Statism is Idolatry

Posted on 2011/12/21 by Ken

I’ve been asked how I made the leap from Karaism to Anarchism, and that’s a very good question. The idolatry of Statism is so ingrained in modern Western culture, that it’s rarely recognized as a religious faith.

My parents taught me to study fervently, that I would truly know what I believed. I’m sure they are saddened to discover this guidance led me away from the Christianity they hold so dear, but I am grateful for their influence and motivation to seek the truth, wherever it may lead me.

While I acknowledge that it’s impossible to be completely objective, I worked very hard to overcome my presuppositions while I studied as many perspectives on faith as I could. It was never my intention to abandon the faith of my fathers, so to speak, but to follow that faith to the truth. This is why I focused my studies on Christian thought, and did not spend much time studying Eastern religions.

However, the deeper I traveled toward the truth of Christianity, the closer to Judaism I became. For me, the crucial step of denying the divinity of Jesus was very big and scary move. It’s not really within the scope of this post to explore the reasons why I came to these conclusions, but once I realized that worshiping Jesus was really a form of idolatry, it was a natural extension of this discovery to see that my “red-blooded American” patriotism was also a form of idolatry.

In I Samuel 8, when the people demanded a king, YHVH made it clear to Samuel that it wasn’t Samuel, personally, or even the judges that Samuel represented, the people were rejecting. It was God himself they rejected, when they demanded a king:

And Jehovah said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not be king over them.

I Samuel 8:7 (ASV)

Many people obviously disagree with me, but I believe the word “king” in this passage is representative of all forms of human government. The ancient Israelites demanded a king, because that’s what the prevalent system of government was in those days. (See verses 5 and 20, where it’s clear the people wanted a king “that we also may be like all the nations.”)

Others who recognize Statism is idolatry

Kevin Craig, who is a Libertarian running for Congress in Missouri, has put quite a bit of effort into explaining how Statism is idolatry on his website, and I encourage you (especially if you are a Christian and/or a Constitutionalist) to spend some time reading his page here: http://kevincraig.us/statism.htm.

The self-proclaimed Heretic, on his blog Confessions of a Heretic, recognizes Statism as idolatry, from what appears to be a Christian perspective, as well: http://hereticconfessions.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/86/. I think he’s inconsistent, when he says “a citizen owes his government…obedience to its laws,” but as long as he continues to hold onto the New Testament as holy scripture, he will struggle with such inconsistencies. He still makes some good points about the idolatry of Statism.

Even the Christian anti-cult website, SeekFind.net, recognizes Statism as an idolatrous religion: http://seekfind.net/Statism___Statists.html. Unfortunately, in their attempt to reconcile with the New Testament’s ingrained Statism, they mistakenly assume that Statism must be a subjective classification of a government that’s “gone too far.” (In their words, “wherever governments have approached the level of Statism,…”) This is a common mindset, but it completely ignores the story of I Samuel, where YHVH explains the people are rejecting him even before they’ve established their first human government! He didn’t say that when the king “approaches the level of Statism,” the people will reject God. He says that simply by asking for a human ruler, they have already rejected God.

“Hogeye Bill,” recognized the religious aspect of Statism in his essay entitled, The Theology of Statism, where he makes the case that even atheists are idolators when they accept the authority of the State.

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Why Am I an Anarchist?

Posted on 2011/03/08 by Ken

I just received my signed copy of The Conscience of an Anarchist, by Dr. Gary Chartier, and was so completely impressed with the first chapter that I wanted to share it with you!

I completely agree with his eloquent expression of anarchism, and wish I could have made such a statement so effectively. (I’ve enhanced this excerpt, slightly, by transforming italics into boldface, for easier reading in my site’s stylesheet.)

Open Your Mind to Anarchy

As an idea, anarchism is the conviction that people can and should interact on the basis of peaceful, voluntary cooperation. As a political program, it’s the project of doing without the state.

Because governments are rooted in the use of force, anarchists maintain that no actual government is legitimate and that, in any case, we would be better off without the state. Anarchists reject any kind of authority acquired or maintained through aggressive violence or fraud. More broadly, many anarchists—including me—maintain that the same ideals that motivate their opposition to aggressive violence prompt them to challenge social institutions and cultural patterns that subordinate, exclude, or impoverish people, stultify their lives, or force them into soul-numbing conformity.

