NOTES ON THE TEXTS: JESUS IDEOLOGY

and REAL MONOGAMY FROM THE UNFORTUNATE

The respective abbreviated forms: "Genuine Monogamy from Reason" and "The Criminal Case of Jesus".

On 8 May 2018, Gregor Gysi was a guest at the Klausen monastery near Trier. In a conversation with Dominican Father Albert Seul, he saw the problem of the Catholic Church as knowing full well that the faithful - and especially the young - do not adhere to the sexual morality that the Church teaches. In other words, it accepts a violation of the norm - and an accepted violation of the norm undermines the authority of any institution that actually demands adherence to a norm. And here is my view: the church simply cannot abandon the norms of sexual morality because they belong not only to the church but to the Christian religion in general. But it can examine what are ashes and what are embers -- and rid the doctrine of the ashes. And what remains as "embers" here is "genuine monogamy". Unfortunately, this is currently considered an unloved shopkeeper of the Christian faith. But it can be made into a much sought-after hit!

Note: I have already covered most of the references elsewhere, so many who have already dealt with my approach will know them. I have merely compiled them again here for the "newcomers" to the text "Hints ...".

The respective short forms: "Genuine monogamy from reason" and "The criminal case of Jesus".

1. "Middle way": A young private landlord in Kaschau (Kosice) in Eastern Slovakia wanted to know what I was tinkering with when I unpacked my notebook. I tried to explain it to him. Then he said, "Oh, so it's a middle way in sexuality?" Me: "Yes, you could say that." And he said, "So that's how I should write it." And he also immediately gathered friends and acquaintances in the traditional beer pub "Staré Mésto" ("Old Town") to discuss "the topic" with me. A budding psychologist immediately told me her "own story" of having lost her virginity at 19 and wished me every success in my commitment. I had the impression that she, of all people, liked how creatively I was getting involved.

2. "fucked together society": http://deutsch.univartois.free.fr/lire11.html

3. sexual partners: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/644279/umfrage/umfrage-zur-anzahl-der-bisherigen-sexualpartner-in-deutschland/

4. "no (real) interest: There are over 200 chairs in Germany for gender research, i.e. whether a person's "outer gender" also corresponds to their "inner gender", but not a single one for research into real monogamy - and how this can be translated into a pedagogy for young people in today's world. The usual "components" of our morality should be put to the test to see whether they are really conducive to genuine monogamy, for example

• religious education for children and the religious knowledge associated with it

• Education in sexual shame, although there have long been "natural beaches" where there is by no means "sexual chaos", so experiences with this could be taken into account in the search for a functioning sexual morality.

• the concealment of the topic of "real monogamy".

• early childhood conditions

• sex education in the family and/or at school

• the influence of the media, from classic fairy tales to today's children's and youth literature

• ideas in other cultures and religions and how, depending on the case, pedagogy looks there with regard to "real monogamy", etc.

But for the most part there is no such thing. Theories and experiences with nudity do exist, but they are generally completely taboo. As before: The topic of "real monogamy" is simply not of interest.

5. "Pious and naive enough": In traditional education on sexual morality, everything related to sexuality is lumped together, so to speak, so there is nothing sensible or detrimental here, but everything is considered "early sexualisation" and is therefore bad per se.

6. "Vox populi - vox dei": This saying is also sometimes mockingly modified into "Vox populi - vox cattle". Yes, when does one apply, when the other? The "voice of God" is probably more the case when it is a matter of basic human sentiment about values. As I have the impression, people here are quite honest, even if they themselves often act differently. If, on the other hand, the masses cheer on some leader who makes an impression with simple solutions (like Hitler with his anti-Semitism: "The Jews are to blame for everything, when they are gone everything will be better!

7. Monogamy and TIME: http://www.zeit.de/2012/13/CH-Monogamie

At this point, the question should also be raised to what extent monogamy is a "Jewish invention" that is otherwise of no interest. Well, let's assume that it is a Jewish invention. Yes, and when was it invented? It was on the way of the Israelites from the slavery of the Egyptians to the Promised Land. Moses climbed Mount Sinai and came down with the tablets with the Ten Commandments. On these tablets were also the rules for dealing with sexuality. However, it is perhaps not so clear from the commandments in question, as we know them, that they also mean true monogamy. But I think it follows from the context. So the Israelites did not just walk out of Egypt through the desert into the Promised Land, but it was also a walk out of slavery into freedom. And in slavery it was normal that the owners of the slaves also owned them completely, so the sex of the owners with the slave women was also part of it, which of course also happened. And when these sex stories between owners and slave girls were over at some point, the slave girls were passed on by the masters to suitable male slaves for further relationships and for child rearing. This means, then, that "premarital intercourse" is part of the "slavery" way of life. Consequently, there is no such thing in free societies, where "true monogamy" applies! This then also applies to us today! And if genuine monogamy belongs to truly free societies, then it must also be possible to explain and justify it from within itself - which is what I have tried to do in this text here.

And of course sexual intercourse has something to do with having children, so it indicates that it only happens with the partner with whom one or woman also wants to have and raise children. Today we are so committed to "as natural as possible", but here all of a sudden we think that it is better for us humans to trick nature with pills and rubber products. How schizophrenic are we? But there really is another way? Can't a loving embrace be much more than just "penetration" when the partnership does not yet have the blessing of parents and God (to put it that way)? And even more so with beautiful skin contact? Incidentally, the Spanish philosopher often mentioned here also wrote something about this: "While in all other cases of life we detest nothing more than to see the boundaries of our individual existence violated by another being, the sweetness of love consists in the fact that the lover becomes permeable in a metaphysical sense and only finds satisfaction in merging with the beloved in an 'individuality of two'. This is reminiscent of the teaching of the Saint-Simonists, according to which the true human individual is the couple in twos. But the longing for fusion does not stop there. Full love culminates in a more or less clear desire to symbolise union in a child in whom the perfections of the beloved being persist and assert themselves ..." (Ortega y Gasset, "On Love", p. 120). There you go!

And another argument for monogamy: It is often said today that sexual behaviour is largely in the genes and that therefore nothing can be done anyway, regardless of whether homosexuality or monogamy or polygamy. Let's look at the situation in Ancient Greece: homosexuality was considered the normal thing, after all, 99% of all men were homosexual. And anyone who was different was considered "Farsi", i.e. "Persian", because it was said that the Persians, the people on the fringes of civilisation at that time, did not know the beauties of life because men there only had relations with women. The question is, was homosexuality really genetic in Greece at that time? And why then - obviously due to the influence of Christianity - has it largely disappeared until today (because it is not known that the Greek men of today are particularly homosexual)? That can only be because it is - at least in the vast majority of cases - not at all genetic, but culturally determined. The external circumstances were such that homosexuality was the norm, which means that there was no pedagogy in which "hetero" was considered the norm. And so people could not reasonably live "hetero". I wonder if it's the same with "polygamy" today. Where then (I know, I'm repeating myself) is there a reasonable and truly hetero-friendly pedagogy of monogamous heterosexuality? See also the next point - i.e. No. 8!

