4 Gospels of the New Testament from an Atheist (Владислав Пантелеев) / Проза.ру

The Four Canonical Gospels of the New Testament from an Atheist

I dedicate the book to my mother Proskuryakova (Yakovleva) Zinaida Dmitrievna (1938-2009)
;

Introduction
"What is it? Israel did not receive what they sought, but the chosen ones did, and the rest were hardened.
as written: God gave them the spirit of sleep, eyes that they do not see, and earsthat they do not hear, even to this day " (Rom 11:7-8).
Religion is a belief-based belief system. They usually believe in the wise will of some God, various higher powers, life after death, and so on. Often faith is complicated by worship, although it is strange to worship someone you don't know, and therefore mostly make it up. What if, even if God exists, he wants something completely different from us? However, surprisingly, every religion has its own system of ethical norms, rituals, and rituals. Believers for some reason unite in sects, although it is more logical to communicate with God than with each other — about God. At истоки религиозностиthe same time, believers do not draw the sources of religiosity directly, but from each other and from the so-called Holy Books, which, as they sincerely believe, were sent down by God Himself through special, often illiterate people for some reason. And it doesn't matter how much confusion, counter-rhetoric, and calls for genocide there are in each of these books.
The author is not an atheist. Atheism is the denial of belief in the existence of anything supernatural. However,just as an ant cannot prove or disprove the existence of man, so people, if there is a God, do not have the ability and resources to refute or prove His Existence, are not able to describe His Existence, predict His Actions, or imagine His real Image. But then why all this canonized ritual fuss, to which the energy of parishioners is closed by fat people in women's overalls? Why all this prayer book, the cult of the dead, incense burning and religious processions? Don't you think theylook at least very strange?
Intelligence is our main species-specific weapon of survival, and we must actively use it. Therefore, when you encounter phenomena that cannot be explained by the apparatus of modern science, you should first make sure that they are reliable and reproducible. For, for example, hallucinations caused by eating high-calorie food at the end of a multi-day fast (religious fast), encouraged by others, can have nothing to do with either the natural or the supernatural. These are just physiological hallucinations. Further, if we are really faced with the inexplicable, we should try to find a rational explanation for this, add to our knowledge, or attract the help of narrow specialists. If this does not work, it is necessary to adapt the existing conceptual scientific apparatus to the new objective observable data. Actually, scientific thought always develops along this path. Science cannot yet explain everything at all, such as the dualism of light or the nuances of quantum entanglement, but its success over the past 100-200 years gives hope that our descendants will know much more than we do. The difference between science and religion is precisely in the fact that scientists explain and even predict life with their own theories, but the so-called priests adjust life to religious dogmas and-a trend of recent centuries - to scientific discoveries, and even with some inertial delay. In this sense, the title " The Fourth Gospel of an Atheist — is a tribute to the usualп stereotypes, and the book itself is not about religion, but about raising awareness in life. We do not write here on behalf of atheists or Orthodox Christians, we strive to deal sincerely and impartially with the texts of the most popular book on Earth at the moment — the Bible. Our main goal is to understand what is actually written in the four canonical gospels of the New Testament. After carefully reading this analysis to the end, you will learn, in particular, the answers to the following questions:
— What is spirituality?
— Who inthe gospels actually betrayed Christ?
— What happened to all those who were healed by the Savior?
— Are there any Christian believers on Earth?
— What is the meaning of life?
— What did the resurrected Lazarus become famous for?
— What is written in the canonical gospels of the New Testament?
— Are we alone in the universe?
— Is Christianity polytheistic?
— Do the righteous go to Heaven?
— Is there a prophecy in the Bible about the birth of Jesus Christ?
— Why did no one understand Jesus, not even his disciples andeven me?
— Why didn't Joseph and the Savior's sisters come to listen to His sermons?
— What is the nature and level of 37miracles performed by Jesus Christ?
— What научат 32 проиwill the Savior's 32 sermons teach you?
—What is the effectiveness of the mission of Jesus?
— Why, according tothe Gospel of Luke, do you needto see your neighbor nena?
— What exactly is religion?
-How to prove the existence of God?
— What is actually written in the Sermon on the Mount?
— What does the law of preserving devils say?
— Howcan you get rid of your religious addiction?
— What can serve as a substitute for Christian mythology?
— Why don't right-wing people have free will?
— What is the real difference between Hell and Heaven?
— Why does God fight people, but not the Devil?
— Why did somany beliefs arise?
— Where does the Devil live and how often does he communicate with God?
— What didthe apostles do and then where did they go?
— What did Christ not teach and why?
— What is the"love your neighbor" song really about?
— Why did Jesus deceive the disciples?
— What did the Savior cope with in his divinemission?
—What did the apostles most often talk about?
— How does Orthodoxy humiliate God?
— Why do the prophetand perish only in Jerusalem?
— Whatwas Jesus Christ not capable of?
— Why don't Orthodox Christians live according to the commandments?
— Why did Jesus advise you to hate your parents?
— How does the knowledge of the DivineTruth affect fate?
— What divine trap has theLord devised for people?"
- Who welcomed the birth of the Savior?
"Who made Its Paths, and where?"
— Where in the Bible is the third version of the birth of Jesus Christ described?
— Whyis Christianity the religion of the poor?
— How did God mock people?
— What is the Kingdom of Heaven and where is it located?
"Who really crucified Christ?"
— Why did Jesus deceive, hypocritical, betray and swear?
— How to become an Orthodox saint?
— What is the mistake of Godin the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?
— When was Jesus replaced?
— Why does our brain deceive us and what to do about it?
— Why is it really forbidden to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
— Why did God choose an inadequateperformer — Jesus Christ?
— Why does Jesus speak tobirds and the Lord to diseases?
— Why can't Jesusbe called the Son of God?
