventing the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And in Scenario 2, where the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not exist, and thus Judaism is a superstition, it makes no sense to consider the fabrication of a superstition, which is merely a system of falsehoods, as anything which might be construed as ethical or praiseworthy. If one concludes that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a myth, one might also conclude that the dreams and delusions and feverish hallucinations of religious zealots are rather worthless when one is seeking the Creator of the Universe. One may have sympathy for the deluded, but, nevertheless, the superstitious fictions of even well-intentioned people can not be considered ethical or praiseworthy. If Judaism is a human fabrication, one must have some conception of the amount of human suffering which has resulted from this fabrication in order to accurately assess Judaism. The Jews suffered frightful persecution, for centuries, in Russia, Poland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain etc. Everyone knows about the millions of European Jews who suffered under the Nazis. But, for centuries filled with truly diabolical forms of torment and misery inflicted on the Jews, there's nothing comparable to the Middle Ages under the sign of the cross.

If the Jews had renounced Judaism many centuries ago - assuming still that Judaism is a human fabrication \- then millions of Jews would not have suffered terribly in the either the Middle Ages - at the hands of cruel Christians and murderous Muslims - or in modern times, at Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor etc. Mr. Johnson informs us that across the seventh century in Christendom Jews were flogged, executed, dragged to the baptismal font, tortured and murdered. Will Durant told us in The Age of Faith that the Frankish chieftains intermarried with the remnants of the Gallo-Roman senatorial class and produced the aristocracy of France. The same nobles showed amazing contempt for justice: their baptism into Catholicism had no regenerative or redeeming effects upon them. Gibbon wrote of the triumph of barbarism and religion. Assassination, torture, slaughter, treachery, adultery, fornication and incest were the favored expedients by which nobles and peasants relieved the ennui of medieval life. By 600 there were Jewish colonies in all the major cities of the Franks. The Merovingian Catholics persecuted the Jews with pious ferocity. King Chilperic decreed that Jews were to embrace the Catholic Church or have their eyes torn out. The Council of Toledo of 633 ruled that those Jews who had submitted to baptism, and then fell back into Judaism, were to be bereaved of their children and sold into slavery.

Heinrich Graetz told us in his History of the Jews (The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1894) that the Council of Mácon, in 581, ordered all Jews to stand before Catholic priests until they were bidden to sit. Malefactors who violated this decree were to be severely punished. The matricide King Clotaire was considered a model of Catholic piety in his time. His son, Dagobert, another `faithful son of the Church,' gave the Jewish population in his kingdom the ultimatum of either accepting baptism or suffering death. The Council of Narbonne forbade Jews to sing Psalms at funerals. The Council of Carthage made Jewish testimony against Christians inadmissible in court. The Council of Toledo authorized the persecution of forcibly baptized Jews who refused to abandon Jewish practices. Children were to be taken from backsliding parents and raised in monasteries. Salo W. Baron asserted that under Pope Paul IV. It was illegal to address a Jew as "Sir." Peter De Rosa said Pope Paul IV. filled a house full of `state-of-the-art instruments of torture.' Guido Kisch writes in his `The Jews in Medieval Germany' (The University of Chicago Press, 1949):

`It is well known in the history of criminal law that, beginning in the late Middle Ages and up to the seventeenth century, punishments were imposed on the Jews which differed considerably from those fixed by law and applied to Christian delinquents. They intensified the medieval system of penalties, cruel enough as it was. The motives of ridicule and degradation received especial emphasis, when hanged on the gallows, for instance, a Jew was suspended by the feet, instead of the neck. It became customary to string up two vicious dogs by their hind legs beside him, to make the punishment more ignominious and painful...In some provinces a Jewish thief hanged by the neck would have a Jews' hat filled with boiling pitch placed on his head...transgressions of similar prohibitions such as that against appearance in public on Good Friday, reviling the Christian religion, or engaging in conversionist activities, besides subjecting them to the appropriate penalties, deprived them of protection under the penal law which was otherwise guaranteed. As every Christian was bound to sacrifice his life for his faith if it were dishonorably attacked, so would he be acquitted in case he slew a Jew, heretic, or heathen in active defense of his faith. The general principle is thus pointed out in the Regulae juris, J155: "No Jew shall defame our Law. If he did so and were found guilty, he should be burnt." Regulae juris, J164: No Jew shall convert a Christian if he values his life." Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) renewed for medieval Christendom the old prohibition of the Christian Roman Empire against forced baptism of Jews. Once a Jew was baptised, however, even if by force, he had to remain faithful to Christianity, according to canon law...Be it even that they have been compelled to receive baptism, yet they shall remain steadfast in their Christian faith. This is so because no one can be deprived of baptism once received...It was Pope Innocent III who, in his letter to the archbishop of Arles in 1201, clearly stated that even those who under direct or indirect compulsion had accepted baptism had become members of the church and thus were to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith...In 1267, relapse into Judaism was, in fact, explicitly equated with heresy by Pope Clement IV...This was done only after the foundation of the Papal Inquisition which brought all violations of the faith before its tribunals.'

Benzion Netanyahu tells us in The Origins of the Inquisition (Random House, 1995) that a plot was hatched by the Spanish authorities to slanderously accuse Jews and Marranos (Jewish Christians) of using black magic in a scheme to murder Christians and to destroy the `Holy Office,' the Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV. had sanctioned in Spain in 1480. The Spanish plot depicted the Jews uttering satanic incantations over the heart of a kidnapped Christian child, and above a stolen, consecrated host. The Jews, so the slander ran, crucified the child in a Black Mass. Jews were to be arrested and tortured by the Spanish authorities until they confessed to a crime they never committed. These confessions would then be published throughout Spain, and, with the image of Jews torturing a Christian child to enrage all of Spain, mobs could be counted on to be driven into a murderous frenzy against the Jews. Thus the Spanish authorities would be given a pretext to protect the Jews by driving them from Spain, as the Spanish Crown wanted to be seen as the protector of innocent Jews. Such was the plot behind the Holy Child of La Guardia, which indeed was put into action. Jews were arrested and tortured. When the confessions were not forthcoming, more excruciating torturers were applied until the confessions were forthcoming. In Avila (11.14.1491) five Jews and six Jewish Christians were condemned for desecrating the Host and torturing a Christian child to death in an effort to secure the aid of Satan to murder Christians and to put an end to the Inquisition. The Spanish authorities executed these innocent people by tearing the flesh off their bodies with red-hot pincers.

Consider Joseph Boyarsky's `The Life and Suffering of the Jew in Russia' (Los Angeles, 1912),

