Post-Scripture Christianity

 

What I mean by Post-Scripture Christianity is the fact is most of the New Testament contains ideas and practices that are completely foreign to Modern Christians themselves. In other words, even though Fundamentalist Biblicist type Christian claim to be New Testament Christians, they are actually just cherry-picking the New Testament to form their own post-scripture theology which is based on Greco-Roman philosophy and the writings of later Indo-European Church Fathers writing after the New Testament was composed. Most modern Christians today have essentially created their own version of Christianity outside the New Testament. For example, the Greco-Roman philosophical concept of the Trinity is not found in the New Testament.  

The book Pagan Christianity by Frank viola, who is an Evangelical Christian himself, is all about how most of the modern church practices and ideas are not based in the New Testament at all. Frank Viola's solution to the paganized modern churches is to abandon the church building and the Greco-Roman church practices, and go back to meeting in homes and having leaderless groups of Christians. 

The irony is that while Frank Viola promotes in his books returning to the original Pauline New Testament churches, as people emailed him trying to find home churches that practiced like the original Pauline churches, Viola ends up discouraging his readers from trying to find a Home Church. Viola ends up admitting that home churches lacking the greco-roman/pagan structure, end up being too chaotic as the unstructured spontanity in the home churches movement ends up creating endless chaos, power grabs, and division. So that last I checked, Viola himself does not recommend somebody who reads his books to attempt to find a home church that functions like the New Testament churches. He flat out admits they are going to be disappointed because of the lack of organization and chaotic nature of such groups.

So that what Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity book ends up doing is actually showing that if it was not for the Indo-European spirit of structure and organization Christianity would not have survived and Christianity needs that Greco-Roman Indo-European energy and structure to continue to survive and flourish. 

This is an example of how most Christians are really post-scripture Christians. For if they tried to really practice the New Testament Pauline model of church, they would do what Viola suggests in his books and try and find a home church where everyone acts like they are all literally possessed by the spirit of Christ equally; with the only Head (or Leader) of the Body of Believers being the omnipresent Christ. So that everyone speaks together as literally "one mind of Christ" and there is no leader, which as expected just ends up being chaotic eventually. 

So in reality those who do take the New Testament seriously (like Viola's home churches) can't organize themselves. What organized Christianity was not the ideas in the Pauline churches in the seven authentic letters of Paul, what ended up organizing Christianity cohesively in the long term was the Greco-Roman structure that developed in the pseudopographic letters of Paul; and the later Constantinian Roman Church that utilized Greco-Roman philosophy and governmental structure. 

So this idea that the New Testament is a manual for living today is completely absurd. Christians are not following the literal teachings of the New Testament. The reason why most Christians think they can utilize the New Testament as a manual for daily living, is because they really don't understand what they are reading in the New Testament. This is because most modern translations obscure and re-translate the original New Testament Greek and as Ehrman explains, most of what pastors learn in the seminary is not taught to the layperson at church. 

So what happens is most people cherry pick from the New Testament, as they completely cherry pick out the scriptures they like and ignore all the rest. So for example, when Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 7 about the ideal of celibacy which is reiterated by the Pauline-Christ in Matthew 19:12; so that if one were to take the New Testament seriously and literally, they would ideally be celibate, but the majority of Christians ignore this. Instead they will point out passages in the Fake-Paul like in 1 Timothy 3:2, where it says Bishops should have one wife. And they were hammer on that one verse from the pseudiprographic / faked Paul, cherry picking that out and ignoring 1 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 19:12. Or take the example of "take up your cross," which if one understands original martyrdom-centered Christianity, they would understand that this literally meant voluntarily seeking after one's death by the hands of Rome. This only made sense in the context of first to second century Roman courts where a Christian was asked to either declare Caesar as Lord or Jesus as Lord. Well today there are no Roman courts demanding you declare Caesar as Lord, and therefore Christians cannot literally "take up their cross" and confess Christ before a Caesarean court and risk being sentenced to death today. So what happened was even by the time of Luke (who was likely a Indo-European Gentile), this was reframed as "take up your cross daily," so you already see this type of modification in the New Testament itself. 

Another example is the Book of Revelation which is actually about Torah observant Jewish Christians believing the Jewish Christ is going to destroy Rome. Instead, what happened is that Constantine converted to Christianity and Christianity moved from a primarily Jewish Christianity to a Indo-European Roman Christianity; so much so that later Christians wrote their own version of Revelation updating it to match the reality of Rome being the good guy in the end as it was Rome that saved Christianity from extinction when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity: turning Christianity into a global power rather than just some small obscure Jewish sect that would have died out like the Ebonites if it had stayed within the Torah based Jewish tradition only.  

So a post-scripture Christianity is the understanding that the New Testament is a library of different documents and even different religious sects that did not agree with each other; in fact there are arguments and disputes going on between the Torah-observant Christians like James and Peter and the Pauline Christians who rejected Torah-observance and things like circumcision. The New Testament is this not a manual for living modern life but a historical representation of the infighting and disputes in the various Christianities and the Pauline sect merging with Constantinian Christianity to win in the marketplace of ideas.

These are just a few examples of how Christians are not treating the New Testament as a manual for living today. 

I post-scripture Christianity is better treated today as Christitany as Fraternity, through understanding the phases and strategies of God, and understanding the difference between the Torah-observant Jewish Christianity of James the Just and Peter (which died out after 70 AD) and Indo-European Christianity than won out in the marketplace of ideas, which I will be covering in this blog series. 