People can and should organize their interactions voluntarily. We can defend ourselves against aggression; we don’t need the state to force us not to kill each other. And we don’t need the state’s help to coordinate our interactions. Working together, we can craft meaningful lives and livable communities.

Anarchism as a Positive Vision

Sometimes, people wear the anarchist label, or hoist anarchist black flags, when their primary goal is just to spread a little chaos. Even people who know better may sometimes act as if “anarchy” were just another word for disorder. But anarchism as I understand it is about the best kind of order imaginable: the kind that emerges voluntarily, spontaneously, as people work creatively together to shape their lives and plan their futures. Anarchy is what happens when social order flows, not from the state’s gun barrels, but from the free choices of fearless people.

Roughly speaking, a state is an organization that claims to have legitimate authority over who uses force in a given territory and that does at least a moderately effective job of keeping unapproved violence under control…. The state in the modern sense has been with us for over three hundred years, and states of various kinds are much older than that. So it’s easy to treat the existence of states as inevitable. But, for anarchists, there’s nothing necessary about the state at all. States persist because of the self-interest of the powerful people who manage or manipulate them and because ordinary people haven’t realized their own power to imagine and implement alternatives.

In this book, I want to help to loosen the hold the state still has on people’s imaginations. I want to point out that, as in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale, the emperor really has nothing on at all. I want to encourage you to shift your point of view—to come to see the state as a group of people no different from your neighbors, with no more inherent authority, no greater right to tell you what to do. (Of course, your neighbors are unlikely to threaten you with guns if you don’t do what they tell you to do. But this difference hardly counts in the state’s favor.) I want to undermine the myth that the state represents us in any meaningful sense, that when politicians and generals act, they’re acting on our behalf. I want to underscore the fact that the people who make and implement state decisions are pursuing their own agendas, often in conflict with our own, just like powerful people in, for instance, big businesses and other similar institutions, and that we have no reason to treat them with reverence, to view them as anything other than ordinary people, with no more rights than our own.

This isn’t a primer, a work of philosophy or economics or political science or history, though it will certainly make use of the results of inquiry in all those disciplines. It’s a manifesto, a call to action: not to more violence that’s just the mirror image of the state’s own destructiveness, but to the creative work of envisioning a new kind of society and beginning to construct it here and now, right under the noses of the people in power.

Why I Am an Anarchist

I’m an anarchist for several reasons.

I’m an anarchist because I believe there’s no natural right to rule. I believe people are equal in essential dignity and worth, which means, in turn, that they have equal moral standing. That makes it hard to justify giving some people—those who rule the state and those who enforce rulers’ decisions—rights that others don’t have. And I’m an anarchist because I believe the state lacks legitimacy. Some people argue that rulers deserve to have more rights than those they rule because their subjects have consented and continue to consent to their authority. But I believe they haven’t. I’ll talk more about these reasons for being an anarchist in Chapter 1.

I’m an anarchist because I believe the state is unnecessary. I try to explain why in Chapter 2. Statists often maintain that having a state is the only way to have a peaceful society. I disagree, on both theoretical and empirical grounds. I believe non-state institutions can provide the services the state provides—but more efficiently and flexibly; and there’s good evidence that they’re capable of doing so. In addition, I am convinced that if the state has the power to do good things, even very good, very useful, very important things, it will almost unavoidable use that power in authoritarian ways: it will use the power it has to regulate people’s lives—and to acquire more power.

As I’ll emphasize in Chapter 3, I’m an anarchist because the state tips the scales in favor of privileged elites and against ordinary people. (Contrary to what “good government” types will tell you, that’s just what it’s designed to do.) The state tends to promote inefficiencies through subsidies, monopolies, patents, tariffs, and other mechanisms that allow elites to avoid paying the actual costs of what they do. It forces ordinary people to bear the costs of elite decisions and to adjust their preferences and behaviors to suit conformist majorities. I believe a stateless society would be more likely than ours to foster efficiency and productivity and to avoid varieties of hierarchy and exclusion states tend to promote and protect. Anyone who cares about the power of wealthy people and big businesses, the prosperity of ordinary people, and the well being of the poor and the vulnerable should say a resounding “no” to the state.

I’m an anarchist because the state tends to be destructive. It engages in war and plunder, and seems persistently to be involved in ratcheting up the level of violence and injustice across borders—which are, of course, themselves state creations (there’s more about this in Chapter 4). I believe a stateless society would feature much less large-scale violence than ours.

