Evolution (3/3) - My message to not only American Christians (3/3)

Now lets get into the topic of my promised theological debate. Originally, I wanted to discuss how languages are living organisms, that evolve with time. Even the world literally is today often used as a word to actually mean figuratively like in a „He is literally the devil.“ and while this is a word that is still at least being used in its original sense (like I have used in the next paragraph) and you can find out the meaning by the context of the sentence, there are many words, which completely changed their meaning like “Awful“, originally meaning full of awe, “Nice“, originally meaning ignorant or foolish and so on. I will not even get into how books were removed from the script by powerful, to fit their agenda, how much were the books that stayed changed throughout times or how much were they changed just by regular mistakes in translations (due to not understanding the culture or the languages not even having the same words in vocabulary) or by just mistakes in reproducing them, which were later on copied and are used to this day, as that is a path that leads nowhere and therefore, I will take them as they are, even though it is important to keep all of that in mind anyway. Also, one important note to mention, personally I see myself as a believer of God that doesn't belong into any religious school of thought, while believing that all prophets of the books, Quran included (which in Islam eyes make me a Muslim, as I understand it and I also personally see Islam as being the closest to truth out of all of the Abrahamic religions, even though I combine it with my own personal beliefs largely influenced by Buddhism), were chosen or sent to Earth by God to teach and warn humanity, so we can eventually find our way back home to light, where we belong.

First, I would like to talk to people who take Bible completely literally. To you, my question is, have you ever even read the Bible??? I read it whole (Jehovah witnesses version of it, the old testament, as well as the new one, that I read in Czech, but for purposes of this theological debate I will be using English translation of New international Version of Bible from YouVersion Bible app) and while there are for sure parts of the book which are literal, especially the parts that are just focusing on just regular events happening (like person walked here, slept there, talked to this person etc.), vast majority of the prophecies, and I would argue also many miracles/signs, as well as teachings of prophets, not only from Jesus, are obvious metaphors or largely made of metaphors, which is even said explicitly multiple times in the book (Jesus speaking in parables [f.e. Mathew 13:34] and is even explicitly quoted saying sentences, even to his apostles, that they hear his words, but they don't understand them, or him sometimes even explaining the meaning right after – which is often made in new metaphors). Also, if we look at the original texts (or as original, as we can find), we will find out that the old testament contains only little less than 8 700 unique Hebrew words out which around 2400 are just names and with gospels [which are the only texts from new testament that I find truly relevant (but even those I find unfortunate, as all of us get often misunderstood by people and so was Jesus by his students, and that's why I like that Quran, as well as many old testament books, are written by prophets themselves, as there, the prophets could be exact with their wording and the meaning couldn't be shaped by the perception of the ones who wrote them, which can be often wrong), as those are at least quotations of Jesus and not just ideas of his students about what they thought was his message, which especially Paul, in my opinion, often butchers immensely (at least he is knowledgeable of his possible failings, as written in 1. Corinthians 4:4 which in my Czech bible is very different to the English one and goes like this „I am not of knowledge of my behavior being wrong, which doesn't prove that I act correctly. The one who judges me is Jehovah”) which would take one whole essay to dissect, which I will pass on this time] the unique word count (from Greek texts) doesn't increase much (around additional 3000 unique words), which, if we compare it to modern languages, who have hundreds of thousands or even millions of unique words, is very limited. However, if you ask me, I think that this was done on purpose, as prophets who were inspired by God and other people who wrote down their words down, knew that languages evolve and therefore they decided to use the most simple words to get their message across, as it is highly unlikely that words like „tree“ „blood“ or „roots“ will change its meaning and therefore, those are the words that are best use to encode messages, if you want to keep them alive for millenia to come. Also while writing in such way, you are almost forcing readers to use their own brains to figure out the messages by their own, which, if your goal is to enlighten humanity, is the way to write, as enlightenment cannot be given, it has to be earned, otherwise it has little to no value and you would be just repeating messages that somebody else told you without an actual need of understanding them. (Just like our current education system)