`In the year 987 A. D. the Russians were a wild and savage tribe, settled along the River Dnieper; the main camp being where the city of Kieff now stands. They were idolaters; in some cases offering up human sacrifice. They worshipped an idol, "Peroon."...Vladimir ordered the idol...cast down. Then Vladimir ordered all the population, men, women and children, to go and bathe in the Dnieper, waist deep, and all were baptised. Thenceforth the Russians became Christians...There was no preaching nor converting; the Russians were ordered to become Christians, and they obeyed...Tartars...In the year 1533 Ivan the Fourth, "The Terrible," became Czar of Russia...At the conquest of Polotsk, Ivan the Fourth ordered that all Jews who declined to adopt Christianity should be drowned in the River Duna...Ivan the Fourth amused himself by letting bears loose outside the gate of his palace, and watching the killing and maiming of pedestrians...Maliuta Skuratov was Ivan's evil genius...Ivan the Terrible...as a result of all his crimes, began to see the ghosts of the men he had ordered to be executed...all the household would be awakened by his screams. He would rush to the church...where he would pray very earnestly...knocking his forehead on the stony floor...The next day more executions - then more prayers...It must be remembered that the Russian Church is more progressive now than it was up to the time of Peter the Great, and Nikkon, the Archbishop, who reformed and elevated the service. Peter the Great was marked for assassination by the Russians that adhered to the old views. Those opposed to Nikkon's teachings are called to the present day "Starobriadzi"...I shall never forget an experience I had with one of these fanatics in Southern Russia. When I was a boy about eight years old, I was sent on an errand by my father to deliver a message to a Starobriadetz. Arriving at the Russian's house, I found the door ajar; I shouted, calling his name, but as there was no response, I waited. It was a sultry summer day and I was thirsty. On the table inside of the room I could see a pitcher filled with water, and a glass at its side. Being too thirsty to wait for a response to my knock, I crossed the threshold into the room, filled the glass with water, and drank. I had no sooner tasted the water than I was seized from behind by the collar, the glass was snatched from me, and I heard it fall and break in the yard. The pitcher followed it, with the same result; then I was wheeled about and looked with fear into the savage face of a big bearded Russian who hissed at me, "Thou anti-Christ! Thou Christ-killer! Thou Christ-seller! Thou accursed Jew." And the next thing I knew I was sent sprawling at length into the yard. My offense, from the Russian's standpoint was this: I had not removed my hat when entering the room where in the right corner, were the ikons (images). As a Jew, I had, according to his religious beliefs, defiled his house by entering therein; had defiled the water, the pitcher and the glass; neither he nor his family could use them any more. He had to burn incense to drive out the evil spirit that I had brought into the house. The very spot where I stood had to be scrubbed with hot water...Jewish parents were always in dread for their boys' safety. A child would be sent to a Jewish school in the morning, - an hour later the teacher would come running to the child's home, informing the parents that their Abe or Aaron had been seized by the "catchers" and hurried away from the town to a military post. The child was lost to his parents forever...Nicolas the First died in March, 1855....Alexander the Second...the serfs were emancipated in 1861...the Russian Jews did not forget the suffering and injustice their forefathers had endured in Poland. They had suffered from the Polish clergy, who accused them of using Christian blood for ritual purposes...the Jew had to bow and to flatter the Polish nobleman...A Polish nobleman, while walking in the street, heard the Russians coming, and in order to hide himself, he entered a Jew's house...The Jew suggested the best place for concealment would be inside a large brick oven. The Russians would not look into the oven for a Polish nobleman. The nobleman crawled into the oven and entered the furthest corner. A few minutes later the Jew heard the Pole calling out "Zydzie Zdym Chapke Bo to jest Pan." (Jew take off your hat, because a nobleman is present.) While crouching in the corner of the oven, with the noise of the Russian soldiers ringing in the Pole's ears, trembling for his life, he still insisted upon his honors as a Polish nobleman. The above...happened in 1863, sixty-eight years after the final partition of Poland...In "Nijni Novgorod," a city on the Volga, a Christian child, a girl of about six years, tried to cross a muddy street in the early Spring, just before the Jewish Passover and Easter Sunday. The child stuck in the mire. The more the little girl tried to extricate herself, the deeper she sank. She cried. A Jewish woman passing by at the time pulled the child out and took her to a nearby Jewish house to wash and clean the dirt from her garments. The child's mother missed her little one, and became alarmed. She inquired of her Christian neighbors if anyone had seen her child. One Russian woman remembered seeing the Jewish woman leading the little girl away. An alarm was raised, the Jews being accused of kidnapping the child with the intention of killing her for ritual purposes. The ignorant and superstitious Russians fell upon the Jewish inhabitants and killed and crippled many of them before the child was restored to its mother, safe and clean. The Metropolitan of Nijni Novgorod delivered a sermon against the outrage of the Christians. His sermon is printed and can be found in many synagogues of Russia...In 1885, I was employed as salesman in a dry goods store in the city of "Rostov on the Don." A few weeks before Easter Sunday and the Jewish Passover two women entered the store, a mother and daughter, leading a child about three years of age by the hand; they were Polish women; they spent considerable time selecting goods; there were a large number of Russian men and women in the store; the two Polish women missed the child and both of them became alarmed; all the clerks, a few Russians among them, and the customers, all Russians, made a thorough search in the store - but of no avail; the child could not be found. Naturally the mother was frantic, running back and forth, and wringing her hands in despair. A terrible suspicion entered her mind. "Oh, the Jews have stolen my child!" she screamed. Some of the Russian customers present became sullen; their jaws set; all the Jewish clerks, myself included, were more dead than alive from fright. The terrible blood accusations loomed up before me. I already imagined the Jewish population being massacred...The mother of the child ran outside into the street, screaming; a crowd gathered in front of the store. At the crucial moment a Russian appeared carrying the tot in his arms; he had picked her up a block away, where he had found her lying on the sidewalk crying and sobbing...That Russian never realized what a calamity to the Jews of that city he had prevented. In the reign of Nicolas the first, in the city of Saratov, there was a small Jewish community. Before the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter Sunday, a Jew was selling small pamphlets for the reading of the Jews during the holidays, in which was described the well known Biblical story of Pharoah's order that all the new-born male Jewish babes be thrown into the Nile. On the cover of the pamphlet was a picture representing the Egyptians taking away a boy baby from his mother, and preparing to throw him into the Nile. Some of the ignorant Russians, seeing this picture, took it to be a representation of a Jew stealing a Christian child for ritual purposes. The Russians fell upon the Jews and began butchering them... The other class of Russians in Rostov-on-the-Don, - the "Katzap," ...was just as ignorant, superstitious and brutal as the Bosiak, but in justice to the Katzap...he generally worked at a trade...the Katzap...Coming from the Northern provinces where Jews are not allowed to live...had no idea what a Jew was until he arrived in Southern Russia, part of which is within the Pale. All he knew about the Jews was that they were Christ-killers, and at home in his village church, when he heard the priest mention the name of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he thought that these three were Russians. He also thought that to abstain from meat for three successive Fridays would redeem him from the sin of Killing a Jew...a Bosiak entered a saloon kept by a Jew and ordered a drink of vodka...he was served. He swallowed the contents, and ordered another drink. The saloonkeeper reminded him that he had not paid for the first; the Bosiak claimed that he had paid, and hit the Jew...the Jew resented it, and hit him; the Bosiak fell onto the floor and lay still, pretending that he was dead. A number of the Bosiaks and Katzaps were standing inside and outside of the saloon...they raised the cry that a Jew had killed a Christian...The Jews tried to defend themselves...but were overpowered and beaten by the mob...armed with clubs and some with iron bars...The Jews fled for their lives. The Russian women and children appeared as if by magic, with a supply of empty sacks, and a systematic looting began...That this looting was premeditated was proven by the fact that the women and children who gathered so quickly were the poorest class of Russians that lived on the far outskirts of the city, and it would ordinarily have taken them a long time to reach the New Market...The riot was at an end. The rioters were bound hand and foot with ropes...The riot was over, but the effects of it had just begun for the Jews. Many of them that were well-to-do less than eight hours before were reduced to beggary. Hundreds of families were left penniless, without a home, food or clothing. The word "Pogrom" means in Russian, an ordinary disorder. The name was substituted for that of "robbery," so as to make it easier for the rioters when arrested. Had the charge been robbery, if convicted, they would have been sent to Siberia, but, convicted of participating in a Pogrom, meant a few months of life in jail without having to work....In the autumn of 1887, a Jewish merchant of Rostov-on-the-Don was convicted by a jury on a felony charge, and sentenced by the court to be exiled to Siberia; it meant instant imprisonment, and to be sent chained with other criminals to the city of Moscow, and in the Spring to be taken by train to Nijni Novgorod, placed in a steamer on the River Volga, packed with other convicts in the hold, and shipped to Irkutsk and turned loose. But it also meant more: the business, a dry goods store owned by the merchant had to be closed, and the merchandise sold at a loss, and having a wife and eight children to have them brought at the expense of the Government to Siberia as prisoners, or their passage to be paid by the merchant himself...It meant ruin...The room to which the jurymen retired to deliberate adjoined a hall where many people passed by; some of them...stood and listened at the door...The foreman, a well-known lumber-dealer, also a well-known Jew-hater, in casting his deciding vote in the jury-room, remarked that it gave him much pleasure to get rid of one Jew by sending him to Siberia. As stated before, the listeners had heard this remark which was reported to the attorneys for this merchant, who appealed to St. Petersburg, asking for a new trial on the ground of prejudice on the part of the foreman. It was very necessary that the decision for the granting of a new trial should come from St. Petersburg before the month of May, because convicts are sent to Siberia that month from Moscow; otherwise, if the decision for a new trial should come after the month of May, the merchant would have to stay, in case of another conviction, another year in the prison, and wait for another party of convicts to be sent with them to Siberia. In order to hasten the decision of the higher authorities at St. Petersburg it was decided to send the merchant's eldest daughter to the capital with a supply of money for presents to some high officials to push the case in the senate so that it should be taken up without delay. This eighteen-year-old girl, daughter of the convicted man, arrived at St. Petersburg, - that is, two stations beyond St. Petersburg, where she alighted from the train and took the next train back to St. Petersburg. The reason for this action is here explained: Whenever the police at the railroad station notice any Jew or Jewess arriving from the south by train, they immediately ask them for passports. If they are not mechanics, merchants of the first gild, physicians or lawyers, they immediately deport them from the city, but the police are not watching those coming from the north, where Jews are not allowed to reside, so it is very easy to enter the city from the other side. Arriving at the station she hired an Izvoschik (a one-horse sleigh), and in the bitter cold of a December night was driven to a hotel. Arriving at the place, her valises were taken inside and she was shown to a room. She made herself comfortable at the fireplace before unpacking her things. Someone knocked at the door..."Your passport, Mademoiselle, please." "Certainly," answered the girl..."Excuse me, you will have to go to some other place. We cannot keep you here." "Why not?" inquired the girl. "You are a Jewess; you have no right to live in St. Petersburg; you will be given notice by the police to leave the city tomorrow; we do not care to let our rooms for one night's lodging." The manager turned on his heel, and in another moment her grips were being carried out by two boys and left on the sidewalk, the girl following them with tears in her eyes...She engaged another Izvoschik and visited about a half dozen other hotels. She received the same treatment...at about 11:30 p.m. she was standing on the sidewalk, half frozen, with her belongings and not knowing what to do next...A man approached her from behind..."What is the matter with this hotel?" inquired the man, pointing at the entrance. "I am a Jewess, and they will not let me it in," answered the girl, sobbing..."Just jump into my sleigh. I will take you to one of my country women. She keeps a lodging house...'...The Pole spoke with such earnestness that she could not distrust him any more...in about a half hour she was sitting at the fireplace where a kind-hearted Polish woman was busying herself to make the poor half-frozen girl comfortable...The girl lived in St. Petersburg for several weeks unmolested; her passport was never presented to the police. The convicted man and all his children are at present loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States of America...The reader has now listened to many facts concerning the persecution of the Jews in Russia, all horrifying in nature, - and it is true that as many more heinous crimes have not been recorded here at all...but it must be known and realized as God's truth that the evils committed in Russia at the present day loom hideously against the background of yesterday's monstrous crimes...Twenty years ago there were what the Russian Government calls: "Pogroms," which are now replaced by massacres. Twenty years ago the name Hooligan, or Black Hundred, was unknown; today these organized bands of murderers and robbers swoop down at certain periods on inoffensive Jews, rob and butcher them and subject the Jewish women to unspeakable and indescribable indignities...Twenty years ago, as described above, a Jew could not name his child with a Russian name, because the authorities would not register the name in the book of births. Today, any Jew or Jewess, whose name is recorded as Abraham or Sarah, if they would dare to call themselves Ivan or Mary, would be imprisoned, or a heavy fine imposed upon them...During the Russo-Japanese War, wives and children of Physicians, who answered their country's call, and were performing their duty on the battlefields in Manchuria, were expelled from the Holy City of Kieff. The police interpreted the law, that wives and children of physicians have a right of residence in Kieff, only when their husbands or fathers are present, but as the physicians were away from Kieff, their families were subjected to deportation. The fact that the physicians were endangering their lives for Russia had no weight...The great power that the Christian clergy, Catholic and Protestant alike, possess, is of far greater force and magnitude than the combined forces of all Nations as represented in their armies and navies. A bloodless battle can be fought, no armies or navies, cannons or bayonets are needed, and it requires very little money as compared with the cost of sending an expedition...Let the pulpit of the Christian churches be the battlefield; the Word of God, of Truth, of Mercy and Righteousness be the ammunition...let the voice of Christendom thunder forth the condemnation of the Russian Government until it rings at the palace on the Neva; let the Russian Government be given to understand by all Christian Nations, that Russia must mend its evil ways if she wishes to be recognized as Christian and civilized. No doubt, if such a crusade should be set afoot against the Russian Government, there would be no more Pogroms and massacres, where men who call themselves Christians drive nails into the skulls of Jewish men, and dishonor daughters in the presence of their mothers before murdering them. Then the Christian people of all nations could point out with pride to their accomplishment and bring about the deliverance and salvation of the Russian Jew.'