8. predisposition and pedagogy: How come, then, that in sexual behaviour it is very often doubted that monogamy (or also heterosexuality) belongs to the human being, because if it really belonged to the human being, it would have to come "by itself", so to speak, without anything having to be done about it in a pedagogy. And if people do not live in a genuinely monogamous (or heterosexual) way despite all the good coaxing by culture and religion, does that not mean that they are not really monogamous (or heterosexual) by nature?

For that, we should take a look at what our upbringing on monogamy and heterosexuality looks like. In my time as a teacher, I sometimes asked the students how many marriages they knew that could be a model for their own later marriage. In most classes, my question was met with silence, although there was one class in which several students obviously knew of such marriages. And my question then went on to ask how they explained that there were so few such marriages.

So I presented my thesis: "Look at it this way, in your profession you generally manage quite well later on and are often quite successful, whereas very many interpersonal relationships don't go so well at all. How come? I think it's because you are very well trained for your profession - through school, apprenticeship and/or study. What a lot of money is invested in you alone! Every month of schooling costs the taxpayer around 1000 €, you don't just have to consider the teachers' salaries, but also their training and their pensions. Then, of course, there are the costs of the school buildings, the administration and everything else. That easily adds up to 12,000 € a year, which means more than 100,000 € for the entire period of education, if not much more, especially if you also study. - And what is done now for your personal relationships to succeed? Well, first of all, everything related to sexuality is covered up, nothing is said, and the gender difference is <swept under the carpet> or hidden under textiles and this hiding is taught to you as morality. And because you are naturally morally inclined, you go along with it. Otherwise, everyone in school, in society, in religion is silent. When you reach puberty, you are told about sexually transmitted diseases and problems with pregnancy, and you are given contraceptives and told: <Now try it until you find the right person!>. And that's supposed to go well? In any case, it's probably not professional at all. It's almost a miracle that so many personal relationships are still at least somewhat successful."

So when I spoke like this, I never met with protest, but only with a rather embarrassed silence, which I think I was right to interpret as agreement that I was right in my description. And my conclusion from this: Let's do some sensible pedagogy here! I tried to do this in "The Criminal Case of Jesus", especially in the "Box" from page 28.

Of course, one can argue whether monogamy really belongs to the human being, and whether polygamy does not belong much more to the human being. But I think that we should at least offer both to young people so that they can choose freely. Of course, the offer of monogamy must also be such that it is not seen as torture and coercion, but is a real alternative. Whether this succeeds in the "criminal case"?

And who would come into question for the "propaganda" for monogamy? A religion - who else? But not one that is about a cult, but one that is about an attitude to life! This brings us to the religion that in all likelihood Jesus had in mind, for he was certainly not concerned with a cult!

9. fetish effect: see GEO 2/2015

10. American voyeur: See "Die Welt" of 12.04.2016: "Behind the wall a Peeping Tom". The voyeur had observed the guests of his motel through a peephole disguised as a ventilation hole and kept a record.

11. lifetime damage: It is well known that 25% of all women remember their first "intercourse" only with horror and did not want any more intercourse so soon afterwards. Of course, in today's modern sex education, this is kept secret from girls in particular, so as not to frighten them of sexuality. Allegedly, the reason for the "failure" is only because they were always made afraid beforehand ... Of course, the idea of limiting oneself to skin contact without penetration before marriage does not occur to the modern sex educators, because they are no more interested in harmonious sexuality than the religions. And if "the first time" didn't work out, will the second time work out better and so will the many other times? That, too, is not likely to be easy, because when one approaches such a delicate matter with bad experiences, things are not likely to get any easier. It's no coincidence that two-thirds of all women never have a real orgasm. So it would be better to do everything right from the start!

Central nervous triggered orgasm without "penetration": My attention has been drawn to an English language website here:https://mytinysecrets.com/men-with-erectile-dysfunction-are-the-best-lovers/.

A consolation for old people when men no longer have an erection, it also works without - and therefore also without penetration!

I have sometimes presented this theory in my classes, applied to young people "without experience". I always had attentive students and especially female students. I remember two situations in particular: once a pupil in the front row spontaneously agreed with me: "Yes, you're right!", but then immediately put her hands in front of her face in embarrassment: "Oops, what did I say there! The other time was the story with the Moroccan girl, see under point 8, "Other experiences".

My thoughts on this: Especially now, with the immigration of Muslims into our European countries, we see the religion of these people as a fixed and mostly completely unchangeable factor. What would happen now, I think, if our Christian girls woke up and their premarital goal with men was no longer sexual intercourse but orgasm without sexual intercourse? Wouldn't that also awaken dreams and longings in Muslim girls? And wouldn't this then also give those Muslim men chances to "get" girls for real love, thus also bringing them a beautiful fulfilment? And since Islam cannot bring all this by its whole construction, wouldn't this be the chance for our Christianity?

We must always bear in mind that we have rarely chosen our religion ourselves. For a long time, a sovereign or the "father of the nation" decided which was the best religion for his children, and then the descendants of these "children of the nation" grew up in the religions of their parents and adopted them more or less unquestioningly with regard to the life goals that the religions convey to their believers. Would it not now be conceivable that, in the case of goals that are closer to life, the believers would of their own accord choose other religions than those usually given to them? Of course, the "old believers" will always stick to their traditional religions, because they don't have much left to expect in life. But what about the young people - and especially the young women?

Statistics: Of course, statistics are always problematic because they are often made in such a way that they only prove what should be proven, i.e. what was already certain long before. But I think that especially when a private company makes the statistics, as in the case of the statistics on the sexual behaviour of young people, then there is "already something to it". At least the relations between the individual countries should be correct. It is interesting to note in these statistics that Turkish young people are even more "active" than German young people ...

I found a good critical page on the problem of the statistics "Thai women and Thai men are world champions in cheating". I think I can say something about that. So when I travel through Thailand like this, I can't imagine that the "ratios" are like this. But maybe I am also "blind" here. But isn't Thailand the country with 2 million prostitutes among 30 million inhabitants, as I once read in a newspaper a long time ago? I also once found a website whose author claimed that in principle "all" Thai women are prostitutes ... He was in Thailand and must have had some experience in this direction. In a small town with an important Khmer temple (that's why I was there) I met an Austrian who had stayed there, he told me similar things. And after we had once gone to the market together to buy something to eat, he told me with appropriate commentary that he had already had sex with thirteen of the market women. And in the WELT there was once an article that the president had called on the MPs from all over the country, who have second homes in Bangkok, to be faithful to their wives. But he did not pursue this "call" after he was informed that over 90 % had a "second wife" in Bangkok. And what do the wives do during this time? The Austrian told me that they were not so celibate either.