Don't believe me? First let's look at some of the examples from Old Testament that I personally enjoy a lot, Ezekiel 31. In this prophecy Ezekiel talks to Egyptian Pharaoh, starting with a story about Assyrian empire 31:3 “Consider, Assyria once a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches overshadowing the forest, it towered on high, its top above the thick foliage” followed with 31:9 “I made it beautiful with abundant branches, the envy of all trees of Eden in the garden of God” after which Ezekiel continues about this tree becoming very prideful, so that 31:11: “I (God) gave it into the hands of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with according to its wickedness. I cast it aside“ 31:12: „and the most ruthless of foreign nations cut it down and left it. Its boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys; its branches lay broken in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth came out from under its shade and left it.” and then Ezekiel switches this story on Pharaohs and his kingdom. 31:18: “Which of the trees of Eden can be compared with you in splendor and majesty? Yet you, too will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth below; you will lie among the uncircumcised, with those killed by the sword. “This is pharaoh and his hordes declares the Sovereign LORD.” This story is to show Pharaoh that just like Assyria, Egypt has become too prideful and even thought it rules over many nations, owns immense wealth and prosperity, it too will be brought down to its knees by other nations. This one is full of metaphors where trees mean kingdoms, branches overshadowing the forest, means that the kingdom ruled over other kingdoms, which once it was defeated (cut down), nations of the earth came out from under its shade, meaning that they became independent again or at least ruled by others. Why I also love these verses, is because here God, through Ezekiel, also tries to tell us that the garden of Eden is our own planet and we just destroyed it through our actions, that it became unrecognizable. Trying to make us understand that God never kicked us out of Eden, because Eve and Adam ate the fruit from forbidden tree of the knowledge, but instead we are still in Eden, it is just unrecognizable because we (humanity) “kicked” ourselves out of it by destroying our planet through misusing the technology we gained by acquiring the knowledge given to us and the whole story of Jewish and later other nations, as well as messages from prophets, Mohammed included, are here to teach us wisdom needed to be able to use this knowledge for good and therefore create God's kingdom on Earth, which means rebirth of Eden with golden city ruling over it, that to me symbolizes civilization, which acts on our best impulses instead of the worst ones, as seen in our current barbaric civilization.