Apropos of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, William H. Prescott writes in `The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic,'

`Old traditions, as old indeed as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were revived, and charged on the present generation...Christian children were said to be kidnapped in order to be crucified in derision of the Saviour; the host, it was rumored, was exposed to the grossest indignities; and physicians and apothecaries, whose science was particularly cultivated by the Jews in the Middle Ages, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. No rumor was too absurd for the easy credulity of the people...These various offenses were urged against the Jews with great pertinacity by their enemies...The inquisitors...asserted that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptized Israelite from the land...The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Grenada, March 30th, 1492...It finally decrees that all unbaptized Jews, of whatever age, sex, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and confiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdicted to every subject to harbour, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure...The doom of exile fell like a thunderbolt on the heads of the Israelites...Many had risen to a degree of opulence...Their families were reared in all the elegant refinements of life...They were to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth; the land where all whom they ever loved had lived or died; the land not so much of their adoption as of their inheritance; which had been the home of their ancestors for centuries...They were to be cast out helpless and defenseless, with a brand of infamy set on them, among nations who had always held them in derision and hatred...As they were excluded from the use of gold and silver, the only medium for representing their property was bills of exchange...It was impossible, moreover, to negotiate a sale of their effects under the existing circumstances, since the market was soon glutted with commodities...a chronicler of the day mentions that he had seen a house exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes!...They (the Jewish Rabbins) encouraged them to persevere, representing that the present afflictions were intended as a trial of their faith by the Almighty, who designed in this way to guide them to the promised land, by opening a path through the waters, as he had done to their fathers of old...When the period of departure arrived, all the principal routes through the country might be seen swarming with emigrants, old and young, the sick and the helpless, men, women, and children, mingled promiscuously together...The fugitives were distributed along various routes...Much the largest division, amounting according to some estimates to eighty thousand souls, passed into Portugal; whose monarch, John the Second, dispensed with his scruples of conscience so far as to give them free passage through his dominions on their way to Africa, in consideration of a tax of a cruzado a head...A considerable number found their way to the ports of Santa Maria and Cadiz, where, after lingering some time in the vain hope of seeing the waters open for the egress, according to the promise of the Rabbins, they embarked on board a Spanish fleet for the Barbary coast. Having crossed over to Ercilla, a Christian settlement in Africa, whence they proceeded by land toward Fez, where a considerable body of their countrymen resided, they were assaulted on their route by the roving tribes of the desert, in quest of plunder. Notwithstanding the interdict, the Jews had contrived to secrete small sums of money, sewed up in their garments or the linings of their saddles. These did not escape the eyes of their spoilers, who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims in search of gold which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barbarians, mingling lust with avarice, abandoned themselves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or massacring in cold blood such as offered resistance. But, without pursuing these loathsome details further, it need only be added that the miserable exiles endured such extremity of famine that they were glad to force a nourishment from the grass which grew scantily among the sands of the desert; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptized, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land...Many of the emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowed, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant...as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation over the whole Italian peninsula. A graphic picture of these horrors is given by a Genoese historian..."No one," he says, "could behold the sufferings of the Jewish exiles unmoved". A great many perished of hunger, especially those of tender years...Some were murdered...others forced to sell their children for the expenses of the passage...We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry which led to similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later...The Portuguese government caused all children of fourteen years of age, or under, to be taken from their parents and retained in the country...How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle. The best instructed foreigners, in like manner, however they may condemn the details of its execution or commiserate the sufferings of the Jews, commend the act, as evincing the most laudable zeal for the true faith.'

If the `Jewish myth' was never invented, if millions of Jews had never embraced the `delusion of Judaism,' or if they had renounced their `superstition' and assimilated with the masses, then millions of Jews would never have suffered cruelty and terror and mass murder over the centuries at the hands of the Babylonians and the Romans and all of the medieval and modern barbarians brandishing crosses, crescents and swastikas.

We have two scenarios to consider: either, A) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists, or, B) The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't exist. In scenario A, it was God who invented the Jews. It was not the Jews who invented God. And in scenario B, some ancient Hebrews dreamed up a delusion, a superstition, one which led to inconceivable amounts of human suffering.

In both scenarios it is insane to speak of the Jewish invention of God as something which is praiseworthy. Why does the editor descend into insanity? Because 1) He doesn't want to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists and must be worshipped, loved, feared and obeyed, and 2) He doesn't want to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is as mythological as Apollo and Aphrodite - he doesn't care to announce that the Jews have been deluded for thousands of years in regards to their non-existent Deity. Therefore, not wishing to offend anyone, striving to be a congenial fellow who doesn't hold any controversial doctrines in his head, the editor scribbles his nonsense that the Jewish invention of ethical monotheism is something which we should consider praiseworthy.

We're still on this theme which says that if a person actually had the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on his heart, then he would not preach insane ideas.

For another example of madness consider Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr. Wikipedia has an excellent article on him. One has to be careful with Wikipedia but it has some very accurate and well-written articles, and it's probably unfair to say Wikipedia is always untrustworthy! After Yale Divinity School, Niebuhr became a pastor at a Protestant church in Detroit. He fought to give factory workers better working conditions. He reproached Protestants for creating and supporting the Ku Klux Klan, and he helped a Catholic defeat a Protestant in a Detroit mayoral race. He angered the pacifists by supporting America in World War II and by supporting the development of nuclear weapons, though he opposed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Early in his career he reproached Christians for not attempting to convert the Jews, but, later, he said it was wrong for Christians to try to convert the Jews to Christianity. He was an ardent Zionist but he did not use theological arguments to support Zionism. As early as 1942 he called for the removal of all Arabs from the Holy Land. He was angry with Joe McCarthy, not because of any trespassing on civil liberties - but because he thought McCarthy was ineffective in rooting out Communists and their sympathizers. He was one of the founders of the ADA - Americans for Democratic Action - which is to Liberals what Christianity is to Christians. It was founded by Liberal anti-Communists at the height of the Cold War who wanted to distinguish themselves from those who leaned far towards Communism, and were known by the term: Fellow Travelers. Barak Obama has said Reinhold Niebuhr is his favorite philosopher and his favorite theologian. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Rev. Niebuhr in his Letters from Birmingham Jail, but Niebuhr distanced himself from the Civil Rights Movement, insisting that segregation must be ended by social change rather than by the imposition of laws.

Again the logic we are pursuing runs as follows: if one preaches insane ideas, then, one can not have the Divine Law mentioned in Jeremiah 31. 31-34 written on ones heart. And if one does not have the Divine Law written on ones heart, then one is not a True Christian, and one is divorced from the True Church.

In Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein's `What You Should Know About Jews and Judaism' (Word Books 1994) we're informed that the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr endorsed something called the double covenant theory, which holds that Jesus is a way for the Gentiles to come to God, but the Jews are already with the Father, and don't require Jesus. To take this position Niebuhr must have concluded that the New Testament was untrustworthy, because these scriptures clearly teach the doctrine that one must believe in Jesus in order to be redeemed. The New Testament is quite unambiguous: one must believe in Jesus in order to be saved. There's John 1ii. 16. There's 2 Thess 1. 8 - fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1. 12 tells us St. Paul learned his gospel via a revelation from Christ. In Galatians 1. 8, St. Paul tells us that even an angel from heaven is accursed if he alters St. Paul's gospel. Therefore, devout Christians do not contradict St. Paul, and St. Paul did not teach the `double covenant theory.' He wrote in Ephesians 4. 4,

`There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'

John 14: 23-26,

`Jesus answered him and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings...But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.'

Again Jesus said in John 15. 6,

`If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.'

I John 2. 22-23 is very blunt and clear - `he is antichrist who denies the Father and the son. Whoever denies the son does not have the Father...'

Luke 10. 16,

`he who rejects Me [Jesus, God the Son] rejects Him [God the Father] who sent Me.'

Acts 3. 23-25 is also perfectly clear,

`Every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed'

Rev. Niebuhr was confronted with two clear-cut choices: either, 1) God, that is God the Son - John 1. 1-14, Col 2. 8-10, 1 Tim 3. 16, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6 etc. - actually suffered and died on a cross, or, 2) God never suffered and died on a cross. If God did indeed suffer and die on a cross as the New Testament asserts, then, a) it is logical to assume that those who say or imply that Jesus is a fraud - he is no God! - will be damned, and b) the same scriptures which gave us the extraordinary truth that God suffered and died on a cross, also, assert, over and over, that one must believe in this crucified God in order to attain salvation.

If God never suffered and died on a cross, if Jesus is a bogus deity, then it is folly to be any sort of Christian. If Jesus is a bogus deity, then, the True God would consider it blasphemy to say that Jesus is God.

In all cases - in the case where Jesus is God \- and in the case where Jesus is a bogus deity - the Double Covenant theory is madness. Rev. Niebuhr was not the only clergyman in the history of the world to be led by Political Correctness to embrace madness.

By casting doubt on the authority of the New Testament, Niebuhr cast doubt on heaven and hell. He helped to give naïve people the impression that the Christian scriptures are untrustworthy, which is like shoving naïve people in the direction of hell. To cast doubt on the authority of the New Testament is to cast doubt on Matthew 24. 27. Anyone who respects Matthew 24. 27 can understand the delusion of those who worship a `Christ' who did not return to earth as the lightning which flashes from east to west. If people don't believe Matthew 24. 27 is trustworthy, they will be more susceptible to charlatans, to false messiahs who did not arrive on earth as the lightning which flashes from east to west.