Indo-European Christianity (Blog Series)

 

• Introduction to Indo-European Christianity 

• The Phases and Strategies of God

• Post-Scripture Christianity 

• Christianity as Fraternity

• Christianity as a mystery cult (link to University article) whole online document here that covers the Indo-Europeans to Christianity 

• How the Gospels are Pro-Roman/Indo-European, Pro-Soldiers & Excerpts from Militant Christianity by A. Kehoe (Chapters 1-3)

How the Gospels are Pro-Roman/Indo-European, Pro-Soldiers & Excerpts from Militant Christianity by A. Kehoe (Chapters 1-3)

 

From Militant Christianity by A. Kehoe, Chapter 1:

... Thirty years of observing these fellow citizens has convinced me, a professor of anthropology, that the militant American Christian Right is a remarkable case of the persistence of cultural tradition, four thousand years and counting, of an ethos that continues to activate millions of our fellow citizens.

Page 8:

 A distinctive worldview is embedded in Indo-European languages. It appears historically four thousand years ago, in Near Eastern texts and in Eurasian archaeological sites. By the standards of 2,500 years ago, it is abundantly documented, the language and culture of the expanding Roman state in the west and among Sanskrit speakers in India in the east. Beyond state borders, artifacts mutely bespeak Indo-European cultures throughout much of Europe and western Asia. Two thousand years ago, a radical Jewish sect caught on with Indo-European-speaking residents in the Roman-dominated eastern Mediterranean. Intervention by a bishop of this sect, interpreting an apparition seen by the Roman emperor Constantine, led to the sect, Christianity, gaining legitimacy in Rome, 312 CE. The powerful Indo-European worldview fueling Rome’s military campaigns overwhelmed the sect prophet’s pacifist egalitarian principles. That worldview persists today, shared by millions throughout the globe. In the United States, adherents are major players in politics, education, and business. The actively militant segment legitimates its ideology by claiming it is Bible-based (i.e., a myth-based social charter). Its rite of passage is to be metaphorically, and often symbolically, “born again.” The “battle-ax culture” ethos glorifying war and competition finds expression in capitalist economics ...  

... American Christianity...its worldview and .... remarkable persistence of its IndoEuropean heart.

This was actually a breath of fresh air to hear, to know that my Indo-European ancestors have continued the memory of my people through Christianity. 

Chapter 2:

Page 10:

The sign [Constantine saw in the sky] could have well been a battle-ax and crossed spears. These were traditional weapons of Constantine’s forebears, not Roman but Germanic. ... That exaltation of militancy became part of institutionalized Christianity. Today, the militant Christian Right carries on that pre-Christian ideology ...

Page 12-13:

 It is noteworthy that [the Roman] Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, as the system of four rulers was called, was composed of men of Germanic origin from the Balkan frontier. Constantius and his household were headquartered in Trier on the Rhine, with visits to outposts elsewhere along the western frontier; Constantius died in York, England, in 306, with his eldest son Constantine in attendance. ...

... Constantine had announced himself a devotee of Apollo the sun god, called Sol Invictus (“Invincible Sun”). On the way to Rome in 310, Constantine said he saw in the afternoon sky a cross above the sun, and the words hoc signo victor eris (by this sign, you will be victorious). What he saw was likely a sun halo with sundogs, the result of ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. ... [A] bishop explained [it] was made up of the first two Greek letters, chi and rho, in the name Christos. Another Christian writer, a tutor to Constantine’s son before the march to Rome, described the sign as the letter X with a vertical line drawn through it and curved around at the top, X with a P through it. The sign came to be termed the labarum, a Celtic word. ...

Plausible as is the Christian clerics’ interpretation of a chi and a rho in monogram form, the sign does look like crossed spears with a battle ax.[3] Battle axes and crossed spears are pagan icons; archaeologists have labeled a third-millennium BCE culture in southern Scandinavia the Battle-Ax Culture, from the frequent inclusion of a stone battle-ax in male graves, and postulated it to represent an early incursion of Indo-European speakers out of the Russian steppes.

 

She then shows these images of Scandinavian cave art. She also shows this image of ancient warriors on horseback. She goes on to point out on page 15:

... Appearance of the sword-and-battle-ax pair associated with a chiefly class in Scandinavia at this time indicates contacts, perhaps by traveling Scandinavian aristocrats, with the Carpathian region north of the lower Danube and the Black Sea-Pontic steppes region that, in turn, traded with Mycenean Greece and the Aegean. By Constantine’s time, the Norse god Thor wielded the battle-ax and thunderbolts, and Odin/Wotan held the sword. ...

 

She then writes on page 16, "Theologian Daniel Maguire remarks, 'Constantine . . . sort of converted to Christianity. It is better said that Constantine converted Christianity to him.” She goes on to argue that Constantine was basically not really a Pauline Christian and adds, "after his 324 victory he promulgated a series of civil edicts, one of them was to make Sunday a day free of legal business, and the wording in the edict is Dies Solis, Day of the Sun ...." This is all positive in my view as Christianity became unified with my Indo-European ancestors.

She then asks:

Can anyone imagine this valiant man of arms [Constantine,] turning the other cheek to an insult? Did Constantine give away all his treasure? Live ascetically? Prefer the company of the poor, of the oppressed, of women, to that of men of power? Would Constantine have said to Peter, “Put up thy sword”?

(pg. 17)

 

She of course means this as a critique, as if living ascetically (i.e. celibately) and getting bullied is a virtue. From my perspective, as ancestrally Indo-European myself, I see Constantine's valiant frame as a compliment. For, in my view, if Constantine and his Indo-European frame of mind had not integrated Christianity with the Indo-European worldview and Roman structure, I don't think Christianity would have survived. By the author's own questioning, if thrown back at her, one could ask: "Would a truly Pauline Movement of pacifist wimpy celibates seeking poverty and voluntary martyrdom while repressing their masculine instincts, have caused Christianity to thrive?" Of course, not! It was Indo-European energy that caused early Christianity to survive and flourish. 