— How did Christ pay taxes?
— Who wrote all the Gospels?
— Why did Jesus choosepeople who were not up to the scale of the task as His disciples?
— In what verse do the Synodal and Church Slavonic translations of the NewTestament differ in principle?
— Why does the Savior call andskrenne to love the Devil?
— Why is there no Gospel of Jesus Christ?
— What is it about the New Testamentthat shames the entire Bible?
— Is it necessary to give your wealth to beggars?
— Why did God teach bad things?
- What is fig tree syndrome?
— Where in GospelX does the crowd make fun of Jesus?
— Why do the Gospels make upthe image of Jesus the loser?
—Why is paradise life a deception?
— What is the ugliest episode in the Gospels?
— Why did the Holy Trinitynot plan any Salvation in the first place?
— Where did Jesus send the people?"
— What did Satan ask Jesus to do?
— Why is the Devil in the Bible the Prince of peace, and not a fallen angel?
— Why would it be better if Aisus Christos didn't come at all?
Why dopeople hate Jesus Christ?
— Why couldn't God "open our hearts to the knowledge of God"?рыть сердца для познания Бога»?
— Why didn'tyou ask your Father 'not for the whole world'?"
— Why is it useless to argue with a believer?
— In what verse is it written that the apostles are a biomass that needs to be constantly ignored?
— Can we say thatthe apologists despised Jesus Christ?
— What fairy taledoes the story of the savior's adventures remind you of?
— When is a crowd of sinners kinder than God?"
— Why did Jesus call himself a false prophet?
— How to properly talk to Jesus Christ when meeting him?
— In what Ветхийways do the Old and New Testaments of Raconverge diametrically?
— What is the thirty-eighth miracle performed by Jesus Christ?
— To whom were the Savior's speeches addressed?
— Why did some of Jesus ' 70 disciples run away fromHim?
— БралDid Jesus Christ take money for the healing of diseases and the forgiveness of sins?
Just don't try to "swallow" the book. It contains several genres, a lot of information, arguments and conclusions throughout the text. In some places, the narrative may seem unnecessarily corrosive. The reason is that we are not here to preach, we are here to find out the truth. You can skip these passages and come back to them later when you want to double-check the author's reasoning and compare it with your own. In order to get the most out of this work, get ready to give him a few weeks, and he will reciprocate.

Twelve irremediable problems of Orthodoxy
"every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her that dwelleth in her house, things of silver, and things of gold, and raiment, and ye shall clothe with them your sons, and your daughters, and the Egyptians" (Exodus 3: 22).
"And Christ answered them,'The time of Satan's powerhas come, but other iniquities are coming.'"

So, initially, we expect to find some kind of Good News and Divine Guidancefor the life of every believer. Since it is not completely clear in advance what the first and second mean, we will look for at least some special Wisdom (we do not yet know what itis)that would have an independent value and could be successfully embedded in the human mentality with very specific tangible positive consequences. We are not satisfied with the promise of a better life in the indefinite future, and even once in the abstract "after death". If the medicine helps, it helps immediately. If a person gains new skills and knowledge, they will change their life in the foreseeable future. A life of endless waiting is like a squirrel running around on a wheel, or better yet, a donkey circling around with a carrot tied in front of its face.
If there is a God and He gave us intelligence, the ability to think, to create, and often this is due to a positive emotional background, then why should we refuse all these divine gifts? Humanly speaking, this is ugly. From the believer's point of view, this is sinful. No, once we are in the context of life, we need to have time to realize the maximum of our potential, and not live in fantasies about a future life in Paradise. Paradise, if it exists, is still a long way off. We proceed from the fact that idlers, weaklings, and people who have mismanaged God-given talents are not of actual interest anywhere, probably including even in the same Paradise. Indeed, how will such people do the Lord's Will There, if they have squandered the divine gifts here?
As a result, if we find traces of the above-mentioned wisdom, we will not care at all how historical the main character of the gospel narratives is and how real they themselves are. Throughout this study, we are even willing to admit the presence of historical inaccuracies in canonical narratives, just to find in them some deep meaning, even some grains of some special knowledge, as well as some non-trivial behavioral patterns that make it possible to increase the efficiency of human life. Well, anything at all.

1. Papyrus P 52. Fragments of the text of the Gospel of John. Ok. 125 g. (B-ka un-ta in Manchester) / / sedmitza.ru/text/413768.html

In Orthodoxy, the Gospel (Greek. "good news") This is the message proclaimed by Jesus Christ about the coming of the Kingdom of God and the salvation of the human race. In the context of our presentation, the gospels are the narratives that have come down to us on tattered papyri (Figure 1) about the earthly journey, miracles, death on the cross, resurrection and ascension of the main character of Jesus Christ, which sinful people, based on dubious subjective criteria, have formed into 4 canonical books: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which we are considering it here. For more information, see the chapter "Appendix 2: A Summary of the Gospels" in this book. For comparison, a myriad of myths have been preserved on much more stable media, some Sumerian clay tablets are worth a lot.