We have Case 1 - the Church of Rome is God's True Church. In this scenario you can not lose if you simply obey the Church of Rome. You won't go to hell. You will minimize any time you must spend burning in Purgatory if you simply have enough sense to obey the Church of Rome. So you would be smart to agree with every official Roman Catholic doctrine - call the Inquisition holy, admit it was a Holy Office; venerate John of Capistrano, venerate Pius V. etc.; admit the Dogma of Papal Infallibility is true, including the part which says those who reject that Dogma are anathema. We're dealing with Case 1, where the Church of Rome is God's True Church - the Bride of Christ. In this scenario you can not lose, your soul can not be sent to perdition, and you will minimize any time you have to spend burning in the cleansing flames of Purgatory, if you just have enough brain cells to understand that you can not lose if you always obey the Church of Rome. Don't question her wisdom! Don't go nit-picking, criticizing her etc., etc. Now what some people call nit-picking and criticizing other people call truth-seeking.

Benzion Netanyahu tells us in The Origins of the Inquisition (Random House, 1995) that a plot was hatched by the Spanish authorities to slanderously accuse Jews and Marranos (Jewish Christians) of using black magic in a scheme to murder Christians and to destroy the `Holy Office,' the Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV. had sanctioned in Spain in 1480. The Spanish plot depicted the Jews uttering satanic incantations over the heart of a kidnapped Christian child, and above a stolen, consecrated host. The Jews, so the slander ran, crucified the child in a Black Mass. Jews were to be arrested and tortured by the Spanish authorities until they confessed to a crime they never committed. These confessions would then be published throughout Spain, and, with the image of Jews torturing a Christian child to enrage all of Spain, mobs could be counted on to be driven into a murderous frenzy against the Jews. Thus the Spanish authorities would be given a pretext to protect the Jews by driving them from Spain, as the Spanish Crown wanted to be seen as the protector of innocent Jews. Such was the plot behind the Holy Child of La Guardia, which indeed was put into action. Jews were arrested and tortured. When the confessions were not forthcoming, more excruciating torturers were applied until the confessions were forthcoming. In Avila (11.14.1491) five Jews and six Jewish Christians were condemned for desecrating the Host and torturing a Christian child to death in an effort to secure the aid of Satan to murder Christians and to put an end to the Inquisition. The Spanish authorities executed these innocent people by tearing the flesh off their bodies with red-hot pincers. To this day the Church of Rome still insists the Inquisition was holy – it still calls it the `Holy Office'. It's sacrilege to call evil things holy. To this day Rome insists she has never fallen away. To this day the Dogma of Papal Infallibility says you are cursed, damned, anathema, if you reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. Well, if the Church of Rome leads souls to heaven then a person would have to be a moron to reject the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. But if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, then a person would have to be a brainless to remain in the evil Roman Catholic Church.

The same sort of argument applies as well to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of England, any church.

St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

You'll recall what is written in Jeremiah 31. 31-34. You can imagine how it would be that a medieval barbarian, after being splashed with some baptismal water, will want to believe that he is saved, that he has become one of God's saints, that he has escaped perdition and will attain heaven. But if the medieval barbarian still has medieval barbarism written on his heart, then he does not have God's new law written on his heart. The medieval barbarian might want to believe that he has God's new law written on his heart, but - and this is not terribly complicated! - but, if in fact the medieval barbarian has medieval barbarism written on his heart, then he does not have God's new law written on his heart, even though he is deluded enough to think that he does.

Since everyone save for God is a sinner there is naturally some resistance to drawing the line between sinners who do their sinning in public and sinners who sin in private. It reeks of hypocrisy. I mean even after a person has repented: he no longer gets drunk, he no longer commits adultery, he no longer violates the Sabbath, he no longer fornicates, he no longer supports the pro-choice philosophy, he no longer supports Gay Marriage etc., etc., can he really liberate himself from ever last vestige of sin, every last inclination to covetousness, anger, lust etc., etc? It's pretty tough to be 100% perfect 100% of the time. Nevertheless the True Church must draw a line between members who sin openly, out in public, and sinners who do their sinning in private. The people who sin in public have to be warned, and then excommunicated, and the excommunication needn't be permanent. A first offense might mean excommunication for a few weeks or a few months - which means the excommunicated person is given the silent treatment by the non-excommunicated members of the True Church for a few weeks or a few months, and of course it means the excommunicated person is forbidden the Eucharist while he is excommunicated. The aim is two-fold: 1) you want to bring discipline into the lives of the members of the Church, into the lives of the faithful, so that people will live the way good Christians are supposed to live, so that they will be saved, so that they will attain heaven and will escape perdition. The aim is not to shame anyone. The aim is not to shame a person so that others can take glee in his shame. The aim is to, 1) to help sinners to repent, so they will not be damned, and 2) the aim is also to obey the teachings of St. Paul, so that the True Church does not fall away from the True Faith, so that it will continue to lead souls to heaven, so that it does not fall away and therefore lead souls to perdition.

Still on this theme of the `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2 let's look at the Catholic Emperor Justinian.

Gibbon:

`But the same emperor [Justinian] declared himself the implacable enemy of unmanly lust, and the cruelty of his persecution can scarcely be excused by the purity of his motives. In defiance of every principle of justice, he stretched to past as well as future offenses the operations of his edicts, with the previous allowance of a short respite for confession and pardon. A painful death was inflicted by the amputation of the sinful instrument, or the insertion of sharp reeds into the pores and tubes of most exquisite sensibility...In this state of disgrace and agony, two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and Alexander of Diospolis, were dragged through the streets of Constantinople...Perhaps these prelates were innocent. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant...and pederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed...The reign of Justinian was a uniform yet various scene of persecution....At the end of four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia still breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of the Catholic priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity the crown of martyrdom; the conventicle and the congregation perished in the flames.'

The Roman Catholic Church has more or less always stated that she is guided by the Holy Spirit. The problem with saying that your church is guided by the Holy Spirit is that, if in fact your church commits evil for century after century after century, then you are implying that the Holy Spirit is guiding your church to commit evil for century after century after century, and that looks a lot like blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and of course Christ stated that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is an unforgiveable sin.

John 15. 6 and 2 Thess 1. 8. The former tells of perdition for those who do not abide in Christ, and the latter mentions fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The various churches under the sign of the cross have different conceptions of God and they have different concepts of what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is. The Roman Catholic god says the Inquisition is Holy - it's the `Holy Office.' It's sacrilege to call evil things holy.

Sacrilege is the sin of saying that something which is evil in the sight of God is holy, and it is also the sin of saying that something sacred in the sight of God is evil.

Dr. Lea wrote in his `A History of the Inquisition in Spain' (Macmillan, 1906):

`The Inquisition, however, regarded the conviction of a heretic as only the preliminary to forcing him to denounce his associates; the earliest papal utterance, in 1252, authorizing its use of torture, prescribed the employment of this means to discover accomplices and finally Paul IV and Pius V decreed that all who were convicted and confessed should, at the discretion of the inquisitors, be tortured for this purpose...It was, in reality, the torture of witnesses, for the criminal's fate had been decided, and he was thus used only to give testimony against others. The Spanish Inquisition was, therefore, only following a general practice when it tortured in capu alienum, those who had confessed their guilt. No confession was accepted as complete unless it revealed the names of those whom the penitent knew to be guilty of heretical acts, if there was reason to suspect that he was not fully discharging his conscience in this respect, torture was the natural resort. Even the impenitent or the relapsed, who was doomed to relaxation, was thus to be tortured and was to be given clearly to understand that it was as a witness and not as a party, and that his endurance of torture would not save him from the stake. The Instructions of 1561, however warn inquisitors that in these cases much consideration should be exercised and torture in caput alienum was rather the exception in Spain, than the rule as in Rome. In the case of the negativo, against whom conclusive evidence was had, and who thus was to be condemned without torture, the device of torturing him against his presumable accomplices afforded an opportunity of endeavoring to secure his own confession and conversion. We have seen this fail, in 1596, in the Mexican case of Manuel Diaz, nor was it more successful in Lima, in 1639, with Enrique de Paz y Mello, although the final outcome was different...He was sentenced to relaxation and torture in caput alienum; it was administered with great severity without overcoming his fortitude, and he persisted through five other publications as fresh evidence was gathered. Yet at midnight before the auto da fe, in which he was to be burnt, he weakened. He confessed as to himself and others and his sentence was modified to reconciliation and the galleys, while good use was made of his revelations against thirty of his accomplices...At a Toledo auto de fe we find Isabel Canese, aged seventy-eight, who promptly confessed before the torture had proceeded very far, and Isabel de Jaen, aged eighty who, at the fifth turn of the cords fainted and was revived with difficulty. In 1607 at Valencia, Jaime Chuleyla, aged seventy-six, after confessing certain matters, was accused by a new witness of being an alfaqui; this he denied and was duly tortured...Isabel Madalena, a girl of thirteen, who was vaguely accused of Moorish practices, was tortured, overcame the torture and was penanced with a hundred lashes.'

Christopher Hare (pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Andrews) wrote in her `Men and Women of the Italian Reformation' (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York):

"On January 7, 1566, Michele Ghislieri, the fanatical Inquisitor, was elected Pope, under the title of Pius V, and from that moment every distinguished Italian who held reformed views was in peril of his life...Carnesecchi was taken a captive to Rome and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office...the rack was freely employed...Through fifteen long months of imprisonment and frequent torture, these awful examinations continued, until at length, on August 16, 1567, sentence was delivered by the tribunal of the Inquisition...Carnesecchi was borne to the Ponte St. Angelo, amidst the execrations and curses of the fanatical rabble which crowded round him, but he continued his courage and composure to the last. They clothed him in a "sanbenito," the garment of heresy, painted over with flames and devils...He was first beheaded, then burnt in the flames of the Inquisition...by means of spies and the seizing of all private letters and papers, the Inquisition had already the most intimate knowledge of all that Carnesecchi and his friends had ever said or written...It is true that the case of Giulia Gonzaga was already pre-doomed, for on the accession of Pius V (Michele Ghislieri) in 1566 he had come into possession of a chest containing a great number of letters to Carnesecchi and others. On reading these papers, the Pope had declared that "if he had seen these before her death, he would have taken good care to burn her alive."'