She fails to realize that much of the language of "turning the other cheek" and essentially becoming a pacifist was largely the New Testament author's seeking to quell Jewish Zealots from uprising against Indo-European Rome. As Doug Reed explains in Who Were the Zealots?:  

... The zealots favored armed rebellion against Rome. They believed that God would deliver Israel with the sword. ... There was not a unified movement against Rome in first century Palestine. Rebels rose up in many different forms, and at times they ended up fighting each other. ...

... We often hear Jesus words quoted, “… for all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Matt. 26:52).” Some say He was condemning all military action throughout time. If this was the case, Jesus words simply were not true. Everyone who has taken the sword in conflict has not died violently. I believe Jesus’ words were most likely a warning to His own people. He was saying if you try to bring the kingdom of God by violence, you will all die. He was right. Those who rebelled against Rome died often in a very cruel manner.

Also see this article on how Jesus opposed the Zealots.

The New Testament also does not condemn Roman soldiers but often applauds them throughout the New Testament. For example, when Roman soldiers ask for advice from John the Baptist he does not say throw down your swords and become pacifists, but says to basically continue to be soldiers and not be "bad cops" but "good cops" so to speak in Luke 3: 14. This aligns with Romas 13 where Paul is basically pro Roman Law & Order. Then there is the story of a Roman centurion (a high-ranking officer) who says he has authority to give orders and be obeyed, and thus has faith/trust in the new cosmic Emperor Jesus' orders which leads to his servant being healed in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10; furthermore, Acts 10 mentions Cornelius, another Roman centurion, who became a believer in Jesus. 

Some scholars also think that the author of Luke-Acts may have been a Gentile, so a large portion of the New Testament might have been written by a Gentile. New Testament scholar, John Crossan even argues that Luke-Acts presents Indo-European Rome favorbly. As one reviewer of Crossan's book Render Unto Ceasar says:

 Crossan’s reading, “love your enemies” was a resistance slogan that Jews would have understood as referring to the Roman enemy, while the “love” messages of turning the other cheek make clear Jesus’s nonviolent strategy against Roman violence. Those messages encoded resistance to Rome without openly making statements that the Romans would see as treason. "

In other words, the nonviolent message is directed at militant Jewish Zealots to stand down. According to Crossan, "“The good news, for Luke-Acts, is that the Holy Spirit moved headquarters from Jerusalem to Rome. ..."

What the New Testament does is present Romans like Pilate as innocent and Jesus basically tricks the Evil Powers into crucifying him through Rome’s mechanism of crucifixion; but Rome is not seen as the enemy in the Gospels but are unknowing pawns in a game where Jesus outwits the Dark Forces to break the curse of Death and Sin; so that Judaic Temple-based Religion could end and a new Indo-European "Sun God" mystery religion could emerge. 

Indo-European Spirituality

 

Indo-European Spirituality is and was about tribal belonging and paternal lineage in the context of a solar-pantheon which formed a relationship between Man and Nature through divine Powers (Gods) and heroic stories.


The German scholar Max Müller once wrote:

If asked what I consider the most important discovery made during the 19th century, with respect to the ancient history of mankind, I should answer by the following short line:


Sanskrit; Dyaus Pitr = Greek; Zeus Pater = Latin; Jupiter = Old Norse; Tyr. 

Think what this equation pimples! It implies not only that our own [Germanic] ancestors and the ancestors of Homer and Cicero (the Greeks and Romans) spoke the same language as the people of India -- this is a discovery, which however incredible it sounded at first, has long ceased to cause any surprise -- but it implies and proves that they all had once the same faith, and worshiped for a time the same supreme Deity under exactly the same name -- a name which meant Heavenly Father. 

Source: Max Muller. The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review. London. Volume 18, Issue 104. October 1885. Pages 626-650.

Based on my research Tyr was not likely considered a sky-god (heavenly father), but the idea being conveyed by Muller is still basically accurate: that all these peoples mentioned share a common ethnolinguistic and religious common ancestor. I discussed the linguistic evidence for this in my blog post on the Proto-Indo-Europeans. There is also evidence of this common ancestry through the study of comparative mythology. As covered in the article Who Were the Indo-Europeans and Why Does It Matter? by Daniel McCoy:

Speaking of the divine hierarchy, Proto-Indo-European society was divided into three distinct classes or “functions”: the first function, that of the priests and rulers; the second function, that of the warriors; and the third function, that of the farmers, herders, craftsmen, etc – the “common people.”[3] While this threefold division of society may, in and of itself, be found in societies outside of the Indo-European world, “it is the treatment of this structure as a special class of concepts requiring and receiving almost endless elaboration in all spheres of cultural ideology and behaviour that makes it truly unique to the Indo-Europeans.”[4]

So a basic outline in broad terms of this tripart function describing the structure of a functional Indo-European society, looked something like this as an example using Norse mythology:

Kingly/Ruler Function:
Odin (wisdom) -- Tyr (Law)

Warrior Function:
Thor (warriors)

Wealth & Love Function:
Frey (wealth/productivity) -- Freya (Love/growth)

Daniel McCy, in his article, explains how this this basic structure is carried out today in most Western countries in various ways and modifications.

I found this below online by a Ambika Vijay at quora.com on How similar were ancient European pagan religions to early Hinduism, given that they both had a linguistic and cultural heritage going back to the original Proto-Indo-European speakers? I decided to paste it here below because many websites go offline and content is lost:

European Pagan religions and early Vedic Hinduism were offshoots of Proto-Indo-European mythology.