Of course, as a "normal foreigner" you don't notice any of this, especially since Thai women are all very bashful, there are no nude beaches even in the holiday resorts that are known for prostitution tourism. The fact that one does not notice anything, however, would again fit the context of "sin and shame" as addressed in the Adam and Eve narrative, see note 31 on point 5.

Oh yes, when I look at these statistics on the internet, I would like to take a real trip back in time - to the land of Jesus 2000 years ago and of course to Rome and the other countries of that time and see where they would stand in such statistics. I bet they could keep up with today's countries!

14 On the subject of "dirty rags": That may sound harsh, but unfortunately it is the case. When I go through the eleven "cases" of who was the driving force in the "first time" with girls, then in nine cases it was clearly the girls. And I think that is also generally the case today. How come, since man, and especially young man, is a highly moral being, as is the thesis of this moral concept? It's simple: girls in particular are always and everywhere being told that they have to be "shameful" and therefore have to cover up their typical female body parts. Because if they don't do that, it damages their good reputation and they are considered sluts. So they think this "covering" is moral. And since most of these body parts are related to excretions, and since excretions are disgusting anyway, they just think "these body parts" are disgusting, so nudity is also disgusting. (Of course, young people don't realise at first that what was disgusting before becomes particularly fascinating during puberty and especially during an infatuation). Be that as it may, life goes on. At some point, the urges for the man also come, pushing for some kind of realisation in practice. The liberation from shame is not possible now, because that is against the morals preached everywhere, so there is a blockade here. So what can be done? Oh, how good, there's still sexual intercourse. It has to happen at some point anyway, so it's not so immoral. Even if you have it with several partners, that can't be so bad, because after all you have to know beforehand who you want to be faithful to. Besides, everyone you know does it that way, often it's the mothers who recommend it. Of course, virginity gets in the way, so get rid of it like a "dirty rag". And whether the first boyfriend is trustworthy and a responsible person is also not important, the main thing is that there is one "for this liberation" - and it is then called "consensual sex". In reality, however, it is a sophisticated manipulation, behind which our whole society is, yes, even religion.

This is why education in sexual shame, no matter how well-intentioned, leads straight to what should actually be avoided.

The question naturally arises: Why don't the typical moralisers, who are supposedly so concerned with morality, think about these connections and come up with a better alternative than education in shame?

15. Beginning of an infatuation: I had quoted the description of the beginning of an infatuation according to Ortega y Gasset here, but it can be omitted here now because I have included it in the HEFT.

In any case, there is no talk of an enrichment of our soul life through an infatuation.

A pretty and, what's more, quite short novel dealing with the problem of a bride no longer being a virgin, although this was a matter of course for the groom, is the novel "Diary of a Murder Announced" by the South American winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez. What is special here is that the bride remains steadfastly silent about "who it was" that had "ended" her virginity. For she knows very well that her brothers must avenge the "deed", i.e. kill the "lover", because that is how it is done in their society when brothers love their sister. Yes, and why doesn't "she" want him dead? It can only be because it was she herself who chose him and "asked" him to do it. And why probably? Certainly not out of greed for sex, but because she could no longer stand the confinement of her shelter.

Of course, there is also the question of how the brothers should have dealt more sensibly with their sister. When I think of how I had done it with my sister: I had judged her to be intelligent and "enlightened" her about how my comrades think about girls and that she should definitely not start having sex before marriage, because all men lie here anyway and because then she is just the "fooled one" after all. I think she listened to me.

Maybe that is also a reason for my commitment, because I believe that girls in particular are highly moral and highly intelligent, that you just have to talk to them sensibly so that their high morals are activated. Then you don't always have to protect them. By the way, García Márquez's novel is very good to read and exciting, so I recommend it.

And what can you do as a father, especially as an educator, to prevent this infatuation of a daughter from being directed towards the "wrong person", regardless of whether she wants it or "someone" who manipulates her in his own way? Yes, that is exactly the task I am concerned with! Hence this "baptism of the Atlantic" (see note 42). The one in love will now want to repeat it with the one she is in love with. And for this she has to talk - and will "wake up" and "become lucid" when she realises that this does not work.

The experience, however, is that the problem of a daughter brought up "in this way" being in love is rather hypothetical. For she has such awareness on the one hand and such charisma on the other that it is highly unlikely that such "problems of falling in love" will arise in the first place.

16. campaigns to motivate young people to be chaste, in which shame (or "intimacy") plays a role: A note in the WELT of 27.10.2007 gives food for thought as to whether traditional ways of chastity education (or even education for high sexual morals or monogamy) have a chance of success. I have brought this note to the attention of the propagandists of such campaigns in Germany, Gabriele Kuby and Christa Meves. But do you think there will be a reaction here? Not at all. Gabriele Kuby in particular continues as before, she is completely resistant to advice. Obviously what she is doing is her business model, whether it is effective is of no concern to her. But here is the note:

Zero Bock on "No Sex"

Campaigns to motivate young people to be chaste are always unsuccessful and sometimes even have the opposite effect. This is the result of the evaluation of 13 abstinence studies in which 15 940 adolescents participated. Kristen Underhill and her colleagues from Oxford University found that none of the campaigns had an effect on the frequency of unprotected sex, on the number of changing partners, on the use of condoms or on the age at first sexual contact. Moreover, one of the campaigns had the opposite effect: the young people participating in it even had more frequent sexual contacts, and the number of sexually transmitted diseases was also increased among them. Is

Interesting, so there are studies on the effectiveness of campaigns to motivate young people to be chaste. But where are the studies on what effective campaigns might look like? I studied theology at various universities, and there was also a subject called "morality". But I have not found any research on the topic of "pedagogy of real monogamy". Also among feminists: Nothing. Yet they should actually be interested in the subject. The reason may be that they all approach the topic out of frustration, i.e. from bad experiences they have had themselves. But the young people they want to address do not yet have such experiences. Therefore, such "approaches from experience" also fizzle out with them. This is certainly true of the journalist Gabriele Kuby. She is divorced, so she has a failed relationship behind her, so her commitment is out of frustration - with the corresponding problems. For example, she will never get the idea that a real sexual morality that really works must and can be fun for all involved.

17. "Nothing to do with monogamy": Genuine monogamy must be an inner attitude and not a behaviour, for example, "for lack of opportunity" - simply because the "high morals" oriented by nature towards genuine monogamy are activated in the young person. An apt comparison is that if a person is immunised against smallpox disease by an active smallpox vaccination, he will not get smallpox even if he comes into contact with smallpox patients however closely - according to the motto "I walked through the fire and did not burn". Only such an attitude has an advertising effect on the outside for monogamy (yes, it is talked about, if it succeeds!), everything else is quickly seen as "narrowness and uptightness" and therefore quickly has a counterproductive effect. Moreover, true monogamy cannot be achieved - at least in the long run - by separating the sexes, see for example this problem in García Márquez's novel "Diary of a Murder Foretold" in note 15.

