PAUL THE PRIME EVANGELIST OF THE EARLY CHURCH EXPLOITED CREDULITY
Paul, according to Christianity, was the first witness to the resurrection of
Jesus to put his conviction that he saw this risen Jesus into writing and he
wrote near enough to the event. These things would make him the only one that
deserves a hearing if it were not for some other facts. He claimed to be a very
bad man even when he was writing and still he said we should believe him.
Anybody who expects that can hardly be trusted.
Besides the truth is that Paul didn’t see or say he investigated the empty tomb
of Jesus. He just saw visions of Jesus. We have no first hand evidence that the
visions said they were of Jesus. Christianity admits that visions alone prove
nothing because it rejects the reliability of most apparition stories.
There are no first-hand accounts of the resurrection at all.
Paul knew that prayer is communication with God. Yet he said that when you speak
in tongues your spirit is praying but your mind is not (1 Corinthians 14).
Paul believed that the gift of tongues was for converting unbelievers (1
Corinthians 14:22). How stupid does he think we are? Babbling nonsense will
convert nobody. He realised that himself for he said so then what did he say
they were signs for? Probably because practicing the gift was useful for
tricking the mind and programming it to believe in Paul’s version of Jesus.
If God really spoke through the prophets of Corinth, Paul would not have needed
to lay down rules for order (v14). He thought that God was well-organised when
he declared that God doesn’t confuse. Paul’s thinking is incoherent and childish
or he wanted ours to be.
Paul claimed that muttering gibberish was a miraculous sign from God! He was a
complete nutcase if he really believed that.
He was approved by his version of the Church, the largest group in early
Christianity, which shows that it was composed of fools.
Paul knew that people who did not believe in free will or who held that sin is
hard to commit because there are so few sins could hardly or rarely be sinners
yet he said they were (Romans 3).
He accused human beings of being totally sinful and depraved (Romans 3).
Obviously, the nearest he could get to learning this would be from observing
himself. A creature as vile as that has no business asking people to trust him
and his gospel.
Paul stated that when he sins at times it is sin that does it not him (Romans
7:20). What kind of thinking is that?
In Romans 14, Paul hypocritically forbade eating certain foods when it offends
other Christians who do not know that God lets his people eat whatever they
like. Yet he held that it is wrong to commit certain acts even if not doing them
scandalises others like adultery or theft or homosexuality. He wanted people to
be gullible.
Paul said that Jesus must have risen from the dead for if he has not then the
dead will not rise and our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15). That logic would
tell you that a person who tells you they are right for they would be wrong if
they were not is right.
The mind boggles regarding how a man could have nothing on his conscience and
still be a sinner (1 Corinthians 4:4). Paul either had little sense or he knew
his listeners had none!
These are the anti-intellectual hints. But Paul went straight for the jugular
and forbade thinking when it was not his thinking.
Paul sees symbolism in a Genesis story (Galatians 4:21-31) that is not in the
original. The Church says he was not claiming that it was in it but that he
could see a parable for what he wanted to say in it. That is a lie for all he
had to do was just say what he wanted to say without the fancy interpretation.
It would have been handier and he never gave any hint that the Church was right.
This proved that when he said in the book of Acts that he never undermined the
Law of Moses he was lying for this allegorical interpretation indicates that he
wanted it to be possible to make it mean whatever you like.
Paul declared that our faith must not depend on philosophy or wisdom but on
God’s power (1 Corinthians 1,2). He commanded blind faith. The Church says he is
only against false wisdom. But he said that the death of Jesus proved that the
wisdom of the world which says that the Son of God could not save by dying on
the cross is wrong and we cannot make sense of the death of Jesus. He is saying
that when reason contradicts God, reason must be ignored. To say that God must
guide your reason is the same as forbidding reason to speak clearly because the
pope tells you that God will guide you to believe that contraception is bad and
evangelicals say that God will guide you to believe the opposite!
Paul wrote that all the virtue in the world is useless without love. In other
words, you start off with love before you think about virtue. Yet in Colossians
which is from him or an adherent of his says that that you start off with
patience, compassion and forgiving and you wrap these up in love to complete
them (3:14). Love is patience and compassion and forgiving for heaven’s sake!
Paul claimed to be an apostle equal to the twelve apostles and gave no evidence
whatsoever for this authority. Not everybody agreed that Paul really was an
apostle (1 Corinthians 9:2,3). To these he replied that his success as a
missionary was the proof that he really was an apostle in the eyes of God. Some
defence! Joseph Smith did better and he was a phoney. Paul was obviously
desperate when he used that ridiculous argument and desperation like that shows
that he did not care if he was an apostle or not but wanted everyone to think he
was one. No evidence is ever given that the other apostles who would naturally
have the right to officially declare if anybody was an apostle declared him one.
