Interesting article, Peter !However there are a few points I'm somewhat confused by. I have no problem with the fleshly ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father, but do with the notion that we cannot exist in an afterlife (heaven) in a spiritual form. If we are made in the image of God , and He is both Spirit and flesh (Mt 28:19, Lk 3:21,22), then it follows that we are the same and therefore it is possible that our existence in our afterlife could very well be in spiritual format. Also in Luke (23:43), Jesus tells the criminal hanging beside Him on the day of crucifixion "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." This could only be possible for the criminal if it was his spiritual form, not physical, that entered into paradise. The Old Testament Yaweh was never depicted as being flesh, but is He not Life? To me "the adherence to the body as the only vehicle of life" somewhat contradicts what God Himself is, and as God is the same today , tomorrow and always.....what can I say!

In his parable, ‘The madman’(1882), Nietzsche gives a diagnosis of his time. What it served to do was to further erode the rational foundations of western civilization. In this respect, he can be both blamed and congratulated.

Nietzsche said that the reason Christianity triumphed in the Roman world was that the lowest orders - the meek and the mild - wanted to inherit the earth from their aristocratic superiors. The lower orders were trying to strike back and subdue their superiors. They did this by condemning as evil those traits which they lacked: strength, power and the zest for life. Instead, the Christians made their own low and wretched lives the standard of all things to come. If you deviated from this standard, you were shackled with guilt.

The philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, attacked Christianity because it was contrary to human reason. Because they wanted to make Christianity more reasonable, they retained Christian ethics. Nietzsche attacked Christianity as well - but he did so on the grounds that it gave man a sick soul. It was life-denying. It blocked the free and spontaneous exercise of human instinct and will. In short, Christianity extinguished the spark of life.

“Christianity has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man. . . . Christianity has taken the side of everything weak, base, ill-constituted, it has made an ideal out of opposition to the instinct of strong life. . . . Christianity is a revolt of everything that crawls along the ground directed against that which is elevated.” – Nietzsche 1888, The Anti-Christ .

Perhaps, after two millennia, we’ll have the courage to discover where the true heresy might lie.

Martin,

Paul, not Jesus, broke the mould of traditional Judaism, towards its Hellenised counterpart, Christianity. However, this transformation had been tried before. From the time of Antiochus I (Epiphanes), there had been unsuccessful attempts to Hellenise Jewish worship to establish an independent Jewish state, under a Messiah.

- Some saw a return of the Kingdom of David.

- Others saw an end time, when “fire from the sky would show God’s ineffable glory”.

Thus, Paul was not fully original; but, to be fair, Paul did turn Tug Boat Willie (Jesus) into Mickey Mouse (God)…

-“Hey Luke”
-“Hi Mark. Hello Boys and Girls.”…

[CLUB SONG]

[Saints]

- Who’s the leader of Paul’s church? It plain for all to see?

[Full Member Retort, Fast]

-Jesus Christ, JESUS CHRIST! He walked through Galilee.

[Short Pause] [Retort, Slower]

- Jesus Christ {Girls only} , JESUS CHRIST! {All Members}

[Longer Pause, Solo Divine Intercept, Strong Voioce]

- Mithras. [Pause] MITH-R-AS!

[Ignoring the Divine Intercept, together {Saints & Members}, slower]

- Let us be sure to hold our gospels, high, HIGH! HIGH!

[Saints]

- Come along. Join in Paul’s song. And live the lie with me.

[Retort]

- “Jesus Christ {Boys only} , JESUS CHRIST! {All Members}

[Solo Divine Intercept, Strong Voice]

- Mithras. MITH-R-AS!

[Together {Saints & Members}, over the end of the Divine intercept]

-Let us be sure to hold our gospels, high, HIGH! HIGH! – HIGH!

[Together {Saints & Members}]

- Come along. Join in Paul’s song. And live the lie with me.

[Saints]

- Jesus Christ, Jesus CHRIST! He walked through Galilee! [song truncated]

[Long Pause] [All Cry Joyously]

- Hey Jay Cee!
- Hey Jay Cee!
- Hey Jay Cee!
- Hey,JESUS CHRIST!
- Its JC Saviour Time. [Cheers, Confetti, applause, general indistinct laughter]

[Long Pause]

[Saints close; sad, very slow, essentially spoken ]

- Sad to say.
- We all can’t go.
- Some must stay. [Lone saint voice: Peter]
- Some can see Paul’s lie.
- You see. [Lone saint voice, emotional, tappers away: Matthew]

St. Paul,

Well done. Pity about the body-soul thing, though.