The reason why we should undertake this research is because of the criticalnumber of unavoidable and disturbing absurdities that are evident in any careful reading of the Bible. К Religious postulates assuchhave logical and ethical claims of both a local and global nature. For example, in the gospels, and the Bible in general, the two divine Сaffinities-the Son and the Father – demonstrate the usual human weaknesses and shortcomings: they are angry, swear, curse, kill, commit crimes that are condemned by simple human morality and even criminal legislation. Who can say why God, as the Bible says, "hardened Pharaoh's heart" (Exodus 4: 21, Exodus 7:3) before the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, what led to the most diverse mass total catastrophes and the death of a huge number of completely innocent Egyptians and all living things in the land of Egypt? Check for yourself, read first Exodus 4: 21 and Exodus 7: 3, and then Exodus 7: 13. The situation is saved only by the fact that this episode could not have taken place in principle, because it fell at the time of the highest flourishing of the Egyptian kingdom, and not about any extermination, famine, or total defeat the army elite under the closing waves or the mass exodus of the slave army at this historical moment can not be discussed in principle. Why does the Bible contain aggressive mythology and nobody cares? By the way, in the New Testament we constantly see the same divine handwriting. JESUS:
1. he speaks deliberately incomprehensibly to others (Mt 12: 10-15) and then accuses the human race of unbelief,
2. knowing that they do not understand Him, He continues in the same spirit (John 3: 12), and then swears,
3. chooses students not from famous philosophers, travelers, historians of that time, but from random illiterate people, whose consent does not ask and does not even examine, but then accuses them of treason,
4. He sends the apostles for some reason "like sheep in the midst of wolves "(Matthew 10: 16).
5. blasphemes (Mt 12: 9-14, Mk 3: 1-6, Lk 6: 6-11, etc.) and then runs away,
6. does not prevent the demon from entering Judas, who is then appointed a traitor,
7. ignores attempts to save Him from reprisals (Mt. 27; Mk. 15; Lk.23; Jn.18).
And why did Jesus swear while earning his living for Gehenna of fire and the Sanhedrin? And why does the Heavenly Father in the Old Testament, to which the New Testament constantly refers, teach the so-called God-chosen nation to kill, steal, and take away land? What Truth can such a nation convey to other nations? And why does He send punishments, set animals on people over whom they should "have dominion" (Gen 1:26), from the Serpent to the lions, and prophesy cannibalism? By the way, it's time to take a dip in the Holy Bible:
; "So you shall kill all the male children, and all the women who have known a man on a man's bed, you shall kill; but all the female children who have not known a man's bed, you shall keep alive for yourself" (Numbers 31:17-18).
; "And in the cities of these nations, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for a possession, thou shalt not leave alive a soul, but shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee."16-17).
; "19 ... and the LORD said to David, Go, for I will deliver the Philistinesinto your hand" (2 Samuel 5:19).
; 17 And he said: I will bring you out of the oppression of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.
...
20 And I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders that I will do in the midst of it; and after that it will let you go.
…
22 And every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her that dwelleth in her house, things of silver, and things of gold, and raiment; and ye shall clothewith them your sons, and your daughters, and the children of Egypt" (Exodus 3: 21-22).
; "3 Oh, my God! Are not your eyes turned to the truth? You smite them, but they do not feel pain; You destroy them, but they will not receive admonition; they have made their faces stronger than stone, they will not turn.
…
6 Therefore the lion of the forest will strike them down, the wolf of the wilderness will make them desolate, the leopard will lie in wait by their cities; whoever comes out of them will be torn to pieces; for their transgressions have multiplied, their apostasy has increased.
7 How can I forgive you for this? Your sons have forsaken Me and swear by those who are not gods. I fed them, but they committed adultery and went in droves to the homes of harlots.
8 These are well-fed horses, each of them neighing at the other's wife.
9 Will I not punish you for this? saith the LORD: and will not my soul take vengeance on such a people as this?
10 Go up to its walls and destroy them, but not to the end; destroy their battlements, for they are not the LORD's.
…
14 Therefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts: Because ye have spoken these words, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and this fire shall devour them.
15 Behold, I will bring upon you, O house of Israel, a people from afar, says the LORD, a mighty people, an ancient people, a people whose language you do not know, and you will not understand what they say.
16 His quiver is like an open tomb; they are all valiant men.
17 And they will eat up your harvest and your bread; they will eat up your sons and your daughters; they will eat up your sheep and your oxen; they will eat up your grapes and your figs; they will destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
18 But even in those days, says the LORD, I will not completely destroy you.
19 And if you say, "Why does the LORD our God do all these things to us?" Then answer me.: because you have forsaken Me and served strange gods in your own land, you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
…
29 Will I not punish you for this? saith the Lord; and will notmy soul take vengeance on such a people as this?" (Jer.5)?
Well, how do you like Holy Bible Reading? We reduce it a lot without harming the generality. Well, reader, can you take a break and let the Holy Scripture you read be absorbed? No? Well, then, let's move on.
The cognitive dissonance between what is expected and what is read raises many questions about the adequacy of the Gospel texts and serious doubts about the need to continue this work. After all, there are no reasonable, kind, or otherwise noteworthy answers to all these and similar questions and doubts. There are strange fantasies that God could not have done otherwise, that people by their actions did not actually give God freedom of choice, or even quite simple ones – that people do not have the right to judge God. But such" answers " can only suit religious fanatics, because the idea that God created people perfect, and people were able to impose their will on God, change His Divine Plan, "outwit" Him, and simply changed according to their human understanding, acquired qualities and patterns of behavior that God did not plan for, is simply inadequate even for the most religious the Christian paradigm.
The next problem is a contradiction: the church offers us a religious dogma about its God as a Perfect Absolute and at the same time positions Him as the Creator of the Universe. However, we see that the created world is far from perfect and is constantly changing. In this world, new species of animals and plants appear and old ones disappear, and the existence of one species is due to the killing of another. For example, if a polar bear does not kill and eat enough seals in a month, which also have cubs, it will have to bite its own bear cub and, perhaps, still die of hunger. So there can be no question of any Perfection of the world as a result of Creation. Then who really created the world?
And sothe creature's problem is that the biblical God does extremely badly, sometimes even repents of what he has done and changes something:
1. "and he called his name Noah, saying, He will comfort us in our work and in the labor of our hands in the land which the Lord has cursed" (Gen 5: 29).
2. "And the Lord repented of what he had done to man on the earth, and was grieved in his heart" (Gen.6:6).
3. "...because the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel " (Samuel15:35).