The Catholic Church is not interested in any debates pertaining to St. Pius V. As with all canonized persons, the Catholic Church considers these matters to be closed. The Catholic Church teaches, a) St. Pius V. practiced heroic virtue, b) the faithful are to venerate him and pray to him, c) it is blasphemy to speak against him or any other canonized person, n.b., Paragraph 2148, Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition, 2000, Imprimi Potest, Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

Rome tortured people for over 6 centuries via the Inquisition, an institution which Rome says is holy because Rome calls the Inquisition the `Holy Office'. Does Rome teach sacrilege?

If the True God is a Roman Catholic God, if the True God wants you to venerate everyone Rome has canonized, if the True God says the Inquisition is holy - then don't rebel against the True God. The Roman Catholic god is a Trinity, but it is not the same Trinity as the Protestant Trinity. The Roman Catholic version of Jesus has Jesus saying: `the Church of Rome is My Bride, she is the Bride of Christ, and you are a slanderer if you say the Church of Rome is not the Bride of Christ, and you are a big evil slanderer if you say the Church of Rome, is the whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelation.' So the Roman Catholic version of Jesus is a different version than the Eastern Orthodox version of Jesus, who as you might imagine is very pro-Eastern Orthodox. The various Protestant versions of Jesus are different than either the Roman Catholic Jesus and the Eastern Orthodox Jesus. The Roman Catholic god is different than the Eastern Orthodox god, as the latter god supports Eastern Orthodoxy not Roman Catholicism, and both are different than the god of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is America, this god is accepting of gay men having sex with each other - as long as they have sex with each other within the bonds of `holy gay matrimony' - and the ELCA god is very tolerant of the pro-choice philosophy. So, you have to figure out the True God's true attributes to know God. You might start by reading the New Testament. I have to warn you though the New Testament is filled with exposition on hell, and it strongly supports the doctrines that there is a True Faith and a True Church.

Revelation 13 mentions a beast having seven heads and ten horns. Revelation 13. 4-8 reads,

`So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast saying `Who is like the beast? Who is able to war against him?' And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months. Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. And it was granted him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue and nation. and those who dwell on earth will worship him, those whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb...'

As a literal interpretation of Revelation 13. 4-8 seems rather far-fetched - people worshipping an actual beast with exactly seven heads and ten horns seems rather unlikely - one searches for a figurative interpretation. I like the theory that runs as follows: whenever a person falls to his knees to worship God - the Creator of the Universe – but if he worships instead a false god, then he worships this beast with seven heads and ten horns.

When the Muslims fall to their knees to worship the Creator of the Universe, they sincerely want to worship the Creator of the Universe, but, unfortunately, according to those of us who are Christians at least, they worship a false deity named Allah, and this false god has some evil attributes, at least he does in the eyes of people who are not Muslims, because, first of all, non-Muslims say he is an imposter god - he is not the Creator of the Universe - so he is an imposter, and then, furthermore, this imposter god has some particularly tyrannical attributes - the Koran says he tortures in hell everyone who rejects him. So, if Allah is the True God, then you better convert to Islam if you want to escape hellfire. If you are roasting in the flames of hell because Allah turns out to be the True God, the True Creator of the Universe, then you'll be kicking yourself for not converting to Islam when you had the chance! But, if those of us who intend to remain Christians are right, if Allah is a false god, if Islam is a religion which leads souls to perdition, then the Muslims, though they mean to be sincere when they say they worship the Creator of the Universe, nevertheless, they are misguided, and they worship a slanderous image of the True God, because, according to Christians, the True God is a Christian God not an Islamic god. In Christian eyes you slander the True God when you say the True God is named Allah and this Allah will burn in hellfire all who reject him, such as Christians. Those of us who are Christians agree that God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But some say the Trinity is a Roman Catholic Trinity, that is, the Roman Catholic Church says the True God says Rome is His True Church. The Roman Catholics worship a god who says Rome is the True Church. But if the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to heaven, well Roman Catholics don't worship that God, they worship a god who says Rome leads people to heaven, they don't worship a God who says Rome leads people to perdition. Yes, but if the True God says Rome is a false church which leads people to heaven. And of course you can use the same logic with any church. The Eastern Orthodox worship a god who says the Eastern Orthodox church leads people to heaven. But if the True God says the Eastern Orthodox Church is a false church which leads people to perdition, then the Eastern Orthodox don't worship the True God, they worship a false god, and this false god is this beast with seven heads and 10 horns in Revelation 13, at least that's one theory.

An argument which says the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox commit idolatry runs as follows: both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church support all of the canons of the Seventh Ecumenical Council - II Nicaea 878, and Council authorized Christians to bow down before images of people said to be saints. Protestants argue that though a person might insist that he does not worship the image, but, if you bow down before an image then - despite the words coming out of your mouth professing one's innocence - you commit idolatry, and you worship that image when you bow down before it.

In the first 3 centuries the Christians were generally benevolent: they didn't torture and burn anyone, whereas from the 4th century onwards there was a great deal of evil under the sign of the cross. Friedrich Heer, former professor of History at the University of Vienna, told us in `The Medieval World: Europe: 1100-1350' (Mentor, 1961, p. 312), that there is nothing in the history of Europe, or even in the history of the world which compares with the magnitude and the duration of the suffering of the Jews in medieval Europe. Will Durant told us in `The Age of Faith' that the Frankish chieftains intermarried with the remnants of the Gallo-Roman senatorial class and produced the aristocracy of France. The same nobles showed amazing contempt for justice: their baptism into Catholicism had no regenerative or redeeming effects upon them. Gibbon wrote of the triumph of barbarism and religion in Catholic, Dark Age France. Barbarism reigned for centuries. Assassination, torture, slaughter, treachery, adultery, fornication and incest were the expedients by which nobles and peasants relieved the ennui of medieval life. By 600 there were Jewish colonies in all the major cities of the Franks. The Merovingian Catholics persecuted the Jews with pious ferocity. King Chilperic decreed that Jews were to embrace the Catholic Church or have their eyes torn out. The Council of Toledo of 633 ruled that those Jews who had submitted to baptism, and then fell back into Judaism, were to be bereaved of their children and sold into slavery.

Durant also told us in `The Age of Louis XIV' of the suffering of the Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Russia from 1648-58, such as in Pereyaslav, Piryatin, Lubny, and hundreds of other towns, was brutal beyond belief. Many thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Cossacks and Lithuanians, Tatars and Poles, by people brandishing crosses. We read of the cruelest tortures: Jews flayed alive, split asunder, clubbed to death, roasted over red-hot coals, scalded with boiling water, thousands of Jewish infants thrown into wells or buried alive.

St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10 -

`Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples.'

Gibbon writes of Pope John XII of the 10th century:

`The most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to darker ages the fable of a female pope. The...son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen that the second of these became the head of the Latin Church. His youth and manhood were of a suitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman synod, and in the presence of Otto the Great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonored by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence of distress; and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we read, with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prostitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.'

To this day, the Church of Rome has not declared Pope John XII. to be an anti-Pope. Therefore, to this day, the Church of Rome still insists that Pope John XII. was God's true leader of God's True Church, and anyone who rejects him as God's true leader on earth of God's True Church is a damn heretic. Don't you get it? If somehow - I don't know how! - but if, somehow, the Church of Rome is God's True Church, then everyone who refuses to obey the Church of Rome is a vast conspiracy of damned idiotes. You have fallen away from the True Faith if you rebel against God's True Church and you court eternal damnation, if you refuse to admit that Pope John XII. was the true leader on earth of God's True Church.

But, on the other hand, if the Church of Rome fell away from the True Faith centuries ago, then the Church of Rome has been leading souls to perdition for a long long time.

The Christians of the first three centuries had to endure horrible tortures from time to time during the pagan persecution. The Emperor Constantine put an end to these persecutions and horrible tortures, so, in a sense Constantine was a great friend to Christian, but, in another sense he was an enemy of Christianity, because Christians he was also a cruel and violent man, and the True Faith and the True Church is hostile to cruel and violent people. Cruel and violent people do not obey the True Faith established by Christ and spread by the apostles. Gibbon's words about Constantine,

`The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to brutal violence which compelled, but even to gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were convicted of having been accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted lead.'

Regarding 2 Thess 2 and the falling away, one theory says the Roman Catholic Church has never fallen away from the True Faith. Another theory says that, centuries ago, perhaps when the Catholic Church gave her blessing to evil laws from evil Roman emperors, it fell away from the True Faith and ceased to be the True Church. Constantine called for molten led to be poured down the throat of a someone who helped a 24-year-old woman elope without her parents permission are villainous laws, and when your church accepts villainous laws it accepts villainy, and therefore it falls away from the True Faith. If I wasn't so diplomatic I would be saying that a person had to be an idiot if he couldn't understand something as obvious as this. Suppose I'm the idiot, suppose the truth of the matter is that the Church of Rome of Rome is God's True Church, then don't be an idiot like me! Don't rebel against God's True Church. It's as easy as 2 + 2. Either obey the Church of Rome, or get the hell away from her.

Gibbon writes about the evil jurisprudence of the Catholic Roman Empire,

`They protected all persons of illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of malicious information, which might select them as accomplices, or even as witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.'

We were looking at the Roman Catholic assertion which says that the Holy Spirit has always guided the Roman Catholic Church, and the assertion that it is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to imply that the Holy Spirit guides a church which perpetrates evil for century after century.

If one says the Holy Spirit has always guided the Eastern Orthodox Church, then is this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?

The classic condemnation of Byzantine society comes from the pen of William Lecky, who wrote in his `History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,'

`Of that Byzantine empire the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, with scarcely an exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilisation has yet assumed. Though very cruel and very sensual, there have been times where cruelty assumed more ruthless, and sensuality more extravagant, aspects; but there has been no enduring civilisation so absolutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness...The Byzantine empire was pre-eminently the age of treachery...The history of the Empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpetual fratricides...'

