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India That is Bharat
Piety has nothing to do with history
Satiricus
Christmas time was the time for our secular media to do its divine duty of printing pious pieces about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. And, of course, piety has nothing to do with history and everything to do with faith, so it is in the fitness of things that the ?Faith Line? column of Indian Express should print an article titled ?The Reason for Christmas? by a Church leader of Delhi, who sees no reason why his faith in the Christian faith should be sullied by heretical history. As a devout follower of the faith called secularism, Satiricus quite agrees with this clergyman. In fact, he fears that both secularism and Christianity are in dire need of being saved from history. The present precious piece is an admirable accomplishment in the Christian crusade against history.
Take, for starters, the writer's simple statement??....Jesus Christ was born...? Was he? With a perverse sense of humour, history records that even such a simple assertion by a Christian today was doubted by many Christians not very long ago. For instance, early in the 18th century, a group called the Circle of Bolingbroke discussed the possibility that Jesus had never lived. In a book titled Ruins of Empire, published in 1791, its author, by name Volney, repeated the same doubt. In 1840, Bruno Baur wrote a series of works to show that Jesus was a myth. In Holland, Pierson, Naber and Mathas led the movement denying the historicity of Jesus. In Germany, Arthur Drews and in England, scholars like W.B. South, J.M. Robertson and G.H. Wells likewise questioned the existence of any Jesus Christ. Oh my God, in Heaven! So many Christians against Christ ever being born? Secular Satiricus is suitably shocked.
And how long did this damnable disbelief continue? Believe it or not, rather, believe Will Durant or not, it lasted for 200 years! Oh, well, Satiricus can only say that unlike this present Indian Christian, there were European Christians for full two centuries who did not deserve to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the gospel truth about Jesus's birth?at least the truth according to St. Luke. According to the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus was born, he was visited by shepherds. Does that not make it the gospel truth? Alas, no. For, secular Satiricus finds to his anti-secular amazement that that makes it only a, repeat a, gospel truth, because there seem to be as many truths as there are gospels. According to Mark's Gospel, Jesus was born to a poor carpenter, and according to Luke's Gospel he was visited by shepherds, but according to the Gospel of Mathew, Jesus was an aristocrat descended from David via Solomon, and, at his birth, was visited by kings. Does that mean Dan Brown was not talking (or writing) through his hat when he wrote that (in-)famous novel The Da Vinci Code portraying Jesus as a prince? Satiricus enjoyed reading that novel, but, despite being sadly soft-brained, he cannot help wondering how those Christian saints could tell gospel truths that contradict one another so grossly!
He found that the Bible was constructed from many Gospels and writings floating around at the time, and the translations and revisions led to so much falsification that the second century Roman philosopher, Celsus, said some of the revisionists were ?as it were, in a drunken state?, and were ?producing self-induced visions...? Could there be a worse assessment of the Bible-writers?
The answer he found was terrible. He found that the Bible was constructed from many Gospels and writings floating around at the time, and the translations and revisions led to so much falsification that the second-century Roman philosopher, Celsus, said some of the revisionists were ?as it were, in a drunken state?, and were ?producing self-induced visions...? Could there be a worse assessment of the Bible-writers? There could, and there was. For, the Catholic Encyclopaedia goes to the execrable extent of saying, ?In all the departments forgery and inerpolation as well as ignorance had wrought mischief on a grand scale.? Satiricus is stunned. He is in a state of secular shock. He refuses to beleive that the Catholic Encyclopaedia would descend to the devilish depth of describing the saintly writers and holy editors of the Bible as ignorant forgerers?unless some RSS wretch had infiltrated their editorial board. So the least the defender of the faith from Delhi should do is to launch a movement for a ban on this encyclopaedia. After all, if Satanic Verses can be proscribed, why not such Satanic prose?
What makes all this Christian confusion worse confounded in Satiricus's befuddled brain is that the reason for celebrating Christmas, which is the theme of this particular piece, was once upon a time more than counterbalanced by a reason against celebrating Christmas. For instance, in 17th-century England, Christmas celebrations were banned on the ground that they were ?pagan?; even ?Satanic?. And in America, a law was passed in 1660 in the state of New England, declaring: ?Public Notice?The observation of Christmas having been deemed a sacrilege, . . . dressing in fine clothing, feasting and similar satanical practices are hereby forbidden...? Jesus Christ! Could history be so heretical as to record that today's sacred Christmas was yesterday's satanic Christmas?
In fact, Christian history is not only horribly heretical, it is also hideously Hindu. For, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says the Christian calendar ?retains numerous remnants of pre-Christian festivals, notably Christmas, which blends elements including... the birthday of Mithra.? And who was Mithra? He was the Vedic Sun-god, and Mithraism, Vedic Sun-worship, was the official religion of the Roman Empire. This is the limit. For it actually means that the birthday of a Hindu God was palmed off as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Such a claim can only be a crassly communal conspiracy, hatched at the highest level. For, to quote an abominable article titled ?Is Christmas Really Pagan?? published in a foreign journal in 1981, ?All standard encyclopaedias. . . agree that the date of Jesus's birth is unknown, and the Church borrowed the date of December 25 from the Romans...? Satiricus is too dazed to continue. So he will conclude with the suggestion that the defender of the faith in Delhi should re-write every encyclopaedia for Arjun Singh's approval.
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