Soul Trap. Wayne Sr. Stewart
which was common during their time as a way of expressing public grief. This is why today we see civil service officials like police and firemen wear a black band across their badges when mourning a fallen comrade. Visually, their badges have been rent in two. Once again, everything has for its inception, an origin.)
Then there is Luke 23:46 where the story, and the edification, continues. “When Jesus cried out with a loud voice, he said: ‘Father, into your hands I commend [commit] my spirit.’ After having said this, he gave up the ghost [meaning, he died.”] (As for what Jesus said about “commending” his spirit into his father’s hands, all before dying? You got it. I cannot find it in any other biblical accounting. In fact, Matthew 27:50 simply states that he cried out with a loud voice, and died. Some even thought they heard him call for Elias.)
History indicates (because the actual dates are lost to antiquity) that the apostles wrote the NT books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, anywhere from 60 A.D. to 100 A.D. Nonetheless, if multiple live witnesses to the same event could render varying accounts as starkly opposed as these are (enough so that they contradict one another,) then which one are we to believe?
Stop fidgeting.
Okay then. What about the one un-nailed from the cross and resurrected so as to better promote someone’s secret agenda of religion, some eighty or so years after the fact?
Now you’re squirming.
Even eyewitnesses to a crime have trouble recounting events in as little as twenty minutes after the fact. And yes. There is a ton of scientific data to back this up. Yet, the Bible would have us believe this had no effect on its authors, some sixty to one hundred years later. All because, and let me guess: they were “inspired” by God. Right? Yes. That is what “they” would have us believe. You know. Just like Joseph Smith when he invented the religion of Mormonism, sometime around 1830 by peering into a hat full of weirding stones. (That’s right. Mormonism as a religion is just slightly over one hundred and eighty years old, where [2012 – 1830] = 182 years of age.)
As for the title of Mormonism belonging to the Mormons, is because Joseph Smith based his idea of religion around a prophet of yore named Mormon who was living in North America around the year 312 A.D. Mormon was himself descended from Lehi, a God-fearing man living in, you guessed it: the kingdom of Judah in Israel during the reign of King Zedekiah (597 – 586 B.C.) as half brother to the infamous King Jehoiakim. (See II Kings 23:36.) Although Mormon was himself a virtuous man of peace who strove against everyday evil, a new wave of believers quickly hijacked his idea of religion, further perverting it in 1857. This, they did, in as little as twenty-seven years after its founder invented it.
And yes. It was here that the “Mountain Meadows Massacre” in Utah took place. This is where a group of Mormons ambushed and killed a wagon train of innocent families moving west to a new future. They did this because they had convinced themselves that these people were sent to spy on them, and were going to report back to a government bent on destroying their newfound idea of religion. And yes. That’s just how easy it is to kill over religious ideology. This being that what they believe is more important than what you believe. And on it goes.
Prior to this incident, Christians were the ones busy slaughtering Mormons because they saw them as a threat to their way of life, as further defined by their idea of religion. And again: on it goes. And yes. This is why the religion of Mormonism was on a westward move to begin with, finally calling Utah home. (Missed something about the nature of religious persecution, did you? Even so, all religions do it to some degree or another. But let us pray for the sorry misguided bastards, anyway. But just how weird is it that America, in its quest against religious persecution, allows for the formations of those religions that are themselves, exclusive to the point of being discriminatory?)
Ah huh.
Then there is the prophet Muhammad when he took the Hebrew Bible and threw it into his “washing machine of reinterpretation” some six hundred years after the fact, whereby rendering the Qur’an on the final rinse cycle. All of which, makes that particular religion something like a touch over fourteen hundred years of age. And just like Christianity, it too, has a past filled to the religious brim with discrimination, persecution, suffering, and murder. And, as you know, I could list something like thirty-four thousand other religions, with every last one of them claiming some kind of “divine inspiration.” And of all the religions I could start with, is Christianity itself. Why? Because it found its beginnings as an upstart religion breaking away from the practice of Judaism, is why. In fact, it had for its beginnings that which, in its day, defined a cult.
Bingo!
And when is a cult, no longer a cult? Why, when it recruits enough people who say its not, is when. And yes. This is exactly how a religion starting life off as cult becomes bona fide, if not certified as genuine. All that needs to happen is for the first generation to give birth to the second generation, and keep on the pressure to conform. Why? Because once you’re born into it, you will defend it to the death because now it’s a way of life, is why. However, Judaism still sees Christianity as a cult. Even so; and be that as it may; let us join hands and pray for the sorry misguided bastards, anyway. (As for which is which, and who is who, I leave up to you. But of this, you can be sure: it all depends on which side of the fence you happen to be staring, if only because that’s where it gave birth to you.)
But let us continue with the crucifixion.
See again, Luke 23:40. This being where the lowly thieves, educated philosophers that they were, all while suffering horribly on the cross with broken legs and nails the size of railroad spikes sticking out of every extremity, spoke so eloquently according to “memory.” Read again, no… Picture again where; and unlike Jesus who can only manage to cry out in pain and anguish so as to pump up the drama; one of them under the exact same horrific conditions, says, “Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.”
If that isn’t a reinterpretation of words according memory some sixty to one hundred years after the fact by those with an agenda of religion, then I don’t know what is. To a truth, the whole thing reeks of a more modern revision. Even to where the condemned are sitting down with their executioners over tea and crumpets, as if to discuss their lot in life. Right? Read it again while keeping in mind the truth of their situation, and I think you’ll agree.
Moreover, what happened to the criminal code of conduct here? You know the one for which I speak. Or at least you know of it. It’s the one where every criminal ever captured throughout all of recorded history proclaims aloud; and over and over again, I might add; “I’m innocent I tells ya! I didn’t do it!” Yeah. That one.
To a truth; and just like the lowly thieves; this is exactly why Jesus never confessed himself before his Roman accusers: it’s because that would be a lot like asking the reformer to re-reform, whose platform is based on “what I will.”
Hey! Wait a minute…
Yet, parables such as this concerning the story of the crucifixion are but the beginning of what revisionists have bleached in order to purify of their inherent “colors.” All done to brighten the primrose path to salvation—of course! An ethereal corridor to the pearly gates of good and plenty that is anything but what you think is. And yes again. You would be right to suspect that I had further proof of this, too.
Okay. I’ll buy that. It was, after all, a “deathbed” confession on the thief’s part. Right? But then, what becomes of the other accounts concerning the crucifixion? You have St. John 19:16 thru 34 where a Roman Centurion pierced Jesus’ side with a spear to see if he was dead, where blood and water gushed out. (Something not mentioned in any other accounting.)
Then there is Mark 15:15 where we read that the murderer Barabbas was freed in Jesus’ stead. (Something else, not mentioned in any other accounting.)
Which version then, we are to believe, and why? The answer reminds me of a discussion I was having with a female friend some time ago, relating to biblical circumcision. I was explaining to her how wrong it is to perform this Jewish custom on Christian babies too young to have any say in the matter, especially when it scars their body for