{"id":24199,"date":"2021-05-01T01:10:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T05:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/?p=24199"},"modified":"2021-04-26T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T20:18:41","slug":"as-above-so-below-how-the-stars-became-our-hearts-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2021\/05\/01\/as-above-so-below-how-the-stars-became-our-hearts-6\/","title":{"rendered":"As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christianity: The Regime<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a> The main issue with Christianity isn\u2019t it\u2019s present day application. Generally speaking, Christianity is benevolent, and in some cases, even graceful. There are some issues with the doctrine as I discussed in the last installment. Also, I\u2019m not sure if I actually have followers yet, but if I do, you\u2019ll notice I\u2019m speaking from first person, which is not a style I choose often, but I do so with good reason. I am speaking directly to the reader from my own opinion and viewpoint. I feel that\u2019s important as the topics in this article will be a bit touchy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll start by saying, I grew up Christian Not just Christian, but Hebrew Pentacostal. Even as a Christian, I was a cut above the rest. I aspired to be a Bishop. I knew the Bible very well as a preteen. I was on the bible quick recall team at every Church I attended. I genuinely had a deep desire to be close to God. I had a thirst normal people didn\u2019t. All of this is to say, I don\u2019t speak about Christianity from what you would consider a <\/span>purely <\/i><\/span>pagan perspective. I feel like I have an insider look. I am Pagan who knew the world of Christians inside out. So my perspective is fair, but it\u2019s important I don\u2019t write this one as if it is scientific fact.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, that\u2019s a problem with discussing religion. The lack of facts and evidence. Even as a Christian, I was always a scientist. Clearly two viewpoints that rub each other in all the wrong ways, until it started a fire. Since religions lack physical evidence, my scientific mind had trouble with religions in general (as most scientists do) but I had had mystical experiences. So my faith couldn\u2019t be broken by simple lack of physical evidence. Many things in the universe are unseeable and unknowable, but are absolute nonetheless. What does time look like? Can you measure it? What about air, or space? There are spectrums of light we cant see, but we know exist because they can be detected in other ways. My scientific mind realized, some things are only experiential. It\u2019s called qualia, Some things can never be shared or explained, or ever truly understood. Like love for instance. You can be in love, but never know for sure if the person you love actually loves you back (or even exists, but that\u2019s a different story) or if they\u2019re just pretending. Yet love is agreed upon as real, as are human emotions, but they can never be measured or shared. Qualia.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I assumed that if there\u2019s an entity such as God, he has this ability of interacting with a person with a person in qualia. Think about a movie or a song you loved, and when you introduced it to a friend, they just didn\u2019t like it. It\u2019s like that particular piece spoke to YOU on a level that it could only reach YOU at that time. If God interacted this way, it couldn\u2019t be measured, or proved or recorded. Ok, Now my brain could accept religion. And I interacted with what I had at the time called God. But this God lead me out of the Church. It was a faithful day\u2026.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a> This morning before Church, I wasn’t feeling it, as had been the case for years at this point. I woke up begrudgingly. I made a prayer. I had left the Church before, but the weight had never been as heavy as this morning. My thoughts were troubled. Why don’t I get anything out of Church if I truly desire to know God? If paganism is wrong, why does it feel so true? Why don’t I like praise music?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I said a prayer. “God. I really feel like I should leave the Church. But that’s in contradiction to everything I’ve been taught. “God, if you want me to leave the Church, please give me a sign.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That morning, the sermon was about 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Which reads: 3<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 <\/span>And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m sure he said a lot in his sermon that day. But all I could here was, <\/span>This is baby’s milk. You’re ready for real food<\/i><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After that day, I never returned to Church. And have since sought after whatever this real food could be. I had already explored many religions, now I had sought to get to the bottom of this. And I started at, “What’s wrong with Christianity!?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s what I have found.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My first issue was the Bible. Firstly, on what authority is the Bible so holy? This made me dig deeper to find who wrote, and who translated The Bible. It was a collection of tales of different sorts and purposes, written by many different people, of mostly Middle Eastern origin. It is then translated, and not only translated, but reinterpreted. Not only this, but many of of the holy books from which “The Bible” were compiled from were left out for various reasons. This of course, is tainted obviously with the possibility of corruption from human beings.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My second problem was time. The singularity Jewish God arose out of a something. A belief that pervaded all of everything. Everywhere. Everyone. It was paganism. The gods of nature. Every culture had a form of Paganism. Many of the tribes in the Bible, called gentiles, were Pagan. Moses himself dealt with his tribes returning to Paganism. They worshipped the Hittite god Baal. The Hittites were the pagan tribes that the Jews worshipped before the events of Moses.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My third issue was. How did Christianity become so popular in the first place? Learning that the answer was genocide was quite eye opening. It made me realize something.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The early Christians were something of a cult. Clearly, the Jews were heavily subjugated. Not the most popular group of people ever. The early Christians lived in hiding. Even their savior *spoiler alert* he dies at the end. The Church has a big part in killing him. All of this is to say. Christianity, yes, met quite a bit of resistance. So, of course that left only one option.