So, next part then, I am going to introduce you to the work of Aaron Abke. Before I do though, I will just state that Aaron believes in forgiveness without contrition. Which is a morally abhorrent world view in my view, that I will be talking about. But, according to parts of the bible, and parts that are not specifically obviously 'wrong/ false/ mistranslated/ missing context' in some way. Forgiveness without contrition does seem to be what is preached.
Matthew 11:25: "If you have anything against anyone, forgive him", as quoted at 10 minutes 19 seconds:
Youtube, Aaron Abke: Why pain brings us closer to God, the secret of spiritual awakening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHvUW21SnVs
I asked Aaron on this video whether Austin Metcalfes father did the right thing in relation to the Jesus message and positive polarity. I suspect it won't be answered, I also suspect it will be deleted or hidden by either Aaron or the algorithm and ignored. I have brought up these kinds of questions with Law of One affiliated people before, these things are always ignored.
While I was watching this I read a twitter post on a fella in the UK called Zafar Qayum. Who stole a thirteen year old British girl on her way to school. Raped her, then when she tried to escape put acid in her eye and permanently blinded her. Then invited 23 of his friends around to have their fun with her for money.
These sorts of things are of course directly related to the subject matter. Going back to the first post. But, really, I am not quite to making my argument that. Like I said, Forgiveness without contrition is a truly sick message, and I will talk about that more when I talk about Stefan Molyneux and the Law of One.
But just briefly. Preaching forgiveness without contrition states that the correct position for me to take when confronted with the above situation is to morally chastise the family of the thirteen year old girl, to state that "you forgive for yourself and not them", and other evil emotional blackmail. Started and maintained by abusers. My own message about being loving is to not have that attitude towards such victims.
Nevertheless, we are still laying the foundation for those discussions. Aaron Abke's biblical work is one of those foundations which I will explore now:
The work of Aaron Abke.
A third generation Pastors kid. As Aaron tells his story. He was the real deal mainstream Christian. Believed all the things. Studied the bible, even boring old testament books from front to back.
But instinctively, after a lot of that reading, and after a lot of study down the academic route on the bible and Christianity. Parts of the book started to not make sense to Aaron and as a result of that, he started looking into it closer, and the veil came off in his understanding.
The Apostle Paul is one important part of this. Using the bibles own words Aaron looks at the Apostle Pauls unlikely story. But, the Apostle Paul IS modern Christianity. When getting in arguments with Christians Aaron describes that he would say something Jesus said, and they would quote Paul, opposing, and apparently having more authority than Jesus. Aaron thought this was strange.
There are many strange elements of the Apostle Pauls story and he also has written a disproportionate amount of the bible. he never met Jesus, unlike the other disciples. He talked down the other disciples. Many of his visions and story's lack credibility and seemed very convenient.
Going further than this though. There are MANY elements of Christianity Aaron has questions for.
When I have talked to Christians, I have found this strange sense with them that Christianity simply is the way it has been now and has no history. If you say something that happened historically, they simply won't acknowledge it.
Jesus' actual disciples lead by James, were in a conflict with Paul. From someone else on this subject. A Ph.D researcher. There was an event with James observing the Sabbath where Paul and a few Gentile authorities of the time came in and stopped him doing it.
Even more issues.
Then you have even more issues. For instance, and this is mainstream recognised just not talked about with the masses, it is recognised among academics. Many of the texts from the bible were burned in the second temple in 70AD. So a lot of what we have are kind of forgery's.
There are a lot of problems with a lot of the books, such as John being a non synoptic text, and Peter, being written far later than Peter would have lived.
Aaron also brings in things like the Dead Sea Scrolls. That were dated to Jesus' time. That had additional info. Including a version of Deuteronomy before it was modified by the powers of the day. There are about twenty chapters missing.
Too much.
When drafting this in my head I had a lot of things to say about what Aarons work means. But I realise as I write this that it is too volumous to summarise any further. I had a similar problem with Paul Wallis' work.
So the takeaway, how I am going to include it in my larger narrative. Is that a lot of what was said and done, we do not know if it is accurate. The bible was created for political reasons. It's "Paulian" message was matched to the agenda of the government of the day.
People try and they make something of the tatters of information we have at the moment. Sometimes perhaps there is some relevance to this. However, I am going to argue in the following posts that with so much confusion, while we can take parts of what we know of Jesus' message and life. It is important to have other ways in which we understand the life we live and have values in relation to it. We do have other texts such as the Law of One to draw off.
However, one last point, and one important point. The message Aaron talks about that turns against the Paulian framework does not include a lot of modern Christianity that was from Paul. For instance, the idea that we declare Jesus as Lord to enter the Kingdom of heaven was not stated by Jesus, and Aaron argues it is antithetical to his teachings. Neither is the idea that Jesus took on the sins of the world to make all the other Christians blameless.
This is actually a manifestation of the teachings Jesus opposed. A negative teaching, that states that if you sacrifice an animal to a God you will be free from karma. It's just that in this case it is a human being.
Jesus' real message, Aaron argues, while it is not exclusively works based. It is far more works based than the current church talks about. Rather like how the Law of One talks about how service to others is the way to move on from third density. Even though there is some nuance. That is most of the time about having an objective other to serve. Doing things in the real world not just saying words.
As well as this though, as well as direct points like this. I think that this perspective is very relevant to how the teachings of Jesus have been framed. In the tweet at the beginning referencing Austin Metcalfes father, it is clear that the model being followed is to lionise Jesus the man and his behaviours. To idealise the person. But if Jesus' message was not in fact that "If you love me you will follow my laws". Then it might change the conversation.
Because love is more subjective to define. For instance, telling someone that they are a sinner if they don't forgive without contrition is not love to me. It is evil.
Maybe that's just me.
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