Another metaphorical prophecy that I find interesting is about the end of times, coming also from Ezekiel, this time verses 34, where God tells Ezekiel to prophesy (long after the king David was dead) against shepherds (leaders or rulers - I also see serious argument for God talking about clergy, in which case it should be interpreted from perspective of spiritual leadership and the most probable possibility is that it means both) of Israel (which by reading the book, the literal readers will probably understand as „leaders from area of Israel“ [which already breaks their argument of the book being literal, as we see in the books, that the words leader or ruler is often used, so if God wanted the prophecy to be literal, he could make it so. Also in case the book was literal and we were talking about shepherds, the rest of the prophecy makes no sense – in case the metaphor means clergy, word priests could easily be used as it was also done many times in the books before], more deep Jewish thinkers will probably come up with „priests/teachers of Judaism or leaders of Jewish people“, but by extension of Jesus and later Mohammed teachings, we know that by such term, it is meant people of books; believers of God – even thought I would argue that even in Old testament, there are many instances, where more broad interpretation is suggested – Shepherds of Israel in this context, in my opinion, means leaders of believers in God, who are told 34:3 „You ear the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock“ 34:4 „You have not strengthen the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.“ so God decides that 34:10„This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them. 34:11 „For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them“ 34:13 “I will bring them out from nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in the settlements in the land.“ 34:23 „I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd” 34:30 „Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD.“ So, let's discuss the metaphors. God here obviously charges these leaders of making their lives comfortable (clothe themselves with the wool) and following rules that on surface make them look proper (slaughter the choice animals), while not doing their job of taking proper care of the people, they are in charge off (flock), not bringing back the strays (people who lost their way of being productive members of society, in case of religious leaders it means the ones who lost faith) or searched for the lost (ones on the outskirts of society, so lost in generational trauma that they had very little chance and are consumed by their demons). Because of which, God has decided to rescue the masses from these leaders mouths (their terrible leadership/governance, or in case of religious teachers their false teachings), so they will no longer be food for them (they will not be able to make living out of their activity), after which God will take over the world and start taking care of his believers (sheep) by herself (as God is both male and female; Genesis 1:27) by gathering us "out from" (which is another clue) nations and gathering us from countries [This part is extremely important, as if God only talked about the „the original Israelites“ - (as I believe whom the prophecy from Ezekiel 37:15-28 is about, where the wording is significantly different, as you can check not only in 37:21) ascendants of Jacob, which is the original meaning for Israel at the beginning of the Old Testament and in many other parts of Old Testament (sometimes it is specifically used to also mean Jacob himself) - , he would only say from countries, as nations in the Bible are clearly defined by our ethnical/regional backgrounds. Meaning that God here talks about all of his believers, whether they come from Jewish ethnicity or not] and bringing us to our land (land that those nations own fairly and collectively), where God will pasture us on mountains of Israel (here I believe God talks about spiritual food in form of enlightenment coming from teachings, that originally came out of Jewish teachings and reached immense hights ever since). Over these nations and countries, God will then anoint one leader/teacher, who will tend to the needs of the people and whose life story will be the story of king David, before he became the king, instead of it being LITERALLY the king David from begginings of Israel Kingdom or being a person of David ancestry like some scholars speculate (which is a topic I will again touch on, when talking about Jesus not being a literal son of God). To support the argument that by Israel, it is often in especially later prophecies of Old testament meant people of the books (believers in God), I would use Ezekiel 43:2 where in this vision of going through Third Temple (which is in my opinion obvious metaphor for the so called state Israel, where Satan sits on its throne and does miracles like defeating many nations, while being insanely small, through help of an old man called United States), Ezekiel sees „glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.“ which in the easts are the lands of Arabs, Persians and other Muslims, where, if we are being honest, God is most praised, honored and glorified, in our current age. Also, Muslims are the last people of books, so it would only make sense that God's glory would currently preside there and therefore also came from there. Also, it has been the voice of especially Iran, but others in the east as well, that never stopped with their opposition to inhumane system in Palestine, supporting Palestinians in their fight against the Satanic apartheid regime, giving the rest of us time and opportunity to see through the lies of our current system, waking us also up with their roaring voice of truth, while standing fearlessly in opposition against the strongest powers our planet has ever seen, which is Israel supported by the US army, as well as their lap dog Europe (NATO), together controlling pretty much the whole world.

While I could continue for ages with disproving the silly opinion of Bible being only (as there are moments, when it is so, like in the example of 10 commandments or Jesus commandment to love each other as Jesus loved his students) literal piece of literature, I won't as pretty much every other page is filled with proof of not being so and therefore it is a waste of time. Also, we will see that in my other arguments anyway, as it is hard to avoid the subject. So, let's have a look at Jesus being the literal son of God argument. This most likely draws from gospels of Mathew 3:16-3:17, Mark 1:9-11 and Luke 3:21-22 during Jesus being baptized and voice from heaven calling Jesus his beloved son or Mathew 17:5. But also, as I understand (based on Hebrews 1:5 and some online interpretations of Bible), from 2. Samuel 7:12-15, where God promises to David, who wanted to build proper house (temple) for God instead of the tent, that was used since Moses days, 7:12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 7:13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 7:14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. 7:15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Which is by my understanding one of the most quoted prophecies for Messiah coming from David bloodline specifically, so I am gonna say that all of you that believe in this theory, are in my opinion, completely wrong and this prophecy, or more a promise/reward to David for his dutiful servitude to God, is about Solomon. The reason why you are wrong is for multiple reasons, firstly because of the context of this interaction where David talks about building a house for God, by which he means temple, and God responds that it will be his successor Solomon, who will do so instead, as he later did. While it could be a metaphor where "successor" can mean somebody way in the far future and "house" can mean God Kingdom on Earth, I think, successor was actually meant literally as immediate successor and "house" meant temple, because of multiple additional reasons:

1. Once Solomon built the temple, God's glory moved from the tent of Moses times to the temple, symbolizing that he changed his place of stay/house

2. God calls the temple his house many times in future books like in Isaiah 56:7, which is later also, in my opinion, correctly quoted by Jesus when cleansing the temple.