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Militarization.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a> At the time Christianity started to become what you know it as today, was during the dark ages. The word of God was used as a force to control the masses, and more than that, add fire and valor to their military. They saw how The Vikings willingly died for their gods to be in Valhalla. Christianity used this same type of power to fuel the crusades.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Pagans were forced to convert or be put to the sword. They slowly exterminated anyone who didn’t accept Jesus Christ. They did away with the old religions. The true religions of the earth and sent them all into hiding, similar to what happened to other indigenous peoples like the native Americans.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What is worse, is the true origin of the religion is suspect. It started Jewish. Yet was adopted by Europeans mainly, and is rejected by the Jews. Christ seems to be a mash up of many pagan gods. His name is obviously very similar to Krishna, a principle Hindu deity. His death and resurrection is very similar to that of Osiris. He follows the ideals of the Buddha, that is, being a fully awake human being aware of his divine nature. He points to that place within.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Somewhere. There is a deception.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It could be from the greed of man.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or from the greed of a jealous God.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But something was poison about it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe age alone was a problem. If it was a new religion, it was clearly not the original god humans were in contact. If the Garden of Eden contained the first two humans, wouldn’t that story have existed <\/span>before <\/i><\/span>Yggdrasil? That doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems that Christianity was created on purpose in order to control the populace with a belief system and just postdated to look like it was actually old. Though the documents Christianity is based on are actually old, they’re already translated and reinterpreted by humans we’ll never meet. Not only that, but anyone who could have existed to tell a different story were slaughtered. And children are told these tales as soon as they’re born. They’re taught <\/span>n<\/span>ever to question. To \u2018lean not to their own understanding.’ Which is the main problem. We have free will and understanding. We’re meant to explore and discover what gives meaning to each of our lives. Not just be told and dictated, which seems to be one of the main purposes of why Christianity was pushed to be as all consuming as it has become today.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

About the Author:<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> Alexiel Raynes<\/b> is a shaman, philosopher, and musician from Louisville, Ky. He has studied religion and science for over 20 years. His spiritual path focuses on self realization, the liberation of the constraints of the mind on consciousness. He also studies plant medicines and their use in indigenous cultures world wide. He is fascinated with exploring the world beyond the veil of mainstream western science, and postulates at what lies beyond general consensus reality. He, together with his business partner Hallie Walker are the owners of Saol Bandia, a holistic herbal apothecary based in their hometown. They are also very active in raising pagan awareness in their community, and helping give witches the courage to stand up to a world that has forgotten our ways.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can visit their store at Saolbandia.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For contact visit Facebook.com\/AlexielRaynes2020<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Or email alexielphoenix27@gmail.com<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christianity: The Regime     The main issue with Christianity isn\u2019t it\u2019s present day application. Generally speaking, Christianity is benevolent, and in some cases, even graceful. There are some issues with the doctrine as I discussed in the last installment. Also, I\u2019m not sure if I actually have followers yet, but if I do, you\u2019ll notice I\u2019m speaking from first person, which is not a style I choose often, but I do so with good reason. I am speaking directly to the reader from my own opinion and viewpoint. I feel that\u2019s important as the topics in this article will be a bit touchy. I\u2019ll start by saying, I grew up Christian Not just Christian, but Hebrew Pentacostal. Even as a Christian, I was a cut above the rest. I aspired to be a Bishop. I knew the Bible very well as a preteen. I was on the bible quick recall team at every Church I attended. I genuinely had a deep desire to be close to God. I had a thirst normal people didn\u2019t. All of this is to say, I don\u2019t speak about Christianity from what you would consider a purely pagan perspective. I feel like I have an insider look. I am Pagan who knew the world of Christians inside out. So my perspective is fair, but it\u2019s important I don\u2019t write this one as if it is scientific fact. In fact, that\u2019s a problem with discussing religion. The lack of facts and evidence. Even as a Christian, I was always a scientist. Clearly two viewpoints that rub each other in all the wrong ways, until it started a fire. Since religions lack physical evidence, my scientific mind had trouble with religions in general (as most scientists do) but I had had mystical experiences. So my faith couldn\u2019t be broken by simple lack of physical evidence. Many things in the universe are unseeable and unknowable, but are absolute nonetheless. What does time look like? Can you measure it? What about air, or space? There are spectrums of light we cant see, but we know exist because they can be detected in other ways. My scientific mind realized, some things are only experiential. It\u2019s called qualia, Some things can never be shared or explained, or ever truly understood. Like love for instance. You can be in love, but never know for sure if the person you love actually loves you back (or even exists, but that\u2019s a different story) or if they\u2019re just pretending. Yet love is agreed upon as real, as are human emotions, but they can never be measured or shared. Qualia. I assumed that if there\u2019s an entity such as God, he has this ability of interacting with a person with a person in qualia. Think about a movie or a song you loved, and when you introduced it to a friend, they just didn\u2019t like it. It\u2019s like that particular piece spoke to YOU on a level that it could only reach YOU at that time. If God interacted this way, it couldn\u2019t be measured, or proved or recorded. Ok, Now my brain could accept religion. And I interacted with what I had at the time called God. But this God lead me out of the Church. It was a faithful day\u2026.     