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Spring has finally arrived here in the northern hemisphere
and at this time of year I tend to focus more on the vegetable plot than I do on the internet
because I'd rather be outside in the open air than inside in front of a screen.
However, you may take a different view. If so, this video is for you.
Especially if you're a Christian.
There are millions of people on this planet who claim to have a personal relationship
with somebody called Jesus.
And each of those people, it seems, has a different Jesus in their imagination,
which is where Jesus lives.
A Jesus who shares all their particular values and prejudices.
That's what he's there for, after all. It's how he earns his keep.
So if, for example, you don't like homosexuals very much,
you can be pretty sure your Jesus won't like them very much either.
It's really quite amazing. It's almost as if he can read your mind.
But that's Jesus for you. There's nothing he can't do...
except tolerate homosexuals, apparently.
As for abortion, don't even get him started on that subject.
He's got plenty to say about abortion, although none of it actually appears in the Gospels,
but don't you worry about that. He's dead against it if you are.
And this is the beauty of Jesus, the magic, the miracle of Jesus,
is that each of us can create him in our own image,
and he can be whoever we want him to be.
He's as versatile as Mr Potato Head.
As for the man who it may have all been based on, if he ever existed,
he's long gone, like Abraham Lincoln's famous axe
that had both its head and handle replaced several times,
yet was still as good as new.
I mention this because atheists also have their own version of Jesus.
Jesus, whether we like it or not, is a part of our culture,
so yes, I have my version of Jesus, even though I don't believe in God,
and my Jesus despises Christianity as the greatest swindle ever perpetrated.
Indeed, if my Jesus ever came face to face with a senior clergyman
or a televangelist he'd be hard pressed not to slap him around the room
and kick him down a flight of stairs.
There's a common misconception among Christians that the purpose
of their religion is to spread the message of Jesus.
In fact, the purpose of Christianity is to suppress the message of Jesus
and to swindle you out of the kingdom of heaven.
Christianity is grounded in the notion that there's something fundamentally wrong
with being born a human being. Original sin. It's probably the most poisonous
and self-destructive idea in human history,
so naturally it has been enthusiastically embraced by clergy.
Whereas Jesus seeks to empower you, clergy seek to weaken you,
to make you feel small and helpless.
They don't want you to consider the lilies of the field or to seek the kingdom of heaven within
because that's too much like the message of Jesus.
They'd rather you focussed instead on the ludicrous celestial psycho drama
of God and Satan and angels and demons and hellfire,
and to burden yourself with baseless guilt and morbid fear of eternal damnation.
The depict this earthly life as a grubby thing to be transcended
because they want you disconnected from the planet that gives you life.
To feel that you're apart from nature, not a part of nature,
because they don't want you grounded in any way.
They want you rootless, uncertain, susceptible,
while they hold out the promise of eternal salvation,
access to the kingdom of heaven, no less,
but only through them, as if they control the only bridge over the chasm of hellfire
and there's a toll to pay (of course there is) and the church bells ring: "Kerching! Kerching!"
They might as well be selling property on Jupiter,
yet they're legally allowed to get away with this fraud
and to pay no taxes on the proceeds.
And that's why the Catholic Church today measures its wealth in tens of billions,
and if you live to be a thousand you'll never meet a poor televangelist.
Yet Jesus never asked anybody for money.
Jesus never passed around a collection plate
or got people to tithe part of their income to him.
Everything he did, he did for free.
He had lepers and cripples lining up around the block,
and not one of them had medical insurance
(can you believe the irresponsibility of those people?)
but Jesus didn't care. He healed them anyway, absolutely free.
And when I say free, I don't mean free in a toll-free prayer line kind of way either,
as in: "Call now, free, and there'll be somebody there to pray with you,
"and take your credit card number, so that by the time you hang up
"you'll be committed to making a regular monthly payment
"to somebody who flies around in a private jet."
Not that kind of free.
In exploiting Jesus to swindle humanity,
they've also managed to swindle Jesus,
because they've stolen his name and his identity
and turned it into a commercial trademark.
If he ever comes back he should sue.
Now Jesus is like Colonel Sanders - they're just using his picture.
The difference is Colonel Sanders was bought out.
Jesus has been sold out. And so have you if you're a Christian.
You've been framed for something that you didn't do.
If Jesus really was crucified as per the Gospels,
he didn't die for anybody's sins but his own.
He died because he posed a threat to a group of people
with strongly vested interests and very savage values.
You may recall, he told the pharisees point blank where they could find the kingdom of heaven.
Don't look here or there, he said, look within.
But they didn't want to hear that any more than the modern pharisees want to hear it,
because they knew very well what he meant,
that the kingdom of heaven is a state of awareness in the here and now
that doesn't require the stewardship of professional clergy,
and that if we took his advice to seek it within,
not only would we find it, we'd find the strength and the wisdom
to put them and their whole bloodsucking fear mongering criminal racket
permanently out of business.
And because they lived in the kind of brutal society
where they could have him put to death for his words, that's exactly what they did,
just as they would today in certain Muslim countries.
But you don't have to feel guilty about it because you weren't there.
You had no opportunity to influence events. You are entirely blameless.
And the only guilt that you need to feel
is maybe a little passing sheepish embarrassment
at ever having fallen for this insulting nonsense in the first place.
Anyway, that's enough from me. I'm going back outside now
to consider the lilies of the field
and to plant a few potatoes in the good clean life-giving earth. Peace.