So they are all very similar.

Rigveda the oldest Vedic scripture is dedicated to singing hymns for the Indo-European gods.

I am listing some here :

Divine Father :

Vedic: Dyaus Pitr, Greek: Zeus pater , Illyrian : Dei-pátrous, Roman : Jupiter (Djous patēr), Scythian :Papaios for Zeus, Palaic: Tiyas papaz

 

Photo courtesy: Google images

Divine Twins : They also worshipped divine twins symbolized by horses

Vedic : Divó nápātā (the Asvins)

Lithuanian: Dievo sūneliai (the Asveiniai)

Latvian : the Dieva dēli,

Greek : the Diós-kouroi (Castor and Pollux)

Celtic : the Dioskouroi

The Vedic Asvins and Lithuanian Asveiniai, even share the names.

Asva in both Sanskrit and Lithuanian mean horse.

Thunder god : Thunder god is the most significant god in these cultures, Rigveda dedicates 1/3rd of the hymns to him.

Indra/Parjanya (Vedic), Indra (Avestan), Thor (Germanic ) Tarḫunna( Hittite), Taranis( Celtic), Perun( Slavic), Perkunas ( Baltic )

The Thunder god vs Serpent myth can be found in all these cultures.

Photo courtesy: Google

 ... Sun god :

Vedic - Surya , Roman - Sol , Norse - Sol, Lithuanian- Saule are derived from the Proto Indo European Seh2ul- / *Sh2-en-

Goddess of Dawn : The name of Vedic Goddess of dawn Usas is a cognate with Eos and Eostre

Eostre later became Easter - the Easter festival was originally a pagan festival.

Uṣas (Vedic), Eos (Greek), Aurora (Roman), Aushrine (Baltic), Auseklis (Latvian)

Photo Credit : Google

God of Sky :
Varuṇa (Vedic),Ouranous/ Uranus (Greek), Odinn/Wodan (Germanic).

 

God of meeting, marriages, journeys, roads, and the feeding of cattle :
Pūṣan (Vedic), Pan (Greek), Faun(Roman ) Vanir (Germanic).

 

Goddess of River :
Danu (Vedic), Danu (Irish).
River Danube is named after her.
In Vedic mythology she is the mother of the serpent Vritra (who was slayed by Indra)

...

... Rituals and Preisthood :

Celtic Druid - are often equated with Vedic Brahmins.

The Druids are a class of high ranking priests in ancient Celtic culture. They practiced and trained for nearly twenty years and since most of their teachings are Oral, they didn’t survive.

... The Celtic high ceremony officiated by Druids closely resembles the Vedic yagnas officiated by Brahmins. ... Almost all Indo European ceremonies and rituals involve a “fire altar”

In response to the above, a Devala Rees responds: 

In my opinion as a Hindu, ancient European pagan religions were very similar. Almost everything about them is quite familiar to me. Their most visible defining feature to outsiders being offerings and sacrifices made to many Gods and Goddesses? Check; that’s just like Vedic religion. The Gods and other great spirits of ancient Europe sound very much like the Gods and other great spirits of ancient (and modern) India; different names and individual characteristics, but the same sorts of beings, right down to the initiatory, communal, intensely devotional systematic mystery cults centered around specific Gods who could provide a mystical awakening, worshiping them with incense and offerings to anthropomorphic statues and clockwise circumambulation around the temple. Some of the best preserved philosophical schools of ancient European paganism (Stoicism, Platonism, etc.) even include the view that a single Transcendent Deity manifests as all of these Gods and Goddesses. ...

... In summary, my impression as a Hindu is that the vast majority of what I read on ancient European pagan religions sounds very familiar to me from my own religious practices and worldview.

Indo-European Christianity?

Doing this research, I couldn't help but notice that all three Indo-European functions above are missing in Pauline "New Testament Christianity." In the earliest Pauline assemblies, Paul sought to remove leadership with a "pentecostal-like" speaking in tongues and prophesying dynamic where everyone was believed to be equally literally possessed by the leader-Christ (see 1 Corinthians 11:3–16: Spirit Possession and Authority in a Non-Pauline Interpolation by Christopher Mount). There was obvious no warrior class, as the ideal was pacifism and obviously no Frey or Freya function, as the Pauline ideal was celibacy and martyrdom given the imminent end-times expectation. Pauline "New Testament Christianity" would have thus died out like the Shakers of the 1700-1800s who modeled themselves after the New Testament and have nearly died out today. So what happened was Christianity was remodeled in the image of the Indo-European functional spiritual model. For a scholarly book on how this happened, see:
The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation by James C. Russell.


Also see these articles available free online:

• Indo-European Christianity by Alice B. Kehoe

• The Trinity and the Indo-European Tripartite Worldview by Andrew P. Porter

What this means is that most versions of Christianity today have been Germanized and made into the image of the Indo-Europeans. Therefore, those who argue that "New Testament Christianity" itself changed Western civilization are not correct when one looks at the whole historical picture. For Christianity went through stages of development, and the final product ends up looking more Indo-European than first century Pauline. So that while some ideas in the New Testament can be said to have strongly moved modern culture in a certain direction, the overall version of Christianity today is a more Indo-European version of Christianity. This is why I support the spread of Modern Christianity because it is basically, today, an Indo-European/Pauline hybrid religion and most Christians ignore the original Pauline aspects: like the ideal of celibacy, pacifism, and voluntary martyrdom; when originally Pauline members of a congregation were speaking in tongues and prophesying while claiming to be possessed by the spirit of a messiah, etc. Today's Christianities are highly systematized functional and rational formations that mostly align with modern political models and modern science and the Indo-European spiritual model.

