Disinformation » Christianity

The Bible’s Eight Goriest Passages

JacobSloan — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:01:51 +0000

And this is a text that people use to teach their children morality? Via Cracked, eight bible stories that compete with the worst horror novels and slasher movies in terms of grotesque, over-the-top violence, including the impaling of Haman on a 75-foot spike, the serving of John the Baptist’s head on a platter at a banquet, Herod being eaten alive by worms as Godly punishment, a lake of blood filled by crushing masses of people inside a giant wine press, and the dismembering of a prostitute:

“When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up; let’s go.’ But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home. When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into 12 parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.”

Image Of Virgin Mary Appears At Florida Hamburger Restaurant

JacobSloan — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:33:58 +0000

If the Virgin Mary really did materialize in this amazing-sounding restaurant, I think I might be open to Christianity. Report from the Tampa Bay Observer:

Now the Virgin Mary’s likeness has popped up on a stainless steel wall inside Hamburger Mary’s, an Ybor City restaurant with customers more likely to show up for gay karaoke nights and celebrity drag-queen shows than religious revelations.

“These two ladies in one of the booths saw the image during Sunday brunch,” said day manager Melanie Todd, who goes by the name Melanie Minyon (pronounced like mignon) when performing in blue wigs and over-the-top sexy gowns at the restaurant’s nighttime drag shows. “One of them was in tears she was so moved, and they were both carrying on and taking pictures.

“Now, we serve all-you-can-drink Bloody Marys for Sunday brunch,” Todd said, “so I think it’s safe to say there are lots of visions being seen around here then. Let’s just call it a tequila afternoon.”

God’s Online Dating Service For Christians

majestic — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:33:46 +0000

Thom Patterson asks “Is God going to hook me up online?” at CNN:

Has God taken an interest in the computer dating business? Does he (or she) have a username and password?

You might think so, if you’ve seen TV ads for the subscription-based dating website christianmingle.com.

The announcer says confidently: “Find God’s match for you.”

Really? Is God going to hook you up online? Cue the blogospheric debate.

“That’s awfully bold to presume they already know who God wants you to marry,” tweeted @Jessie_luvJesus recently.

“… SMH [shaking my head] these folks should be ashamed,” wrote @EWebb424.

The tagline has been creating a “misconception” that God works exclusively through Christian Mingle, says spokeswoman Ashley Reccord.

Launched in 2001, Christian Mingle now boasts more than 5 million members, 40% of whom joined within the past year, according to the site (Full disclosure: Christian Mingle advertises on CNN.)

Members can register free and are asked to answer several questions based on religious background and personal preferences. Based on those answers, the website offers profiles of potential matches.

A search on the site for “soul mate” among women age 18-80 came up with 1,000 profiles, including one from Florida.

“I’m in search of the man God has for me,” writes the 35-year-old woman. “I’m looking for my best friend, my soul mate, and someone to share life’s greatest moments with.”…

[continues at CNN]

Jesus’ Face Appears In British Woman’s Laundry Sock

JacobSloan — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:25:46 +0000

It’s common knowledge that Christ manifests himself by appearing in everyday items — here’s his first visitation of 2012. Via the Daily Mail:

This image of Jesus’ face was found on a sock among items of laundry in Kent. Sarah Crane, from Orpington, was stunned when she hung her laundry out to dry and discovered the face of Jesus staring back at her.

I’d left the washing out to dry overnight – and it had probably been sitting there a bit too long when I noticed the face in the sock,’ she said. ‘I called my boyfriend over straight away – we could both clearly see the face of Jesus in the sock.

Miss Crane said she began making a shrine to the sock, but when she moved it, some of its delicate creases fell away and the image is now not as clear.

Bethlehem Battle: Clergymen Clash At Birthplace Of Jesus

Liam McGonagle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:58:20 +0000

For once the police are called to a Christmas brawl and none of my relatives are implicated. From Bernat Armangue at Huffington Post:

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The annual cleaning of one of Christianity’s holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.

The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, is shared by three Christian denominations – Roman Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodox. Wednesday’s fight erupted between Greek and Armenian clergy, with both sides accusing each other of encroaching on parts of the church to which they lay claim.

The monks were tidying up the church ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations in early January, following celebrations by Western Christians on Dec. 25. The fight erupted between monks along the border of their respective areas. Some shouted and hurled brooms…

[continues at at Huffington Post]

Is Jesus A Cheap Imitation Of Mithras?

JacobSloan — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:00:32 +0000

It’s been mentioned, but in this clip from the British show QI, Stephen Fry and co. discuss the strange similarities between the Christian savior and the far cooler and more mystical Roman/Persian god Mithras, who shares the December 25 birthday, and had twelve disciples of his own, and was birthed in the form of a mortal to a virgin mother…

The Gospel Of Supply Side Jesus

JacobSloan — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:00:08 +0000

Just in time for the holidays, Al Franken’s animated comic tells the biblical story of Supply Side Jesus — basically, a version of Christ the savior updated to be more palatable for the devout conservative Christians of today. Witness the tale of his radical free-market teachings:

If You Are Poor, It’s Because God Hates Your Guts

Daniele Bolelli — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:41:30 +0000

[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.]

The history of Christianity is like a treasure chest for anyone who is fond of contradictions. The Gospels bicker with each other by relating similar tales in very different ways. But even more obviously, Christianity has often so dramatically departed from the words attributed to Jesus as to make you wonder how these glaring contradictions can be justified. Jesus tells you to “Love your enemies” and “Turn the other cheek”? So let’s show how much we love Jesus by waging crusades, inquisitions, witch-hunts, and brutal campaigns of repression against anyone who doesn’t love Him as much as we do. Jesus’s pacifism has drowned in the hyper-violence that has characterized much of Christian history.

But—we may object—most Christians alive today seem to have lost the bloodthirsty enthusiasm of their ancestors, and are no longer inclined to exterminate non-Christians. Even though it is true enough that chopping the unbelievers’ heads off may no longer be a popular pastime, the vast majority of Christians still conveniently forget about another theme that was central to Jesus’s ideology, and structure their lives in direct opposition to it. Jesus, in fact, was one of the most anti-capitalist thinkers this side of Karl Marx. Yet, most Christians are capitalists. What gives?