Apropos of this `falling away' mentioned in 2 Thess 2, Bury states in 'History of the Later Roman Empire' (vol. i. p. 12) that the Catholic emperors in Constantinople, following the example of the pagan Emperors, took the epithets `sacred' and `divine' and insisted that these be applied to themselves. Bury writes, p. 15:

`The oriental conception of divine royalty is now formally expressed in the diadem; and it affects all that pertains to the Emperor. His person is divine; all that belongs to him is "sacred." Those who come into his presence perform the act of adoration; they kneel down and kiss the purple.'

Bury states, p. 14, that the Patriarch refused to crown the Emperor Anastasius unless he signed a written oath that he would introduce no novelty into the Church.

You really have to be dense upstairs if you can't see the evil absurdity in the spectacle of Christian Emperors claiming to be sacred and divine, and demanding that their subjects adore them, and demanding these subjects bow down before them, while also promising to bring no innovations into the Christian religion! I suppose you could put a positive spin on his delusion by saying he is a genius who is just a little slow to reach his full genius potential. But as I have emphasized the true test of a church is not whether she makes mistakes or not. Somehow you have to determine if she leads souls to heaven or if she leads souls to perdition.

The details of the Protestant Reformation get convoluted but the essence of it all is really quite simple. Luther didn't like the fact that the Pope - Leo X. - and his agents were selling indulgences, that is they were telling poor folk that if they merely handed over some money to the papal indulgence peddlers then they could liberate the souls of their dearly depart friends and relatives who were burning in the flames of purgatory. But the important question is not whether or not the Church of Rome can make mistakes - you can't expect the True Church to be sinless since it is comprised of human beings - the key questions are: is the Church of Rome God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock? Or has the Church of Rome fallen away from the True Faith? Does it lead souls to perdition? We've been over the logic which says a church, any church, either leads souls to heaven or else it leads souls to perdition. Even if John 14. 23-26, and Matthew 16. 13-19 and Ephesians 4. 4 didn't exist - if the scriptures which tells us there is a True Church didn't exist - we would still have the logic which says: a church either leads souls to heaven or it leads souls to perdition. If a church leads souls to heaven, then don't rebel against that church. If a church leads souls to perdition, then renounce that church.

If the Church of Rome is God's True Church, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with the logic which says the authority of the Pope and the other Catholic bishops shines like the brilliance of the sun, whereas the lay Catholic rulers over the globe shine like feeble moonshine. The non-Catholics shine like pieces of dirt. But if the Church of Rome has fallen away from the True Faith, and therefore Rome leads souls to perdition, because the Church of Rome is not God's True Church, then everyone who aspires to escape perdition must renounce Rome.

Does Rome lead souls to heaven or does she lead souls to perdition? What about the Eastern Orthodox Church? What about the Anglicans? If the Church of Rome fell away from the True Faith, what are the chances that Henry VIII. - who liked to murder his wives and boil people in oil - who divorced himself from Rome only because Rome refused to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, was a true apostle of the True Faith? No doubt the Church of England has made some improvements since the days of Henry VIII., but one is still confronted with some basic realities. If Henry VIII. was God's true leader of God's True Church in England, then, if another British monarch comes along who murders his wives and tortures people to death - why would you reject him? He's the same as Henry VIII? If it seems insane to you to think that God can have a brutal tyrant for his supreme agent on earth, then perhaps it is insane to think the Church of England is God's True Church? But, if the Church of England is God's True Church, what prevents a person from converting to the Church of England and remaining obedient to God's True Church, the Church of England? It has a triangle of authority in the Prime Minister, the Monarch, and the Archbishop of Canterbury for its highest authority - its highest authority on earth that is. If the Church of England is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the Church of England is a false church not the True Church, if it leads souls to perdition, then what prevents a person from renouncing the Church of England?

Again, 2 Thess 1. 8 talks about fire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If one rejects 2 Thess 1. 8 why would one accept John 15. 6, or John 14. 23-26, or Luke 13. 3-5, or Matthew 5, or Jeremiah 31. 31-34, or Galatians 1. 8-12 etc., etc? 2 Thess 1. 8 looks very harsh, but if you have ever read the New Testament you know it fits right in with the rest of the New Testament.

Rome says that God is the sort of God who wants people to venerate people like St. Juan of Capistrano (he tortured and murdered lots of Jews) St. Carlo Borromeo (he tortured and burned lots of women accused of witchcraft), Pope St. Pius V. (he tortured and burned lots of people - he was a great champion of the Inquisition), Rome says that God is the sort of God who says the Inquisition is a `Holy Office'. You're left in the position where, if Rome is God's True Church, if Rome leads souls to heaven, even though she might make some mistakes, then, evidently, one is insane if one refuses to obey Rome. Don't argue with Rome, just obey her! But if Rome leads souls to perdition, if Rome is not God's Church, then it is insanity to remain in the Roman Catholic Church and let her lead you to perdition.

Chapter 4. Matthew 25. 41-46

Matthew 25. 41-46 has Jesus saying,

`Then He will also say to them on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothed Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." Then they also will answer Him, saying "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?" Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

Any slow-to-reach-his-full-genius-potential genius knows that if he is always giving his money away to beggars he will soon be a beggar himself, which means it will be impossible for him to raise a family - and I think we can say with certainty that it is not the aim of the New Testament to destroy families. So this gets one thinking that while we must be charitable if we wish to attain heaven and to escape perdition, nevertheless, at the same time, we must have a mechanism which does not destroy families. How does the New Testament resolve the issue? Acts 2. 44-45 and Acts 4. 32-35 tell us there is equal sharing of the wealth in God's Church. St. Paul tells us in 2 Thess 3. 10, in so many words, that if an able-bodied person refuses to work then should not be given alms to buy food. So, the True Church is like a huge family where everyone who works shares the wealth. Communism in the 20th century was malevolent for various reasons: if sent millions to concentration camps, it did not practice equal sharing of the wealth for those who worked, it was not a voluntary system, it was just another tyrannical system which benefitted the dictators and their henchmen not the people etc. We're not so much interested in resolving every last question as to how a communal system could work and be a benefit to people, we're just trying to understand what the New Testament teaches.

Ephesians 5. 5,

`For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolator, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.'

And who are the covetous? Is every rich person a covetous person? The New Testament has many hellfire scriptures directed at rich people. Note for instance Luke 16. 19-31 (the parable of Lazarus and the rich man). Then there's Matthew 25. 35-46, James 1. 9, Luke 3. 7-14, I John 3. 17, I Tim 6. 9-10, Luke 6. 24, Luke 18. 25, Matthew 19. 23-4.

1 John 3. 17,

`But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

James 1. 9,

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.'

Christ says in Luke 6. 24-5: `But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger...'

Romans 8. 13,

`If you live according to the flesh you will die.'

1 Corinthians 6. 19,

`Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own.'

Romans 8. 1 - 39,

`THERE is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit...For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His...But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you...if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live...For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us...And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose...For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Yes, the New Testament tells us it is very important to live according to the spirit and not the flesh. Living according to the flesh means living according to your carnal desires: you know - LUST - living according to the flesh also includes desiring money, desiring luxury, desiring drinking parties, coveting fame and fashion and glamour, coveting fast cars and elegant homes, coveting the rich life in a rich house in a rich city. Asking people to not live according to the flesh almost seems like asking a fish to not live in water.

`Eye has not seen , nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him' - 1 Corinthians 2. 9 and Isaiah 64. 6. Those schooled in the rudiments of Christian theology already know that to attain heaven and to escape perdition one must live the way a good Christian is supposed to live - love God, love your neighbors, love and pray for your enemies, flee sexual immorality, don't eat food sacrificed to idols, find the Church which Christ founded on a rock - Matthew 16. 13-19 etc. Try to remember to not reject any of Christ words! Try to remember what is written in John 14. 23-26! Don't forget to obey the Ten Commandments either. 1 John 5. 3 says those who love God obey the Commandments. Be mindful of Galatians 1. 8, 2 Thess 1. 8, Jeremiah 31. 31-34, John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, I Timothy 3. 16. Be mindful of lots of other scriptures. Feminists don't like scriptures such as Ephesians 5. 22, which tells wives to obey their husbands, but there are other scriptures which tell husbands to love their wives, and if a man loves his wife then he will do what she wants done if it's a reasonable request, so in that sense the scriptures tell husbands to obey their wives. Try to remember Acts 26. 13-18 and Galatians 1. 8-12.

Chapter 5. The ELCA

Funerals really drive people to accept the status quo, don't you agree? Say you are at a funeral at an ELCA church. Of course you know you will hated by people at that funeral if you say stuff like: `The ELCA leads souls to perdition.' But don't you think a person has to be terribly deluded if he thinks the ELCA is God's True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock? The ELCA supports the pro-choice philosophy and it embraces gay marriage. Say, for instance, an ELCA minister, let's call with Pastor John, is presiding at an ELCA funeral, and suppose he has just enjoyed some ELCA sanctioned sex with his husband, who we might call Larry, and perhaps Larry and Pastor Tom partook of a combo platter of ELCA sanctioned oral sex and ELCA sanctioned anal sex, with some French kissing and then some cuddling after all the passion - to paint a full picture for you! - do you want this lusty homosexual fellow, Pastor Tom, presiding at the funeral of your beloved relatives? Does the church which Christ founded on a rock support Gay Marriage? Is Tom a clergyman in God's True Church? If Tom is not a clergyman in God's True Church your beloved ELCA relatives are going to perdition not to heaven. Don't you have to be insane to think the ELCA is the Church which Christ founded on a rock?

But as I say, if you are at an ELCA funeral, you will tend to accept the status quo, because you will be made to feel like an evil jerk if you say the soul of the deceased is going to perdition, is damned because the deceased was a member of the ELCA, is damned because the ELCA is obviously not the Church which Christ founded on a rock. If you insist the ELCA is God's True Church, are you insane? Do I have to go over the ELCA's support for anal sex and oral sex again? I'm sure you can understand that a church is an anti-Christian church if it supports sodomy. If you can't understand something as simple as this...

The ELCA reminds you of that old adage about the Holy Roman Empire - it wasn't holy, it wasn't Roman, and it wasn't an empire. I mean the ELCA is not evangelical and it's not Lutheran - or at least Martin Luther would not have seen a church which supports Gay Marriage as Lutheran, and you would think he would be the final arbiter on whether a church is Lutheran or not.