4. "Proclaim again, and say, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: My cities shall overflow again with good things, and the Lord shall comfort Zion, and choose Jerusalem again" (Zechariah 1: 17).
5. "And the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and they abhorred their inheritance" (Psalm 105:40).
6. "and he remembered his covenant with them, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies" (Psalm 105:45).
And this createsa fourth problem, because the Bible contains such verses that have irremediable contradictions with the ones just quoted:
1. "...for he is not a man to be repented of" (1 Samuel 15: 29),
2. "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and his works are weighed" (1 Samuel 2: 3).
3. "God knows all his works..."15:18).
The fifth problem arises at the junction of the third and fourth verses: "31 And God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day" (Gen 1: 31). It turns out that the Absolute God is not able to adequately assess the qualityof his creations, because later He will become disillusioned with them and destroy themindiscriminately in the Flood.
The sixth problem directly follows from the fifth:
1. Either God is not able to predict the behavior of his creatures (which means that he is not a God), or
2. or hypocritical.
But hypocrisy is directly condemned by the Son of God, which means that the first option remains: the biblical God is not God. Here it is high time to send the reader to study another work of the author "Analysis of Our Father" [12].
The seventh problem is asfollows. A persongoes through life through trial and error. The development of a person, the formation of personal experience involves the following constantly repeating stages: analysis of the context and task, forecasting the result of an action, trial action, action, analysis of the result, correction of mistakes and consolidation of achievements, trial action in the corrected context. Thus, personal development involves constant analytical and strong-willed work, often with full dedication. Such work eventually becomes a habit and forms what can be called the internal culture of a person. Some call it the inner core. We can't say for all other religions now, but instead of such strenuous work, Christianity offers "prayer sobriety" (in fact, permanent anxiety) and forms the habit of begging in front of an unknown imaginary Being. This happens against the backgroundof fear Егоof angering Him, because this absolute loving Being can, on the basis of unclear divine criteria, send anyone who stumbles to eternal torment to some mysterious, but most likely, terrible A.D. Just like in the famous meme:
"Who's there?"
"It's me, Jesus! Let me in."
"Why?"
- I must save you from the sins that I and the Father have given you.
These divine standards are not only vague, they are postulated ambiguously and inconsistently. Therefore, believers have to actually invent their own version of these norms of selection to Paradise in accordance with their subjective experience. And this is the eighth problem: at библейских текстахleast several hundred, mostly warring Christian sects are based on the Biblical texts. This circumstance makes us sad and yet unambiguous conclusion that the so-called Holy Scripture is far не from unambiguous. This meansthat none of the sects, including the most popular Orthodox one in Russia, can declare the truth of their version of the Bible until they prove it to be true.
And this is not surprising, since themain problem seems to be, that the entireё wealth of perception of reality in the Orthodox faith is based on several противоcontradictory and non-vital postulates that have come down to us on scraps of parchments rewritten several times. Please note that we are not talking about a coherent and tested by evolutionary selection system of moral values suffered by human experience, and, even more so, not about a real Divine Revelation, we sendоit down on Sundays, but about unusual texts written on scraps of unknown origin, which are not repeated anywhere else. It's like trying to base a system of moral norms of society on decayed fragments found in the attic of the newspaper Pravda, which was well-known during the Soviet era.
It is very likely that the gospels were written in such a way as to legitimize the prophecies from the Old Testament (in other words, they were simply adapted to it) and therefore look so ridiculous, implausible and historically contradictory. As a result, they are understood so ambiguously by different people. In this context, we can recall, for example,thecompletely stupid stories of the adoration of the Magi, the flight of an old man and a woman with a divine baby many hundreds of kilometers across the Arabian desert, or the betrayal of the bearer of the general treasury of Judas for a ridiculous amount, which he then returned.
The eleventh problem is seen in the fact that according to the paradigm of faith, divine truths were sent down to people not personally by God, but in large part throughthe so-called prophets, who at the time of the Gospel narratives were numerous beggars without a specific place of residence. These people, in exchange for alms, told impressionable people whatёthe future held for them and how they should behave. This circumstance would be hard to believe if we were not living witnesses of the collective psychoses that во времена СССР Alan Chumak and Anatoly Kashpirovsky staged during the Sovietera, but there are even moreё large-scale and sad examples.
Problem number twelve is formed around the cult of dead meat, which exists in the Orthodox tradition. Orthodox Christians give pieces of half-decomposed corpses special opportunities and beg for them, inventing various kinds of help that necrotic tissue supposedly provides to the beggar.
The thirteenth problem lies in the primitive Christian doctrine, according to which the perfect (at the same time, disembodied, sexless and, obviously, not very intelligent) аarachne rebelled against his Creator: he became proud and decided to become "like God". It's one thing to go to another parallel world, make it your base, and compete with the Lord. But the former аangel of the Devil had nowhere to go, he lived in a world that создал и is controlledолностью bythe Omnipresent Lord God (there is no other world). How is it possible that God, having complete control over the entire world, first created an angel capable of treachery, and then не сcould not cope with it? It turns out that either the biblical Lord does not control the whole world, which means that He is not Absolute, which means – нthat He is not God. Or all these stories about the temptations of the Devil are fictions for the purpose of manipulation on the part of unusually dressed people with costume jewelry around their necks, who call themselves priests.