The concept of capitalism may have not existed in its modern forms during Jesus’s times, but Jesus’s words about accumulation of wealth leave little to the imagination. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all report Jesus saying: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Damn … does it get any blunter than this?

Just to make sure we are paying attention, Jesus hammers the same point over and over, repeating multiple times his condemnation of accumulation of wealth. We find him telling wannabe followers to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor (in case you are wondering, this made some decide that following Jesus was not such a hot idea anymore). In another passage, he categorically states that you can’t serve God and wealth at the same time. Elsewhere he warns us to focus on spiritual wealth rather than material wealth, and not to “store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy …” In yet a different occasion, he tells “Woe to the rich for you have received your consolation.” And in a series of sentences that are as antithetical to spirit of capitalism as they come, he advises his followers not to make any plans about the future in regards to food and shelter, since God will take care of everyone’s basic needs.

Considering how insistent Jesus is on this topic, it is with little surprise that we find out in other parts of the New Testament how his early followers shared everything among each other, and nearly eliminated private property.

In the face of this ultra-radical stance about wealth by their founder, it would be easy to conclude that most Christians live by making vows of poverty and shunning wealth like the plague. But that’s not quite the way things play out. God may be cool—most modern Christians think—but so is gold. Why should we have to choose one over the other? Ever since the Protestant Reformation, any qualms any Christian may have had about chasing good, old-fashioned cash began to fade. Many Catholics had maintained a theology frowning on accumulation of wealth, but simply had chosen to ignore it in practice. Plenty of Protestants, instead, decided to feel better about the whole thing and banish hypocrisy by reinventing the economic ideology of Christianity. Step one was to conveniently skip the many, many passages mentioned above. Step two was to focus instead on the biblical passages (mostly in the Old Testament) approving of wealth. Step three was to argue that since nothing in the world happens without God willing it, economic success (or the lack of thereof) is a quantifiable way to judge how much God does or does not favor you.

Voilà! The tables are turned and suddenly the obsession for money making has been recycled as a perfectly acceptable Christian endeavor. In the theology endorsed by some Christians (particularly those espousing the quintessential American “gospel of prosperity”) accumulating wealth is not only justifiable but almost a Christian duty since material prosperity is God’s reward for His faithful followers. The obvious corollary is that if you are poor, instead, it is probably because God hates your guts.

What makes this hijacking of Jesus’s message even funnier are the ways in which the God & Gold enthusiasts have tried to claim that Jesus was himself wealthy. Only the rich—they reason—could afford to travel around like he did and not work. But my all time favorite is the argument that Roman soldiers gambled for the right to take Jesus’s underwear after he died suggesting he was so rich that even his underwear was made of very expensive materials.

Really? Is that what this theology hangs by? Jesus underwear? Memo to self: if I ever try to justify my beliefs by appealing to a divine pair of underwear, it’s time to admit defeat.

The Jesus Toaster Makes Food Miracles

JacobSloan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:00:27 +0000

Every believer has seen the videos of the Virgin Mary appearing in the form of a Cheeto or a linen stain and secretly hopes for an uncanny sign that will validate their faith — that’s why the Jesus Toaster is the perfect Christmas gift. Now anyone can have the rapturous joy of witnessing the Lord appear in their morning toast:

25 Ridiculous Reactions To #GodIsNotGreat

ralph — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:31:19 +0000

Matt Stopera writes on BuzzFeed:

After Christopher Hitchens passed away, the title of his book, God Is Not Great, started trending on Twitter. Here’s how some people, mostly “Christians,” reacted:

[Click above image for more Tweets]

God’s Hit Man

Daniele Bolelli — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:25:34 +0000

[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.]

Since the dawn of time, God’s faithful followers have been locked in a war without mercy against the forces of evil. Christian theology (and Muslim too, for that matter) is clear on this matter. This is a fight that can’t stop until the final showdown at the end of times, when God’s partisans will drown their enemies once and for all in rivers of blood. Until then, the battle rages on, and the entire earth is divided in opposing armies. Neutrality is just not an option. Much like rust, Evil never sleeps, and its agents are constantly busy trying to hurt the followers of the one true faith. Given this outlook, it then logically follows that it is wise for God’s people to strike down the devil’s minions wherever they are found: heretics, witches, pagans and other fans of the devil simply have to be stopped.

It would be easy for Christians to despair when they are always surrounded by such scary opponents, but in the Spain of the 1400s, a man rose to their defense. His name?

Fighting out of the red corner, wearing the robes of inquisitor general, he is “The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the savior of his country.” Ladies and Gentlemen, representing the Holy Inquisition, and sporting a record of hundreds of heretics killed, I introduce to you, the one and only reigning heavyweight champion of the Catholic faith, Tooooomaaaaaaasss de Torrrrrqueeeeemaaaadaaaaaaaaaa!

A Dominican friar and Queen Isabella’s personal confessor, Tomás de Torquemada had become Spain’s first inquisitor general, which is to say God’s right hand man in His fight against heresy. In his zealous quest, he set up a system that burned to death over 2,000 people (and many, many thousands more when imitators followed his lead in other parts of Europe). Some of his main victims were former Jews and Muslims posing as faithful Catholics but secretly holding on to their old beliefs. But even more broadly, Torquemada’s mission was to bring down anybody holding ideas that differed from Catholicism.

His methods were not exactly the embodiment of Christian compassion, but in the fight against the Evil One, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. Whips, hot irons, thumbscrews, stakes and other pearls of creative sadism were holy weapons to be used in defense of the Catholic faith. By the time Torquemada knocked on your door, you were pretty much screwed. It meant that someone had managed to convince him that you were an enemy of the faith who had to be stopped. The good, old rule “innocent until proven guilty” was not yet old and was certainly not considered good. The legal theory of the Inquisition was more along the lines of “guilty until proven innocent.” Actually, even that was too much to ask, since you really couldn’t prove yourself innocent. If you confessed, then obviously you were guilty. But if you didn’t, then it meant you were truly a lying, sneaky servant of the devil who should be tortured. If you confessed under torture, then it was a done deal. If not, again this only proved your guiltiness since clearly the devil was giving you supernatural power to resist pain: quite literally damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Incidentally, along the way the Inquisition was also a profitable business since all the wealth of those convicted would be seized and split between king and church. But whether inquisitors burned you at the stake because they were greedy, or because they truly believed they were doing God’s work, it didn’t exactly make a huge practical difference.

Clearly, the devil had many fans since Torquemada’s holy mission didn’t find universal support. He was so fearful of assassination that he traveled with more than 250 bodyguards (hell … even Mafia bosses are satisfied with less than that…).

But God’s hit man also had many admirers. Not only most Catholic inquisitors looked up to him as a model to be followed, but even Protestants ended up following his same recipe. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin, the giants of Protestant theology, were as insistent as Torquemada about the necessity of barbecuing witches and other soldiers of the devil. It was only after the worst of the devil’s inventions became popular—that pesky Enlightenment with its emphasis on reason, science and individual rights—that the hands of Torquemada’s spiritual descendants were no longer free to strike down heretics. So, these must truly be dark times, now that heroes of the faith like Torquemada are no longer able to carry out their holy mission. If you can’t even burn them on the public square, how can society defend itself against the servants of the devil?

Horror Stories From Christian Group Homes For Troubled Youths

JacobSloan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:02:23 +0000

Via Mother Jones, a look into the networks of unregulated, fundamentalist Baptist troubled-teen boarding homes active across the South and Midwest. Worst summer vacation ever…ex-residents describe programs of brainwashing through violent punishment, sensory deprivation, lack of contact with the outside world, and memorization of the bible:

New Beginnings describes itself as a character-building facility for “troubled teens,” and what Jeannie Marie heard in church that day was that this might be a place for her daughter to heal. While jogging earlier that year, the 17-year-old (whom I’ll call Roxy) had been pulled into a vehicle and assaulted by a group of men. Since then, she had begun acting up at home, as well as sneaking out and drinking. Two weeks after seeing the girls in church, Jeannie Marie and her husband left Roxy in McNamara’s care with the promise that she would receive counseling twice a week and stay at New Beginnings no longer than two months. “It sounded like a discipleship program,” Jeannie Marie recalls. “A safe place where a daughter can go to have time alone to find God and her direction.”

Instead, Roxy found herself on the receiving end of brutal punishments. A soft-spoken young woman, blonde and blue-eyed with a bright smile, Roxy confided to me that she found it easier to discuss her ordeal with a stranger than with the people closest to her. She told me how, in her first weeks at the academy’s Missouri compound—a summer-camp setup in remote La Russell, population 145—she and other girls snuck letters to their parents between the pages of hymnals in a local church they attended, along with entreaties to congregants to mail them. When another girl snitched, Roxy said, McNamara locked some girls in makeshift isolation cells, tiled closets without furniture or windows. Roxy got “the redshirt treatment”: For a solid week, 10 hours a day, she had to stand facing a wall, with breaks only for worship or twice-daily bathroom trips.

She was monitored day and night by two “buddies,” girls who’d been there awhile and knew the drill. They accompanied her to the shower and toilet, and introduced her to a life of communal isolation and rigid discipline. Girls were not allowed to converse except from 6 to 9 p.m. each Friday. They were not allowed contact with their families during their first month, or with anyone else for six months. By that time, Roxy said, most girls are “broken,” having been told that their families have abandoned them, and that the world outside is a sinful, dangerous place where girls who leave are murdered or raped.

The girls’ behavior was micromanaged down to the number of squares of toilet paper each was allowed; potential infractions ranged from making eye contact with another girl to not finishing a meal. Roxy, who suffered from urinary tract infections and menstrual complications, told me she was frequently put on redshirt, sometimes dripping blood as she stood. She was also punished with cold showers, she said, and endless sets of calisthenics after meals.

A week or so after the disastrous conference call, Jeannie Marie traveled to La Russell with a friend who’d heard about places like New Beginnings—sketchy teen homes drawn by Missouri’s laissez-faire policy toward faith-based residential facilities. Authorities in the state are barred from inspecting the homes or even keeping track of them. (New Beginnings has operated under multiple names in Florida, Mississippi, and Texas.)

The school’s effects on Roxy were striking, Jeannie Marie told me. When they stopped at a restaurant on the way home, she robotically asked for permission to speak or to use the bathroom. After months of punitive mealtimes, including five-minute “force feeding” sessions for girls on redshirt, she wolfed her food. Back in Maryland, she showed signs of an eating disorder, self-destructive behavior, and severe depression.

Desperate for a way out, she’d attempted suicide—many of the girls did, she added nonchalantly, if only for the chance to get taken to a hospital and beg for outside help. “They take away any feeling that you are capable of doing anything outside the home,” she said. “You have this sense of total isolation: There’s no way out of it, you’re there for the rest of your life.”

Read the rest at Mother Jones

Cartoon Jesus Destroys The World

JacobSloan — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:54:13 +0000

A vintage film clip depicting the son of God’s vengeful return to Earth for Armageddon, during which he will smash cars, blow up buildings, and smite non-believers harshly and painfully. Seeing one of the bible’s most central predictions in animated form, one realizes that Jesus is essentially the American Godzilla:

Pro And Anti-Christmas Retailers List

JacobSloan — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:39:58 +0000

Keepers of morality the American Family Association have released their annual list of companies that are “Christmas friendly” or “anti-Christmas” (the latter using the term “Christmas” sparingly and instead referring to “the holidays”). Lesson learned: Jesus loves Wal-Mart, and when you shop at Staples, you’re shopping with Satan.

America is Not a Very Christian Nation

Good German — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:55:32 +0000

Stephen Prothero writes at CNN:

In the never-ending debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation, recent events support the nay-sayers. I am referring to the troubles of Herman Cain and Joe Paterno.

How we respond to ethical conundrums often boils down to empathy. In the abortion debate, do you identify with the woman who wants an abortion or with the fetus? Concerning the federal deficit, do you identify with the wealthy person who might see his taxes rise or with the poor person who might see her unemployment benefits extended?

One purpose of the world’s great religions is to widen our circle of empathy beyond ourselves and our families to others in our community, and in the wider world. Christianity, for example, has long taught that we should empathize with “the least of these,” and particularly with the poor and oppressed (see Luke 4:18).

The morality plays we are now witnessing — the sexual harassment allegations swirling around Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain and the sexual assault charges swirling around the Penn State football program headed by former coach Joe Paterno — provide an opportunity to assess just where our collective empathy lies …

Jesus Was A Mushroom

JacobSloan — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:58:22 +0000

This must have been a mind-bending moment for many viewers. Ancient texts scholar and The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross author John Allegro informs the public know that, Jesus was, in fact, a mushroom. Why don’t I learn facts like this from television today?

Gnosis: The Not-So-Secret History of Jesus

Jonathan Phillips — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:02:35 +0000

This article, which discusses the Mystery School origins of Christianity, comes from my new memoir, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic through Evolver Editions/North Atlantic Books.

In December 1945, during the tail end of the most devastating war in human history, a peasant named Mohammed Ali of the al-Samman clan stumbled upon an earthenware jar near limestone caves in the deserts of Upper Egypt. He feared an evil djin (genie) resided inside, but hoping for lost riches, he still opened the jar. To his disappointment, twelve ragged leather-bound codices fell onto the ground. He didn’t realize these 1,200 weathered pages contained a priceless treasure with dozens of lost Christian gospels that had been hidden away for 1,600 years. Mohammed carried them home to his mother, who kept warm throughout the night by feeding pages of what we now call The Nag Hammadi Library to her fireplace.

These fifty-two texts, with titles like The Gospel of Thomas, Secret James, The Gospel of Mary, The Origin of the World, The Gospel of Philip, Secret John, and The Sophia of Jesus, showed that first-through-fourth century Christianity was much more varied than previously thought, comprised of diverse sects claiming “secret knowledge” of heavenly realms. Modern scholars now label these texts as “Gnostic,” since they lay out an initiatory process for candidates to overcome the “forgetfulness,” “drunkenness,” “blindness,” and “sleep” of the illusory world in order to access gnosis, direct experience or personal revelation of a divine reality.

The Nag Hammadi Library supported the popular theory that Christianity stemmed from the ancient mystery school traditions of the Mediterranean, which featured “dying and resurrecting godmen.” In Egypt they worshiped Horus; in Greece, Dionysus; in Syria, Adonis; in Asia Minor, Attis; in Persia (and later Rome), Mithras; and in Israel, Jesus (historically the most recent). The similarities among these hierophants were uncanny. Several of them, according to the legends, were born on December 25 around the winter solstice to a virgin in humble surroundings (a cave or a manger) with a star in the Eastern sky. Some grew up to be spiritual masters with twelve disciples (Horus, Mithras, Jesus), performing miracles, giving baptisms and communions. They all died (Dionysus dismembered by Titans, Attis and Adonis eaten by wild boars, and Horus, Mithras, and Jesus crucified) before experiencing a miraculous resurrection.

In The Jesus Mysteries, authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy discuss how the Vatican sits atop a destroyed Mithraic Temple. “Where today the gathered faithful revere their Lord Jesus Christ, the ancients worshiped another godman who, like Jesus, had been miraculously born on December 25 before three shepherds. In this ancient sanctuary Pagan congregations once glorified a Pagan redeemer who, like Jesus, was said to have ascended to heaven and to have promised to come again at the end of time to judge the quick and the dead. On the same spot where the Pope celebrates the Catholic mass, Pagan priests also celebrated a symbolic meal of bread and wine in memory of their savor who, just like Jesus had declared: ‘He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.”¹

Freke and Gandy argue adamantly that there never was a historical Jesus who walked the sands of Israel, but rather he is a composite of the earlier godmen. But perhaps that’s too hard of a line to draw, since mythical figures are often based on real people — think of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, for example.

According to Freke and Gandy, a number of the Mystery school godmen were called the “Son of God,” and some the “Sun of God.” The word “horizon” comes from “Horus-Sun,” meaning sunrise. As the Egyptian God of daytime, Horus battled his jackal-headed enemy Set (“Sun-Set”), the bringer of night, in a cosmic battle of light and dark. Jesus played a similar role as Horus being “the light of the world” surrounded by twelve disciples who represented the twelve months of the year, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. The sun enters each zodiac sign at thirty degrees (30 x 12 = 360); thus, these “Suns of God” embarked on their ministry at the age of thirty. The classic zodiac cross bisects the twelve astrological signs within a circle. The sun hangs “crucified” in the center as it passes through the precession of the equinoxes, something the mystery schools followed closely as each new sign marked the next world age.

Given the astrological significance of the cross, wisdom traditions often depicted the crucifixion in their writing and art. A notorious second-to-third century European talisman reveals a human figure that looks like Jesus on the cross (with a crescent moon and seven stars above him), but the inscription reads “Orpheus becomes a Bacchoi.” Orpheus was a prophet in the Dionysian mysteries and Bacchio refers to an enlightened disciple who had undergone the final stages of initiation. Around the same time as the talisman had been crafted, a Roman graffiti artist sketched on a pillar the image of a crucified donkey, which symbolized the initiates’ death to their animalistic nature and ascension to the higher Self. The first portrayal of Jesus on a cross wouldn’t appear until 200 years later.

Rather than rejoicing in their similarities, “literalist” Christian leaders — those who had not experienced the secret gnosis (direct knowledge) of the highest mysteries — created dams and divisions between the diverse spiritual streams that originally flowed from the same mystical source. As Freke and Gandy explain, the parallels between Mithras and Jesus threatened the emerging “Literalist Church.” Roman bishops such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Irenaeus made the ridiculous claim that the devil had engaged in “diabolical mimicry,” “plagiarizing by anticipation” the story of Jesus before it had actually happened in order to mislead the weak-minded.

The Golden Bough’s James Frazier noted a similar contention between Attis, the mystery god from Asia Minor, and Jesus. “In point of fact it appears from the testimony of an anonymous Christian, who wrote in the fourth century of our era, that Christians and pagans alike were struck by the remarkable coincidence between the death and resurrection of their respective deities, and that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter controversy between the adherents of the rival religions, the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ was a spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians asserting with equal warmth that the resurrection of Attis was a diabolical counterfeit of Christ.”²

Literalist Christians refused to accept that the rites of the mystery schools form the central narrative of The New Testament. But the similarities are too plentiful to ignore. Jesus encounters a baptism (spiritual cleansing), a eucharist (communion), an anointing (“Christ” means “the anointed one”) and the death and resurrection ritual. These mystical rites provided a rare alchemical education, unifying spiritual energies (pneuma, as the early Christians called it) for candidates. In the words of The Gospel of Philip, one of the so-called Gnostic texts, “The Lord did everything in a mystery, a baptism and a chrism, and a eucharist and a redemption and a bridal chamber. […] he said, ‘I came to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like the things inside. I came to unite them in the place.”

The word “mystery” appears twenty-seven times in The New Testament with Paul telling fellow Christians, “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of God.” Jesus speaks of clandestine teachings for those in the inner circles when he says to his disciples, “You have been given the secret of God’s imperial rule; but to those outside everything is presented in parables.” (Mathew 4:11)

As an energy healer, I found myself especially drawn to how early Christians utilized pneuma for personal transformation. Jesus baptizes with “fire and spirit,” heals with “power,” and transmits wisdom to his disciples through the “bubbling spring” drawn from a higher source. The purpose of these schools was to create Pneumatics, people full of spiritual energy. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus announces to his disciples, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.”

Even common Christian terms revealed clues to this ancient transformational process. I studied the original Greek word for “sin,” Harmatia, which turned out to be an archery term meaning “missing the mark.” It lacked the guilt and shame pastors used to control their flocks and simply indicated when seekers strayed from their path and needed to get back on course. Similarly, the Hebrew word Satan (“adversary”) highlighted the ego/personality attachment the soul needed to overcome in order to reach higher states of consciousness.

Repent (metanoia) meant to “change one’s mind” or “have a shift in consciousness,” which can occur when absorbing higher frequencies from someone closely connected to source-energy, like Jesus. Most surprisingly, Christ was not our Lord and “savior” but rather our “soter,” meaning “healer,” “bestower of health,” or “one who makes whole.” Staying connected to universal spirit, Jesus travels through the rift of separation consciousness to heal us and bring us back to our celestial home. “I am the one who comes from what is whole” (Gospel of Thomas). When we finally release our attachments to the material realm, we become “redeemed” (apolytrosis), meaning “released.”

Of course, I couldn’t help wonder what happened to the original meanings of these words, as well as the numerous Gnostic churches that had proliferated in the Middle East. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and its Second Temple in 70 AD, after the Jewish revolt, they left one-third of the population dead, and the Christian mysteries fractured into pieces. Members joined the mass exodus out of the country. Those who hadn’t been exposed to the inner mysteries started up literalist churches. The remaining Gnostics called these rigid sects “imitation churches” as they did not teach the secret gnosis of “the Christ within.”

According to the Apocalypse of Peter, literalist church fathers were “waterless canals” bereft of consciousness-expanding pneuma who arrogantly claimed to be the sole gatekeepers of heaven. “Some who do not understand mystery speak of things which they do not understand, but they will boast that the mystery of truth is theirs alone.” These “empty” churches sprouted up across the Roman Empire. In a sad touch of historical irony, their leaders, like the infamous Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon, became heretic hunters attacking those who still carried the inner teachings of their religion. “We were hated and persecuted, not only by those who are ignorant, but also by those who think they are advancing the name of Christ, since they were unknowingly empty, not knowing who they are.” (The Second Treatise of the Great Seth).

As the number of Christians multiplied in Roman lands, power-hungry Constantine switched the state religion to co-opt this growing movement, uniting Rome under “one God, one religion,” and incidentally, one emperor. In 325 he oversaw the Council of Nicaea, where church fathers reduced the vast library of Christian written knowledge to a few documents that we now call The New Testament.

In 391 Emperor Theodosius passed an edict to close all “pagan” temples and burn their books. Christian hordes set out on murderous rampages across the empire smashing all traces of the mystery traditions from which their own religion had blossomed. They killed off the last of the Gnostic circles, including their libraries, churches, scrolls, and most importantly, the flame of gnosis that had been carefully passed down throughout the ages. By 410 AD, the Roman Empire had nearly torn itself apart and the Visigoths strolled in to finish the job. Only 85 years after the Council of Nicaea, the Dark Ages had begun.

While poring over the lost Gnostic texts of The Nag Hammadi Library, I was surprised how many of them focused on reframing the Garden of Eden story. These tales, like The Secret Book of John, explained the human origin story quite differently than Genesis. They described a complicated cosmology that began with a single being (or parent), who was ineffable, eternal, immeasurable light, and created an image or reflection of itself, Barbelo, which in turn begot a multitude of heavenly planes (aeons) that were part of a wider divine realm (the pleroma).

Christ was not just a man but a distinct aeon or larger divine being in the pleroma. Those who fully realized the mysteries became one with “Christ,” carrying this high vibrational force inside themselves. Bedazzled by the cosmic palace, Sophia, the aeon of wisdom, created her own world without consent from the über-parent or her male counterpart. This experiment went awry and Sophia separated from the pleroma, creating a sinister Frankenstein ruler called the Demiurge (craftsman or maker), who manufactured our “counterfeit” material world.

This was The Old Testament God, who Gnostics called Yaldabaoth, Samael (God of the blind), and Saklas (a fool), as he believed himself to be the only god in the universe, ignorant of the pleroma and the omnipresent light of the parent. Breathing life into Adam (and unknowingly the divine spirit of Sophia), the Demiurge ruled over humans with his demonic bully-friends, the archons. The angelic realms of the pleroma embarked on a rescue mission for both Sophia and Adam and Eve. Like an undercover agent, Jesus snuck behind enemy lines into the Garden, inviting the first humans to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (“the Epinoia of pure light”) to “awaken them out of the depth of sleep” and their “fallen state.”

The Gnostic’s description of archons immediately intrigued an activist side in me. These devilish autocrats seemed representative of the oppressive empires that dominated Western history books. Today’s Halliburtons and Bechtels, Neo-cons and Exxons, seemed to follow a long shadowy lineage of hierarchical powers profiting from human suffering while expanding their empires. Maybe the Gnostics understood that we needed mystical agents of transformation smuggling in celestial light to liberate lost souls on the planet.

And the Christ story seemed to be the perfect place to help free us from worldly bondage. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that millions of people living today have been wounded or mislead by literalist Christianity, robbed of their own divine spark. For more than a millennia, the Judeo-Christian tradition has supplied the underlying operating platform for our whole society — our languages, laws, mores, work ethic, sexuality, even our way of perceiving time (with the Gregorian calendar) — shaping our worldview, whether we realize it or not.

Integrating this tradition could prove a powerful tool in coming to terms with ourselves, and our history. And that doesn’t necessarily mean plodding through obscure Gnostic texts, making sense of strange Demiurge names. The mysteries lay right there in The New Testament for those with “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.” But we need an upgrade of the Protestant Revolution, one that incorporates the gnosis of Christ-consciousness. Imagine already established churches, the ones on your block, enhancing their services with meditation, prayer, breathwork, energy healing, body movement, possibly even late night dancing, and among the more radicalized churches, the ingesting of psychoactive sacraments in a safe and protected space. Why build entirely new systems for connecting us to pneuma when the institutions have already been created, whether Methodist, Lutheran, or Baptist? But these “waterless” religions would have to give up their addiction to dominating worshipers, address the evolution of the spirit, and infuse the essence of the mysteries into their hollow edifices.

Many of the popular Eastern disciplines of today have us turning away from the world around us, meditating on our navel. But Christ wasn’t only a yogi; he was a mystical activist, carrying his message to those who most needed it. In this time of great transition, our ailing planet needs spiritual warriors, ones capable of standing up to the Western materialist machine, so we can create sustainable societies that care for their citizens, harmonize with the cycles of nature, and receive and honor the vast healing light that quietly connects us all.

1. Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 1.

2. Sir James George Frazier, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1992), chapter 37.

How To Start A Dance Kult

KE$HA KULT — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:20:49 +0000

Let’s start with what God is: the Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

The confusion about the nature of God starts with the idea God is separate from Existence. Also, there seems to be a tendency to treat the Father as God itself and the Son & Holy Spirit as a part of, but not equal to the Father. From these simple misunderstandings comes the logical paradoxes we’re all familiar with.

So here’s where we begin to clear things up. God is the single thing, but there are three aspects that make up the totality of God. Here’s the analogy: we take a piece of cheese. The cheese is one thing; however, there are aspects to the cheese that make up the whole thing: we have the shape, color & taste of the cheese. So where does the cheese end and its aspects begin? Well obviously that’s an impossible question.

So now the issue is defining the Father, Son & Holy Spirit aspects and how they together define God.

• The Father aspect is Existence as a whole. All of Existence — the Alpha & Omega. The Totality of everything that ever was and ever will be; from a clump of dirt to the spaces in between the spaces. From Heaven to Earth.

• The Son aspect, Christ is the agency of Intelligence, or Consciousness.

• The Holy Spirit aspect is Energy itself.

Now we put these concepts together and learn that energy is intelligent and comprises Existence itself. Through science we have actually learned all of existence is energy vibrating at various densities. Everything you see, touch and think is energy in one form or another. And we can say energy is intelligent through simple observation; What makes a chair stay a chair? What makes a carpet continue on as a carpet? Why don’t all the molecules just separate into one big mush? Because of Consciousness. Energy is Consciousness. Also, energy cannot be created nor destroyed — in other words, the Alpha & Omega. But we possess our own personal Consciousness — we were ‘made in God’s image.’ It doesn’t mean God looks like a man, it means we possess Consciousness.

But does this apply to all people or some and how do we tell the difference?

The difference is like night and day. Mankind was created like any other animal — however our destiny was different than other animals — the plan was to become one with Christ and receive Consciousness, thus bringing Heaven to Earth. The old narrative tells us Christ saves us from a life of sin when we accept Him as our personal savior. But in this new context Christ redeems us from our life as an animal and we are born again with the knowledge we are one with God. These are very subtle but key distinctions being made here.

How do we bring about this change in ourselves? First, we have to take the question seriously. Specifically we have to realize it is a personal thing we are doing — we make the choice.

Second, we have to change the way we think. Because of this new revelation of the exact nature of Christ; that is, Christ as Consciousness, we can say the key to developing Consciousness is following your Highest Light (God within You). To change how we think, in order to develop Consciousness, we have to stop accepting beliefs and start creating ideas — ideas that make you feel good about your little corner of the universe.

But before I explain what that means I want to talk more about the differences between ripened souls and unripened souls; the difference between Man & animal. The animal has instincts, like the instinct to follow and the instinct to lead, we call this the instinct for social hierarchy. Big dog on top bites the little dog on the bottom, and this dynamic maintains order in the community — and this is essentially how human society works — which would be fine for all eternity if we weren’t created with the greater purpose of bringing Heaven to Earth. And when we think of this new world do we see cops and politicians ordering us around with their guns and tanks and bombs? No. Of course we don’t. What we see are people living in harmony because they know how to act in a civilized fashion without coercion. Domesticated Primates, collectively known as people, only follow certain rules because they’re afraid of the consequences of not following [the rules], however real peace is only possible if we understand the purpose of moral-based laws. And that means understanding the value of empathy. So where do we begin?

Simple — with the definition of morality: to treat others the way we want to be treated. On a collective level, this means a total reevaluation of all our values & laws is needed as it pertains to this perfect concept of morality. This means rethinking our attitude towards taboo subjects such as recreational drug use & even sex.

The beginning of the End: The Entity aka “God” reveals itself in Three stages [naturally] the first stage was that of the Father aspect, then Christ and now The Holy Spirit. The transitional phase between the Son aspect and the Holy Spirit is known as the Apocalypse, a Greek word literally meaning “Lifting the Veil.” The information the Holy Spirit will reveal will unite us in Union with God, creating peace on Earth or Heaven on Earth.

The symbolism inherent to this new age is the eye in the triangle, a coded reference to the 3rd EYE. Holy Spirit reveals the means to open the 3rd EYE as a gateway to the Collective Unconscious / Mind of God uniting us on a higher mental level, causing by reflex action, peace on Earth. We do this by creating energy with our bodies in the intention of opening the 3rd EYE -or- by focusing your attention to your forehead while engaged in strenuous physical activity. Such as dancing, et. al.

Other helpful hints the Holy Spirit reveals includes the mandate that you ‘follow your highest light.’ How does one follow your highest light? As you might suspect, it is a fairly autonomous process. The issue is one of inspiration rather than instruction. There are no leaders; only artists who inspire us through their art. We recognize our Consciousness, or “soul,” as the part of God that is a part of us. Our theology and our imagination are synonymous. So in practice, following your highest light means creating ART-MYTH as personal spirituality. Wanna see some examples …?

What happens when developing Consciousness and how it happens are potentially two different things. What happens is that developing Consciousness means you are one with “Christ” and are saved — but how it happens specifically varies wildly from individual to individual, although several people can have similar experiences. But in the past the assumption was that what was happening and how it was happening were the same thing — and so by that logic there was only one way to be saved; become “Christian.” However, this does not suffice because by virtue of the fact God speaks directly to us — following your highest Light is The Way, The Truth & The Life.

So now the burning question is: Who was Jesus?

Jesus was a Man who attained Consciousness in all its full-tilt bewildering mystery. The thing about Existence being a form of Consciousness is that by possessing a personal Consciousness —*— we have the potential to manipulate reality with our mind. This is confirmed in the Bible, book of Matthew Chapter 21, verse 21. Where Jesus says after the apostles witnessed Him wilting the fig tree: “Truly I say to YOU, If only YOU have faith and do not doubt, not only will YOU do what I did to the fig tree, but also if YOU say to this mountain,’Be lifted up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.”

It is our goal to promote Consciousness not only within ourselves but to the world at large. Only when all of mankind receives Consciousness will the final battle between Good & Evil begin. Because Consciousness itself does not guarantee someone is Good; it does not guarantee they will act with empathy —all it means is they have the potential power of God. Don’t panic.

Happy Jesus Ween: Canada Pastor Invents ‘Christian Alternative’ to Halloween

bluemana — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:28:02 +0000

Tamara Gignac reports in the Calgary Herald

Tiny ghosts and goblins hoping for sugary snacks may find something odd in their loot bags this Halloween: a bible.

A Calgary pastor is promoting Jesus Ween, a faith-based alternative to the traditional holiday fare of candy and spooky garb.

Instead of chocolate bars and gummy bears, he’s asking people to shun demonic costumes and instead dole out pocket-sized bibles or other “Christian gifts.”

The idea has caught on in communities across North America, according to Jesus Ween creator Paul Ade. He’s hoping it will bring a new perspective to an otherwise pagan festival, he said.

“I do not associate myself with ghosts, demons, Satan and witches. These are things I want to get rid of,” he said.

“If it’s OK for a child to know about demons, it should also be OK for a child to know about Jesus.”

Pat Robertson Addresses Occupy Wall Street

JacobSloan — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:05:26 +0000

Wondering if it’s possible to be both a Christian and a participant in the Occupy Wall Street protests? Christian media mogul and top televangelist Pat Robertson clears up this question sent in by a loyal viewer: no, because the protests are of Satan and an attempt to destroy the nation. What a surprise.

God is Part of the 1 Percent

imkaan — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:56:51 +0000

Via Eric Allen Bell:

Once upon a time a very, very angry man named “god” created the world, got pissed off at everybody and killed them all with a flood, except for his buddy Noah and his 2 live crew.

Later God decided everyone is so lame that he chose his “chosen people” to give a plot of real estate to while telling everyone else to fuck off, ordered some ethnic cleansings to clear out the area and so forth.

Still finding nearly all people to be unbearable (and who can blame him, really?) this god person decided, out of the kindness of his heart, to send his only son to be brutally tortured and savagely murdered so that he won’t have to send us all into a lake of hell fire for all eternity …

Christian Faith Requires Accepting Evolution

Good German — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 03:30:01 +0000

Jonathan Dudley writes on Huffington Post:

As someone raised evangelical, I realize anti-evolutionists believe they are defending the Christian tradition. But as a seminary graduate now training to be a medical scientist, I can say that, in reality, they’ve abandoned it.

In theory, if not always in practice, past Christian theologians valued science out of the belief that God created the world scientists study. Augustine castigated those who made the Bible teach bad science, John Calvin argued that Genesis reflects a commoner’s view of the physical world, and the Belgic confession likened scripture and nature to two books written by the same author.

These beliefs encouraged past Christians to accept the best science of their day, and these beliefs persisted even into the evangelical tradition. As Princeton Seminary’s Charles Hodge, widely considered the father of modern evangelical theology, put it in 1859: “Nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible; and we only interpret the Word of God by the Word of God when we interpret the Bible by science.”