Nietzsche's Northwind "Solar Spirituality" & Free Spirited Creatorhood Mentality

This blog is an extension of my other google site Nietzscheanish-Americanism. The main project of Nietzsche I think was to replace the Pauline sainthood values with the heroic virtues of the Norse and Greeks so that one does not throw away the hero in one's soul. A recurrent metaphor he uses to convey this greater overall aim is that he and his teachings are a North wind. He expresses this in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in the section on the Happy Isles. He emphasizes this section again in Preface to Ecce Homo, Section 4, by writing:

Among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself. With that I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness. Here no "prophet" is speaking, none of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and will to power whom people call founders of religions. Above all, one must hear aright the tone that comes from this mouth, the halcyon tone, lest one should do wretched injustice to the meaning of its wisdom.

"It is the stillest words that bring on the storm. Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world." [Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II, 44.]

 

The figs are falling from the trees; they are good and sweet; and, as they fall, their red skin bursts. I am a north wind to ripe figs. Thus, like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: now consume their juice and their sweet meat. It is fall around us, and pure sky and afternoon. [Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II, 24.]

It is no fanatic that speaks here; this is not "preaching"; no faith is demanded here: from an infinite abundance of light and depth of happiness falls drop upon drop, word upon word: the tempo of these speeches is a tender adagio. Such things reach only the most select. It is a privilege without equal to be a listener here.


Is not Zarathustra in view of all this a seducer?— But what does he himself say, as he returns again for the first time to his solitude? Precisely the opposite of everything that any "sage," "saint," "world-redeemer," or any other decadent would say in such a case.— Not only does he speak differently, he also is different.—
Now I go alone, my disciples. You, too, go now, alone.
Thus I want it.
Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.
The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath?
You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you.
You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers—but what matter all believers?
You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little.
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.
[Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I, 22.]

Friedrich Nietzsche

On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. It was not for nothing that I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it; whatever was life in it has been saved, is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer—all presents of this year, indeed of its last quarter! How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life?—and so I tell my life to myself.

I interpret this as Nietzsche is a North wind that brings on a storm cloud of change, like lightning that ignites the soul to grow toward a more heroic ideal. Nietzsche goes on to express his feeling elated that he has replaced the Pauline sainthood virtues and values and Paul's more south wind. He basically explains that the wind of Paul is an emasculating psychical energy within a cult of personality, by seeking to turn men into celibate male-brides of a male messiah by repressing their masculine instincts. Nietzsche's Zarathustra character is not a guru or a cult leader, but an inspiration. Zarathustra does not demand cultish devotion, he only teaches and exemplifies in literary form a Yes to life attitude and instead of despising the body, he proclaims the goodness of biological life in the body on earth.

Another way to think of this concept of the Northwind, is that Nietzsche is in part revitalizing the cultural ancestral energy of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who came from the North with their domestication of the horse as horseback warriors and God personified as the Sun with a pantheon of gods representing the biological instincts; which then mythologically morphed into multiple pantheons from the Norse Gods to the Hindu Gods (representing one common ancestral genos of spiritual wind and vitality). Note that the original Hebrew pantheon had the same or similar pro-instinctual energy and vitality, which is why Nietzsche praised the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

 

Standing on the Pier of an Open Sea of Creative Possibilities with a Worldview Attitude of casting a Canopy of Joy and Laughter over the Luminous Sky 

(Image Source)

In Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, his central character Zarathustra says, "over cloud and day and night, did I spread out laughter like a colored canopy." I really like this quote as it signifies Nietzsche's ideal of a joyful and expansive attitude rather than a sky cast canopy of morose sainthood. Such imagery represents for me a powerful, uninhibited, expression of life

As Nietzsche puts it in several  places of his work, once the dust has settled from the deconstruction of the theocratic-God belief, there emerges a new realm of possibility. The shore is open before is, like standing at a pier before an Open Sea. For me, going beyond sainthood is opening up to new ideas and ways of living, forming genuine friendships that aren't ready to fall apart the minute you express doubts in a creed or articles of faith. It's about forming real friendships that stand the test of time. Where there is joy and laughter rather than fake piety. A new life, unshackled, unburdened, and free from the stifling and fake path of sainthood as basically puritanical perfectionism; it is about going beyond man-made rules and false restraints and instead forming one's own ethical code; and affirming biological life and being your real self, your actual true personality, by taking off the Mormon mask and stepping out of the confining cage of dogma and becoming a "free spirit."

I often reference Nietzsche because despite my disagreeing with and rejecting much of his ideas, I resonate with his main aim of balancing skepticism and mystical artistry. Ayn Rand called him a mystic as if to condemn him. But this is the part of Nietzsche's philosophy that most appeals to me. I believe that the key to appreciating Nietzsche and taking from him what is useful and discarding what is problematic, is understanding that the core of his philosophy is an attempt to overcome depressive passive-nihilism and embrace reality as it is in a spirit of optimistic joy and laughter and personal meaning-making creativity. For more details, I highly recommend the book Joy and Laughter in Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Alternative Liberatory Politics, Edited by Paul E. Kirkland.

 This emphasis on saying yes to this world of the flesh and chaos, and within such yin-yang dynamics of becoming, experiencing more joy and laughter, is at the heart of his life philosophy. For example, here is an excerpt from Quotes & Commentary #28: Nietzsche by Roy Lotz: 

 I would believe only in a god who could dance. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.

 

This is one of Nietzsche’s most famous quotes. Like a catchy tune, it sticks effortlessly in the memory after one hearing. Perhaps this is only because it conjures up such a silly image. I imagine the God of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, bearded and robed, skipping and dancing from cloud to cloud, filling heaven with capricious laughter.

But why is this image so silly? Why was Michelangelo, along with so many others, inclined to picture God as solemn, grave, and frowning? Why is a dancing deity such a paradox?

A true god would have no need to be serious and severe; those values are for stern parents, Sunday-school preachers, and ruler-snapping teachers. I know this from my own teaching experience: Putting on a strict, frowning, joyless countenance is a desperate measure. Teachers do it in order to reduce their yapping, fidgeting, giggling, scatterbrained kids into hushed, intimidated, obedient students. But would a god need to resort to such scare-tactics?

 

This observation is part of Nietzsche’s aim, to resuscitate the Dionysian in European life. By Dionysian, Nietzsche meant the joys of passion, disorder, chaos, and of creative destruction. The Dionysian man identifies with the stormy waves smashing the shore, with the lion tearing into its prey. He is intoxicated by earthly life; every sensation is a joy, every step is a frolic.

This is quite obviously in stark contrast with the Platonic ideal of a philosopher: always calm and composed, scorning the pleasures of the body, worshiping logical order and truth. A true Platonist would never dance. Christianity largely adopted this Platonic idea, which found ultimate expression in the monastic life—a life of routine, celibacy, constant prayer, scant diet, and self-mortification—a life that rejects earthly joys.

Nietzsche’s "joyful science" can thus act as a counteractive remedy for soul crushing Pauline-Augustinian piety and perfectionism; a kind of cure for those to whom seeking Pauline sainthood is all too often a life denying, self hating, self-flagellating exercise in self-shaming, crazy making self-delusion. So that one can grow into their true self beyond dogma and instead embrace reality as it is and one's natural manhood or womanhood with joyful exuberance! 

Consider the philosophical energy of these quotes from Nietzsche on joy, dance and laughter, from his "holy book," Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

This crown to crown the laughing man, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown upon my head, I myself have pronounced my laughter holy.

....

I would only believe in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!

.....

And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it!

(Source) 

If only Bible scripture and theology expressed such post-priestly, life-affirming energy and vitality!

I am also moved when I read or listen to Nietzsche's Prologue in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where the sage philosopher character Zarathustra talks of the Sun in this way:

 ... —and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and spake thus unto it: Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou had not those for whom thou shinest!

For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou would have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent.

But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for it.

Nietzsche then ended his Zarathustra book with Zarathustra leaving "his cave, glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of gloomy mountains."

After such poetic empowerment and reverence for Nature, through solar imagery, I can't help but recall these words when I am outdoors: so that many times I will immediately sense the presence of the Sun in the sky and pause to feel the Sun on my skin and it's light rays and it's warmth, thus absorbing it's abundant overflow; feeling a kind of "spiritual" illumination and naturalistic fulness in those moments. Reminding me to also overflow with shining abundance onto others as a source of empowering brightness rather than depleting gloominess. This daily communing with the rays of the Sun also makes me feel more grounded and connected to the earth, to life, and our Universe. 

A daily awareness of our Sun's light, combined with Nietzsche's use of the North wind metaphor, forms an empowering "solar spirituality." When this is combined with Nietzsche referring to the metaphorical "kingdom of God" as a subjective state within, then this provides a naturalistic "spirituality" that seeks to illuminate and affirm this world. 

I am also led to ponder how this universal experience of the Sun was likely the original God of most people. I know it was likely the personification of God by my Proto-Indo-European ancestors. For there was likely an original Indo-European Sky God. So too, a study of biblical scholarship will reveal that the Old Testament was also influenced by the natural Sun. Moses for example experiences his god in terms which signifies he is experiencing his deity as a personification of the Sun, so that his face glows. The New Testament is obviously influenced by the natural Sun with his repeated metaphors of light and darkness, etc. So this leads me to conclude that all world religions as mythologies are personifications of natural phenomena we all experience everyday in the natural world. Even one of the key practices of the Buddhists, mindfulness meditation is ultimately a focus on one's in and out breath and a focus on the present moment by focusing on feeling the full sensation of each breath while only monitoring one's stream of thoughts and then returning to one's breath; which is a natural exercise that one can practice naturally without becoming a Buddhist. Flow states also produce similar calming and centering physiological responses. 

When one walks in nature or goes for a hike like Nietzche often did, these naturalistic "spiritual" practices can be combined into one: through an awareness of the Sun's light and warmth and a present moment awareness of one's in and out breath; while fully emersing one's senses in the sights, sounds, and smells of the nature around them. Thus "spiritually" communing with the natural flowing energies and cycles of nature, of which we are one with as a living human organism. 

When I now experience the Sun on my skin and the Sun's daily light rays, it makes me feel a constant connection to life. I feel a kinship with my ancestors who personified the Sun as either God or the Sun for them was a creation by a God. Thus, solar awareness connects me to my ancestors as well, as they too experienced the same Sun and revered its overflow in their religious mythology. This grounds me psychologically in a universal "spirituality" based in our universally shared common reality.

 When I think of the Gods of the Norse and Hindus, I see a common ancestry of grandfathers and grandmothers who were kings and queens and heroic individuals, whose cultural memory were then in my opinion mythologized into solar gods in pantheons; as their heroic feats and noble royalty were exaggerated as gods later on. For example, I think Baldr might be an example of this. The following image is from the magazine The Vikings: Lords of Sea and Sword by National Geographic (Special Issue 2024):

Click on image to enlarge

 So when I read the mythological stories of the Norse Gods I sense that I am connecting with the cultural memory of my Scandinavian ancestors. To clarify, this does not mean I think Baldr or Thor, as they are depicted in the Norse mythos, were in every detail based on a real Scandinavian ancestor of mine. I think instead that multiple men with Baldr-like or Thor-like attributes and heroic feats produced a cultural memory which was then mythologized into the god character Thor and Baldr, etc. 