Example: The strict Catholic organisation Opus Dei maintains student dormitories - strictly separated according to gender. However, we do not know why female students go to such a "female dormitory". It could also be that they have "had enough" of disappointing experiences with men from the time before - and now just want to study in peace. There's nothing wrong with that, but it has nothing to do with real monogamy. And for me it's all about "real monogamy".

18. Lucas Cranach the Elder: He was not only simply a "painter", but also a "humanist", i.e. he was concerned with better human conditions (from the Latin word "humanus" = human). In this sense, he was certainly more progressive or modern (in our modern sense) than Martin Luther, who was "only" concerned with reforming the previous Catholic religion, but did not have the fundamentally human in mind.

And as for the image of the naked Lucretia: the combination of nudity and high morals was certainly not just a fixed idea of Lucas Cranach. In the early church, it was not only little children who were baptised stark naked (as is still the case today in the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria, I happened to see it myself), but also young people and adults. The nakedness here is supposed to be the symbol that Christians (or better "followers of Jesus") no longer do morality with "fig leaves" (or just more or less big clothes), but with "holy spirit". And if we think about it, if the Spirit is not there, the garments are of no use anyway. When I think of nakedness today, it's unthinkable. For me, this means that the understanding of being a Christian (or better, "following Jesus") must have been completely different than today! So let's go for real "Jesus-following", but completely - the swimming trunks and bikinis are an anachronism anyway, making it clear that we are nowhere near the Third Millennium!

Lukas Cranach: Golden Age around 1530: The famous painter Cranach was also a humanist, so he had the ideal of a perfect world, i.e. a "golden age". Nudity stands for trust, morality, harmony, openness, freedom. Unfortunately, for the time being, only in a closed garden for selected people who abide by the rules of paradise, but why shouldn't all people be selected? Note: I think the colour reproduction is very poor, but I don't have a better model.

Another important humanist who brought the problem of "morality and nakedness" into the discussion was the English Lord Chancellor Thomas More, who eventually also became a martyr for his Catholic faith - and was also canonised by the in 1935. In 1980, he also became a saint of the Anglican Church. He had written a booklet about an ideal state "Utopia", which was actually less about the construction of such an "ideal state", but more about a critique of the existing states and societies of his time. What is interesting in our context is how Thomas More sees the threading of marriages in this ideal state, which are ultimately supposed to last. So in this ideal state, people wonder about the stupidity of people in other countries "taking" a spouse whom they may not even have seen "completely" before marriage. How the Utopians do it now is perhaps a bit of a cramp and certainly not the be-all and end-all, but Thomas More at least addresses this issue once before. I think what I have come up with is more workable and therefore makes more sense, but let's take a look at Thomas More's solution:

„22. Sexual morality and marriage laws.

The woman shall not marry before she is eighteen years old; the man not until he is four years older. If a woman is convicted of illicit intercourse before her marriage, both she and her husband will be severely punished. Both parts are forbidden to marry, unless the pardon of the prince atones for the offence: but also the father of the family or the mother in whose house this has been committed are subject to dishonour, because they have badly protected those entrusted to their protection.

The Utopians punish this offence so severely because they foresee that otherwise it will come about that only a few will unite in conjugal love, in which each one must remain with one person for a whole life and, on top of that, patiently endure all the inconveniences that the married state brings with it, if people are allowed to indulge in unbridled concubinage.

In the choice of a spouse they observe what we consider a most silly and especially ridiculous usage in all seriousness and severity.

A respectable matron shows the woman to be married, whether she is a virgin or a widow, completely naked to the suitor, and an honourable man shows the completely naked suitor to the girl.

While we ridiculed and disapproved of this custom as unseemly, the Utopians, on the other hand, marvel at the outstanding folly of all other peoples, who, when they wish to purchase a wretched horse, where only a few pieces of money are at stake, are so immensely cautious that they refuse to buy it, although the animal is by nature almost naked, unless the saddle is also lifted off and the horse blankets and saddle cloths are removed, but in the choice of a wife, from which follows pleasure or disgust for the whole life, they proceed so negligently that they judge and estimate the woman hardly after a span of space (since nothing is to be seen except the face), with her body otherwise completely wrapped in clothes, and conclude a union with her, not without great danger of a miserable cohabitation, if afterwards objectionable infirmities are discovered in her.

For all men are by no means wise men to the extent that they look only at moral value, and even in the marriages of the wise, bodily advantages form a not unwelcome addition to the virtues of the spirit and mind.

Under all these coverings there can be hidden such a frightening ugliness that it can completely alienate the mind of the husband from his wife, if a divorce from table and bed is not possible.

If by chance this ugliness is discovered only after the marriage has been concluded, each must bear his fate; it is therefore a matter for the laws to take precautions that one does not fall into such a trap, and this was to be taken into account all the more seriously because of all the peoples situated in those parts of the world, they alone are content with a wife, and the marriage is seldom dissolved otherwise than by death, unless there is adultery, or one of the spouses has an obnoxious character. If one of the parties is injured in this way, he is permitted by the Senate to change spouses, and the other party must live in lifelong celibacy without honour.

Otherwise, however, it is absolutely forbidden for a husband to desert his wife because she suffers bodily harm through an accident, if she is otherwise not at fault - it is considered cruel to abandon and leave someone when he is most in need of consolation and that in old age, when illness sets in, which is an illness itself, the promised fidelity is broken by the other party.

Incidentally, it sometimes happens that when the spouses are ill-matched in character, as soon as they have each found another match in which they hope to live more happily, they separate voluntarily and enter into new marriages on both sides, though not without the authorisation of the senate, which does not concede a divorce until it has thoroughly discussed the case itself and in consultation with the wives of its members. But even then the matter is not admitted lightly, for they know very well that it does not help to strengthen the love of the spouses if there is a reasonable prospect of being able to contract a new marriage.

Adulterers are punished with the severest slavery, and if neither part has been unmarried, the young spouses who have been wronged by the adultery may marry each other by repudiating the guilty part, or by taking whomever they please as their spouse.

If, however, a husband or wife who has been injured in this way still cherishes love for the spouse in question, who so little deserves it, the law does not prevent the continuance of the marriage if he or she wishes to follow the other party who has been condemned to work; incidentally, it sometimes happens that the repentance of one party and the earnest endeavours of the other arouse the pity of the prince and obtain the freedom of the guilty party.

Death befalls a backslider."

19. Self-fulfilling prophecy" means that something is so and so because we think so and so. For example, we are afraid of something because we think it is dangerous - and only for this reason is it actually dangerous. In order to break this irrational vicious circle, one can only recommend to think clearly about whether something is really dangerous - and to get involved in trying it out. The prime example of such fears is the fear of nudity. We can only recommend that you talk about it with your family or friends and then just do it. You will see, depending on how you talked, that all the fears were pure nonsense: no one will attack you and you won't attack anyone ... Of course, you will then ask yourself who is telling you such fears, who is interested in you having such senseless fears. (this paragraph will be added)

20. "not yet so mature": Yes, unfortunately many things only came to me long after my active time as a teacher, especially through conversations with young pilgrims on the "Santiago Pilgrimage" in Spain. For example, the thoughts: "Why do girls start having sex of their own accord...", "imprinting through reward", "orgasm through being able to let go". How different my teaching could often have been if I had had better arguments and if I had then also expressed myself better and if the young people had therefore understood me better!