The fourteenth problem follows from the previous one. If the Devil rebelled against the Creator, it means that he is either mad, or, on the contrary, knew in advance that he would not get anything for it. Indeed, God in the Bible constantly punishes and kills people, but never the Devil. Both Father and Son constantly see Satan, communicate with him, listen to his Satanic requests, plan and implement joint projects (Job 1:6-12, etc.). Do not be lazy, reread the previous sentence. Think about it. Even if we assume that God will eventually punish the Devil, what difference does that make? God can't make causal connections, can't kill the Devil, or is this some extraordinarily clever divine multi-step scheme? Whatever it is, it turns out that even if there is a God, He is definitely not the one that the Orthodox are pushing. By the way, let's pay attention to a very interesting passage about the relationship between God and Satan, which can be read in the book of Job. It is clear from these verses that Satan reports to the Lord, who appears to report toHimon a regular basis:
6 And there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, I have walked in the earth, and have gone about it " (Job 1: 6-7).
Prich, then They mock the emphatically righteous and at the same time very rich Job for a couple. By the way, it is not clear how an absolute righteous person can be rich. Now let us connect this passage with the passages about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Mt 4: 1-11; Mk 1: 12-13; Lk 4: 1-13 )and with this: "31 And the Lord said, Simon! Simon! Behold, Satan has asked to sow you as wheat" (Luke 22: 31).And also remember that Satan is in the eyes of Jesus and (who already knew how to "control demons" at that time) The apostles entered Judas without hindrance, butalso dwells in heaven, riding in full view of the Son of God, just like Jesus Christ Himself: "18 And he said to them, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18). And now it remains to conclude that, according to the Bible, the Lord God, the Son, the Holy Spirit and Satan are all in one. At least Satan is doing God's bidding, just like the rest of thearchangels, and in return he can о чем-то ask God for something, and God will do it!! It turns out that the Devil and God at least communicate on equal terms, as colleagues, partners or even friends, and this happens regularly! For us, the church fools our heads by denigrating one of God's most sought-after and useful Angelsих Ангелов, and this is another problem with the beautiful number fifteen. Don't forget to take breaks from reading! We are not a detective story, and what we read should give food for thought.
The sixteenth problem is that Christians claim some kind of free will to do right or wrong, which God gives us all. However, Jesus sees and tells the apostles the future ahead of time, which means that there is no real Free Will. Just imagine if Judas chose not to betray the Savior – in this case, it would turn out that at the Last Supper, Jesus led the apostles astray, and the Devil entered through the wrong door. It turns out that the fall, the destruction of all life on Earth in the Flood, the death of people in natural disasters, the crucifixion of Christ and religious wars – all this is pre-arranged by God. Well, what else?
And yet, Jesus was wrong or deceived, and this, you will agree, is still a very annoying and unavoidable problem: "31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out intoit" (John 12: 31).25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, the time cometh, and is now, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and when they have heard it, they shall live" (John 5:25). It's been 2,000 years, in theory, but the Devil has not been exorcised, and the dead have not come to life. Or maybe Orthodox people misunderstand their Bible? At the same time, let us recall that Jesus was also wrong in his expectations regarding his own disciples, the time of the fig tree's flowering, the strategy of behavior in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in other episodes. Can the gods be wrong? – no:
; "It is impossible for God to lie" (Hebrews 6: 18),
; "The foundationof your word is true" (Psalm118: 160).
; "God unchangeable in the word" (Titus1: 2),
; "he abides faithfully, for he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13).
; "AndJesus said to him,: I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6).
; "Your word is truth" (James 17: 17).
So Jesus is not God. If you don't agree, please tell us your version.
A person's behavior, his attitude to life is completely determined by the brain. With the death of the brain, therefore, the personality is destroyed, no matter what Orthodox adherents fantasize about it. And so the eighteenth problem is to understand why all these contradictory fictions about Hell and a certain Kingdom of heaven are used in the Bible, as we will find out in the course of our presentation. And what, then, is the New Testament?
The nineteenth problem of Christianity, like any other religion, is that it does not insure society against antisocial emotions, knowledge and actions. Christian priests claim that with the advent of Christianity, cannibalism disappeared and humanity grew. In fact, cannibalism always occurs against the background of a lack of resources, for example, it was repeatedly observed in the same crusades, in which, apparently, it is necessary to draw samples of Christian humanity. Episodes of cannibalism are observed during military operations and cataclysms, we will not bore the reader with examples, they are well-known. Moreover, the entire Orthodox religion is one continuous mental cannibalism. And what is the value of the mere habit of Christians to dig up graves, dismember corpses, call this criminal act "finding relics" and then sell access to these corpses to other Christians so that they beg for various benefits before this dismemberment? We'll get back to that later.
It should be noted that the twentieth problem is that illiteracy, encouraged by all Christian churches, until recently made the Bible an inaccessible fetish, and the so – calledchurch clergy a chosen (apostolically ordained) source of knowledge about Divine Truth. This circumstance significantly restrained the mass interest in studying the Bible. The rare overly curious were artificially selected by the Holy Inquisition, criminal legislation, and variousmechanisms such as" anathema "or"excommunication". Scientists преследоваwere persecuted, their works were burned, scientificlaboratories were destroyed, and they were forced to recant their discoveries. The Christian Church, of course, was a brake force that delayed the intellectual development of Russia by at least 700 years, according to the author's estimates. In this context, individual local "achievements" in the form of "educational" schools attached to monasteries look simply ridiculous, especially since in such parochial institutions, in parallel with teaching elementary literacy, children formed a wellые-defined social intelligence and worldview.