I’m an anarchist because the state restricts personal freedom—as a way of maintaining order, benefiting the privileged, preserving its own power, or subsidizing some people’s moralizing preferences. And there’s a natural connection between state power and the imposition of limits on freedom. I offer some examples in Chapter 5.

I’m an anarchist because I want a society marked by diversity, exploration, and experimentation, because I believe states impose conformity and resist creativity, and because I believe a stateless society would provide opportunities for people to explore diverse ways of living fulfilled, flourishing lives and to put the results of their exploration on display. I make this point in more detail in Chapter 6: I’ll talk about the shape of life without the state and outline some of the concrete steps we can take to stop oppression and violence and to begin creating a new world.

I’m eager to read the rest of the book… I encourage you to get a copy, too!

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Is Taxation Theft? Why or Why Not?

Posted on 2010/08/01 by Ken

Let’s begin by defining our terminology.

Theft. noun.

  1. The act of stealing.
    1. The felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
    2. An unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property.
  2. Obsolete: Something stolen.

Taxation. noun.

  1. The action of taxing; especially: the imposition of taxes.
  2. Revenue obtained from taxes.
  3. The amount assessed as a tax.

Tax. noun.

  1. A charge, usually of money,
    1. Imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.
    2. Levied on members of an organization to defray expenses.
  2. A heavy demand.

Assuming that “public purposes” refers to legitimate concerns shared by all members of whatever entity (society, organization, etc.) is levying the tax, and assuming that membership in the taxing entity is voluntary, then taxation would not be a theft.

In the United States, today, I am presumed to be a member of the nation (i.e., a denizen), but I have not been offered a reasonable opportunity to opt-in to such membership. Admittedly, this presupposition may be disputed and my ultimate answer to this question would be impacted if it could be demonstrated that I have actually opted into my citizenship in the United States.

Even if I have voluntarily consented to be taxed, however, it remains to be proven that the taxes levied are being used for legitimate concerns shared by all members. When the authors of the United States Constitution penned the infamous “General Welfare Clause,” the common understanding of the word “general” was quite different from our modern understanding of that word. By “general,” they meant the welfare of every single individual within their jurisdiction. Today, we generally mean an average of the entire population, when we use the word “general.”

Compared to the total expenditure of the various governments taxing me, I actually consume a very small minority of the services that my tax money is spent to offer. If my wallet were not continuously robbed of its wealth, I could afford to take my business elsewhere and consume exactly none of the services which our governments perform. If those supposed services were valuable to me, I would gladly pay for them as they are provided.

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How to Maintain a Government Monopoly

Posted on 2010/07/25 by Ken

The biggest problem facing any monopoly is that of their customer. Customers are notoriously fickle and do not hold a genuine loyalty to their suppliers. Their loyalty is innately bound up in the products or services which they consume, regardless of the source of those goods.

To maintain their market dominance, a monopoly has only two possible solutions to the prospect of losing customers:

  1. Improve their products and services
  2. Coerce their customers to stay

Because the foundation of government authority is theft, they do not even have the option to maintain dominance through superior products and services. No individual desires to be stolen from, so there really is no way to make their theft more palatable.

Now, coercion need not appear violent, so governments which purport to “love freedom,” may disguise their theft in one of three ways (usually, they employ a combination of both):

  1. Defer the discomfort of theft, so their subjects focus on the immediate pleasure
  2. Brainwash the subject, so they believe right is wrong and wrong is right
  3. Confuse the subject, so they don’t recognize the theft as the source of their pain

Each of these approaches are time consuming and expensive, so smaller governments usually tend to abandon the effort in favor of openly violent oppression.

1. Package Oppression with Pleasure

People derive pleasure from a wide variety of sources. When the government decides to offer pleasure as a salve to disguise their ongoing theft, they create myriads of “special interest groups,” which bring definition to an otherwise vague target.

If you need to steal children to spend in foreign wars, you will find that building shelters for homeless veterans or unwanted puppies will provide great pleasure to people who profess a concern for the poor (at least, so far as to consolidate them into a neighborhood not so close to home) or claim a love for animals (that eclipses their love for their own species).

2. “Educate” the Subject

Human beings are typically born with an inherent sense of right and wrong. Undoubtedly, there are many variations that derive from the fundamentals as the many special interest groups, mentioned above, demonstrate. What is often referred to as “natural law,” however, is basically the same across all healthy adult humans. Unfortunately, for a government, this natural law includes an animosity toward thieves. To counter this, an extensive marketing campaign must be undertaken to “re-educate” the subject, and convince them that slavery is good for them.