From my observations of the Protestant scene in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area - the ELCA is something of an aristocratic church, or at least it's white-collar. It has an elegant liturgy whereas the Protestant Fundamentalist churches tend to be very informal. The Hootenanny Center of the Universe might be closer to Dallas - Fort Worth than Minneapolis -St. Paul but the Fundamentalist congregations in Minneapolis - St. Paul often exude a hootenanny style, with underclass or blue-collar overtones. I suppose it is a cliché to think of blue-collar people as people who spit and cuss and smoke cigarettes, who sit around drinking beer and watching TV on nasty old couches that probably need to be burned because they still have food in them which was spilled during the Super Bowl in 1967, and still have beer stains on them from spills which occurred during the 1972 World Series. And it's probably a cliché to think of white-collar people as people whose biggest fear in life is that their daughter will marry a garbage man. But clichés usually contain some truth. I suppose there are blue collar people who enjoy the opera and the ballet and the theatre. I suppose there are some blue-collar people in the world who visit museums and who go into nature for reasons other than to blast some animal out of its existence during hunting season. I don't know if, in the history of the world, there has even been a verified sighting of a copy of Architectural Digest on a blue-collar person's coffee table. One of the best portrayals of the conflict between blue-collar people and white-collar people is seen in Claude Lelouch's _La bonne anne_ from 1973, starring Lino Ventura, Françoise Fabian and I forget who else. A group of white-collar people and a group of blue-collar people are together at a chic restaurant on the Riviera, and they go from having nothing to say to each other straight to being hostile to each other, all because they have nothing to say to each other. I suppose many rich white-collar ELCA people have some suspicions that God is no fan of the pro-choice philosophy, and they probably have some suspicions that God is no fan of gay marriage / guys sodomizing each other, but the ELCA people resist moving on to the Fundamentalist churches for aesthetic reasons, or for snobbish reasons. What on earth would a rich ELCA person with an advanced degree have to say to some Fundamentalist with a 6th grade education? No doubt a lot of Fundamentalists think you are talking about a couple of dudes when you say you've been reading George Elliot and George Sand. And I'll bet you money there are still some Fundamentalists in the world who think the film director Carol Reed and the poet Joyce Kilmer were a couple of women. If you like listening to Handel's Messiah performed by a professional choir and orchestra at an ELCA church then, naturally, you will resist going to some hootenanny church where you'll find some guy with a mullet banging on a piano while Wal-Mart shoppers are waving their arms over their heads in hootenanny fashion.

Chapter 6. Please Don't Worship any Beastly False gods which Lead People to Eternal Perdition.

Religious discussions are always a little problematical. It's good to think about religion but you have to be careful when you venture into religious conversations. If a Christian starts in with his Jewish neighbor about how the Jews and the Romans tortured God to death - Psalm 2, Isaiah 9. 6, John 1. 1-14, Colossians 2. 8-10, Timothy 3. 16, Matthew 1. 23 etc. - yes, if the Christian starts in by saying that 2,000 years ago the Jews and Romans tortured and murdered God, then the modern Jewish person might feel tempted to say Jesus was a false prophet, and he might be exasperated enough to call his Christian neighbor a halfwit for thinking Jesus is the Creator of the Universe; he might go on to mention that Mosaic Law demanded death for false prophets. And then the Christian might be exasperated enough upon hearing these anti-Christian sentiments to reach for his switchblade. And of course the Jews, mindful of how they have been persecuted over the centuries by people under the sign of the cross, might be tempted to reach for a flamethrower if a Christian is screaming Christian theology in his face. Those of us who are Christians try to persuade people that the Creator of the Universe was tortured and murdered 2,000 years ago, and of course we also mention the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, forgiveness of sins for those who repent etc. This doctrine which says the Creator of the Universe was once tortured to death might incline non-Christians to think we Christians are crazy, but we merely teach what the scriptures proclaim. If the Christian scriptures are trustworthy then we are not crazy, right?

Yes, religious conversations are a little problematical. The Koran is filled with scriptures saying you'll burn in hell if you don't convert to Islam and Allah. Islam has some nuances that should be understood. Jihad, for instance, which means Muslims launching war against non-Muslims to bring them under Islamic law, is a very controversial topic. Politically Correct people try to make it seem as if Jihad is not a part of the `True Version of Islam.' If the Koran is trustworthy, if one will burn in hell in the afterlife if one rejects Islam, then - though you might not realize it! - you want people to wage Jihad against you, especially if you refuse to convert to Islam via peaceful means. The Koran does not support the doctrine that non-Muslims should be tortured and forced to convert to Islam, nevertheless, if the Koran is trustworthy, if you will burn in Islamic hellfire in the Islamic afterlife if you refuse to convert to Islam, then you want Jihad waged against you, because, if the Jihad is successful, and if you are compelled to obey Islamic law, then, even if you continue to reject Islam, perhaps your children or your grandchildren will convert to Islam, and hence your children or grandchildren will escape hellfire, even if you don't. Of course if Islam is a false religion, if the Koran is a work of fiction, then you have nothing to worry about from any nonexistent deity named Allah torturing you in some hideous Islamic hell. And, of course, if Islam is a huge fiction, a huge religious lie, Jihad is evil. But if Islam is true, if you and your children will burn in hell if your family does not convert to Islam, then Jihad - Muslims waging war to bring the whole world under Islamic law - makes perfect sense, because, again, it might save your kids or your grandkids from hell even though it won't save you should you steadfastly refuse to convert to Islam. Now if Islam is a false religion how do you persuade Muslims to see that their religion is a sham? How do you persuade them that Islam leads people to eternal perdition?

Christ's words in Revelation 2. 9 - `I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan' - sets a precedent, because it tell us, or at least it tells those of us who are Christians, that people can be quite sincere when they claim to be worshippers of God and yet, though they are perfectly sincere, they are not actually worshippers of God, because they are in a synagogue of Satan's. You might claim that you worship God but if Jesus is God, and if you refuse to worship Jesus as God, then you are in a synagogue of satan. Christ forgave the Jews for the crucifixion. It's the refusal to worship Jesus as God which is the big problem. Revelation 2. 9 gets Christians thinking that we might also have Christians who, in their delusion, claim they worship God, and yet, because of their evil ways / heresies, they are in a church of satan. Revelation 2. 9 gets Christians thinking that there might be Christian sects which claim to be God's True Church, but which have fallen away, and which are actually satanic sects. Revelation 13. 1-8,

`THEN I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion...And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war against him?..It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life...'

The theory runs that you might claim to worship the True God, but if you fall to your knees and worship a god with evil attributes, then you don't actually worship the True God - you worship an evil god with evil attributes, and this evil god might be represented by one of the heads on this seven headed beast.

The Muslims say the True God is described in the Koran. Now if the Koran is a collection of falsehoods, if the god of the Koran is an evil god with evil attributes, then the Muslims obviously don't worship the True God - though they sincerely claim to worship the True God - so, they're sincerely deluded, you see, at least that's the perspective of those who see Islam as a delusion. One of the attributes of Islamic god, as explained in the Koran, is that he throws people who reject him into hellfire, so, naturally, a Christian will see a god who throws Christians into hellfire as an evil god with evil attributes, hence, naturally, Christians might speculate that one of the heads on this evil multi-headed beast described in Revelation 13. 4-8 represents the evil Islamic god.

2 Thess 1. 8 tells of hellfire for those who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We've been over the scriptures which tell us God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholics worship a god who says the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church. The Roman Catholics worship a god who says it is always evil to renounce the Roman Catholic Church, who says it is always wise to join and obey the Roman Catholic church. So, if The True God truly says the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the True God says Rome leads souls to heaven, then, we should all become Roman Catholics. But if the True God says Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the True God says Rome is a false church which drags people down to perdition, then, if you worship a god who says Rome is God's True Church, if you worship a god who says the Roman Catholic Church leads people to heaven, then you worship a beastly false god who will lead you to perdition, assuming still that the True God says Rome is a false Church which leads people to perdition, says Rome is not the True Church, not the Bride of Christ.

So, if Rome has fallen away, if Rome leads souls to perdition, if the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then you don't want to be a Roman Catholic.

But if Rome is God's True Church, then it would be really stupid to rebel against Rome. Just obey Rome if Rome is God's True Church and you will go to heaven. But if you rebel against God's True Church you will most likely go to hell. Rome wants you to venerate everyone canonized as a saint.

`The Jewish Encyclopedia' tells us:

`CAPISTRANO, JOHN OF: Franciscan monk; born at Capistrano, Italy, 1386; died 1456. Owing to his remarkable power as a popular preacher, he was sent by Pope Nicholas V. (1447-55) as legate to Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, with the special mission to preach against the Hussites...Knowing how easy it is to excite the masses by appealing to their prejudices, Capistrano, in his discourses, accused the Jews of killing Christian children and of desecrating the host...His admirers called him the "scourge of the Judeans"...In Silesia the Franciscan was most zealous in his work. When Capistrano arrived at Breslau, a report was circulated that one Meyer, a wealthy Jew, had bought a host from a peasant and desecrated it. Thereupon the local authorities arrested the representatives of the Breslau Jewish community and confiscated their houses and property for the benefit of the city. The investigation of the so-called blasphemy was conducted by Capistrano himself. By means of tortures he managed to wring from a few of the victims false confessions of the crimes ascribed to them. As a result, more than forty Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau June 2, 1453. Others, fearing torture, committed suicide, a rabbi, Pinheas, hanged himself. The remainder of the Jews were driven out of the city, while their children of tender age were taken from them and baptized by force. In Poland Capistrano found an ally in the archbishop Zbigniev Olesniczki, who urged Casimir IV. Jagellon to abolish the privileges which had been granted to the Jews in 1447...This led to persecutions of the Jews in many Polish towns. Capistrano was canonized in 1690.'

