Chapter Fifteen from Deception and Divine Religion by Sadeq Khademi

Chapter Fifteen: The Path to Critiquing Church Christianity

The evidence for the truth of Jesus and the veracity of Christianity lies solely in the miracles attributed to Jesus in the four Gospels, particularly the crucifixion, redemption, resurrection, and restoration of Jesus by Himself. If these miracles are removed from Christianity, nothing remains of it, and this religion loses its overarching concept and mission.

According to the Church, faith in the redemption and cross of Christ, acceptance of the work He performed on the cross, God’s grace, and Jesus’ resurrection form a bridge to establish a living relationship with the person of Jesus and with a God who exists within His creation and has shown particular love toward humanity through this unique path. Explaining this divine act in Christ for the salvation of humanity is the core and essence of Christianity. As the Gospel of John states: “To believe in Him was to believe in God” (John 12:44).

Divine Grace and Providence

In Christianity, humanity does not seek God or strive to reach Him; rather, it is God, in His holy essence—replete with all perfections by eternal necessity—who pursues sinful humanity through His grace and generosity. If God finds a person, calls them, and the individual responds to this call by repenting, returning to God, and believing in Him, they attain salvation. Divine grace refers to God’s benevolence toward those who are unworthy of it. This grace is bestowed upon those predestined by divine decree for salvation, not upon all. Thus, divine grace and providence are fundamental pillars of the Christian faith.

Divine Revelation

Divine providence is God’s eternal purpose, defined by His eternal will and divine wisdom, and its understanding is accessed exclusively through divine revelation. Divine revelation refers to God’s unveiling and manifestation of the purpose and truth He has willed. Religion and faith are founded on God’s grace and providence, possessing a divine basis, and religion cannot be realized without God’s will and grace.

True Faith

The resurrection of Christianity is a heavenly title and a divine defense of this truth, and affirming and believing in it grants believers life and eternal reward. Conversely, rejecting this gift leads to resurrection into eternal damnation and retribution for evil. True faith is spiritual maturity and the evidence of things unseen. Faith encompasses repentance, returning to God, water baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit, and joining the Church. One who seeks to critique Christianity must first have faith in it, for without faith, they lack the subject matter of Christianity to comprehend it and evaluate it through historical or other methods. Faith must be genuine, not false. False faith resides only in the mind and does not reach the heart, relies on sensory experience, is lifeless and does not lead to action, or is temporary, short-lived, and confined to times of crisis. Such faiths do not bring salvation. Faith is strengthened by belief in God’s infinite power, sovereign authority, trustworthiness, and fidelity.

The Nature of the Church

To critique Christianity, one must grasp the philosophy of Church Christianity to explain and analyze knowledge of God. The Church must also be understood. The Church is the spiritual family and lineage of a Christian individual. It is God’s holy government and kingdom, established to advance His dominion on earth, and a sacred assembly. It is the path that, according to the Church, Jesus Himself made exclusive, with no other way for worship endorsed in the Bible. Every Christian is obligated to follow and remain loyal to Jesus’ path.

Jewish Distortion of Jesus’ Character

Staunch Jewish opponents of Jesus never denied His existence or the Gospel texts, nor did any claim that Jesus was a myth like the gods of paganism and polytheism. Beyond oral traditions and millions of successive narrations, history has delivered Jesus’ true character to contemporary humanity. Jesus and the Gospels are supported by sufficient, reliable documents, evidence, and accounts of the sacrifices and struggles of His loyal companions. Jews regarded Jesus as a teacher of the people, a religious reformer, a political activist emerging from adverse environmental and social conditions—marked by a lack of faith, love, justice, and hope, and rife with oppression and stark class disparities ripe for rebellion—or at most, a prophet among Jewish prophets mistakenly considered the Jewish Messiah. In contrast, the early Christian community, many of whom were formerly Jews, viewed Jesus and His followers as the true Israel and believers in God, not the Jewish state.