When we see say Thursday in English by the way, that means Thor-day. Tuesday is Tyr-day. Wednesday is basically Odin-day and Friday is Frigg-day. These are all Norse Gods. This is just one example, of how much Norse culture is found in America. Thus, many days of the week are a reminder of my Norse ancestors.  Meanwhile, Sunday was literally named after the Sun, a weekly reminder of a "solar spirituality."

This means that I no longer feel the need to abandon my ethnic roots and ignore the memory of my ancestors by following only someone else's religion based on its own ethnolinguistic cultural lineage (which influenced the mythological formation of its gods and heroes). So that I'd rather appreciate my own ancestor's Norse mythology, as well as other mythologies, rather than only treating one mythos (the Bible) as the only source of inspiration or as the only true "scripture." Thus, it makes no sense to me now to only look to the Bible's mythology as a text worthy of study or as a source of inspiration. I now instead see all mythologies as potentially inspiring now, not just the particular genealogy of the Israelites and their ethnolinguistical-mythos, but also the Norse, Greeks and Hindus, etc. 

So as I began to unravel all of this information on my ancestors, I began to realize that I had my own rich genetic and cultural lineage going back to the Proto-Indo-Europeans. I could thus know God through the same path as my ancestors, through the Sun and wind, and the real cycles and energies of nature personified as gods mythologically. Joseph Campbell explained this to Bill Moyer's when he said:

JOSEPH CAMPBELL:  ... Yeah, I don’t have to have faith, I have experience. ... I [have the] experience of the wonder, of the life, I have [the] experience of love, I have experience of hatred, malice — I’d like to punch the guy’s jaw, and I admit this. But those are different divinities, I mean, from the point of view of a symbolic imaging. Those are different images operating in me.

For instance, when I was a little boy and was being brought up a Roman Catholic, I was told I had a guardian angel on my right side and a tempting devil on my left, and when it came to making a decision of what I would do, the decision would depend on which one had most influence on me. And I must say that in my boyhood, and I think also in the people who were teaching me, they actually concretized those thoughts.

... It was an angel [literally]. That angel is a fact and the devil is a fact, do you see; otherwise, one thinks of them as metaphors for the energies that are afflicting and guiding you. ... [those energies come] from your own life. The energy of your own body, the different organs in your body, including your head, are the conflict systems. ... From the ultimate energy that’s the life of the universe. And then you say, well, somebody has to generate that. Why do you have to say that? Why can’t it be impersonal? That would be Brahman, that would be the transcendent mystery, that you can also personify.

BILL MOYERS: Can men and women live with an impersonality?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes, they do all over the place. Just go east of Suez. In the East, the gods are much more elemental.

BILL MOYERS: Elemental?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Elemental, less human and more like the powers of nature. I see a deity as representing an energy system, and part of the energy system is the human energy systems of love and malice, hate, benevolence, compassion. And in Oriental thinking, the god is the vehicle of the energy, not its source.

Rather than literal angels and devils, I see such ideas as instead personifications of our emotions and instincts and patterns of behavior. So that there are gods of anger and selfishness or God's of self-control and kindness, which are energies within the body: that are only personified as angels and devils not as literal entities. The mythologies of the world are thus about the inner conflicts and drives within your body and the drives and inner conflicts in other's bodies in a dynamic tangle of forces and the survival and replication of the species. 

What I like about this natural spirituality is you have the constant reminder of the Sun above your head, emanating rays of light and warmth upon your skin as an ever touch-felt presence: that is a real and universal "truth" that all of us experience as one, regarless of Creed, nationality, or ethnicity.

Solar awareness becomes for me a constant reminder of your own inner energy and abundance and capacity to be a shining light of positivity and joy or a dark cloud of gloom. When I walk in nature and I am surrounded by trees and vines, acorns and butterflies, this grounds me in the cycles of nature of which I too am a part of. Allowing me to just experience nature without a need to form mental models of reality that conflicts with reality. So that instead I can meld my psyche within the changing fabric of reality and just feel my bodily sensations within my natural surroundings; so that I am experiencing reality rather than only thinking about it mentally. In other words, I don't need to always mentally project onto the flowing impermanence of changing cycles of nature any solid abstractions and man-made platonic forms in scriptural language. Instead, as Bruce Lee put it, I can become like water, and merge with and flow with nature. I can bask in the natural light of the Sun and feel all the organic growth of life all around me as a reminder of the living truth of the one evolutionary living body of nature as a real scripture and holy temple unto me. 

For me personally, I find great value in Nietzsche's philosophy because his words lead me to these realizations and insights. Instead of only a rational or organizing logos forming mental models, Nietzsche's logos or North wind is more like the logos according to Hereclitis: the logos of becoming like unto a dice throw, tossing actions into a world of chance as experimentations and then adapting creatively. 

Rather than a final Platonist Form in a closed theology or canonized scripture or creed, the "Nietzschean" way or logos is a wild wisdom, or as he puts it: "Like the sail trembling with the violence of the spirit, my wisdom crosses the sea – my wild wisdom!" (Source). This wild North wind logos is an energy of joyful and playful becoming: a rolling wheel of dice tossess, adaptations and creation. Rather than a final product into an ideal Platonist Form or piously perfectionist behaviorial expectations, the dionysian logos is that of evolutionary becoming: like turning yourself into ashes in the process of re-creating yourself after awakening. Nietzsche uses the metaphor of a golden ball, he tosses to his reader to carry on his goal of carrying on this revitalizing this North wind and "solar spirituality" toward one's own life-affirming heroic self-creation. 