21. whole body massage: The overriding principle here is: Whoever forbids or demeans EVERYTHING, i.e. portrays it as disgusting or as sinful or otherwise as bad, only achieves that young people do not know any alternatives and can therefore also strive for, but finally do EVERYTHING!

Of course, the question arises whether nudity and such "gimmicks" do not increase the tension, especially of the male partner, to such an extent that he is finally no longer able to control himself "because of all the pressure" and becomes violent, etc. My impression is that we are dealing with something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: If one has the basic attitude that "such a thing" is not possible, then it is not possible, but if one has the attitude that it is possible, then it is possible - and for both the male and the female partner. And why is it not possible with one attitude and possible with the other? Possibly it is because the educator (or adult in general) who says it is not possible will prevent anything that leads to "casual interaction" between the sexes. He will therefore prevent and in any case not encourage all conversations with and among young people about this, and then of course make nudity taboo from childhood onwards, there can be no talk at all of a revaluation of nudity as a sign of a beautiful emancipation. It will also conceal the possibilities of skin contact and the possible "relaxation" of men as well. The consequence is that young people are not able to "deal with it" at all and become fixated only on genital gratification; I refer here to the book by Georges Valensin, for example. On the other hand, educators with the different attitude that it is possible cause something completely different: young people become almost feverish for such casual contact with each other - and this "casual contact" is then also enough! At any rate, that is also my impression from conversations with young people. Girls have assured me credibly several times that "that" would also have done what I am recommending here, if only they had known about it. But no one had said so - unfortunately. And again and again: it is important to have a common teaching from early youth on about this topic, so that young people of both sexes can adjust accordingly.

The thesis that "casual contact", where harmonious skin-to-skin contact is in the foreground, is supported by the "famous story" from China from the Mao era. There was a married young couple, both chemists, who wondered why they were still unable to have a child after a few years of marriage and therefore went to a doctor. And the doctor found out that the two of them had no idea about sexual intercourse at all and had therefore not practised it! It was not allowed to talk about "such a thing" with young people at that time, so the two of them had never heard of such a thing either - they thought that children start to grow by mixing the molecules on the skin. And in their "mixing" they obviously hadn't missed anything either. For us, this means that "mixing" should also be enough, at least as long as there are no other experiences and both partners want it that way. And last but not least: Maybe here - at least at first - there is also the nicer feeling of harmony, whereas with sex - especially with unmarried people - sometimes something resonates with the contempt for the woman as an object for the drive reaction, that is, for a drive reaction she is good enough, but not for more. That may sound brutal - but do we know if there isn't something to it?

And something more general: Why is it that young people who have never had sex, even in such "extreme situations", are not attracted to having sex? Of course, they can be very "high", but this "highness" does not focus on the sexual parts, but it encompasses the whole body, even the whole person, body and soul, so to speak. So young people will definitely become creative in how they can put highness into practice. Now here, one approach to a meaningful education would have been that the goal is not the satisfaction of drives, however it happens, but, for example, a nice abstinence rapture. Yes, what is that supposed to be? Again, some theory on this: the origin of man has been in a nature that is very often hostile to him, and he is equipped with a good brain compared to other creatures, but often not with the right physical powers. And so it could happen that he encountered an animal against which he had no physical chance without the appropriate weapons, so his only option was to flee. And this situation, which was life-threatening for him, was of course absolute stress. Fortunately, nature came up with something here: Namely, the anti-stress hormone. And this anti-stress hormone tickles the last forces out of the fleeing human being, so to speak: he even manages to climb a tree quickly, which he would never have climbed otherwise, in order to be safe. And this anti-stress hormone also has another benefit: it is like a drug both in its chemical structure and in its effect. This means that the person can put himself under "self-generated drugs" in this way. In addition, this drug "anti-stress hormone" has the advantage that it is a little different, because with this hormone one does not become addicted, as with the "artificially produced and added". And in the case of a doping control - as it happens in competitions - nothing can be said against these "drugs", because they come from the human being himself!

But again, such a nice full-body massage: it can be quite an abstinence stress, of course. And to combat this, the body produces an anti-stress hormone - as in all stress situations. So it comes to a real intoxication with self-generated drugs. Is that nothing?

Those who do not like this way of dealing with sexuality, because it is too free and does not correspond to the ideas of religion, should consider that the concept of "Jesus ideology" is not about educating little monks and nuns, but about young people becoming whole human beings who are sensible in life, i.e. who are also not hostile to the body and who take pleasure in their bodies and in their lives and know how to deal with all this sensibly and also in accordance with our faith.

22. "Basic stories of this faith": If we really want our faith to become attractive again and the morals of this faith to be lived "fully" again, then precisely what is usually taken for granted and what is otherwise not or hardly questioned must also be put to the test: our beliefs, the moral model of church and society (I am thinking here of the problem of whether something is genuine or not)... Yes, aren't we living in a wonderful time where this "putting to the test" is finally possible - largely without danger?

Regarding the "truths of faith": It is a fact that Jesus was a Jew and can only be understood against the background of his Jewish world, which is also that of a migrant worker who, however, was also well versed in the sacred writings of his time. He must also have had a great deal of general knowledge and good psychological knowledge (as we would say today). Apart from the fact that the Gospels are probably an ingenious new creation, there is also the fact that the Jewish background was only taken over on the outside and in principle replaced above all by a background determined by Greek philosophy up to a commonplace background. This made Jesus into someone completely different from who he really was.

And to the morality of young people in particular: In any case, I am firmly convinced that people are naturally predisposed to a high sexual morality from their youth and that all those who claim otherwise are wrong. Of course, this high morality must be activated. And so our Christianity in particular could very well reach out to young people. However, it must be remembered that young people in particular want the "real thing". But the Christian churches are also at war with this: neither the Jesus they teach is real, nor morality, nor monogamy.

If anything is an indication of decadence, it is that the real thing is no longer taught, but that the unreal thing is avoided.

23. "Son of God": First of all, every male Jew was considered a "son of God" by the Jews, so "son of God" was a kind of title of honour. In contrast, among other peoples, such as the Egyptians, only the king or the Pharaoh was considered the son of God. In Egypt, therefore, a messenger god (messenger = Latin "angelus" = angel) came to the queen and brought her divine seed, from which she became pregnant and which then gave rise to the new god-king. This belief was supported by the fact that at that time it was believed that a woman only played a nurse's role in the birth of a child, i.e. that the man's seed already contained the complete human being (i.e. the Latin "homunculus", the little human being), which was then only "hatched", so to speak, by the woman. It was the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel from Brno who discovered through his experiments that the "female part of a relationship" is involved in 50% of the "result", i.e. that this old "homunculus theory" is not correct. Note: Even today, many Japanese believe that their emperor, the Tenno, is the great-great-great-grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the Japanese obviously have a different theory for the origin of man than the homunculus theory.