Jews, with a historical belief in the divinity of the golden calf, considered the claim of Jesus’ divinity and His substitution for God as blasphemous conflation. They denied His prophethood, messianic status, and resurrection, presenting a new narrative about His character and conduct, distinct from and opposed to the Christian narrative. The Gospel of John quotes Jews protesting Jesus: “We have one Father, who is God.” Jesus responded, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came from God. He who is of God hears God’s words; you do not hear them because you are not of God. You are of your father, the devil” (John 8:42–44). In the Talmud, Jews attempted to portray Jesus as an ordinary, historical figure, even a debased criminal and transgressor with political ambitions, deserving of punishment and crucifixion, justly rewarded and departing the world in failure.

This Jewish malice and enmity stem from Jesus’ claim that Jewish rabbis and scholars distorted the traces of divine religion, offering deviant interpretations aligned with carnal policies and imposing non-divine, non-religious directives on people. In truth, these Jewish leaders were deceivers and murderers of God’s religion. They held false beliefs and turned divine law into a marketplace for profiteering. In retaliation, they portrayed Jesus as a troublemaker, harmful to the people, an opponent of the empire, and a sorcerer.

Jesus’ teachings spoke of gentleness, reconciliation, peace, friendship, love for God, and all His servants: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:3). These were incompatible with the rigid, inflexible, and harsh Jewish law, its fearsome and wrathful God, and a religion of terror whose God solely desired the strict preservation of the Jewish people, marking a form of religious innovation and subversion.

After Jesus’ absence, Jews considered Him a Jewish saint who became misguided and criminal, devoid of truth and not the Son of God. Christians, however, crafted a myth of redemption, death, resurrection, and divinity from this historical criminal. As the Qur’an states: “The Jews say, ‘The Christians have nothing [true],’ and the Christians say, ‘The Jews have nothing [true],’ though they recite the Scripture. Thus do those who know not speak the same as their words. But Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they differed” (Al-Baqarah 2:113). Jews and Christians reject each other out of bias, yet Jesus, the divine word, affirmed Moses, the interlocutor of God, as a true prophet and did not oppose him or his law.

In the Jewish view, Jesus’ forgiveness of sins encroached on divine sovereignty. He associated intimately with sinners, interacted with them humbly and gently, allowed disreputable women to approach Him, and was a friend to sinners, promoting a popular, accessible religion and disregarding the Sabbath. Nevertheless, none doubted that Jesus was a great priest obedient to divine law. He considered Sabbath observance an erroneous tradition, external to God’s true law and a religious accretion. Early Christians respected the Sabbath until, in the fourth century, it was transformed into the sanctification of Sunday, endorsed by the Roman state. Christians uphold the sanctity of this day spiritually through prayer to God and studying Christ’s words, not through the drunkenness and dancing women prevalent in the Jewish Sabbath.

The Arrogance and Envy of the Jewish People

Jews considered themselves the first Abrahamic religion and the mother of religions, claiming that the final prophet and savior of humanity would come from the Children of Israel, descendants of Isaac. They neither accepted Jesus’ prophethood and Christianity nor preserved His teachings, nor acknowledged the prophethood of Muhammad, as he was a descendant of Ishmael. This reflects a form of tribalism, pride, profound arrogance, self-superiority, and racial prejudice. In Qur’anic terms, this denial stems from envy and jealousy. The removal of prophethood from the Children of Israel was a divine punishment and wrath for their persistent communal corruptions. The Qur’an describes these deniers: “We gave Moses the Scripture and followed him with messengers. And We gave Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs and supported him with the Holy Spirit. But is it [not] that every time a messenger came to you with what your souls did not desire, you were arrogant? Some you called liars, and some you killed. They said, ‘Our hearts are wrapped.’ Nay, Allah has cursed them for their disbelief, so little do they believe. And when a Scripture came to them from Allah confirming what was with them—although they used to pray for victory against those who disbelieved—when there came to them what they recognized, they disbelieved in it; so the curse of Allah is upon the disbelievers. How wretched is that for which they sold themselves—that they disbelieve in what Allah has revealed through [their] resentment that Allah would send down His favor upon whom He wills from among His servants. So they returned with wrath upon wrath. And for the disbelievers is a humiliating punishment” (Al-Baqarah 2:87–90).

