Why in the hell do we need a savior?

Why in the hell do we need a savior?

Bill Fairchild

I have recently learned about loss of male libido. Libido is the medical term for sexual desire. A normal, healthy man has a strong need for sexual orgasms. This need drives us, first of all, to suppress the desire so we can court another person to whom we are attracted, gradually overcome that person’s resistance to having sex with us, then finally CONQUER! Yaayyy!! Orgasms!!! Yaayyy!!

I am a male, so this is written from a male’s point of view.

If we men didn’t suppress our sexual desire, we would be either raping or jumping into bed with almost anyone else constantly. Some men are not able to suppress the desire and do rape other people. But that is another story. I am talking now about the normal, healthy person. Rapists are not normal or healthy, even though they seem to be increasing in frequency. That is also another story.

I have learned that there are many different causes for loss of sexual desire. One is simply getting much older. A second reason is clinical depression. When you are depressed, you lose your desire for nearly everything, and that includes having sex. You don’t feel like working, thinking about critical problems, and you might not even feel like getting out of bed. A third reason is that most anti-depressant medications commonly available in the USA through doctors’ prescriptions have the side effect on some people of reducing their libido.

I have confirmed these first three possible causes of loss of libido with medical doctors. This next reason is conjecture on my part - that a might have a lower than normal level of testosterone, which is the chemical in our male bodies that causes us to do male things, like actively seek a sexual partner. Some men have a normal level of testosterone but are sexually attracted to other men instead of women. There is a great variety in the detailed anatomical workings of the billions of people alive now, and some just might be born with an unusually low libido.

The reason I am discussing sexual desire is because we were taught in the Worldwide Church of God that we have to obey all the commandments in the Bible, one of which is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. We were taught that this commandment was magnified by Jesus when he said “Whosoever looks on a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery with her.” And that is why I mentioned homosexuality above. Since male homosexuals do not ever look on women with lust in their hearts, they can claim innocence from this extra commandment of Jesus due to the technique known as legal loopholes. The commandment does NOT say “whosoever looks on any other person…” or “whosoever looks on a woman, if he is a man, or on a man, if she is a woman.” The Jesus command says “looks on A WOMAN…”. Thus homosexuals can never technically be guilty of sinning by breaking this commandment. And neither can anyone else be guilty of sinning by breaking this “lust in his or her heart” commandment” IF HE OR SHE HAS A VERY LOW LIBIDO.

So there exists a whole class of human beings for whom lusting in their heart CANNOT POSSIBLY lead to their committing a sin. These people will never need a savior for their having broken the sixth commandment because they will never break that one.

Are there any other commandments which do not give some people any problem? Of course. Just as there is a great variety in individual human libido, there is also a great variety in how we relate to our parents, to other people, how we feel about lying, and whether we ever want someone else’s property (and thus steal in our hearts).

Sometimes we get angry with one another when we really don’t need to. Are we breaking the commandment against murdering others in our hearts? What happens if after offending someone else we go talk to that person and ask for forgiveness? Why do we need a dead-risen savior for that? The matter is done with. How can we possibly “sin against God” anyway? We sin against each other by hating, lusting, coveting, stealing, or lying. How can we possibly offend an omnipotent God?

Ah, but what about the verse that says if you ever break any one of the commandments then you are guilty of breaking them all? Dang! That one will get you every time.

Or will it?

How do we know that is true? Just because James wrote it does not make it true.

And that is the whole point of this article. Just because we were taught by other human beings that X is true does not make it so. Just because we were taught by others that we all need a personal savior to redeem us from our sins does not make it true. And the real reason why we think we need a personal savior is because some deceived, brain-washed human told us that we did.

Why did other adults teach us that we all need to be redeemed from our sins by an eternally living, all-powerful, omnipotent being who became human and died for us? Because they were taught the same bullshit by other adults when they were young. And who taught those other adults that filthy lie? Yet other adults even earlier, who were taught this great lie when they were young…etc. etc. … on back to whenever this trash was first started in the mists of antiquity.

Do we have any idea when it started? From reading history books and early Church writings we can see that for quite a while after the life of Jesus many Christians did not believe that (1) Jesus was god, (2) Jesus was resurrected, or (3) that Jesus’ death redeemed anyone from his sins. Some did believe these ideas, and some didn’t. Controversies arose between various teachers and leaders with their different ideas. E.g., do Christians need to be circumcised or not, can they eat pig meat or not, do they have to keep the Sabbath day or not, do they keep the feast of the Passover on the 14^th or the 15^th day of the first month, can Gentiles repent and become Christians or not, and many other details that some leaders did or did not want to require of their followers. Some of these issues had been resolved long before 325, but some hadn’t. Whenever most of the people in one area came to believe in X, then they were the orthodox ones and any other Christians who believed in the opposite of X were called heretics by the orthodox believers. And today’s heresy can become next year’s orthodoxy if the heretics gain enough power.