There is a nice saying today about how a person is "promoted" to something higher: in working life, if you want to get rid of someone - for whatever reason - but you can't throw him out, for example because he has particularly good customers to friends in a company and thus provides an important turnover, then you let him "fall up the stairs". That is, he is promoted to a position where he has a higher reputation and receives a higher salary, but can no longer cause "damage" with any crazy ideas. And this is how we can imagine it with Jesus: As a human being he could be dangerous to the bad guys (in this case the demimonde mafia), whereas as the Son of God he is primarily an object of worship, a "toothless tiger" to whom people at best pray to change something for the people. But experience shows that nothing happens, so everything remains the same, which is what the evil ones (and often enough their pious "combatants") intended from the start. But at least there is hope for the prayers that what they pray for will happen. And in any case, there is still the promise of a more beautiful life after death, which the prayers can also achieve if they continue to remain faithful to the "right faith", whatever that is. And the advantage for those who have made "such a one" the son of God: They are no longer allowed to ask about closer connections, because this can then be interpreted as blasphemy (i.e. blasphemy) or also as apostasy from the faith and, depending on the case, can even be life-threatening.

Deschner (p. 41f): "Jesus' deification followed precisely prescribed patterns.

Before we follow the emergence of the dogma of Jesus the Son of God and God step by step, we must remember a fundamental fact: deifications, appearances of saviours, within and outside Judaism, but above all sons of God coming from heaven were familiar and self-evident to the ancient world. The whole Christian drama of salvation - pre-existence, incarnation, martyrdom, death, resurrection, ascension into hell and heaven - is a combination of much older ideas of mystery and Hellenistic philosophy. It was given step by step and was - completely! - to the figure of Jesus, be it historical or not.

Let us look at the tragedy, which, when seen in the light, admittedly has enough comic features, one after the other.

The pre-existence was nothing new. Even Buddha dwelt in heaven as a spiritual being before his descent and voluntarily went to earth for the salvation of the world. The pagan saviours also lived for all eternity and were proclaimed in advance as saviours, redeemers, to suffering humanity. As Paul later quips: "But when the fulfilment of the time had come, God sent his Son", or as Mark says: "The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand", we already read in a famous pre-Christian text: "The end time has come.... Apollo has already begun his reign as king ... A son of the most high God is born."

In the pre-Christian era, the Gnostics also taught the descent of the Saviour, the firstborn Son of God, who saves souls for the heavenly world of light. And quite obviously, pre-existence Christology has a striking older analogy right here. The Gnostic myth of the heavenly man, of the Redeemer and Revealer, was transferred to the person of Jesus.

Also, the pagan saviours mostly came into the world as virgin sons: in Egypt, Babylon, India, Persia and Rome."

Deschner's quote further under "Virgin Birth".

24. "Virgin birth": Thus, the creation of gods with human women was also quite "normal" in ancient mythology - even the pagan saviours were usually born as virgin sons: in Egypt, Babylon, India, Persia and Rome. The Greek king's daughter Europa had a child through intercourse with the god Zeus disguised as a bull, the Spartan queen had two eggs through the god Zeus, this time disguised as a swan, and Heracles also had the god Zeus for a father. Not even Mary's virginity is something special. In Egyptian mythology, for example, the spirit god Amun approaches the virgin queen in the guise of the reigning king and creates the new god-king with her (but now and then the god also sends a messenger - "messenger" = Greek/Latin "angelus" = angel). The special thing about Mary is at most that she was a girl "from the people", which means that through her a God sent a very special son for all of us. But take a look at the birth story in the Gospel of Matthew (1,18ff): Immediately before this story, in which an angel appears to the Virgin Mary, there is the story of the family tree of Jesus. And guess who is the parent from whom Jesus descends, Mary or Joseph? If Jesus was born of a virgin, then this parent would have to be the mother, wouldn't it? And according to the homunculus theory believed at that time, she could not beget a son? Couldn't she? Then take a look at Matthew and see if you were right in your guesswork!

After all, there is also a solution from the Jewish cultural sphere on the subject of "Jesus' descent"! In his book "The Virgin and The Priest", the Englishman Marc Gibbs, who has connections to the U.S.A., puts forward the theory that Zacharias, the husband of his cousin Elizabeth and the father of John the Baptist, is also the father of Jesus. Mary had been prophesied to give life to the Saviour of Israel. And when she then went to help Elizabeth, who was already very old, to give birth to her child, she saw here a divine providence and for herself the chance that the prophecy could come true, if she too would have a son through the obviously God-blessed priest Zacharias. When she then also became pregnant, Elizabeth understandably saw in her a competitor for her husband and "threw her out". Thus it came to pass that Mary did not remain with the Zacharias/Elisabeth family until the birth of John. In this way, John and Jesus are half-siblings - and John is less a forerunner of Jesus, but rather a competitor. This is the reason for the different views of the Saviour in the history of faith, once as the "Son of God" and once as a "prophet", which still have an impact today. The book is also available in German and is well worth reading! I leave it up to the reader to decide which birth story of Jesus he prefers, that of the virgin birth as in the non-Jewish cultural sphere or that from the Jewish cultural sphere with the priest Zacharias as father.

And here still Deschner (p. 42 ff):

"As early as the 3rd millennium, the Egyptian sun god impregnated the virgin wife of the king. In India, Buddha was born virgin. Angels proclaimed him as saviour and promised his mother: "All joy come ' upon you, Queen Maya - rejoice and be glad, for this child you have borne is holy!" In Persia, Zarathustra was worshipped as a virgin's son, Hera gave birth to Hephaistos virginally, Plato was also thought to be the son of a virgin, and in the cult of Heracles, the mother of the god was considered both virgin and mother.

Virgin births were so well known in antiquity that the most important church fathers virtually propagated Jesus' virgin birth through similar myths.9 Today, says the theologian Bousset, "this is so clear that it is no longer of any use to heap on parallels here and to bring up all the legends of sons of God born miraculously".

Long before the Church, as late as 353, moved the birthday of Christ to 25 December, the birthday of Mithras, the invincible sun god, was celebrated on that day. But the liturgical formulas of the pagan believers at the solstice festival on the night of 24-25 December were: "The virgin has given birth, to take the light." "The great king, the benefactor Osiris, is born." And from the mystery celebrations also comes the cry, "Unto you is born this day the Saviour." In Luke, the angel speaks, "Today the Saviour is born to you."

