Form: Mini Essay

THE TRUTH IS VISIBLE IN JESUS’ MYTHOS Jesus told us to love one another. He did not teach us to lie. But he was raised in a culture of myths and lies. And the language of mythology and lies was the only language of persuasion available to him. If he knew greek, he had not – like most primitive people’s – yet learned Greek reason. And if he did know of greek reason, it’s quite possible he saw it as a threat, since it was the language of government and contract, not the language of the slaves, fishermen, herders, and farmers. We tend to forget that his people at that point in time were the equivalent of the Brazilian favelas, north American ghettos, Arab hinterlands, and Indian slums. So Jesus spoke in the form of persuasion available to him: myth and lie, and probably in the language he was raised with: Aramaic. And under the influence of the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Jewish totalitarian fairy tales we call the old testament. If you compare those authoritarian fairy tales to , Aesop’s Fables, Anglo, Scandinavian, Germanic, and Slavic Fairy Tales, the Geek and Roman Myths, the Arthurian Legends, the Germanic Niebelugelied, the Illiad and the Odyssey,, the Carolingian Saga, and Whig History (the continuous evolution of Europa), you will see the difference between the heroic man competing with the gods to sit among them, and the submissive man under a tyrannical god’s authority, producing the cultures of stagnation, and anti-science, and pervasive deceit. Why? The difference between many competing tribes in the fertile crescent with the concentration of wealth in the industrialization of the river valleys, and many homogenous tribes in the Eurasian forests and plains, limited to relatively small individual manors and farms. So Jesus he asked us to love one another the only way that he knew how, with the only appeal to truth and authority he know how, in the only language he knew how to use. His advice was that if we unified with love we could resist the aristocracy – that the solution to authoritarianism whether eastern totalitarian and immoral, or western contractual and moral, was to love each other, and to resist them. We cannot blame the people in prior eras for lacking the persuasive technologies that we invented after they passed. In each era we do the best that we can with the tools available to us. Yet with the luxury of our current knowledge, we can restate his very simple teachings from his ancient primitive language, from his ancient mysticism, from his ancient authoritarianism, from the language of deception, into the current language. 1) Treat others as you yourself would be treated. Treat no other as you would not wish to be treated yourself. There is no law above the two sides of this moral coin. 2) Reserve time to commune with your neighbors and contemplate how you may do this. 3) Impose no costs upon those things that others have labored to obtain, because it will provoke retaliation by others, and this will harm all of us. In case we need reminding, this refers to: – The life, body, offspring, mates, and relations of others. – The property that others have obtained by discovery, production or trade, from those things justly discovered, produced, and traded. – The norms, traditions, laws, and institutions of others so long as they do not violate these rules. – Speak the truth at all times, no matter the consequence. – Neither act, coerce others to act, nor even think of these things. – Show charity to those who need it to the limit of your ability, without violating these rules. – In total: treat all others as your family – and we all shall become one. One family. Not in our imaginations, but in practice. Out of many we shall become one.