Probably, the church understood that in the so-called Holy Scripture, which it itself came upwith, there is nothing intelligent, sound, kind, moralizing, and even more so – Divine. Pope Leo X said in the sixteenth century:"He has served us well, this myth of Christ." And so, at various times , official prohibitions were imposed on reading and owning the Bible. Innocent III (1198-1216) was the first Pope to prohibit the reading of the Bible to lay people. Later, the Council of Tarragona (1234) declared anyone who did not hand over the holy Book to the bishop within eight days a heretic. The Council of Trent in 1546 adopted a decree "on canonical writings", in which it warned against independent study of the Holy Scriptures. However, progress has not been completely slowed down, and with the growth of general literacy, the masses of people have gained access and interest in these so-called сslack пknowledge, on which, in fact, most of the faith is based. Orthodox Christians believe in the Holy Trinity, while other sectarians – believe in variouscombinations of Jesus Christ, the Virgin, the Lord God, the Holy Spirit, angels, demons, the Devil, and various saints. In totalих вариациях, many hundreds of Christian sects are based on these variations (according to some sources, more than three thousand). This genuine interest of the common people in the essence of what they are called to believe has given rise to an ever-growing appetitefor analysis of biblical texts and Christianreligious concepts, and from a certain time the church could no longer ignore them. In the encyclical Providentissimus Deus, published by Pope Leo XIII on November 18, 1893, we observe "a plan of work at a time when Catholic exegesis seems to have been caught off guard by the massive advance of rationalism, which has used the vast resources contained in the latest achievements of literary and historical criticism to decisively put an end to the belief in God." infallibility and, consequently, the divine origin of the Bible "[79, Page 2/279]. That is, the flock of the 19th century (!) believed "just like that", and then thought about what exactly? By the way, among other things, the Pope says: "... about the need to restore the original text of the holy books with the help of textual analysis, about the primacy of literal meaning "[79, Page 3/279]. And he is right, because the text of the gospels lacks logic, they are aggressive, they seem stupidми. In some places, the evangelical Jesus Christ and othercharacters commit strange, incomprehensible, emotionally colored, inadequate and criminal offenses from the point of view of human morality and criminal law norms. Jesus declaresthat he "did not come to break the Law, but to fulfill it" (Matthew 5:17-18), and immediately gives a new set of laws and repeals some provisions of the Law of Moses. Further, He warns against swearing, lying and anger, but immediately he swears, deceives, gets angry, blasphemes. Analysis of the texts of Holy Scripture does not allow us to accurately determine the date and sometimes the place описываемыхof the events described, to correlate them with the available historical and scientific data. All four books have irrecoverable contradictions with each other, and sometimes even with themselves. Reread the previous sentence and if your mind is not brainwashed, you will understand, what we have saidhere. Don't be like St. John the Baptist. Philaret, who once gave birth to such a pearl: "If the Bible said that it was Jonah who swallowed the whale, I would believe it." If God exists and created you and gave you intelligence, why would you refuse this divine gift?
The twenty-first problem is that the so-called "miracles of the Gospel" can only be relevant to those who have seen them, but no more. People have always shown each other focuss and will continue to do so in the future. On these tricks, some (magicians) earn money and fame, others (viewers) solve the problems of their leisure activities. Let us recall the tricks of David Copperfield, who "hid" the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster in London, or Oleg Popov, who "poured" liquids between bottles at a distance (I saw it myself!), or Harry Houdini, or Pencil, or the magicians of the circus du Soleil, who "saw" people into halves, and then "glued together "(resurrected). If God (the Son of God) had the ability and desire to perform miracles, they would not be tricks of the provincial circus level that no one remembers, but they would be such Miracles that all Mankind would see. By the way, isn't it better to create a world and make it just wonderful initially?
The Bible in any, for example, Synodaltranslation can be interpreted in such a variety of ways that it makes these Books completely stupid. And that's problem number twenty-two. In different sects, God is an original combination of divine biblical characters. Some sects additionally deifyеordinary people, formalizing this assumption of divinity through so-called canonization. Someone lives only with the "Our Father" [12], othershave come up with a whole prayer book, and not just one. Many people believe that, say, cutting the corpse of a Matron into pieces will help in personal difficulties, and for this it is enough just to kiss the glass over a piece of her corpse and with sincere faith read atext containing a list of instructions to the Lord. Vidimo, it is assumed that the Matron will give it to the Lord forits fulfillment. Or maybe she'll make a fussherself, because every sectarian already thinks out in his own way. A friend went 2 times with his wife "to Matronushka" – the pregnancy never came.
The business of digging up and dismembering corpses is very lucrative, you only need to dig up a corpse once, and any first one that comes along, dismember it into pieces, compose a legend, decorate it artistically, and then you can endlessly enrich yourself on it. For example, access to the headof St. John the Baptist is simultaneously available at various points of sale for religious services around the world. If you come to Munich, Rome, Ankara, Damascus, Prodromos on Mount Athos, Istanbul, Antioch, Egypt, Bulgaria, везде вам покажуI will show you "my" head (or a fragmentof it)everywhere St. John's. And the blue eye will be assured that it is genuine. The number of hands and fingers of the Savior's cousin, by the way, is even greater. And try to come to Amiens, for example, where something is stored in Figure 2, and say that this is not a piece of the corpse of John, you, figuratively speaking, will have your head bitten off.
Let's try to identify another extremely important problem of the discrepancy between the potential of our perception of the world and the amount of knowledge about it. The problem is fundamental and probably unavoidable, it is also called the unknowability of the world. On the one hand, there is a limit beyond which events in the universe, in principle, can not affect the observer. This boundary is called the event horizon. Greatly simplifying, let's say that humanity for 4 billion years of existence on Earth will not see most of our universe. On the other hand, we are not yet able to look inside dimensions of the order of Planck length. As we approach them, we need ever-increasing energy. In the limit, to understand it, you need to build a hadron collider with a diameter of about a billion light-years, but this is 10,000 times the diameter of our galaxy. And, for example, time intervals less than Planck time for us actually do not make sense, meanwhile, they are important for us to understand the fundamental aspects of the structure of the Universe.