The Roman Emperor Constantine decided to put an end to all the bickering in the small and growing Christian Church. So he ordered the Council of Nicaea to be convened in 325 A.D. (or C.E. if you prefer it spelled that way). The purpose of this council was to end all the major squabbles and arguments. He was going to use his political power as Emperor to force some agreement to be reached by all the Christian bishops with all their differing ideas. He didn’t really care which set of teachings they came up with as the new standard, as long as they came up with some consensus. From the online Wikipedia encyclopedia, subject First Council of Nicaea (): “The purpose of the council (also called a synod), was to resolve disagreements in the church of Alexandria over the nature of the godhead, and in particular whether the second person of the Trinity was like or unlike the first. Bishop Alexander of Alexandria took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arian controversy [or Arianism] comes, took the second. … it was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly that claimed to represent all of Christiandom. It was the first occasion for the development of technical Christology [meaning the official deification and subsequent worship of the human being Jesus and making this dead guy the center of one’s whole life]. Further, Constantine in convoking and presiding over the council signaled a measure of imperial control over the church. … In this council, Church and State acted together. … This council had a worldwide effect, for the whole Church. … In Arianism lay a great obstacle to the harmony of the Church and the unity of the Empire. … the bishops of all provinces were summoned to Nicaea in Bithynia , a place easily accessible to the majority of the bishops… ” Summoned by whom? by Constantine, the Emperor. If you are summoned by the Emperor, you really ought to go where he wants you to go.

Wikipedia again: “The participating bishops were given free travel to and from their episcopal sees to the council, as well as lodging.” Given free travel and lodging by whom? By Constantine. Why? To make sure as many bishops as possible would attend. They were in effect being asked to go on an all-expenses-paid business trip. “The council was formally opened May 20… After being in session for an entire month, the council promulgated on June 19 the Nicene Creed. This profession of faith was adopted by the overwhelming majority of bishops present. The emperor Constantine was present as an observer. From the beginning of the gathering, the Arians [the “heretics”] and the orthodox [from the Greek root “orthos” meaning right, correct, or proper] were vocal in their opposition. … Now, the emperor actually carried out his previous threat; everybody who refused to endorse the Creed had to face exile. Arius, Theonas, Secundus, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Theognis were excommunicated [because they refused to agree to the decision made by the majority of the bishops there, including the Nicene Creed] The works of Arius were ordered to be confiscated and consigned to the flames, although there is no evidence that this occurred. … Finally, the council promulgated twenty new church laws, called canons, that is, unchanging rules of discipline: … [one of which was] exceptional authority acknowledged for the bishops of Alexandria and Rome …”

Wikipedia does not go into details on “being in session for over a month” to discuss the Nicene Creed. According to Arthur Findlay’s world history book The Curse of Ignorance, Volume 1: “The proceedings opened by Eusebius producing a creed which he stated contained the substance of what he had been told was the Christian faith. It was accepted by Arius and his followers, but, just because of this, their opponents refused to do so. Then Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, put forward his creed, which Arius and his followers refused to accept.

A struggle then took place in which documents were torn to pieces and blows were delivered. The uproar was often so great that at times the assembly was a veritable pandemonium.” So much for this assembly’s and all of these so-called Church Fathers’ being led by God’s Holy Spirit, the fruits of which are “…peace, longsuffering, gentleness, … meekness…”.

So what does any of this have to do with our alleged need for a savior? Because of what the almost, but not quite universally agreed upon Nicene Creed made mandatory for all Christians from then until today and forever. What does the Creed say and require true believers to believe? It says that “I believe in one God, Father, All-Sovereign, Maker of heaven and earth, … And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, True God from True God; begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, [i.e., it was no longer allowable to believe that Jesus was merely an exceptionally humanitarian mortal, which is what many Church members believed until this Creed], through Whom all things were made: Who for us men, and for our salvation [because we could not be “saved” unless this happened], came down from Heaven, … was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried [everyone believed then that Jesus had died, but some believed that was all there was to it – no resurrection, since he was a mortal human, no more, no less], … And He rose on the third day according to the Scriptures [now non-resurrection-believing followers had to believe he had been resurrected unless they wanted the military machine of the Roman Empire to persecute them], … I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins.” If you didn’t want to believe that you needed to have your sins remitted, or paid for, then you were to be excommunicated, persecuted, exiled, or even killed so that Constantine’s Roman Empire could be more unified.

Regardless of what you may want to believe about Jesus and your own need to be redeemed by a divine savior from your sins, ever since 325 A.D. you have had to believe that you need a savior because a pagan Roman Emperor wanted his Empire to be more peaceful and harmonius, and not because you really need a savior.

And that’s why we need a savior. Because a bunch of angry, arguing, headstrong church leaders were forced to agree to a common teaching about 1,680 years ago.

Bill Fairchild

Plainfield, IL

29 OCT 2005

Posted -- 10/30/2005

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