Relda,

THE STRONG INHERITED THE EARTH

Nietzsche, Hilter and Machiavelli, methinks, would have admired the institution of the Christian Church. Contempt of the weak/soft and praise for the powerful/hard, is everYwhere.

Herein, we have a divide, between the leaders and led, not only in Christianity; but probably all religions. Ulemas, monks and all kinds of priests, proxy gods. I think even Brahman Atman take the part in Upanishad ceremonies? I know an a Brahman Uni.Professor (once on my staff), who travels regularly between to US and India, because his family lead village ceremonies.

Confucianism is ethical, sustaiing an ethical system. But the state of said system turns in accordance with, the Emperor's right to sustain/retain his Mandate of Heaven. This gave Sino court astronomers enormous power. Nietzsche would have approved.

Popes and bishops have leveraged ignorance to suppress the weak. Again, Nietzsche would have approved. Think I have read the SS orgainsationally, at least, influenced the SS.

As with Sells, fostering ignorance, is very powerful. Just look at Martin and Boaz, and, maybe, Sells, himself, as a brainwashed conduit.

Likewise, in the nineteenth century, when archaelogists used the positions of stars on Eygtian astrological monuments to cross-date artifacts, the Christians freaked, when it appeared dates 15,000 years before the present (way before 4004 BCE) appeared in earley calculations. The Churches and their flocks turned against the reasonable endeavours by well intentioned objective investigators.

Under further analysis, the dates matching Eygptian and Roman times became evident. That knowledge could then be held - but that is not the point.

Science empowers the people and lessens the a priori interperations of assistant deacons to Popes. Instead, Nietzsche would be content to have the weak bathe in their ignorance, so, as to be exploited, by, both Church and State.

The strong often acknowledge the strong. Nepoleon, with his bones together, would not allow his infantry fire directly at the Duke of Welligton. Exile and Inter-Marriage were/are big amongst the powerful. After Pearl Harbour, pilots, against their wishes were told don't bomb Chysranthumum Throne. Fire bombing Tokyo... that's okay.

Theological speculation is surely the greatest waste of time ever invented. If anyone doubted it, it would suffice to point to this article and the comments it has spawned. I write this more in sadness than in anger. The fact is, there is no evidence whatever that Jesus even existed. Even if such a historical personage existed, there is no reason to believe that the events described in the gospels - some decades after his alleged crucifixion - actually happened, and every reason to believe they did not. Archaeological evidence continues to reveal the self-serving fabrications of the old testament propagandists, and it's fairly clear that Paul and the gospel writers have continued in this tradition. I don't blame them of course - they were of their time. I do blame any moderns who choose to mire themselves in this myth-making, so blinding themselves to who we actually are, based on an evolutionary understanding far richer and far more deeply rooted than anything derived from so-called sacred texts a mere few thousand years old.

It is not true that "there can be no such number as the root of minus one", only that there can be no such REAL number as the root of minus one, (as there can be no such RATIONAL number as the root of two). Similarly, rather than saying that "we all know that such an event (bodily resurrection of Christ) is impossible" one should qualify this by saying that this event is impossible within (material) phenomena understood by science, and thus absolutely impossible to accept only by an atheist.

Many mathematicians believe in the existence of a "Platonic world" of mathematical concepts and relations, where complex numbers, and many more abstract things "dwell". Every working mathematician has sometimes the feeling that he/she is DISCOVERING existing facts (from this world), and sometimes the feeling of CREATING new stuff. I think this is not unlike the bipolar feeling of a religious person: sometimes I realise that my faith has an objective ground, sometimes it is just an expression of my own imagination (or that of the culture I am part of) .

There are people who do not believe in the existence of a "Platonic world of mathematics", most of them do not even understand what is meant by that. And there are also people who do not believe in the objective referent of my faith, most of those do not even understand what is meant by that. Eugene Wigner spoke of the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in explaining and manipulating the world of physical phenomena, an effectiveness that nobody properly understands. For a believer his/her system of religious symbols offers an "unreasonably effective" explanation and access to a world that he/she sees as existing beyond the material, an effectiveness that also nobody understands. Of course, one can simply ignore things that one does not understand: many do it with both mathematics and religion.