In the Qur’an’s view, systemic distortions in religions lead their disbelieving leaders to a “humiliating punishment” in Hell. The torment of degradation is evident in the contorted faces of those who witness some denizens of Hell being pardoned while these distorters remain imprisoned in torment. Even in this world, despite their claims, they suffer distress from lacking access to the original Torah, possessing only a rewritten text.

Moses succeeded in establishing a governance and leadership based on a centralized system reliant on himself, whereas Jesus did not attain rulership. The righteous kingship of Moses and Solomon, based on a centralized system of wisdom dependent on their persons, turned to calf-worship during Moses’ temporary absence, offering a lesson on the necessity of a mentor-centered religion. Solomon’s kingship also declined after his death, not passing to his successor, Asaph son of Berechiah, but was usurped by institutionalized Judaism, which seized the kingdom of Judea.

The Jewish System of Domination

Judaism is a global system and apparatus of domination, not merely a tribal or local entity. The Jewish kingdom, being institutionalized, persisted in the name of the Jewish people even after the fall of the Judean state and did not collapse. Judaism not only systematized itself but also engineered Christianity through Jewish clergy and politicians, making the Jewish religion and its religious leaders’ interests resilient under the guise of Christianity with a dominant discourse. Jews consider only the Bible immune from distortion and divine.

The Heretical Epistles of Paul

Mainstream Christianity relies solely on Paul’s epistles, with no other basis. Paul, born a Jew, drew heavily from Judaism and the revelations of Israelite prophets regarding the promised kingdom and heavenly dominion to architect Christianity and establish the Church. He initiated Christianity as a Jewish sect with significant shared foundations, then shaped it with notions of resurrection and Jesus’ return, incorporating borrowings and syncretisms from other religions and philosophies, particularly Iranian Mazdaism. Leveraging Rome’s cohesive management and organizational model, he transformed it into the historical Christianity and the triumphant, magnificent institution of the Church.

Today, questions arise about whether Paul was part of a deceptive, secretive organization pursuing a scheme of global stewardship with Jewish roots. As the most prominent apostle, for thirty years after Jesus’ execution or ascension, he held sway over Asia Minor, Greece, and the Italian peninsula through his missionary influence. Some apostles opposed his teachings from the outset.

Paul in Service of the Jewish Domination System

Many believe that among the apostles, Paul and Peter, both Jews, distorted Jesus’ teachings to serve the Jewish political organization, creating the current Christianity—an inauthentic religion that has altered Jesus’ teachings. Jesus’ teachings exposed the deceptive conduct of followers, particularly Jewish rabbis, which contradicted the written and oral Torah. Unable to deny Jesus’ true character and numerous public miracles, Jews adopted a strategy of infiltration, transformation, and distortion of His teachings and prophetic status to align them with their deviant practices or render them unwise, superficial, and hypocritical, making them unbelievable to the enlightened or obscuring their truth beneath superficial, false faith, leading to neglect and oblivion.

Paul’s Hellenization

The primary accused in executing this policy of undermining and transforming the foundations of Jesus’ religion is Paul. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul chose Greece in the 50s CE for this purpose, targeting Corinth, a city known for vast wealth, hedonism, rampant prostitution, sexual immorality, betrayal, licentiousness, venereal diseases, and a lack of political or governmental complexity. Paul initially succeeded in attracting hedonists to a Hellenized Christianity, where Jesus bore all human sins, taking responsibility for their guilt and punishment, allowing the city’s wealthy, carefree inhabitants to sin without a guilty conscience.

Confronting Other Missionaries

In Corinth, Paul faced opposition from Christian missionaries presenting a different interpretation of Christianity distinct from his own. He labeled these missionaries as “Old Testament.” Paul described his rival missionaries as “false apostles, deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, peddlers of God’s word, those with secret and shameful ways, hypocrites, self-satisfied, and boasting, with all their reasons for pride being superficial.” This indicates Paul’s widespread influence and acceptance, such that no missionary could act against him without being suppressed or marginalized by his disapproval. Paul was the first to bring Christianity, as per his teachings, to the Corinthians (Greece) and later to the Thessalonians (in the Balkans, Thessaloniki in Yugoslavia).