2. The front part of the head of St. John the Baptist in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens. Photo: "Orthodox France"./ http://la-france-orthodoxe.net/ru/galer/jean

We do not know how many dimensions there are in the universe, we are only getting closer to understanding the structure of fundamental interactions and are forced to pollute the Earth with nuclear waste, exhaust gases, toxic effluents, fight with each other for resources because we do not have efficient and safe sources of renewable energy and the habit of living intelligently. At the same time, even the progress achieved so far in evolution is not due to Orthodox scientists. The share of self-described Orthodox inventors, designers, and scientists in the world's scientific and technological progress is extremely small, if only because Orthodox people, as we will soon show, are a religious and sectarian minority. But according to the Orthodox paradigm, everything that is "not of God" cannot be true, decent and virtuous. On the contrary, while scientific thought was actively developing in Europe, churches were built in Russia, which served as good lightning rods, instead of those burned down from fires. So it turns out that the church brought light to people only when it was burning, so over time the priests thought of building churches out of stone. As a result, rather, on the contrary, Orthodoxy has played a sharply negative, inhibiting role in the scientific and technical development of mankind.
Here's another problem, did God not know that the people He created differ in brain design by dozens of times? But as a result, it comes to the point that even the same words, terms, definitions, explanations we understand each in its own way! The situation is much more complicated if we recall that the original texts of the gospels were written in Greek, and, after all, "certain features of the Greek syntax and vocabulary are almost impossible to convey in translation" [124, part 2, ch. II]. For educational purposes, those who know English, try to read the New Testament at least in it for a better understanding, and it will immediately become clear what is being said.
And now there is a discrepancy, God made a person with a mind that is not adequate to the surrounding context, at first did not give him the necessary knowledge and skills about the world, did not even give him an understanding of good and evil. And so, the serpent, like the one who brought the fire Sosryk'e from the Nart epic to people, had to correct this annoying divine omission. The serpent is a positive character who disobeyed God and helped man. But when man, as a result of the so-called "fall from grace," predictably began to live a meaningful human life at last, God, instead of rehabilitating himself in the eyes of man, threw him away from Himself to the Earth, which He had previously cursed, probably for loyalty. But we also remember the dangers of the divine curse – for example, after Elisha cursed the little children, 42 of them were torn to pieces by the divine bears (4 Samuel2: 24). In general, the role of the serpent that" tempted " Eve in the Bible should also be rethought.
Problem number twenty-four lies in the choice of only four gospels as canonical out of many dozens of others [102]. It is easy to assume that if IVother hierarchs had ruled the official Christian church in the fourth century, Orthodox Christians might now be able to tell stories about the marriage of Jesus, the murder of His children, correspondence with the Syrian king Abgar, etc. think about it. Once again, it turns out that there were hundreds of mythological texts, dozens of which were constantly heard, some of them were very popular, and for a long time, but in the IV century, people in robes chose four of them at their discretion, and now the whole world lives in accordance with them.
Problem number twenty-five is revealed when we remember that there has never been a single Christian religion in history. From the very beginning, a fierce war was waged between Christian sects, with fierce theological disputes over which texts were considered canonical and which were considered heretical, with the burning of books of another sect, and the persecution and murder of some sectarians by others. It is quite obvious that even if any of the gods exist, Christianity in its sectarian diversity was created by specific people. Consequently, there is no God behind Orthodoxy and other sects.
Now let's estimate the number of Orthodox Christians in the world. We will take the data from openыsources:
1. According to the latest census, the population ofRussia is 145 million people.
2. Процент людей, позиционирующихAccording to various sources, the percentage of people who position themselves as Orthodox Christians ranges from 60 to 86 % of the country's population.
3. According to VTsIOM, only about 3 % of the population plan to observe Great Lent [89], which, in fact, is the upper limit that limits the real number of those who could be called Orthodox believers.
4. Some church hierarchs are skeptical about the number of people who can claim to be Orthodox Christians. Forапример, оценка example, the head of the Department of Church History at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy,Archpriest Georgi Mitrofanov, estimated Георгия Митрофанова не превышаетthat 3% of the total population of the country does not exceed [90].
5. Surprisingly, the same 3% figure in the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs according to data on attendance at the main Orthodox holiday – Easter [91]. However, on Christmas holidays, the number of those who attend church services is no more than 2% of Russians.
6. The world's population in 2018 was 7.6 billion. human.
7. The overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians live in Russia.
Now we make simple and understandable calculations, take the maximum figures and get the maximum percentage of people on Earth who at least go to the main church services, and therefore, at least theoretically, can be recognized as Orthodox: 145 million / 7.6billion. * 3 % / 100 % = 0. 00057, which is 0.057 % of the world's population. As you can see, we have taken the most maximal assumptions. So, on Earth, there are no more than 0.057 % of people who, with a very large stretch, could theoretically be considered Orthodox, which это means that Orthodox sectarians make up a tiny religious minority. At the same time, they manage to seriously consider their religion to be the only true one, and their priests to be the only ones ordained by certain disciples of the mythological Jesus Christ who have no historical confirmation.
Now, if you believe St. John the Baptist. To Versonofy of Optina, "A sure sign of the deadness of the soul is evasion from church services. A person who grows cold to God, first of all begins to avoid going to church. At first, he tries to come to the service later, and then completely stops visiting the temple of God" [93]. And so it turns out that 99.943 % of the world's population cannot even be greeted (2 John 1: 10-11). This is what Orthodox sectarians believe. In fact, if we recall the gospel criteria of faith established by Jesus in the parable of the mustard seed, it turns out that in principle there is not a single believer on Earth. Let us repeat for those who do not understand the first time: according to the criterion of Faith established by Jesus Christ, there is not a single believer on Earth.
At the same time, the Bible says about the church that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). Question: if the theoretical number of Orthodox Christians is about half a tenth of a percent of the world's population, and the practical number is absolute zero, then what is the criterion for overcoming the church through the gates of hell? And yet, what is the Russian Orthodox Church in this case and why does it arrange costumed masquerades with incense fumigation, make people burn candles, buy religious waste paper and costume jewelry, and lead counterclockwise dances at Easter nights?
