The Human Story of Letting Go

Today, I am fascinated with myths and religions (namely Christianity) and their comparative studies.

It is as if I am trying to find, not answers, but any trace of evidence that can show me that my own ideas are worthwhile.

And my idea is that the story of humanity's companionship with Christianity, to a certain degree, must be looked at objectively, in a "formless" fashion (as author Eckhart Tolle might call it). In the name of Christianity, certainly many evil things have occurred. Christianity, through time, has evolved from the left to the right, from the classical liberal to classical conservative, from communitarianism to fascism ... a never-ending political cycle. Moreover, it is a never-ending HUMAN cycle. It is my belief that we must reserve a portion of our critical analysis and, indeed, critique of Christianity, for "human terms," for the understanding of the human trajectory.

In the process, I thought about the movie, Zeitgeist, which, in my opinion, is just that -- a movie ... a propagandizing movie. Worse than Michael Moore's productions, which, at least, still has factual basis, Zeitgeist, I found, was more into inflammatory conspiracy than anything else.

Now to think of it, it didn't even offer me much new information: I knew that the Christian religion was based on pagan believes, and pagan mythological believes were largely supported by astrological systems, which are based on astronomical observations, which are essential pieces of knowledge of any agricultural society, which is why China, India, the Middle East and Egypt were so big on astronomy -- because they needed it. With this train of thought, then, one can logically deduce that Christianity to be a product of the stars. I trust that most students of history have already gotten that figured out.

But don't portray the ancients as ignorant, unassuming bunches of people.

I support that the underpinnings of the Christian religion came from ancient Egyptian believes. And because of the necessity of knowing the stars during those times, having such a myth provided a framework for an under-educated populace to basically remember how to tell time or direction to give their agricultural lives some type of structure. (similar phenomenon occurred in other parts of the world ... like the Far East, for instance)

In other words, the Christian myth, and various other religious myths, were more or less essential for practical usage.

In other OTHER words, in contrary to the ruckus the movie made, whether Jesus was real or not really doesn't matter. The population at the time was just grateful that they can tell when their crops will grow. And when they became more adventurous, they were just glad that they could tell directions when at sea.

In other other OTHER words, these religious myths weren't necessarily "fraud of the age," like the movie stated. Furthermore, Christianity and other myths DIDN'T "serve to detach the species from the natural world, and likewise, each other" (see note 1). It's very much the opposite. It provided the opportunity -- the excuse, if you will -- to "hang out" with each other.

One must understand that in agricultural societies, people did not have a lot of dispensable resources, time and energy. Their attention was devoted to raising crops. Solstice, equinox, and other key points of the year were the only times they could gather around to celebrate. (I, for one, was raised to celebrate winter solstice with a feast when my grandmother was still alive.)

See, people of the past did not just get duped into believing in Christianity.

Fast forward to sometime between 300 and 400 AD.. What happened at that time?
This is around the time of the Axial Age.
This is also around the Early Middle Ages, which, in the year 303 AD, Christians were ordered to be persecuted. This lasted for 10 years.
In 313 AD, Constantine became Rome's first Christian emperor. Why? Superstition. He thought the god of the Christians killed one of his opponents.
Constantine died in 337 AD.
Around 400 AD was the fall of the Roman Empire (sack of Rome by the Visigoths).

What else?
The same stars that created the Christian myths have shifted in the European skies. The Southern Cross (Crux), for example, has not risen above the Athenian horizon since -- common knowledge that is even cited on Wikipedia.

See, this is a dramatic story of how a common pagan myth rose above all others to become "THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION" that we all revere and fear. The fact of the matter is, if it wasn't the Christian myth, it would have easily been another myth that arose politically (so the makers of Zeitgeist might as well say they're atheists and protest all myth-based religions ... which would be all religions). Another fact of the matter is that, by that same time, the Roman calendar had already been invented (thanks to Julius Caesar). So the practical usage of the Christian myth would have waned at the time. To add to the mix is that some of the same constellations that molded the Christian myth have shifted. People no longer have tangible ties to the Christian myth as they once did (by just looking up). All they had to hold on to was the memories passed down from previous generations that they still kept. All these things combined gave people the reason to hold on to Christianity the way they did, making the rest history.

This isn't a story about fraud. Essentially, this is a story about the human tendency to hold on to the past for much too long, which the underlying idea here is the human instinct to hold on to the tangible (what's already happened) instead of facing the unknown of the future ... just the way they hung onto the Christian myth when they no longer had clear ties with it anymore, just the way they clung onto the Christian calendar when they could have used the Julian Calendar.

Do not be confused. Religious fanaticism and anti-religious fanaticism are essentially the same. I will not allow paranoia to cloud my judgment.

After all, this is just a story of human's "letting go."


NOTE 1
From Zeitgeist:
"Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age. It serves to detach the species from the natural world, and likewise, each other. It supports blind submission to authority. It reduces human responsibility to the effect that "God" controls everything, and in turn awful crimes can be justified in the name of Divine Pursuit. And most importantly, it empowers those who know the truth but use the myth to manipulate and control societies. The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish."