About Mickey Mouse's Dog

                      Subtitled:

On Moving Out of The Old

       And Into The New

Sunday,  The Sunday after Easter Sunday.  Out for my daily walk.  After spending the time this morning leading up to it concluding my review of a book expertly debunking Christianity as a religion; able still to read it even with all the extensive underlining and drawing of lines between associated pieces of it that I engaged in (as is my wont in such research material) in my first go-through of it, back shortly after commencing my Age of Retirement, in my old hometown, after having spent the bulk of my adult years living abroad.  And I found it peculiarly ironic that, when I went out for my Daily last Sunday, the majority of the “crowd, a host of golden daffodils” that adorned the front yard of a house just a few doors up the street from ours had overnight wilted.  Prophetic, I wondered, having begun my review of said book by then???…

In the event, on my walk this Sunday - further out into the nearby Nature than I usually take, when I am also walking the family dog, who is away with another member of the family for a few days - I found myself thinking of a line from a movie that I saw a long time ago.  Back in the Fifties there was a movie set in the Second World War, based on a book, apparently partly biographical and partly fictional, about a Company of men, during the Pacific Campaign, whose Company Commander ached to get into the action, and in the meantime trained his men to peak perfection, via long hikes with full packs and such.  In the Platoon that the book concentrated on there were two characters who interacted until one of them was killed in the action that their unit finally saw.  The one who survived was a cocky kid from the Bronx (I think it was; that, or Brooklyn); the other, an academic-type guy, quiet, bespectacled and unassuming, was given to reading in the evenings.  One evening, during the lead-up time before their unit went into action, the kid from the Bronx (let's say) saw the title of the book that his somewhat unlikely buddy was reading, and says to him, “Plato.  You mean they wrote a whole big book about Mickey Mouse’s dog??”

It would appear that ‘they’ wrote a whole big book - called the New Testament - about a fictional character, which served the purposes of the winning side in that battle.

Some particularly pertinent excerpts from the book that I have just finished re-reading in parts thereof:(1) 

“The story created by solving the puzzle [a particularly clever device that Atwill has uncovered from the works of Josephus in relation to the author(s) of the New Testament] reveals how Caesar fooled the Jews into calling him ‘Lord’ without their knowing it by simply switching his name to Jesus - the great secret of Christianity.”  (The ‘Caesar’ referred to here is Titus, son of the Roman ‘God the Father’ Vespasian, who, upon his father, er, ascending to the throne of Rome, took over the battle in Judea and ultimately laid on the siege and sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple there, and whom Josephus et al got into the business of being ‘prophesied’ by their alter Messiah, for the effrontery of the Jews in thinking to overcome the might of Rome.)(2)                  

“The Romans [including Josephus who, upon becoming adopted into the imperial household of what is called the Flavians, also became a Roman citizen.  Much like ‘the Apostle’ Paul.  In fact, very much like that (assumed-name) character in the New Testament.  But to continue here] invented Christianity for the express purpose of bringing a calamity on the Jews and throwing them into disorder.”

“(Some passages in Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews) satirically confirm the entire premise regarding Christianity.  The Jews would not worship Roman emperors and were not swayed by violence; therefore, Rome was forced ‘to become’ the Sicarii movement… “ (Another story.)  “The effect of Christianity is also recorded within the satire, (sic) Its effect was to end the rebellion.”

Its desired effect, that is to say.  Which, for whatever all reasons, indeed lasted for awhile.  Until the next outburst from the Jews.  Many of whom did not buy into the ‘pacifistic Messiah’ gambit (of the likes of “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and to obey authority, for “My kingdom is not of this world”), and continued to believe in their own version of God, and of themselves, as the ‘hands’ of (their) God in this material realm.   An attitude - of being The Chosen People - that has bedeviled us down to our day.  But - as I say:  To continue.  (And hopefully, in the specific event: not.)

In sum. 

Atwill could, of course, be wrong.  But I don’t think so.

I think that it is on the same order as the astronomical move - i.e., under the premise (aka ‘clue’) of As Above, So Below - out of the Piscean Age - i.e., of Fishers of Men - into the Age of the Living Waters.

Where we all do ‘it’ - the fishing; and catching.  Of our consciences - for ourselves.  As what we all are:

Apprentice gods.  Facets, fractals, aspects, points of view, expressions of our Creator Source.  Chips off the old block.  Spiritual beings having a human experience.

And it is up to us - each - to act as such.

To take on that responsibility.

And power.

—

footnotes:

(1) With the summation of the book from its back cover setting the scene:

   “Was Jesus the invention of a Roman emperor?  The author of this ground-breaking book believes he was.  Caesar’s Messiah reveals the key to a new and revolutionary understanding of Christian origins.

   “The clues leading to its startling conclusions are found in the writings of the first-century historian Flavius Josephus, whose War of the Jews is one of the only historical chronicles of this period.  Closely comparing the work of Josephus [a Jewish general-cum-governor-cum historian who saw the writing on the wall from the Jewish Zealots’ war against the might of Rome of the time, and, to save his skin, and - being as well of Jewish priestly lineage - saw in that writing a way to live to fight another day; and with a humber of his priestly-lineage brethren.  Who became the leaders of a/the new religion that members of this imperial household invented] with the New Testament Gospels, Caesar’s Messiah demonstrates that the Romans directed the writing of both.  Their purpose: to offer a vision of a ‘peaceful Messiah’ who would serve as an alter-native to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome…”

(2) The sort of thing that they are engaged in to this day.

   But to continue.

--

P.S. As for the novel coronavirus pandemic; I repeat my warnings:

     Do NOT ‘take the shot’ for it.  This is all a set-up, to get you to do just that, in conjunction with putting you in lockdown mode indefinitely, unless you ‘accept the mark’.

     ‘But I thought you said that you were not a Christian.’  That is correct  I am not.  But I am a child of God.    And I recognize error when I see it.

     And Truth when I see that.

     The virus mutates anyway.  Any shot for it will be on a time lag.  The answer is what I have been (more than) hinting at in recent blogs:

     ’The terrain is everything.’