From Post-Sainthood to Pro-Creatorhood: Creating my own Character and Persona beyond Sainthood

Part of growing beyond Pauline sainthood is becoming pro-creatorhood: a term I came up with to describe creating your own worldview, ethical code, and lifestyle while giving style to your character and becoming your real authentic self; by first taking off the biblical dogma-googles and religious personae and performative pious masks; and instead beginning to see the world through your own eyes for the first time as your true authentic self.

A key component of creatorhood is bringing forth your truest most authentic self and identity by moving away from trying to mold yourself into the mirror image of the Pauline Augustinian personality or persona; and instead becoming an existentialist artist in the realm of self-creation and becoming your true self.

I'm influenced heavily by Nietzsche in this regard and his emphasis on giving style to your character and becoming who you are (not who they want to mold you into in their pious dogmatic image). You cannot become who you truly are if you're constantly molding yourself into someone else's created persona, an often pretend pious persona, made in the image of Paul, Augustine, or Luther, etc. You're true authentic personality is not going to fully come through if you are conforming to someone else's personality and molding yourself into a fake persona based on an indoctrinated, conformist, fake pious performance.

So the opposite of post-sainthood is for me pro-creatorhood: the creation of your real authentic self, becoming the creative artist of your own life and story. Choosing to live a life of joy and creativity rather than a life of pious conformity, stuck in a trap of religious fear and blind obedience to maintain a pretend identity. In my own case, I can psychoanalyze myself today and see a clear and distinguishable difference between my pre-19 year old self and my post-19 year old self. In other words, before turning 18 -- and becoming more active in the Brighamite/LDS Church (when contemplating going on an LDS mission) -- my authentic personality was able to come forth more, prior to age 19. For I had developed, between the age of 12 and 18, secular friendships and a secular identity apart from the LDS Church by living in more secular California (where most people are not LDS). So despite going to Church regularly as a child and being heavily indoctrinated, after about age 12 I broke away from the indoctrination and stopped attending the LDS Church sacrament meetings on Sundays.

When I turned 14, and until I was 17, I avoided the shame culture of LDS Church meetings on Sundays and only went to LDS dances, while also going to secular venues and clubs occasionally, etc. In Mormon language I was pretty much "inactive / less active" during this time (ages 14-17). This was a time of exploration and developing my true nature and self, which was not priestly nor pious at all which I can see now in hindsight. But everything changed for me after I entered the MTC and began experiencing serious cultish indoctrination on my two year LDS mission in the 1990s.

After age 19, after becoming a missionary and ordained minister, I was more fully indoctrinated and immersed into a cult mentality and doctrinaire Mormonism as a missionary and ordained minister for the LDS Church. During this time, I pretty much lost the sense of my true self and real identity; and ever since my mission I became a pious performer to one degree or another; and had difficulty taking off this mask of piety because of those two long years of daily preaching and scripture study as an ordained minister (I actually read the entire Bible on my mission) and basically engaging in self-indoctrinating myself daily by bearing an LDS testimony and essentially selling Brighamite brand Mormonism. It took me a long time to reconnect with my pre-19 year old self after that, getting back to when I was more "myself," and less fixated on heavy religious subjects and was more free and fun and jovial and spontaneous and creative.

Pro-creatorhood means for me seeing yourself as not just an absorber of scripture and one who obeys a religious creed or clergymen, but being a self-rolling wheel: a self-creating exuberant star so to speak. It is the recognition that you are an individual and a unique self, with your own personality and genetics and capacity for greatness in your own sphere of potentiality.

Creatorhood means starting random conversations with spontaneous creativity without some unconscious religious agenda, and instead always flowing to the rhythm of reality rather conforming to Pauline-Augustinian dogma. Living with genuine aliveness and curiosity rather than acting like a pre-programmed robot following a scriptural script and fitting your demeanor and communication into a performative mold of a priestly saint. It means making a choice to free yourself from the self-enslaving mold of sainthood by choosing the freedom of creatorhood.

Nietzsche told a friend that he wrote his own version of a "holy book" with his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which declares laughter holy. As the article Nietzsche’s holy jest by Nicholas E Low puts it, "laughter itself represents the heart of Nietzsche’s new revelation of ‘holiness,’ one that challenges regnant [dominant] expressions of religion and piety while resisting serious, doctrinal formulation." Reading Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and laughing during several sections of an audiobook version, it occurred to me just how much actual humor and laughter is missing from the "holy" Bible and all Mormon, Protestant and Catholic scripture as well. For while Thus Spoke Zarathustra made me laugh out loud several times, reading the New Testament never made me laugh once.


It's as if to put the word holy before the Bible is signifying that being holy, or saintly, is to lack a sense of humor. Just think about it, why are most highly religious comedians so terrible and unpopular for the most part? Sure someone's going to mention an exception to this rule, but the reason is obvious. 

A "solar spirituality" of authentic selfhood is thus also the path away from the dark clouds of doom and gloom dogmatism; and is instead the path of shining like the sun with joyful energy through holy laughter acting like golden rays of light upon a glimmerimg lake. 

Recommended Viewing:

• Nietzsche’s Theory 'Finding Yourself': It's Not About Self-Discovery by thinkDeep

• Intro to Nietzsche: Self-Creation (Part 1) by Why Alexander

• Intro to Nietzsche: Self-Creation (Part 2) by Why Alexander