[continued from previous message]   
      
   While examining the philosophy of Jesus, [352] it was remarked that   
   Christianity has been more effective at turning good people into bad ones than   
   vice versa. The reasons given for this were the spiritual stagnancy of the   
   Christian community and the    
   negative ideation of Christians,, that they are sinners. But, there are more   
   grounds on which to justify that observation, and we shall briefly return to   
   that subject, viewing Christianity from the broader perspective of social   
   analysis.   
      
   There are three causes of sin. First is underaccumulation of the requisite   
   physical or psychic pabulum. Second is overaccumulation of physical or psychic   
   pabulum. And third is stagnancy in any sphere of existence. A cursory glance   
   at the countries where    
   Catholicism and Protestantism predominate indicates a far from random   
   correlation between Catholicism and poverty, and between Protestantism and   
   excess riches. [353] Hence, the first two causes of sin appear to be   
   exacerbated by these two branches of    
   Christianity – at least in relation to the physical pabulum of life.   
      
   As regards the question of psychic pabulum, it is valuable to remember that,   
   up until very recently, almost all education was controlled by the Church. But   
   the Church has never made any sincere effort to teach human beings the answers   
   to the most    
   fundamental questions of our human existence – “Who am I”, “What is the   
   purpose of my life”, “What is society”, “What is the value and purpose of our   
   co-existence”. If anything, the Church education process wanted to distract   
   human beings from even    
   asking these questions, what to speak of their searching for the answer to   
   them. Indeed, assuming that a satisfactory response to those queries might be   
   found in the New Testament (though that is most assuredly not the case), the   
   Church never tried to    
   educate the general people about the writings in the New Testament. [354] Even   
   with respect to ordinary literacy, the Church was a colossal failure; for real   
   education, as opposed to religious or political propaganda, was not one of the   
   Church's high    
   priorities. [355]   
      
   A last point regarding underaccumulation and overaccumulation of psychic   
   pabulum is that many developed Christian countries have been responsible   
   lately for creating a brain drain in the world. In other words, they have   
   tended to attract and absorb the    
   highest skilled professionals from the underdeveloped countries, thus leaving   
   those poorer and less-educated countries in an even more disadvantaged   
   position. This in itself is a great sin on the part of the developed   
   countries, and it aggravates    
   tremendously the problem of sin in the underdeveloped countries. [356]   
      
   Finally, on the question of stagnancy, Catholicism tends to exert a greater   
   spiritual influence than Protestantism, but in the physical and psychic   
   spheres, the Catholic Church has an exceedingly black record for obstruction   
   of progress. [357] Conversely,   
    Protestantism has performed far better than Catholicism in the physical and   
   psychic spheres; but in the spiritual arena, Protestantism tends to offer   
   little or no guidance, while preventing the society from searching for   
   spiritual nourishment elsewhere.    
   [358]   
      
   The foregoing discussion has dealt with Christianity, i.e. Catholicism and   
   Protestantism. Without any great difficulty, a similar argument may be made   
   against Judaism. If, for example, we look at Israel today, we discover a   
   disproportionate distribution    
   of economic wealth, and even education, in favor of the European and American   
   immigrants, the Ashkenazim, over their Asian and African relatives, the   
   Sephardim. [359] Moreover, long before Christianity existed, it was the Jews   
   who established the    
   patriarchal social code and patrilineal system of inheritance which   
   effectively deprived the female sector of Jewish society of economic   
   independence. [360] And finally, it is well known that the Jews have generally   
   managed to amass more physical wealth    
   than their non-Jewish neighbors. At, least in some cases there can be no doubt   
   that this could only be accomplished by immorally depriving those neighbors of   
   their rightful due, but in any event this disproportionate arrangement   
   invariably exacerbated    
   and exacerbates social tension. Thus it is clear that Judaism was defective   
   with respect to the first two causes of sin, over- and under-accumulation. As   
   regards the third point of stagnancy, the fact that Judaism remains today   
   largely unchanged, despite    
   all its obvious shortcomings, is in itself an indication of stagnancy. That   
   Zionism still exerts an influence over the minds of most Jews is evidence that   
   they still move about with blinkers over their eyes. [361] While the Jews   
   generally do excel in    
   comparison with their Christian sisters and brothers in all areas relating to   
   the intellect, nevertheless one can still find examples of undue Jewish   
   conservatism in respect to scientific research and development, evidenced   
   today by the pan-religious    
   opposition to further investigations into the young and fertile field of   
   genetic engineering. [362] Hence, Judaism also may be held guilty from a   
   social point of view for being more effective at creating sin than eliminating   
   it.   
      
   The Role of Scriptures   
   Nothing in this universe is stationary. Religion, however, tries to reduce the   
   human mind to an inert condition, through imposition of different complexes   
   (inferiority, superiority, shyness and fear..), because a static psychology is   
   more susceptible to    
   exploitation. But this state of inertia is the very antithesis of the mind's   
   innate characteristic. Therefore, it has frequently been necessary for   
   religion to adjust itself to changing conditions, in order to keep open the   
   door of exploitation. In this    
   respect, scriptures have played a vital role. From their first introduction,   
   these holy scriptures had, built into them, many avenues of exploitation. It   
   remained, nonetheless, absolutely essential for the priests and church elders   
   to make scriptural    
   adjustments per the conventions of the changing times. If these scriptures   
   were taken to be divine in origin, changes would be more difficult to manage.   
   Yet, to admit that scriptures were the work of human beings might spoil the   
   game altogether. So the    
   religious leaders proclaimed a suprahuman source for their scriptures, while   
   cunningly devising ways and means to adopt the necessary changes in the code.   
      
   Knowing that the course of logic and reason is no highway to exploitation, the   
   rabbis and priests rarely trod that path. They preferred to lead the ignorant   
   and unwary masses down the dark alley of blind faith. The scriptures were   
   generally kept in some    
   holy place, far from the prying eyes of the curious laity. Should the common   
   people discover some sacred scroll, a thorough knowledge of Hebrew, Greek or   
   Latin was generally required to understand it. Even today, in quite a few   
   non-Israeli synagogues    
   many or most prayers are repeated in Hebrew; and it is only since 1965, when   
   the Second Vatican Council decided to reverse the age-old linguistic policy of   
   the Church, that Roman Catholics have been permitted to celebrate Mass in   
   their local languages.   
      
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)