User talk:The Keeper of the Garden

Dan Brown vs. the New Testament
Some of you might like to consider the possibility that the core of Dan Brown novels is actually far closer to historical facts and reality than anything ever written in a New Testament where someone was born out of the womb of a virgin, walked on water, made blind people see again by putting mud and spit on their eyes, raised a dead person from his tomb, transformed water into wine, was able to almost endlessly clone loaves of bread and fishes, re-attached a freshly hacked-off ear to someone's head, and performed the magical trick of the millennium by disappearing from his own tomb. I'm sure I missed a few miracles but you got the idea nonetheless, I hope. Ah yes, did I mention Appolonios of Tyana? An interesting figure, as he has lots in common with a Jewish carpenter who was once crucified by the bad, bad Romans. That poor man might well have existed, and he must have had the best of intentions (although there are some documents that would make us believe he was just another rebel fighting the Roman occupation in his own way with a gang of followers), but his message was lost in time and his story made into fiction.

But then of course, to be able to understand how such wondrous stories were used by others as religious and political propaganda in an attempt to overthrow a dictatorial regime (the Roman Empire) and free the "just and righteous" using the methodology of a "miraculous saviour" who showed compassion with the fate of the masses of slaves, of poor citizens, of conquered tribes and nations, you do have to make some efforts and study philology, history, and archaeology for some 10 years at university, do research for over 35 years on the subject matter, give several lectures in Oxford, Cambridge, Geneva, Rome, and Lausanne on the same subject matter, instead of just sitting at a computer pushing buttons and coding templates so the dumb flock of users obey the (overly complicated) rules. "Divide et Impera!" :-)

Religion and politics have lots in common, not at least their incredible hunger for power and money.

Never ever stop asking questions, never ever stop doubting what is told to you, what is presented to you as the truth.

"I cannot teach you anything - I can only make you think." - Sokrates (5th century BCE)

PS: The more someone tries to convince me of how neutral and unbiased he is, the more I believe in the opposite. It is impossible for a person to be neutral and unbiased in subjects that deal with a particular religion when that person himself is a member of that religious group. There are no saints, as there are no devils either. It's all meant to make you feel afraid, to make you stop thinking and reasoning, to make you dependent on those who claim to be better, holier, and more special than all the other human beings around them.