Thessaloniki, a city with strategic and commercial significance, was considered a port for all nations and a commercial crossroads. Lacking culture and knowledge, Paul made it a center for disseminating and implementing his engineered Christianity, a tool to control Christians. Early Christians believed one must first become a Jew and accept Moses’ law to become a Christian, but Paul opposed this, declaring that becoming a Jew was unnecessary for Christianity, thus creating a divide between Christians and Jews. Some Jews believed Judaism was a matter of blood and race, inaccessible to all.

To those with little attachment to family systems, Paul taught that celibacy or marriage was irrelevant, and only devotion to Jesus mattered. However, if one married, the marriage was indissoluble.

Internal Dependence and Faith in Christ

Paul made Christians entirely dependent on his constructed Christ, such that His followers believed Christ lived within them.

The Distinction Between Reason and Faith

In his epistles, Paul adopts a Torah-like tone, incorporating Jewish principles and designing Christianity with a cohesive, premeditated plan. He distinguished between rational wisdom and faith to prevent anyone from daring to approach his constructed system with critical reason and uncovering its contradictions. He states: “The world through its wisdom did not know God” (1 Corinthians 1:21). He equates philosophical and rational methods with the errors of those responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion—assuming they philosophized and judged Him rationally—conflating philosophy and rational methods with the mistakes of philosophers in their reasoning, stating: “None of the rulers of this age understood this [wisdom], for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8).

Little is known of Paul’s life, including how he came to serve the Gospel, but he became the central figure in managing Christian evangelism, the spokesperson for Christianity, and the overseer of missionaries and their activities, such that their writings and actions were not official or legitimate without his approval.

Calling Jesus Lord

Paul was the first, contrary to Jews, to call Jesus the Son of God, even Lord, stripping Him of humanity and attributing divinity. In his view, Jews killed this grace. Paul created a Church Christ infused with fantastical imagery, starkly alien to and in conflict with the prophetic Jesus. The Qur’an rejects the notion of God having a son: “The Originator of the heavens and the earth—how could He have a son when He has no consort, and He created all things, and He is Knowing of all things?” (Al-An‘ām 6:101). If God had a son, the son could not be equal to the Father, for God is the Originator and Creator, not producing likenesses in His creation or reproduction. As God is uniquely creative, He cannot have a consort or son equal or sharing His essence. Any assumption implies a descent in manifestation, the pinnacle of which does not surpass the human manifestation of divine unity. Jesus, born of His mother in this material world post-creation, is embodied and does not exceed the station of divine unity. Poetically, one might call the Truth the Father of Jesus.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, despite the consubstantiality of three hypostases and essences, is neither rational nor philosophical. The Trinity is a sophistical human notion, contrary to divine religion, which has transformed Jesus’ lofty spiritual station into a notion of divinity.

Paul’s Lack of Illumination and Charisma

Paul lacks wisdom, illumination, a revelatory system, or at least the spiritual charisma of the Magi and divine favor. He presents a reason-opposing, fragmented scheme in distorting Jesus, becoming a clear example of religious deception and, in Nietzsche’s terms, an antichrist. He does not describe Jesus as wise, enlightened, divinely inspired, or God’s beloved. Paul created a new religious sect within an organized missionary structure serving Jewish interests, subjugating Greeks and other regions without religious zeal to Jewish domination. Following the Jewish pursuit of worldly gain, he collected donations, amassing wealth and resources from these regions for the Church, which, though named Christian, served Jewish materialism, as wealth and influence are inextricably linked in Judaism.

In his epistles, Paul speaks minimally of Christ, His sayings, conduct, and events, instead portraying the era as one of distress, apocalyptic constraint, and focusing on trivial incidents irrelevant to modern Christians. He presents himself as a free individual for whom everything is permissible (1 Corinthians 6:12). Though he reveals little of his past, he identifies as a Jew: “Are they Jews? Very well, I too am a Jew” (2 Corinthians 11:21, 12:10). In one epistle, Paul admits the incompleteness of his Church: “Our knowledge is imperfect, our foresight is limited; when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.”

