Acharya wrote:Thanks, Robert. As usual, my critics are reading too much into a few words, in order to make a big deal out of nothing. Instead of focusing on the title of the book - by which the entire book should not be judged - the germane material demonstrates that the gospel story is MYTHICAL, with precedents for virtually every major element in older religions and myths.
The details of how this came to be are not as relevant as the fact that it
did come to be, but some people are fascinated by "whodunnits." Yet, who wonders "whodunnit" when it comes to the Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman religions and myths? Nobody cares, which shows this aspect is not very important to the discussion.
In any event, for those who wish to know the "whodunnit," I have provided numerous pages well beyond the
Christ Conspiracy's final chapters regarding Rome and Alexandria, including in
Suns of God and
Christ in Egypt. To be reviewing the first of my books while ignoring the last is not an exercise in efficiency or erudition, if one is trying to critique the work and appear knowledgeable about the subject.
Christ in Egypt in particular discusses the hows and whos, in the Alexandria chapter. If one wishes to know that aspect of the Christ myth, that chapter is a good place to start.
Nevertheless, my observation of how the gospel myth was created is pretty much along the same lines as how the Egyptian, Canaanite, Babylonian, Indian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Chinese, Japanese, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Native American and countless other myths were created, organically and over a period of time, syncretizing other myths and altering them, etc.
It's not difficult to comprehend the process, which is understood when it comes to all these other mythological systems, and there's no real reason to be focusing on that element, since we already comprehend how these other systems were created. Focusing on this one word, "conspiracy," when it was an afterthought, is not very productive.
The original title of my book was the same as my initial article:
The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. As I was writing the book, I was visited by a prominent "conspiriologist" or conspiracy theorist who had been published by AUP, Christ Con's eventual publisher. This individual had been raised a Catholic and was at first resistant to the material, until I explained it in more "conspiratorial" terms. That's when the lightbulb went off, and I discovered that the words "Christ conspiracy" could convey an interesting element, but it is not the central focus.
We've discussed the meaning of the word "
conspiracy" elsewhere - in the original Latin it means "to breathe together." There is no question that the creation of Christianity was a concerted and joint effort - a "breathing together," if you will. But, to reiterate, it is not necessary to describe Christianity's creation in those terms at all. We could call it, "The effort by numerous people, sects and groups over a period of decades to centuries to create Christianity," but such a description would be very cumbersome.
Let's not get hung up on this one word when it comes to describing how Christianity was created. Let us simply look at the past priestcraft to determine how such myths have been created, syncretized and altered over the millennia. Only a couple of centuries prior to the common era, governmental officials and priests in Alexandria worked to create new hybrid god, Serapis, to unite the warring factions of Egypt, the Egyptians, Greeks and Jews. This concerted effort could also be called the "Serapis conspiracy," but the point is that the same type of priestcraft was employed a couple of centuries later to create the new hybrid god, Jesus Christ, designed for much the same purpose.
So, if there was a "Serapis conspiracy," then there was a "Christ conspiracy" as well. But, once more, we don't have to call it by that title, and the word is not as significant as some people would make of it. The point behind it is important: To wit, Christianity is a manmade creation for political purposes, little different from the creation of Serapis or a thousand other gods and goddesses over the thousands of years.
As usual, my comments regarding the "Order of Melchizedek" are being misconstrued for strawman purposes. My point was that these religious/spiritual systems are not
extraterrestrial, as is a major speculation being passed around today, but very
terrestrial. I was not implying that there was a single agency at work here that had existed since time immemorial and that passed along a continuous and unbroken line of knowledge and priestcraft. I was emphasizing the
terrestrial nature of this sort of religion-making business, as opposed to attributing the effort to ETs. Once again making much ado about nothing and focusing on the wrong things - a naive and puerile perspective, frankly, but that's what we've come to expect from these quarters, unfortunately.
Not sure what part of "Second Edition" my critics don't understand, but their obsessive focus on certain elements will allow me to clarify in the new edition what should have been easy to comprehend. Now, what is really important are the pagan parallels and the meaning behind the myth, not the powerbrokering. Perhaps those who feel powerless are obsessed with powerbrokers?
And what is this silliness? The "true story of WWII according to Acharya S?" I don't engage in WWII revisionism - that's just another puerile obsession used to raise a strawman in order to invoke ridicule. I simply point out at the very beginning of Christ Con that World War II had a religious element to it, based on the beliefs of various individuals involved in setting it up or engaging in it: To wit, the Bolsheviks and Marxist leaders were raised significantly as Jews, while Hitler was a Christian. After that, I don't even discuss WWII. Again, childish making of a mountain out of a molehill by obsessives, and, rather than providing actual insights into what I may have meant - why don't they actually ASK me? - these individuals are simply handing us their OWN psyches on a platter.