This morning before Church, I wasn’t feeling it, as had been the case for years at this point. I woke up begrudgingly. I made a prayer. I had left the Church before, but the weight had never been as heavy as this morning. My thoughts were troubled. Why don’t I get anything out of Church if I truly desire to know God? If paganism is wrong, why does it feel so true? Why don’t I like praise music?   I said a prayer. “God. I really feel like I should leave the Church. But that’s in contradiction to everything I’ve been taught. “God, if you want me to leave the Church, please give me a sign.”   That morning, the sermon was about 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Which reads: 3   1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.   2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.   3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?   I’m sure he said a lot in his sermon that day. But all I could here was, This is baby’s milk. You’re ready for real food. After that day, I never returned to Church. And have since sought after whatever this real food could be. I had already explored many religions, now I had sought to get to the bottom of this. And I started at, “What’s wrong with Christianity!?”   Here’s what I have found. My first issue was the Bible. Firstly, on what authority is the Bible so holy? This made me dig deeper to find who wrote, and who translated The Bible. It was a collection of tales of different sorts and purposes, written by many different people, of mostly Middle Eastern origin. It is then translated, and not only translated, but reinterpreted. Not only this, but many of of the holy books from which “The Bible” were compiled from were left out for various reasons. This of course, is tainted obviously with the possibility of corruption from human beings. My second problem was time. The singularity Jewish God arose out of a something. A belief that pervaded all of everything. Everywhere. Everyone. It was paganism. The gods of nature. Every culture had a form of Paganism. Many of the tribes in the Bible, called gentiles, were Pagan. Moses himself dealt with his tribes returning to Paganism. They worshipped the Hittite god Baal. The Hittites were the pagan tribes that the Jews worshipped before the events of Moses. My third issue was. How did Christianity become so popular in the first place? Learning that the answer was genocide was quite eye opening. It made me realize something.\u00a0 The early Christians were something of a cult. Clearly, the Jews were heavily subjugated. Not the most popular group of people ever. The early Christians lived in hiding. Even their savior *spoiler alert* he dies at the end. The Church has a big part in killing him. All of this is to say. Christianity, yes, met quite a bit of resistance. So, of course that left only one option.   Militarization.     At the time Christianity started to become what you know it as today, was during the dark ages. The word of God was used as a force to control the masses, and more than that, add fire and valor to their military. They saw how The Vikings willingly died for their gods to be in Valhalla. Christianity used this same type of power to fuel the crusades.\u00a0 Pagans were forced to convert or be put to the sword. They slowly exterminated anyone who didn’t accept Jesus Christ. They did away with the old religions. The true religions of the earth and sent them all into hiding, similar to what happened to other indigenous peoples like the native Americans.\u00a0 What is worse, is the true origin of the religion is suspect. It started Jewish. Yet was adopted by Europeans mainly, and is rejected by the Jews. Christ seems to be a mash up of many pagan gods. His name is obviously very similar to Krishna, a principle Hindu deity. His death and resurrection is very similar to that of Osiris. He follows the ideals of the Buddha, that is, being a fully awake human being aware of his divine nature. He points to that place within.   Somewhere. There is a deception.   It could be from the greed of man.   Or from the greed of a jealous God.   But something was poison about it. The age alone was a problem. If it was a new religion, it was clearly not the original god humans were in contact. If the Garden of Eden contained the first two humans, wouldn’t that story have existed before Yggdrasil? That doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems that Christianity was created on purpose in order to control the populace with a belief system and just postdated to look like it was actually old. Though the documents Christianity is based on are actually old, they’re already translated and reinterpreted by humans we’ll never meet. Not only that, but anyone who could have existed to tell a different story were slaughtered. And children are told these tales as soon as they’re born. They’re taught never to question. To \u2018lean not to their own understanding.’ Which is the main problem. We have free will and understanding. We’re meant to explore and discover what gives meaning to each of our lives. Not just be told and dictated, which seems to be one of the main purposes of why Christianity was pushed to be as all consuming as it has become today. *** About the Author: Alexiel Raynes is a shaman, philosopher, and musician from Louisville, Ky. He has studied religion and science for over 20 years. His spiritual path focuses on self realization, the liberation of the constraints of the mind on consciousness. He also studies plant medicines and their use in indigenous cultures world wide. He is fascinated with exploring the world beyond the veil of mainstream western science, and postulates at what lies beyond general consensus reality. He, together with his business partner Hallie Walker are the owners of Saol Bandia, a holistic herbal apothecary based in their hometown. They are also very active in raising pagan awareness in their community, and helping give witches the courage to stand up to a world that has forgotten our ways.   You can visit their store at Saolbandia.com For contact visit Facebook.com\/AlexielRaynes2020 Or email alexielphoenix27@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10004],"tags":[11755,10097,11674,13018,10098,10126,13017],"class_list":["post-24199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-columns","tag-christianity","tag-discussion","tag-issues","tag-problems","tag-religion","tag-spirituality","tag-the-regime"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24205,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199\/revisions\/24205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}