Lacking wisdom and foresight, Paul ultimately sought refuge in the Roman Empire and was killed there. Rome could not accept Christians, as they did not pray to Caesar as a god or participate in rituals for emperors and deities, and the Roman emperor considered Christianity a political crime. Meanwhile, Christians gathered in specific centers for sermons and rituals, giving rise to rumors of cannibalism and incest, widely believed until the Renaissance and Protestantism.

Paul’s Syncretic and Borrowed Religion

Pauline Christianity is a syncretic religion, blending Mazdaism and Hellenistic theology with Jewish teachings and the desires and directives of certain Judean state factions, substituting an institutional, governmental narrative for Jesus’ religion. Before becoming a global religion, Christianity was severely constrained by the Judean state, limited by Jewish restrictions and rabbinic control, adopting Jewish law and distorted Zoroastrian rituals, becoming a Christianity that posed no threat to Jewish survival. This constrained religion also had to accommodate the demands of influential Roman leaders in a new, popularly accepted structure, infiltrated by Iranian heretics and Gnostics. Even if a syncretic religion has a revelatory origin, its borrowings, syncretism, and secretive ambiguities lead to distortion and corruption, killing its original source.

Faith of Domination

Church priests historically incorporated many pre-existing religious customs into Christianity, constructing a faith from them. They drove followers to this constructed faith and worship of Christian clergy through the Church’s authoritarianism, force, guillotines, and crucifixion. In the authoritarian climate of Church lords, anyone who turned from Christian faith or opposed the Trinity faced poverty and hardship, even if they escaped execution. During this era, the Church was grounded in faith, with no philosophy or rationality deemed superior. Christian faith was the only valid philosophy, claiming that the only way to know the true God through personal experience is through Jesus Christ. Other religions are merely paths toward God, always in transit, never reaching the destination or possessing God Himself.

Buddhism

The engineering of Christianity was based on synthesizing earlier religions. If Buddhists believed Buddha took on their sins, purifying all, Christians believe Jesus was crucified and redeemed to appease God’s wrath, forgiving all sins. The myth of a god’s death and resurrection existed in pre-Christian religions like Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. Similarities between some Church beliefs and the Mahayana Buddhist sect in the north are noteworthy. If Buddha is a truth incarnated and embodied as the Son of God, Jesus is the Word made flesh, the only Son of God.

Vedic Philosophy of India

The doctrine of the Trinity and trinitarian worship appears in Vedic hymns. In the sacred texts of Hinduism (Veda = Vedic), the Hindu god is described as a Father who created His servants, with other deities being names and attributes of the one God. According to Vedic philosophy, there exists an absolute, immaterial spirit in the world, eternal from beginning to end. This eternal essence manifests its actions through itself. These three gods are called Trimurti or Trinity in Sanskrit: Brahma (creator of phenomena), Vishnu (preserver of phenomena), and Shiva (destroyer of phenomena). Hindus believe in these three gods, with some being Vaishnavites, emphasizing Vishnu’s greatness, and others Shaivites, attributing greater significance to Shiva.

All objects of Hindu worship are manifestations of a great, singular God, unified forms of a single, hidden power visible to the spiritually refined but more perceptible to the inner heart than the physical eye. The heart’s vision is the path for the weak. Multiple gods are shadows of one true God, possessing existential unity. All phenomena—humans, animals, plants—are particles forming the vast body of global divinity. The world and its apparent realities are, in essence, mere illusions and shadows, transient and impermanent. Only Brahma, the indescribable absolute spirit and Hindu God, endures eternally.

This Vedic belief—that God’s essence is singular but the Trinity, God’s fatherhood, and the material world’s embodiment do not harm God’s sanctity—resembles Church teachings on the incarnation of divine revelation and being born of God.

Distorted Zoroastrianism

Alexander’s successors and soldiers during the Seleucid and Parthian periods (two centuries before Christ) brought a distorted Zoroastrianism from Iran to Europe, spanning from the British Isles to the Black Sea. Until the late fourth century CE, it rivaled Christianity in these regions. Thus, Western Zoroastrianism was Christianity’s greatest competitor until the end of the fourth century. Notably, Christianity’s spread originated not from Jesus’ birthplace but from Rome.