This is most easily accomplished by introducing new languages, consisting of highly technical terms with little basis in day-to-day reality. That way, despite the seeming inconsistency between cherishing the value of each child in our society and the practicality of stuffing them into massive schoolrooms like sardines, a long and boring discussion of the technicalities will convince the subject that you know more than they do about the subject.

3. Disconnect the Cause and Effect

In those cases where the discomfort cannot be deferred long enough, or there isn’t enough time to prepare for a power grab with a propaganda campaign, the best a government can do is to confuse or distract the subject so they don’t recognize the government as the source of their inevitable pain.

Using an overt scapegoat, as the National Socialists in Germany did with Jews during the mid-20th Century, will work in times of great crisis, but more subtle definitions of classes amongst the people will always work to create enough dissension that your painful administration can be blamed on “the rich” or “the poor,” or “the blacks” or “the whites.” If you can introduce the concept of “legality” into your class definitions, your support will cross many boundaries: “illegal alien,” or “illicit sex workers,” or “illegal drug abusers.”

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What is Aggression?

Posted on 2010/07/17 by Ken

As part of my homework for the C4SS class, ATP 101B Introduction to Anarchism, I have to read the first fifteen pages of The Market for Liberty, by Morris and Linda Tannehill, and write about 500 words that answer the questions “What is Aggression?” and “How can we distinguish between aggression and other kinds of undesirable influence?”

Here, for your consideration, is my submission.

What is aggression?

According to Princeton’s WordNet, “aggression” refers to the following five definitions:

  1. A disposition to behave aggressively.
  2. A feeling of hostility that arouses thoughts of attack.
  3. Violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked.
  4. The act of initiating hostilities.
  5. Deliberately unfriendly behavior.

In the first fifteen pages of The Market for Liberty, the Tannehills use the actual word “aggression” only three times, but refer to the initiation of force or violence many times. On page 4, they introduce the phrase “initiation of force” with a note that even the threat of force is considered aggression:

The terms “initiated force” and “coercion” are used to include not only the actual initiation of force but also the threat of such force and any substitute for force. This is because a man can be coerced into acting against his will by threats or deprived of value by force-substitutes, such as fraud or theft by stealth, just as surely as he can by the actual use of physical force. The threat of force is intimidation, which is, itself, a form of force.[1]

An extremely important facet to understanding what is aggression, is recognizing that it is more than mere force, but the initiation of force. On page 10, the Tannehills explains that

[t]his doesn’t mean that a man may not defend himself if someone else initiates force against him. It does mean that he may not start the use of force. To initiate force against anyone is always wrong, because it compels the victim to act contrary to his own judgment.[2]

How can we distinguish between aggression and other kinds of undesirable influence?

The paragraph just quoted also introduces another important factor to consider, when determining whether an action may be aggression: “it compels the victim to act contrary to his own judgment.” If the force being levied against a person is not causing that person to violate their own principles, then it may not really be aggression, but only a form of persuasion.

To visualize this, let’s consider an example that is commonly treated as aggression within the libertarian community: taxation. More specifically, let’s imagine that taxes were levied for specific accounts within the overall government budget.

Mr. Tax Collector arrives at my doorstep and demands that I pay my National Defense Tax. Because waging war is a violation of my own, personal principles, the dictate to pay towards the military budget is an act of aggression: the tax collector is threatening violence if I do not pay, despite my own judgment that such a “contribution” would be immoral.

On the other hand, when Mr. Tax Collector knocks at my neighbor’s door, Sgt. Major Blowhard, the demand to pay the National Defense Tax might be an inconvenience to the Sgt. Major, but he was already planning to contribute to the war effort. (This simplistic parable, of course, does not take into consideration the likelihood that Sgt. Major Blowhard may have other principles, such as his commitment to feed his children on a regular basis, that would interfere with his desire to pay the tax, and thus make Mr. Tax Collector an aggressor.)