Even before Jesus, other deities, Zeus, Hermes, Dionysus, were depicted and represented lying in swaddling clothes in a sacred basket or manger. Even Mithras was worshipped at his birth by shepherds who brought him the firstlings of their flocks and fruits.14 Just as Mary gave birth to the boy Jesus on the road, other virgin sons were often born on the run or on a journey. Thus the divine child of Isis - who herself, casually, long before Mary was venerated as "Loving Mother", "Queen of Heaven", "Queen of the Sea", "Dispenser of Grace", "Saviour", "Immaculate", "Sancta Regina" and "Mater dolorosa", was also already shown with a blue mantle adorned with stars, with the Child on her arm or breast, and who had to cede her titles of "Mother of God" and "God-bearer" definitively to the Mother of Jesus in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, which was decided by huge bribes that the Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Cyril, gave to all kinds of people. Cyril, gave to all kinds of people, from high state officials to the wife of the praetorian prefect to influential eunuchs and chambermaids. Although rich himself, he still had to borrow more than 100,000 gold pieces and still did not get by. Just as Herod hears from the magicians that a king has just been born, whereupon he chases after the child Jesus, so Hera has already heard that Heracles, born of Zeus' tribe, will become king, whereupon she chases after the child. Just as Jesus, out of fear, is led by his parents to Egypt and brought back again, so Heracles, out of fear, is abandoned by his mother and brought back again. And as later the aged Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms and calls him the "salvation" prepared "before the eyes of all nations," "a light for the enlightenment of the heathen," so already the aged Asita took the newborn Buddha in his arms, rapturously prophesied to him the "summit of complete enlightenment" and praised him as "the salvation of many people" whose religion would be spread far and wide."

25. "Miracles": All religions have miracle narratives to prove the pre-eminence of their god or the prophet of that god. For example, this wine miracle in John's Gospel (wedding at Cana) also exists in the legend of Dionysus, the god of wine. One can tell and write many things ... I particularly recommend Karlheinz Deschner's work "Der gefälschte Glaube" (The Falsified Faith) on this, as well as on the other "miraculous stories" in the New Testament, here: from page 44 onwards:

"But as far as miracles are concerned, there is no miracle in the Gospels that had not been worked before. Buddha already made the sick well, the blind see, the deaf hear and the crippled straight. He walked across the swollen Ganges, just as Jesus later walked across the lake. And as his disciples performed miracles, so did the disciples of the Buddha. "As, for example, Peter walks on the water, so does a disciple of the Buddha. Just as Peter begins to sink when his faith becomes small, so also the disciple of Buddha already sank when he awoke from his faithful immersion in Buddha. And as Peter is saved by the Lord, so the Buddha-disciple is saved by the renewed believing thought in the Master." Like Jesus in Luke, Pythagoras already begins his teaching and miraculous activity with a fish miracle, although, rising far above Jesus, he commands that the fish whose value he replaces be released again. Pythagoras also healed the sick in body and soul, he calmed the storm on the sea, which one of his perhaps temporary listeners, Empedocles, then did so often that he was virtually called a "wind conqueror". But Empedocles also cured plague sufferers and raised the dead.

The miracle at the wedding in Cana (where the Johannine Christ produces 600 to 700 litres of wine from water, as is clear from John 2:6 f, even if believing exegetes sometimes want to reduce the respectable quantity and diminish the miracle quite unnecessarily) was, as Euripides testifies, already performed by Dionysus. Dionysus, the favourite god of the ancient world, to whom it paid homage in ostentatious processions from Asia to Spain, who also has to cede one of his best-known titles, "the vine", in John's Gospel to Christ, who there becomes "the true vine3" (all, what used to be false became true in Christianity), Dionysus worked numerous wine miracles - and afterwards his priests, in a deliberate miracle hoax, repeated these miracles on Dionysus' feasts just as later the Christian priests did on the anniversary of the wedding at Cana (on 6. January, the same day a much-celebrated festival of Dionysus was celebrated!) the Christian priests fraudulently repeated the transformation of water into wine.

Asclepius, the physician and god of healing, was considered a great miracle worker. The word "Soter" (Saviour) was emblazoned in huge letters above his altars, and his miracle healings in Epidauros, which began to flourish as early as the 5th century B.C. like Lourdes today, were known throughout the world. How much numerous deeds of Jesus can be traced back to Asclepius, how closely related the miraculous activity of both is, has been shown in a concise summary of the research results by the theologian Carl Schneider: "Like Asclepius, Jesus heals with his outstretched or laid hand or with a finger which he sticks into the sick limb, or also by other contact with the sick person. As with Asclepius, faith and healing are usually, but not always, related to each other: Occasionally an unbeliever is also healed. As there, gratitude is demanded from the healed. A blind man healed by Asclepius, like a man healed by Jesus, initially sees only trees. Healed by both: The paralysed, the mute, those who are ill in the distance, the lame. After both heal, the sick carry their stretchers away themselves. Both make no social distinctions, heal young and old, rich and poor, man and woman, slave and free, friends and enemies. The healings are accompanied by natural miracles: Asclepius, his relative Sarapis and Jesus calm storms. Asclepius raised six dead people, the details being the same as for the two dead people Jesus raises: many witnesses are present, apparent death is suspected by unbelievers, those raised are given food. Thus Jesus also takes on the titulature of Asclepius: he is >doctor< badin, >lord< over the powers of disease, >saviour<."

Historians of religion have long since proved that there are numerous counterparts to the Gospel miracle stories in ancient literature, that these largely coincide in content and stylisation with the profane miracle narratives and that, finally, the pagan origin of the New Testament miracle legends is also predominantly probable. "According to the theologian Bousset, all kinds of popular stories about this and that miracle-worker were transferred to Jesus and already existing evangelical stories were furnished with common miracle motifs." "...Jewish-Christian narrators," writes the theologian Martin Dibelius, "made Jesus the hero of well-known prophet or rabbinical legends, pagan-Christian novellists passed on stories of gods, saviours and miracle-workers transfigured onto the Christian saviour." Thus the standard miracles of many "high religions" return in the New Testament. Inexplicable acts, especially the banishing of demons, walking on water, the calming of storms, miraculous multiplication of food and bread, all these were well known to the ancient world and were among the typical miracles of the time. Raising the dead was also not uncommon, and there were even special formulas for it. In Babylonia, where the idea of raising the dead was extremely widespread, many gods were actually called "resurrectors of the dead".

Catholics, however, count the biblical miracles among the "indisputable facts" and must believe "all the miracles contained in Holy Scripture, for God has revealed them to us. Whoever denies even one is no longer Catholic" (with imprimatur). Yes, one claims in view of Jesus' multiplication of bread, his healing of the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus: "The factuality of such extraordinary events is in itself accessible to men through their own observation or through the reports of witnesses...""

26. "Communion": Such cult celebrations, also with bread and wine, also existed with the ancient Greeks as "symposion" and in other ancient religions, for example in the cult of Mithras. In this cult, a bull was slaughtered as a sign of the victory of good over evil, so the cult of Mithras was definitely a bloody affair. In Christianity, on the other hand, everything was "unbloody", the bloody part had been done long ago. Hence the "unbloody sacrifice" that is repeated again and again.