Many Christian beliefs and rituals are similar to and borrowed from Zoroastrianism, presenting a reconstructed Mazdaism updated for Jesus’ society’s conditions. Numerous features of distorted Mazdaism entered Christianity, including the concept of three judging angels—Mitra, Sraosha, and Rashnu—and the Zoroastrian triad of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, aligning with the Christian Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, Holy Spirit). Christ, like Zoroastrian farr (divine glory), particularly Mitra, serves as humanity’s intermediary in God’s kingdom. In Mazdaism, the halo of khvarenah and farr surrounds the heads of the righteous more prominently; Christian iconography similarly depicts halos around saints’ heads.

Iranian Magi wore red or white garments, with red being a cultural color. The Zoroastrian shiv, a sacred garment, is bright, vivid red, symbolizing the deity Mehr, Mitra, and fire. Papal and cardinal coronations in the Church use red attire. December 25, coinciding with Zoroastrian Yalda, was designated by Christians as Jesus’ birth and Christmas. Christmas, meaning Christ’s festival, celebrates Jesus’ birth on December 25 (equivalent to 4 Dey), followed seven days later by New Year’s Eve on January 1 (11 Dey), known as the January Night festival. Iranians on Yalda anticipated the emergence of a great, charismatic leader for salvation. Yalda means birth.

Mithraism

Christians have a baptism similar to Mithraic baptism, fasting akin to theirs, and ethical principles resembling Mithraic teachings. Ancient Romans celebrated Sunday in honor of the sun god (Sol), and Christians adopted it as their day of rest. Sol had the critical role of protecting the empire, being all-seeing and granting sight to creatures. Emperor Constantine, a worshiper of Sol Invictus (the unconquered sun), a deity that became the supreme god of the Roman pantheon, claimed divine revelation and an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Through the Edict of Milan, he recognized Christianity, not merely as royal support but out of personal belief. He backed Christianity to replace Mithraism, defeated by Sassanian commanders, with a native minority religion to counter the Sassanian faith, unifying and strengthening his defeated commanders. Supporting the Christian Church enabled Constantine’s religious despotism, allowing interference in religious affairs. He unified and stabilized Rome through Christianity, though his Christianity was not Jesus of Nazareth’s but a transformed Mithraism with Christianized elements.

In the first centuries CE, Hellenism in Rome gave way to Western Mithraism, favored by warriors and commanders. Rome sought to impose its culture on Greeks but was repeatedly defeated in wars against Iran.

Christianity’s Official Recognition

In 383 CE, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The state’s might served the Church as a divine institution, a sword against opponents, while the Church and religion served the state’s interests. Christianity appealed to the masses, portraying Jesus with ethical virtues, a compassionate savior, benefactor, forgiver of sins, and a God of love, promising resurrection, return, and eternal life in paradise. Christians, rivals to Mithraists, suppressed and eradicated Mithraism by the fourth century, gaining dominance with the support of the weak masses.

Organized by apostles and backed by Roman emperors’ systemic support and papal atrocities that destroyed rival religions, Christianity became Europe’s dominant religion. They plundered and demolished all temples and shrines of other faiths, building churches atop them. Greedy European emperors and kings acted similarly in the Crusades and African and American colonies.

By the late fourth century, with Emperor Constantine’s conversion and Christianity’s official recognition, Europeans under his influence either became Christians or gravitated toward Mani’s syncretic religion (216–277 CE), and Western Mithraism faded into oblivion.

The Future of Christianity

Popular Christianity, particularly with its ethical teachings rooted in Jesus’ moral foundations and emotional appeal, is an enduring, ever-living religion with numerous, dominant followers, always prevailing over disbelieving groups. The Qur’an states: “When Allah said, ‘O Jesus, I will take you and raise you to Myself and purify you from those who disbelieve and make those who follow you superior to those who disbelieve until the Day of Resurrection. Then to Me is your return, and I will judge between you concerning that over which you differed’” (Āl ‘Imrān 3:55).

The eternal Christianity mentioned refers to Christian people, not the Church institution, which, even now, due to its numerous deficiencies, scientific weaknesses, and corruption, lacks popular support and social legitimacy. It faces decline, with a future shrouded in ambiguity, sustained by amassed wealth rather than scientific validity or religious popularity.