There’s another angle to this concept of non-aggression use of “force,” and that is what I would categorize as psychological warfare. In essence, if a person holds principles of liberty that would set him against a force of government, but they held certain conveniences to be of higher value than the principles of liberty, it is very likely that he might willingly surrender his liberties for the sake of convenience.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. [3]

  1. [1] Tannehill, Morris and Linda. The Market for Liberty. Lansing: 1970, page 4 (footnote 1). ↩
  2. [2] Ibid., page 10. ↩
  3. [3] Franklin, Benjamin. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin. London: A.J. Valpy, 1818, page 270. ↩
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More on Satan

Posted on 2010/07/12 by Ken

They have not only given him the power of liberating himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they have made that power increase afterwards to infinity. Before this fall they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as they represent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account, omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He occupies the whole immensity of space.

“Chapter V – Examination in Detail of the Preceding Bases.” The Age of Reason, page 13.

Not constrained by reality, the image of Satan changes to suit the need of the moment. Because it’s difficult to convince people that a loving, almighty God would actually create such an evil being as Satan, he needs to begin his career as an average angel. But, after he rebels against God, somehow, he is transformed into the omnipresent creature that rivals God himself!

Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent him as defeating by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation, all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by coming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the shape of a man.

“Chapter V – Examination in Detail of the Preceding Bases.” The Age of Reason, page 13.

Mr. Paine makes a very important point, next. In my experience, Christians get very personal when the veracity of their mythology is called into question. If you are a Christian reading this, I expect that you are feeling defensive right now, as though my words against the stories you believe are intended to accuse you of some crime.

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner.

“Chapter V – Examination in Detail of the Preceding Bases.” The Age of Reason, page 13.

As Mr. Paine explained in his book, so I reiterate: you, dear Christian, are the victim, in my eyes, not the victimizer. You have been sold a “bill of goods,” and are being manipulated into conformity.

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Of the Bases of Christianity

Posted on 2010/07/12 by Ken

IT is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case I am going to mention, that the Christian mythologists, calling themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.

“Chapter IV – Of the Bases of Christianity.” The Age of Reason, page 11.

The “absurdity and extravagance” of Christianity’s most fundamental mythology is difficult for American Christians to discern. They are as normal to us, as the stories of Santa Claus and Abraham Lincoln.

After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would have supposed that the church mythologists would have been kind enough to send him back again to the pit, or, if they had not done this, that they would have put a mountain upon him, (for they say that their faith can remove a mountain) or have put him under a mountain, as the former mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among the women, and doing more mischief. But instead of this, they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give his parole. The secret of which is, that they could not do without him; and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, ALL the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can doubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology?

“Chapter IV – Of the Bases of Christianity.” The Age of Reason, page 11.

Nowhere, within the Torah nor even the entire Tenach, is there any mention of an evil creature named “Satan.” There is a Hebrew word, transliterated into English as “satan:”

שׂטן

This word, like the infamous word “messiah,” has been twisted way beyond its original meaning, by Christians. A “satan” is anyone who opposes. It is an adversary, not the adversary.

The founders of Christianity were crafty men, who knew the immense power of an iconic monster, in their desire to control the thoughts and behaviors of their followers. Without a “boogey man” to provide a common enemy and distract their attention away from the real monsters, people are too apt to oppose their own leaders.

You can see this mentality everywhere. In early 20th Century America, we fought the Nazis. After they disappeared from the scene, our wise leaders focused our attention on the Communists. When the Soviet Union broke up, they pointed us at the “Terrorists.”

It’s unfortunate, for those who would rule over Americans, that religion has been officially rejected by the State, because Christianity has been cultivating the perfect enemy for a couple thousand years, with great success. If the existence of the Satan could be disproven (which is impossible, because you cannot prove a negative), there would be no need for Christianity’s Jesus to magically save you from Satan’s lair, Hell.

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I’m Allowed to Rob You

Posted on 2010/07/06 by Ken

This video describes, by example, the very core of voluntaryism.

I’m Allowed to Rob You! by Larken Rose
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The Character of Jesus Christ, and His History

Posted on 2010/07/04 by Ken

NOTHING that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before, by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.

“Chapter III – Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History.” The Age of Reason, page 9.

When you have a couple hours, I highly recommend a great video presentation by Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew in Israel, wherein he describes his research into the history of the man commonly known as “Jesus,” and how the ancient Hebrew texts demonstrate that his message was very different from the modern agenda of Christianity.

The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus

Nehemia makes the case, and I agree with him, that Jesus was essentially a Karaite Jew, who was preaching a message of “getting back to basics.” I doubt that Nehemia understands what anarchism is, nor that he would make the same conclusions that I do about Jesus’ message, but I don’t think Jesus was very different from any other left libertarian with public speaking skills.

Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or anything else. Not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

“Chapter III – Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History.” The Age of Reason, page 9.

Jesus was a popular speaker, in his day, and he became a convenient hook for men like Paul to use to draw people into their invented religion, Christianity. The fact that these writings were published after Jesus was dead and buried gives a hint that, perhaps, their authors either (a) didn’t recognize the significance of the man they later claimed was the most significant man in all of history, or (b) they hadn’t formulated the plan to use him as the hero of their revolution.

Even if some of the writers of the New Testament were sincere, their writings were, at the very least, colored by the system of religion that was already being organized by the time they committed their recollections of the life of Jesus to paper. Knowing how susceptible human nature is to the political process, I have to assume they were also quite motivated to “toe the line.” Who knows what, more accurate, histories were written and lost, because the Church rejected them for failing to meet their criteria?

That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are historical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of priest-hood. The accusation which those priests brought against him was that of sedition and conspiracy against the Roman government, to which the Jews were then subject and tributary; and it is not improbable that the Roman government might have some secret apprehension of the effects of his doctrine as well as the Jewish priests; neither is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life.

“Chapter III – Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History.” The Age of Reason, page 10.

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Of Missions and Revelations

Posted on 2010/07/04 by Ken

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

“Chapter II – Of Missions and Revelations.” The Age of Reason, page 7.

On the one hand, I can state with no reservations, that I agree with these two paragraphs. On the other hand, I believe Mr. Paine was incorrect to include Moses and the Torah.

Before you dismiss me as schizophrenic, let me explain further.

YHVH did not call upon Moses to be some sort of “conduit” between God and the people. Moses was chosen to rescue an enslaved people from their oppressors. In fact, it’s only a point of fact that the Torah was “given by God to Moses face to face,” because the original plan was for the entire congregation of Israel to receive the Torah directly from YHVH. The people were too afraid, and begged Moses to stand in their stead.

Regardless of the channel of communications used to transmit the Torah, the real fundamental difference between the Torah and the so-called “Word of God” that Christians and Muslims claim through their “certain individuals,” is that the Torah was nothing more than a civil Constitution for establishing a God-fearing society on earth and in time. It does not require world domination, it does not speak about a paradise beyond death, and it is perfectly happy to coexist with the rest of the world.

That does not mean, unfortunately, that Judaism is free from the corruption that every religious institution eventually embraces. To the extent that a Jew mystifies the Torah and transforms it from the example of natural law that it is, into a magical religious creed, they are perverting the beauty and simplicity of the Torah.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word ‘revelation.’ Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

“Chapter II – Of Missions and Revelations.” The Age of Reason, page 7.

The purest form of Judaism, Karaite Judaism, understands this idea, and has passed it down through the generations with their well-known adage: “Search well in the Scriptures and do not rely on anyone’s opinion.” (See “What is Karaism?”)

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.

“Chapter II – Of Missions and Revelations.” The Age of Reason, page 7.

The Torah isn’t a religious text, so it really doesn’t matter who authored it. It is a set of laws and examples of those laws being applied, that YHVH gave to Israel so they would enjoy liberty and prosperity. As a matter of religion, I choose to believe the stories contained within the Torah at face value. Which means, I choose to believe that an almighty deity named YHVH gave the Torah to a real group of people, the children of Israel. But, accepting the historical factualness of these stories is not a requirement for the laws to be effective.

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

“Chapter II – Of Missions and Revelations.” The Age of Reason, page 8.

If Christianity did not require blind faith in the veracity of this amazing story of birth from virginity, then perhaps I would still be a “Christian.” There is no such requirement for religious faith in Karaite Judaism. Obviously, if you do not believe the stories of the Torah, then you are not actually a Karaite (because the definition of “Karaite Judaism” is that you believe these stories to have occurred), but YHVH does not require that you become a Karaite for the Torah to protect your individual liberty.

Exodus 12:49 One Instruction shall there be for the native and for the sojourner that sojourns in your midst.

The Torah, page 74.

“Instruction,” here, is the word torah. Simply put, the Torah promises freedom to everyone who abides by it, whether or not you accept the historical context for its delivery, or the cultural traditions for commemorating it.

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything. The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

“Chapter II – Of Missions and Revelations.” The Age of Reason, page 8.

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