In this analysis, Christians must accept sound science, not because they don’t believe God created the world, but precisely because they do …

Project Ouroboros Planet

KE$HA KULT — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:20:35 +0000

The Rapture To Arrive (Again) October 21

JacobSloan — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:04:17 +0000

Remember five months ago when the world almost came to an end, but then God granted us a last-minute reprieve? Tomorrow, we’re going to do it all over again. Get out the signs, air horns, and foam fingers! From Beliefnet:

This time the end of the world will be real, says 90-year-old California radio mogul Harold Camping — October 21, so be ready.
But he doesn’t sound quite so confident this time. He suffered a stroke shortly after his most recent false alarm — May 21. He’s been in a nursing home. But now, he’s proclaiming new warning.

Absent this time are his trusting disciples who traveled across America last spring proclaiming his urgent warning — the Rapture would occur May 21, so be ready when Gabriel’s horn sounds, the sky rolls away and Jesus arrives to judge the living and the dead.

Of course, May 21 came and went — despite millions of dollars of billboards and bus-bench signs and rental trucks festooned with his urgent message, all underwritten by donations.

Camping said he was “flabbergasted” with the way things happened and explained that May 21 had, indeed, been Judgment Day, but only in a spiritual sense.

He preached over his scores of radio stations that God’s final judgment would continue right up until October 21 — when the world would be destroyed. Indeed, the founder of Family Radio promised, this time there would be nothing quiet about the global calamity.

Now, we learn that Camping took the whole thing badly. He appears to have been completely sincere — having applied a complex mathematical system to what he says are hidden messages in Bible prophecy. In fact, he appeared to be increasingly frail and shaken that his calculations had been off. He turned up in a nursing home after suffering a stroke in June.

Mystery Behind Virgin Births Explained

bluemana — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:53:18 +0000

Explaining a virgin birth by means of a serpent? God must have a sense of irony. Jennifer Viegas writes on Discovery News:

An eastern diamond rattlesnake recently gave successful birth five years after mating, according to a new paper that describes this longest known instance of sperm storage, outside of insects, in the animal kingdom.

The study, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, also presents the first documented virgin birth by a copperhead snake. In this case, the female never mated, proving that snakes and certain other animals can either give true virgin — dadless — birth, or may store sperm for long periods.

Actual mate-less virgin birthing, known as parthenogenesis, “has now been observed to occur naturally within all lineages of jawed vertebrates, with the exception of mammals,” co-author Warren Booth told Discovery News. “We have recently seen genetic confirmation in species such as boa constrictors, rainbow boas, various shark species, Komodo dragons, and domestic turkeys, to name a few.

If Christians Told The Truth About The Bible

bluemana — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:58:51 +0000

Via Think Atheist:

_______

Bill Maher Interviews Controversial Pastor Robert Jeffress (Video)

imkaan — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:37:57 +0000

Rick Perry-supporting Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress was in the news recently for calling Mormonism a cult and Bill Maher, for once, is without his usual snark to a man of the cloth:

Did Jesus Die for Klingons Too?

ralph — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 21:42:45 +0000

Well, Klingons for Jesus has sided in on this, but for a more rigorous debate, Professor Christian Weidemann recently weighed in at a DARPA-sponsored event. (DARPA cares about these things?) Jeff Schapiro reported in the Christian Science Monitor:

One idea he presented was that humans were the only “sinners” out of God’s creation, and are therefore the only ones that require a savior, but he considered other possibilities as well.

“If there are extra-terrestrial intelligent beings at all, it is safe to assume that most of them are sinners too,” Weidemann said. “If so, did Jesus save them too? My position is no. If so, our position among intelligent beings in the universe would be very exceptional.”

If other life forms exist in our universe, he said, we should try to understand why Jesus chose to save those from Earth over other civilized life forms from other planets.

Did God reserve His grace solely for Earthlings and abandon the rest of the intelligent creatures in the universe? If not, how did God deal with the sin problem on multiple planets?

One possibility he mentioned is that God-incarnate visited each of the civilized planets and saved each of the races that inhabited them separately.

Read entire article at the Christian Science Monitor

Jesus Antichrist: Does Joel’s Army Actually Worship Satan?

Good German — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:34:52 +0000

A central theme in Christian eschatology is the rise of the Antichrist. This Antichrist is supposed to trick millions (even billions) into worshiping him and, according to many on the Christian right, establish a one world government.

What better disguise for the ultimate false messiah to deceive the world than Jesus?

As I posted earlier, the Dominionist Joel’s Army movement believes less in feeding the poor and visiting those in prison like the Biblical Jesus taught than in slaughtering unbelievers and taking over all the countries of the world militarily and politically. The following video examines, from a more traditional Christian perspective, the possibility that Joel’s Army and the Dominionist movement are in fact the forces of the Antichrist, that the spirits that fill them are demons, and that the god they worship is actually Satan in disguise.

Church Mass Moves Italian Man To Tear Out Both Of His Eyes

JacobSloan — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:59:39 +0000

The Bible’s Gospel of St. Matthew quotes Jesus telling his disciples: ‘If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.’

A case of literal biblical interpretation gone gruesomely awry. If God spoke to you and told you to do this, would you? NBC New York writes:

An Italian man tore both of his eyes out in the middle of the priest’s homily at a church near Pisa, according to reports.

Fellow parishioners watched in horror as Aldo Bianchini, 46, used his bare hands to pull out both eyeballs. Bianchini later told surgeons, who were unable to save his vision, he heard voices that told him to do it.

“He was in a great deal of agony and he was covered in blood,” Dr. Gino Barbacci told the Daily Mail. “He said that he had used his bare hands to gouge out his eye balls after hearing voices telling him to do so – to do something like that requires super human strength.”

Father Lorenzo Tanganelli said he had just launched into his sermon when he saw a commotion in the back of the church, according to the Italian paper Corriere Fiorentino.

“This man at the back of the knave started tearing at his face and I realized he was gouging out his eyes,” Tanganelli told the paper. “I called for assistance and the paramedics were quickly at the scene and he was taken away and then I carried on celebrating Mass but a lot of people had left because they were so shocked by what they had seen.”

The Bible’s Gospel of St. Matthew quotes Jesus telling his disciples: ‘If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”