3. God raises Solomon kingdom to the peak of Israels glory and his throne is established forever, so much that even I, growing up in almost completely atheistic society in Czechia, knew about king Solomon and his wisdom and riches, thousands of years after his death, from very young age, without ever reading about him or the Bible, which I just finished not so long ago

4. Solomon did many wrongs in God's eyes, like marrying many foreign women, who turned his heart after other gods, so God wants to harshly punish Salomon just as he did to Saul before David, but he doesn't do so, as said in 1. Kings 11:12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. This is obviously because of the promise God made to king David, that his love will not be taken away from Solomon like it did with Soul.

5. But still he punished Solomon for his wrongs with metaphorical floggings by human hands as said in 11:14 Then the Lord raised up against Solomon an adversary, Hadad the Edomite, from the royal line of Edom. And 11:23 And God raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah and 11:26 Also, Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon's officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah. All of whom were enough to make Solomon's life very difficult and hurt his rule.

6. Also, if 7:14 was supposed to be about Jesus, the floggings he did actually suffer, would be because of him being punished by God, for which we have no support in New testament and would also go completely against the idea of Jesus sacrificing himself without being in the wrong, apart from also being against many other writings in old and new testament.

These 6 points make it undisputable, that this prophecy couldn't be about Jesus, or Messiah (if arguing with religious Jews, who don't believe in Jesus being the first incarnation of Messiah – while it not being the first incarnation of Jesus on Earth overall, as hinted in John 8:58) for that matter, and it is instead about Solomon, whose story perfectly fits the prophecy and is in my opinion even supported by slightly different wording of the same prophecy in 1 Chronicles 17:11-14. So, this is also my answer to New Testament Hebrews 1:5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, „You are my son; today I have become your Father”? Or again, “I will be his Father and he will be my Son”? I will tell you who, She did to Solomon (actually David but you catch my drift). And by saying so, like in earlier mentioned gospels during baptism of Jesus, God, in my opinion, obviously meant that Jesus is his chosen one, similarly to how Solomon was his chosen one to raise the kingdom of Israel to its highest peak and renown of its existence.

That the word son of God is also not meant literally (even thought I do believe that God, through his command, did put holy spirit into Jesus during his inception, similarly to how Muslims view it, but I actually believe that Mary was not a virgin and Jesus was created through procreation, and him not having a father is a metaphor of growing up without his biological father) not only because Jesus calls himself Son of Man (which is actually a title used by God in old testament for prophets), but also because of the way how he speaks about God's parental relationship that it has with his followers, as well as how the word son and child/children is used metaphorically probably thousands of times in Bible, which was in my opinion a way of speech during those times or how the word son is being also used as a term that means „from line of“ which is relevant because Adam was also called son of God (Luke 3:38), therefore since we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, with this type of speech, we are all sons and daughters of God (which we are). Some of the examples can be found here:

1. Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children (in my Bible written as sons) of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (Same is said in Matthew 5:44-45) – use of children/sons in a metaphorical way

2. Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children (in my Bible again used as sons) of God. - use of children/sons in a metaphorical way

3. When Jesus teaches is students to pray Matthew 6:9 „This, then, is how you should pray: „Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name, - Jesus literally saying to his students that God is their father (in a metaphorical way)

4. Acts 13:10 and he said: You are a child (in my bible used as Son) of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? - Other metaphorical way to use child/son of

5. Luke 19:9 Jesus said to him, „Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. - could be interpreted as follower in spiritual sense but also as a descendant

6. Matthew 1:1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham. - here it is clearly used as a descendant of

7. Mathew 23:9 And do not call anyone on earth “father”, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. - Jesus trying it to make his students understand that they are also sons and daughters of God

So therefore, even when Jesus talks to the Jews in John 10:36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, „I am God's Son? It is consistent with his speech of him using the word son in a metaphorical way. Also, the phrase “set apart” should be another clue for you to make you understand that it is meant in a metaphorical way, if he meant it and wanted you to understand it in a literal way, he would say fathered/seeded, or similar word of that meaning. Another huge clue for you should have been, when Jesus explained to you, that he speaks in parables f.e. in Mathew 13:10-15. If you don't see the truth, I recommend that you go read the Bible from start to finish and think about the ideas I brought in front of you when reading it. If you are honest with yourself, I am sure you will see it.