Luke said Paul was an apostle but Luke on his own cannot be proved to be
divinely inspired so we can drop him and he was Paul-centred when it would have
made more sense for him to dwell more on the original twelve apostles in his
writings. Paul often boasted that he was equal to the other apostles and then he
got embarrassed and sought to soften this bragging with a declaration that he
was very humble. Saying you are very humble is a form of boasting and the most
manipulative form there is! To believe in Paul’s writings as a part of scripture
is to defy the rule that at least two trustworthy witnesses should be carefully
cross-examined and pass the questioning before their claim can be accepted.
This man’s miracle and religious experience stories are unreliable. Some witness
to the resurrection! If Jesus had to depend on him to spread Christianity over
the empire then Jesus was a fraud for God would not have picked a man that
people could not reasonably rely on as a teacher. How do we know it was not the
Devil that appeared at Damascus? The Devil would appear exactly as Jesus and
teach only holy things if it meant driving an evil man to become a false apostle
and lead the Church astray. Satan needs to be subtle.
PAUL SAYS AUTHORITY NOT VISIONS OR EVIDENCE COUNTS
Paul was no use as a witness for his extreme arrogance and bias was evident when
he declared in Galatians that even if he himself changed his gospel, gospel
means good news, and even if an angel from Heaven came with any different
doctrine that both should be held to be accursed and unworthy of being listened
to. Galatians 1:8, 9: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to
you a gospel contrary to and different from that which we preached to you, let
him be accursed (anathema, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal
punishment). As we said before, so I now say again, If anyone is preaching to
you a gospel different from or contrary to that which you received from us, let
him be accursed” Amplified Bible. In other words, nobody’s visions were any good
unless they supported what he was saying. Christians say he was being
hypothetical but people would have seen visions of angels contradicting Paul for
he complained about rivals having visions so that is out. He was saying that
even if God sent an angel to contradict Paul, God should be ignored. This is
clear evidence of insanity and dishonesty. The fact that Paul admitted that his
gospel is full of mystery, seeming contradictions, makes the whole thing worse
for it puts a curse on anybody who has visions in aid of a more coherent looking
gospel. He condemns rival gospels, remember these are gospels, they offer a
message of hope and comfort so Paul was condemning all religious consolation and
comfort that didn’t fit his vision of what a gospel should be. If a gospel
failed to offer hope it would get no followers.
Paul wrote that some were going over from his gospel to a different and even an
opposed gospel (Galatians 1:6) but there can’t be any other gospel (1:7) and
they are distorting the gospel of Christ (1:7). So what many of them were doing
was just disagreeing with parts of the gospel. He says his gospel is the gospel
of Christ. This letter opposes any attempt to undermine the idea that salvation
is by faith alone without good works. This is what it means primarily by the
gospel of Christ. But the gospel Jesus never taught that doctrine so he is
another Jesus from that of the early Church. Paul is dogmatic on this point,
deny that Jesus has done it all and say he has done most of it or nearly all of
it so you need to do some good works to be saved and what you have is not a
gospel. Then any alteration means a gospel is not good news though it says it
is, it leads to eternal damnation. This epistle proves that Protestants who
believe Paul’s gospel cannot consort with the Roman Catholic Church which adds
good works and sacraments to faith as a condition of salvation. Get it wrong on
justification you end up unsaved and damned which is why he tolerates no dissent
at all.
He said anybody who teaches anything different from his gospel is to be
condemned, he did not say those who were doing the misleading which would leave
room for having pity instead of wrath towards the preacher who was misled but
not willingly misleading people. The Vatican II Catholicism which teaches this
distinction then is heretical and is the basis for it is dropping the appellation
heretics for modern Protestants. Paul’s bigotry is a sign of being on unsure
ground, he acted sure but he wasn’t but whatever was going to happen he was
going to focus on acquiring power for himself and rank as the best apostle of
Jesus. He was going to scare people into agreeing with his gospel because there
was no evidence to help. There was no real Jesus who did real miracles and all
he had was an apparition that claimed to be of a man who died on a cross for
sins and rose again.
Paul and his preachers had been saying that even an angel altering the gospel
should be accursed for a long time for he says “We” and they must have been
saying the same thing themselves when he was so sure they were with him on this
one. That means he knew what people would think of it, he knew how nasty and
arrogant and bigoted it sounded for he would have been told often enough. Paul
and his evangelists were evil men who practiced a form of religion but inwardly
denied its power the thing they accused their rivals of doing. Paul said the
Galatians were told it before so his Church made a point of declaring that even
God himself should be ignored if he taught anything that didn’t fit the gospel.