The Roman Catholic god insists the Roman Catholic Church leads souls to heaven, and insists the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock. And we've been over the logic which says if the Church of Rome leads souls to perdition, if the Church of Rome is not the Church which Christ founded on a rock, then everyone should renounce the Church of Rome. If, on the other hand, the Church of Rome is God's Church - then you can't lose - you won't burn in hell and you won't spend any time burning in Purgatory! - if you have enough sense to obey all of the official doctrines of the Church of Rome. Venerate the people Rome wants you to venerate, if Rome is God's True Church.

Of course if Rome is not God's True Church, if Rome has fallen away...

St. Paul writes in 2 Thess 2,

`Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him...Let no one deceive you by any means: for that Day [the Second Coming of Christ] will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God...and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

About this `falling away', if the Church of Rome has not fallen away from the True Faith, if the Roman Catholic Church is the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to heaven and leads no one to hell, then everyone convert to Roman Catholicism. But if Rome has fallen away, if the Church of Rome is not the church which Christ founded on a rock, if Rome leads souls to perdition - then one turn to the Eastern Orthodox Church. But is the Eastern Orthodox Church the Church which Christ founded on a rock? If both Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have fallen away from the True Faith, if both lead souls to perdition, then one might consider the Church of England. If that isn't the Church which Christ founded on a rock, if the Church of England along with Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have fallen away, if they all lead souls to perdition, then one might turn to...

You want to make sure you are not committing sacrilege with the cross. You must determine if the evils perpetrated by people under the cross are reflected in the cross. Suppose God says the cross is evil. Then if you are saying the cross is sacred, you are committing the mortal sin of sacrilege.

You obviously don't have any Divine Law inscribed on your heart if you don't know how to avoid the sin of sacrilege.

Jacob Burckhardt wrote of Roderigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI., and his Cardinal son, Cesar, in 'The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,'

`Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men. The Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello announces in the year 1500: "Every night four or five murdered men are discovered -bishops, prelates and others- so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed by the duke (Cesar)." He used to wander about Rome in the night-time with his guards, and there is every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to him. As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the papal guards were waylaid and put to death. But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet...The official epitomizer of the history of the popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesar took into his own charge - though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort..."He would," says Panvinio elsewhere, "have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death." And what might not Cesar have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not been laid upon a sickbed! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by poison - and this at a time when there was no French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss.'

Pope Alexander VI. has never been declared an anti-pope. It is still Roman Catholic doctrine that he was the Vicar of Christ - the true leader on earth of the True Church, the true leader on earth of the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. Rome say that Pope Alexander VI. did not lead anyone to perdition, because even when he was Pope he was the leader on earth of God's True Church, and you are the foul heretic if you ever renounce the Roman Catholic church, for whatever reason.

To this day Rome insists that, even if Alexander VI. was a murderer of cardinals, he was still God's supreme priest on earth, because, Rome insists, the Bishop of Rome will always to the true leader of the True Church, the Church which Christ founded upon a rock. The Roman Catholic god - the god which Roman Catholics worship when they fall to their knees to worship the Creator of the Universe - says it is always evil to renounce the Church of Rome, and says it is always evil to say that Rome fell away, and says it is evil to say that Rome leads souls to perdition. Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy have no reason to exist if Rome lead souls to heaven, if the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock. So, the Roman Catholic god says: `it is always evil to renounce the Church of Rome', whereas the god of Protestant sect X, and the god of the Eastern Orthodox Church both say: `it is good to renounce the Church of Rome! It is not evil to renounce the Church of Rome!' So, therefore it is crazy to say that Roman Catholics and the astern Orthodox and the Protestants all worship the same God. All Christians, by definition of what it means to be Christian, worship a Trinity of Father Son and Holy Spirit. But the Roman Catholics worship a trinity which is pro-Roman Catholic, whereas the Eastern Orthodox worship a trinity which is pro-Eastern Orthodox, whereas those in Protestant sect 3.1414B worship a trinity which is pro-Protestant sect 3.1414B. It is just lazy thinkers and rank ignoramuses who think that all Christians worship the same god! All Christians claim to worship the Creator of the Universe but the Christians in the various Christian sects ascribe conflicting attributes to this Creator. Whenever you fall to your knees and worship a god with evil attributes, then, though you might sincerely think you are worshipping the True God, nevertheless, if you fall to your knees and worship an evil god with evil attributes, then, perhaps, you are worshipping this evil multi-headed beast mentioned in Revelation 13. 4-8. We're trying to evaluate some of these gods worshipped by people in the various Christian sects. The Roman Catholic god says it is always evil to renounce the Church of Rome. Even if the Pope burns you at the stake for defying Rome by reading the Bible when the Pope has banned you from reading the Bible, the Roman Catholic god still insists it is always evil to either renounce or disobey the Church of Rome. This is the god that the Roman Catholics worship. So, perhaps you can see why some of us say the Roman Catholic god is an evil god.

Confused Protestants defend Rome now and then, such as by saying Rome is a `Christ-centered' church. What sort of Christ do the Roman Catholics worship? The Roman Catholics worship a version of Christ worship a version of Jesus who supports the Dogma of Papal Infallibility, i.e. they worship a version of Jesus who says you are anathema if you reject that Dogma. The Roman Catholics worship a version of Jesus who says the Church of Rome is the Church which Christ founded on a rock. Recall Capistrano, the canonized torturer and slanderer of Jews. The Roman Catholics worship a version of Christ who says Capistrano is a saint, who says all True Christians must venerate Capistrano as a saint. We're trying to determine if the True Christ says Rome leads souls to heaven or if Rome leads souls to perdition. Has Rome fallen away? Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church which Christ founded on a rock or not? Notice how commitment was a really big deal with the early Church. Christ, the Son, was committed to completing the task asked by the Father. The early Christians might have wanted, during moments, now and then, to worship the image of the Roman emperor, and thereby obtain a certificate which enabled one to avoid the tortures and the cruel death given to those who refused to worship the emperors of Rome; they must have seen that it was in their best interest, in the afterlife, to endure the most ferocious tortures and not worship the emperor in this life, rather than worship the image of the emperor, and then return to Christianity once the threat of torture passed. You know how we tend to rationalize things! You would be terribly tempted to sacrifice to the demons / worship the image of the emperor to escape torture, but then later fall to your knees and beg forgiveness from God. The martyrs didn't try that route, which leads one to think perhaps they were smart to not try that expedient. So the early Christians were committed to their Faith and to their Church. Anyway, we're back to the same old questions:

Chapter 7. Culmination.

To review a few matters seen earlier, the New Law, also known as The Gospel of Jesus Christ, aka, The New Covenant, was not prophesied by a Gentile, but by a Jewish person. Jeremiah 31. 31-34,

`Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt; which My covenant they broke... but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days sayeth the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, sayeth the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.'

Jeremiah is not the only Hebrew prophet who tells of such a covenant which consists of God putting His law inside people.

Isaiah 59. 20-21,

`The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the LORD. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."'

Ezekiel 36. 24-28,

`For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back into your own land...I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My Statutes, and you will keep My statutes and do them...you shall be My people, and I will be your God.'

Christians don't believe that the above scripture refers to the re-gathering of the Jews in the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, because Christians do not believe the prophecy was fulfilled after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago, and Christians do not believe that those who approved that He be crucified understood and obeyed the Divine Law! Christians believe that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 will be fulfilled at some time after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. But there are two parts to Ezekiel 36. 24-28. There is the first part, God will gather the Jews in the Holy Land, which looks a lot like Zionism, and then the second part, the Jews will receive the Divine Law. If Ezekiel 36. 24-28 refers to the Zionism of the 20th and 21st centuries, then one can expect God to put His Spirit inside the Jews rather soon. If God does not put his Spirit inside the Jews rather soon, - we're talking years or decades rather than centuries - then it would be natural to think that Ezekiel 36. 24-28 does not refer to the Zionist movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, but refers to some future time.

The Jews insist that Jesus can not be the Messiah, because Jesus does not rule the world with a rod of iron - and recall that Psalm 2 is very clear in stating that the Son will rule the world with a rod of iron. But Psalm 2 does not supply us with a timetable. It merely says that, at some time in the future, the Messiah, the Divine Son, will rule the world.

The Jewish insistence that Christianity can not be the true religion, because evil Christians have persecuted the Jews for centuries, is based on emotion not reason. People under the sign of the cross have certainly persecuted the Jews over the centuries, but this doesn't mean that Christ is a bogus deity, and it doesn't mean the True Faith and the True Church don't exist.

Isaiah 9. 6 says what it says, and there's no sense in saying it was written by a Gentile,

`For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

Psalm 40: 6-7 seems to indicate the need for a New Law to replace the Old Law,

`Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened, burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. My ears you have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.'

Hosea 6. 6 also says that God wants mercy and not sacrifice. This is at least a suggestion that parts of the Mosaic Law will be put into abeyance: it will remain an eternal law but large parts of it will not be enforced, whereas a New Law will be enforced.

If one was to actually believe that God still considered the Jews to be subject to the Mosaic Law, then one would have to agitate the State of Israel to destroy and remove the Dome of the Rock, and then one would have agitate the State of Israel to commence rebuilding the Temple, and then agitate for a high priest, and then agitate the State of Israel to gather up bulls and goats so as to begin again the whole business of ritualistic slaughter, and to start executing homosexuals and enchantresses and rebellious children and Sabbath violators etc. Before one jumps to the conclusion that the Mosaic Law must be obeyed in its entirety, one might read Jeremiah 31. 31-34, and one might also read the New Testament, to see if, perhaps, the New Testament explains the New Law of Jeremiah 31. 31-34. One mustn't confound the evils of people under the sign of the cross with the authors of the New Testament. Chapter 3 of `Constitutional History of the Western World' gives some of the evidence for Christianity. Recall 2 Thess 2 and the Antichrist sitting in the holy place. Matthew 26. 28, Jeremiah 31. 31-34 and 1 Corinthians 3. 16 tell us that Christians are the temples of God: Christians, or rather True Christians, have the Divine Law inscribed on their hearts. So the heart of a Christian is the holy place mentioned in 2 Thess 2. Recall 2 Thess 2 says the man of sin / son of perdition aka the Antichrist sits in the holy place. So, don't let the Antichrist control your heart.

The End