I would also likely to quickly mention the topic of “praying” to saints that Catholics do, as I originally saw it as a huge blasphemy, but after I read up on the principle of veneration and asking for intercession, I found that it is pretty much a principle of how I see that honoring and asking favors from djinns, angels, ancestors, natural and animal spirits and other more or less powerful ethereal beings is supposed to be done (as long as it is obvious in the wording of veneration/intercession to you and the beings you communicate with that God is above all), so I actually don't have a problem with it and I actually even recommend it, as these beings being starved out, is a huge reason, why our world (especially when it comes to animal and natural spirits) is in such a state as it is.

Now I would like to get to huge crime against God's law that, as far as I know, many Christians are participating in, which is treating Jesus as God and even praying to him. While it is truth that Jesus is partly God, as explained in John 10:30 „I and the Father are one“, which however doesn't mean equality but instead it means that Jesus is God's part, as explained also in John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. If Jesus were calling himself God, there would be no “in” in both sentences. Instead, he is talking about his soul energy which is God itself and therefore, God is in Jesus, as well as Jesus is in God. This is also supported by many distinctions made by him during his teachings, that were supposed to make you understand that he is not calling himself God, as explained in instances like in John 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all;, Luke 18:19 „Why do you call me good?“ Jesus answered. „No one is good – except for God alone.“ or John 15:11 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener” That is also why when asked by his students, how should they pray, he explicitly specified it in Mathew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-13, where it is obvious that your prayers should be directed straight to God and God only. However, I understand that this confusion comes from John 14:13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14:14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it, This is obviously another teaching, that is followed by earlier mentioned 14:11 where he told to apostles that he is in Father, and therefore obviously also Father is (partly) in him, so of course he will be also partly doing whatever you ask for, but to be sure that his students picked up on these nuances, he continues in his speech and makes it very clear in an immediate follow up 15:16 You did not choose me, but I choose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. Let's now also dissect “in my name”, which in reality is just the same teaching, to the one when Jesus teaches that salvation and understanding of truth (that love is the foundational law of the universe) comes through believing in Jesus being a prophet and his teachings. This was mentioned many times throughout other gospels, also found f.e. in John 10:9-10, Mark 10:32-33 and is also supported by more clearer explanation in a earlier part of this speech in 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you, apart from the rest of his teachings that talk about this many times. I swear that many Christians just take one sentence and run with it, instead of trying to understand Jesus teachings (together with Old Testament) as a whole. It is understandable, since that demands much less time, patience and focus, but as said, enlightenment is not given, it is earned and similarly to a contract, if you just read and judge contract based on a small part in it, instead of the whole body of work, you will miss the big picture and therefore also the meaning of the contract.

While on this topic, I would also like to note one important message, that Jesus wanted to, in my opinion, teach you not only in John 15, which was that not only he is partly God, but if you are truly following his teachings, every single one of us can achieve his state, because we were given souls from where God's energy flows through us all, but to do so you gotta truly listen to this command 15:17 Love each other. This topic, as well as the topic of reincarnation would take another long essay, for which I currently do not have time, so instead I will ask you, does this world looks like it loves each other? And if your answer is no, will you do something about it? Because before I end this essay, I want to talk about one last prophecy of Jesus, that is in my opinion also related to the end times. Starting at Matthew 10:26 “So do not be afraid of them for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known after which Jesus gives his apostles courage with his next sentences followed by a warning that 10:32 Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven 10:33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. after which he stated very important message 10:34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 10:35 For I have come to turn a man against his father, daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law- 10:36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. While this speech can be understood as him warning his apostles about many enemies (even within their households) when spreading his gospel, while partly true, I think the message is much deeper. Jesus here is trying to disprove the idea, that reaching God's kingdom on Earth will be done through complacency with the current system (or as said by Jesus himself „this world“) and it will instead be reached through disobedience and force. Yes, he is talking about (r)evolution. So, my last question to you is: Are you ready to finally pick up your sword?

And remember, even when it feels like you are alone, you never are and never will be.

God is the greatest.