He was saying that no matter what evidence you got that the gospel was wrong you
should ignore it. He says later on that this gospel is the one taught by the
Jerusalem apostles as well. So they all agreed then that evidence didn’t matter,
but agreeing with their interpretation did. Is this the kind of cooking pot you
would see a true gospel story of Jesus’ life incubating in? Could the gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John be anything other than clever lies when a Church
like that wrote them? Could any of the witnesses of the risen Jesus really be
relied on when evidence meant nothing to them but believing a message just
because they wanted to believe it did? The early Church was a hotbed of
authoritarianism by the apostles and fanaticism in the converts. The gospel
Jesus however says that man was not made for the Sabbath and that leaders should
really be slaves and what has the Jesus of Paul’s Church in common with this
one? One of them is a fabrication if not both.
Whatever the truth is, the Church and Paul put the focus on apostolic authority,
not on evidence and not on visions. In other words, they wanted people to
believe in Jesus NOT because they saw him but because they said he rose and had
the authority from him to say it. This is totally irrational, manipulative and
dishonest. Their game was to climb the ladder and be above other people.
Authority not revelation is the real focus with revelation just being a decoy
and a bait to get this authority respected. To believe in their visions is
simply blasphemy.
“Now to Him Who is able to strengthen you in the faith which is in accordance
with my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation
(the unveiling) of the mystery of the plan of redemption which was kept in
silence and secret for long ages, But is now disclosed and through the prophetic
Scriptures is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal
God, [to win them] to obedience to the faith” (Romans 16:25,26). Amplified
Bible.
Notice that Paul wants them to strengthen their faith by going to the Old
Testament prophecies. This then was considered the best way to see the evidence
not listening to accounts of apparitions of Jesus or looking for miracles he did
or even pondering Jesus’ teaching. This is irreconcilable with the gospel
portrait of a Jesus who wants to be known by himself. It is irreconcilable with
the idea of a Jesus who lived recently and who was known as a man. It also shows
that if it could be proved that the prophecies didn’t say those things then the
apostles thought it right to say they were deluded in their apparitions. It is
important to know as well that it was hard for the people he was writing to, for
them to research the scriptures. Checking out Jesus through investigators would
have been tons easier. When an experienced teacher like Paul still directs them
to do what is so hard when there should be easier ways if Jesus really did what
the gospels said he did it is clear that it was the only way.
Also he speaks of the mystery of redemption as a secret. Something you don’t
tell is not necessarily a secret. A secret is what you work at keeping hidden.
Paul means it was kept hidden. Also Jesus didn’t redeem till he was crucified
and raised. So you may say the redemption wasn’t finished until he rose again.
It’s not much of a redemption from sin and death that just wipes the slate clean
which is why Paul wrote that Jesus rose again for us to make us holy just as he
died for us to make us clean (Romans 6:8;7:4;5:10). God kept the secret until
the redemption for when people were saved and had their sins taken away they had
light from God. Paul speaks of this light in several places. Not only does it
incline believers who are truly converted to do good but to see it and
understand God and God’s scriptures for the Holy Spirit dwells in them. The
secret then was not revealed during the life of Christ but at his resurrection
appearances. Some converted then and got the Holy Spirit and began to see Jesus
in the Old Testament and see what must have happened to him.
Paul said that the mystery of how Christ redeemed us was never known before but
was revealed by divine command through the prophecies of scripture in Paul’s
time. The Christians always claimed that Jesus and how he saved us by his cross
and resurrection were predicted by the Old Testament writings. They say that
Paul doesn’t say that Jesus and the plan were revealed only through the
prophecies. But it is possible he meant that all the same. Paul said that it was
his gospel that was revealed through these writings and predictions ending the
silence and the secrecy of the plan. So the plan was not revealed by apparitions
of Jesus or by Jesus himself for that would mean they showed what the plan was
not the scriptures. Remember the plan was showed by the scriptures. What Jesus
did was prove and reveal what the scriptures meant so that the plan became
plainly seen from the scriptures.
The alleged resurrection apparitions may have helped people see the plan in
scripture but what is important is what scripture says. This seems to be telling
us that the foundation of the religion was what the religion thought it read in
scripture not apparitions or a Jesus. If Jesus was known as a man Paul would not
have written this way. If Jesus was known only as an apparition that needed to
be checked out by scripture that would be different. But the picture we get from
all this is that the existence of Jesus and his death and resurrection were
worked out from scripture FIRST and then the apparitions took place not as
evidence but as confirmation or a complement to scripture.
The purpose of the visions was to draw attention not to themselves but to the
scriptures. They had the same role as private revelations have in Roman
Catholicism. For example, if Jesus appears today he is not giving new revelation
but simply helping the Church focus on revelation already given.
There is no historical evidence for Jesus. There were only attempts to fabricate
such evidence when the Church became established.