If you destroy and burn all the churches in the city, life will not stop, and we saw all this during the coronaisteria 2020-2021. If all theaters are closed for major repairs, the world will not collapse. But if you fire all the scientists and engineers, then everyone will feel what is really the basis of life. Suddenly, for some, it turns out that it is not religion or art that determines a person's life, but scientific and technological progress. And this is also a big problem from the point of view of the legitimacy of the institution of the Church with its claim to the primacy of a certain "spiritual" world over the material, rational world.
The following is an equally important consideration. The Holy Scripture says:
; "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10: 35),
; "Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the law will pass away, until all things are fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18).
; "All Scripture is inspired by God" (2 Timothy 3: 16),
; "For the prophecy was never uttered according to the will of man, but the holy men of God spoke it, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21).
But try to change these holy texts and publish them in large numbers. Even if we change them radically, we can confidently say that this circumstance will not affect the life of the Orthodox flock in any way. Unless, perhaps, several new sects will appear on this basis, but that's all. Such conclusions are suggested by the author's monstrous contradiction between the Old Slavonic and Synodal translations, which does not bother anyone, as well as the conclusions of this analysis. The majority of the congregation does not study the Bible. For the sake of interest, try to ask the Orthodox, once what is written there. In response, you will hear many different versions, contradictory, subjective and uncertain.
Now let's reflect. Basically, humans are animals with the main species-specific survival weapon of the neocortex, which has grown out of the fields that serve the sexual sense of smell. This is due to the fact that most of us see the world through the prism of sexuality. Moreover, it lasts most of life, occurs with the onset of puberty and ends only in old age with a drop in hormonal status. For the most part, we cannot live only with the mind, purely physically, just according to our evolutionarily developed structure. However, all of this does not mean that a person should build his life on the basis of mythology, and even the first one that comes to hand. Moreover, it does not legitimize this mythology in any way. Even if we don't know something, don't understand it, don't see it, why complicate our lives by believing in the myths of the peoples of Palestine two thousand years ago? After all, if you are too lazy to live in accordance with the revelations of the so-called holy Fathers, you have a rich choice among both older and younger mythologies. Each of you has your own national tales and legends, created and recorded in history by your direct ancestors. Why not believe in them for a change? Why do you have to kill for the right to invent your own sectarian version of a Palestinian deity and perform magical rites and rituals in a certain way? Yes, maybe the Palestinian God doesn't need it, if He even exists, your canonical religious fuss. Maybe He laughs out loud in response to your attempts to imagine communicating with him! Or crying.
ЛIndividuals tend to fill in knowledge gaps with stable subjective beliefs, which are a mechanism for simplifying the perception of reality. Sometimes this mechanism is useful, for example, as a first approximation, or when surrounded by experienced loyal and competent people. For example, if the pope advises not to put your fingers in the socket, then it is really better for the child to take this pope's advice for the holy faith. And then purely evolutionary selection: those children who do not listen to their parents, get into trouble or even die in the claws of a predator, drown in water bodies, break when falling from a height or motorcycle, for example, are poisoned with pills or catch a cold. Similarly, all these signs work: "Do not get in – it will kill!", " Caution, current!", " Do not go near the cage with predators!", " Candles bought outside the temple are not considered godly!". You correctly understood that, unlike the popular "the strongest survives", in fact, evolution works on the principle of negative selection: individuals with negative evolutionary traits are less likely to leave offspring. And these signs may change depending on the surrounding context.
When a student learns science, it is often necessary to introduce some assumptions, trust the teacher's opinion, and take on faith the results of scientific publications that are not performed personally by him, but often by completely unknown people. The patient must entrust their health to a doctor, nurses, a manufacturer of medical equipment, a technician responsible for supplying oxygen, or a supplier of, for example, sterile instruments. The driver has to believe in the reliability of components and assemblies of a car manufactured by unknown persons. Spouses, entering into marriage, believe that this is love to the grave. The list goes on for a long time, and we all inevitably use the tool of faith, because it saves us precious brain resources. Just imagine, we would have to constantly (!) check the alignment of the telescope before observation, the sterility of the bandage before use, conduct comprehensive testing of the car before each trip, and spy on the spouse. In general, I think it is clear that the knowledge of reality through the instrument of faith in some cases is simply necessary and is an integral part of our life.
Problems arise when these tools are misused, making them the only channel of perception of the world, and thus leading themselves into accidental or intentional confusion. As a result, faith is a necessary, but very specific and limited tool for learning and managing life.
Problems arise when these tools are misused, making them the only channel of perception of the world, and thus leading themselves into accidental or intentional confusion. Theepa is a necessary, but very specific and limited toolfor learning and managing life.
In general, the gospels are absolutely unsuitable as a Source of Divine Knowledge. And therefore, the urgency of the task of rethinking them is not in doubt. Our goal is to try to analyze their texts and try to rewrite them in a waythat the average person can understand. PopeLeo XIII said: "Our era, if it heaps up new difficulties, then, by the grace of God, it also provides new tools and means for exegesis "[79, Page 3/279]. So let's try to carefully delve into the existing text and find there traces of mentioning the Lord God and His Son, or at least traces of Divine Truth (extraordinary wisdom), which gives hope, if not for some Salvation, then at least for an illiterate way oflife in the current reality. And we'll see what happens. НOur starting point coincides with the official point of view of the Russian Orthodox Church. We follow the Synodal translation of the Orthodox Synopsis taken from an open source [76].
The road ahead is not easy, but it is fascinating and useful for improving the quality and efficiency of our lives. You will have to carefully follow the gospel canvas. Not everyone will master it, but those who succeed will gain an advantage over others. Let's go!

===End of the introductory fragment===