See also the book "Eating God - a culinary history of the Lord's Supper" by Anselm Schubert (2018). You will see that the Lord's Supper or communion by no means existed from the beginning as we know it today.

On this Deschner (p. 117 ff): "Already in the totemic mysteries there is, even if still in a primitive form, a sacrificial meal which is communion with the divinity: the totem animal is enjoyed in sacred meal in order to become one with the divine being. One such sacrificial animal among the Greeks, whose concept of the heavenly food that confers immortality goes back to Homer, was the goat in the cult of Dionysus.

Dionysus, a suffering, dying, resurrecting god, son of Zeus and a mortal woman, achieved prominence in Greece as early as the 8th century BC and became the favourite god of the ancient world. He was already a physician, son of God in human form, god of the "spirit" and of prophecy, also closely associated with wine - then Jesus thus appears in the Gospel of John, which transfers one of the most famous titles of Dionysus, "the vine", to Christ, now "the true vine". The miracle at the wedding at Cana, the transformation of water into wine, was also already performed by Dionysus. Finally, the Gospel of John takes the phrase for the Lord's Supper, "Whoever does not bite my flesh with his teeth and drink my blood", from the religion of Dionysus. It is found neither in Paul nor in Jesus. But in the religion of Dionysus, the god enters the body of his worshippers: In the myth of Dionysus, the Titans tear apart the divine child, eat its limbs, and in the frenzy of the cult of Dionysus, the Maenads tear and eat raw flesh (omophagia) to become immortal in sacramental union with the god. After all, as is certain, the Dionysus communities already worshipped their god in pre-Christian times over an altar table with wine vessels on the cross. These parallels alone are revealing. But the sacred meal still existed in other cultures.

The sacred food of Attis probably consisted of bread and wine. It was consumed after fasting exercises from musical instruments and expressed both the bond of the mystics and their relationship to the deity.

In the Attargatis mysteries, Syrian priests enjoyed the goddess eating fish. They were sacred to her, kept in ponds near the temples and eaten in a sacred meal as the flesh of the goddess. One of her temples, repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament, stood in Karnion, west of the Sea of Galilee. Later, the fish, symbol of widespread pagan fish mysteries, became the symbol of the Christian Eucharist, which was now considered "the true fish mystery", "the one pure fish".

Significantly, the adoption of the fish as a cult symbol was first done by Christians in Syria, where fish worship was best known. Then the Greek word for fish, "ichthys", formed an anagram for the Greek name "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour".

The Mithras cult - whose priests often called themselves "father", whose believers called themselves "brothers" and which, like the Catholic Church, had seven sacraments - also had communion in addition to baptism and confirmation. It consisted of bread and water or a mixture of water and wine and was celebrated, as in Christianity, in remembrance of a last meal of the Master with his own. The hosts bore the sign of the cross, the mass took place daily, but the most important on Sunday, with the celebrant saying the sacred formulas over the bread and water.

Sacred drinks" were also common in ancient religions.

The Persian haoma and its Indian equivalent were an intoxicating drink believed to drive away death. In the Vedic religion, soma was considered a drink of the gods, but also an immortality potion for humans. "We have drunk the Soma, we have become immortal, we have come to the light, we have reached the gods. What can evil do to us now, how can the enmity of a mortal grieve us, the immortals."

In the worship of the cult of Mithras, the same grinding utensils were used as in the Christian Eucharist, the chalice and the paten. Also, at Mithras, as usually at mass, the wine was mixed with water and bowed to the sacred chalice. But sacred drinks also existed in the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries.

Already the parallels to the Christian Lord's Supper are startling. But before we draw any more, let us emphasise emphatically: neither Jesus nor the primal apostles practised a sacramental meal. The synoptic foundation of the Lord's Supper has been recognised since W. Heitmüller as a cult legend and remains ... better left out of consideration for statements about the historical Jesus."

However, I did not learn about the problem of the Lord's Supper for the first time through Deschner, but I had the first information at a further training event for religious education teachers by a professor of theology from Achen in Düren. So I had long been prepared, so to speak, when I heard Deschner's critical view.

27. Resurrection and raising the dead: The belief in the murder and resurrection of a God is based on the "miracle of nature", how the seed is laid in the earth and rises again in spring and brings forth abundant fruit. It is then found in embellished form in Egyptian mythology, for example: according to the fable of his drama, the god Osiris is killed and dismembered by his brother Seth. His individual body parts are searched for, found, lamented and reassembled by the goddess Isis and other gods and goddesses. The burial rites performed on him enable him to regain his life force for a short time and to father a son with Isis, Horus. He contended with the murderer for the inheritance, won it from him and succeeded his father on the throne.

Among the best-known of the suffering, dying and resurrecting gods are Dionysus and Heracles, but also the Babylonian Tammuz, the Syrian Adonis, the Phrygian Attis. Some, like the synoptic Jesus, died early, not infrequently rising again on the third day or after three days, like Attis, Osiris and most probably Adonis; sometimes their death even had an expiatory character. And even in the earliest times, their resurrection, like that of Jesus later, was always associated with the hope of human immortality (according to Karlheinz Deschner, "Der gefälsche Glaube").

Isis in the form of a bird at the awakening of Osiris, relief in the mortuary temple of Sethos I in Abydos.

It is precisely here that a comment on my own faith seems appropriate: I believed in the resurrection of Jesus for a very long time. But my concern was also more and more that of true monogamy, especially because it became increasingly clear to me that this is quite possible with blessed pedagogy. But with my commitment, especially in the world of our churches, I encountered more and more concrete, that is, indifference and insensitivity. For me, this was at some point a provocation: "one" simply did not want to, such things of faith as belief in the resurrection were simply more important, they were like barriers that blocked all thoughts of a solution to human problems in the matters of sexuality. So at some point I questioned those barriers. That is actually all.

To this Deschner (p. 47 ff):

"Even the greatest miracle, one's own resurrection, succeeded again and again to the sons of the gods, both mythical and historical; succeeded so often that church writer Origen in the 3rd century says with regard to Christ's resurrection: "This miracle brings nothing new to the pagans and cannot be offensive to them."" Among the best known of the suffering, dying and resurrecting gods are Dionysus and Heracles, but also the Babylonian Tammuz, the Syrian Adonis, the Phrygian Attis, the Egyptian Osiris. Some, like the synoptic Jesus, died early, not infrequently rising again on the third day or after three days, like Attis, Osiris and most probably Adonis; sometimes their death even had an expiatory character. And even in the earliest times, their resurrection, like that of Jesus later, was always associated with the hope of human immortality.

In some cases, the death of Jesus is a repetition, down to the smallest detail, of what had already happened with the death of the pagan deities. Thus, Bei Marduk, the most esteemed deity of Babylon, who was regarded as the creator of the world, the god of wisdom, the art of healing, of conjuration, the saviour sent by the Father, the awakener of the dead, the lord of all lords and the good shepherd, was captured, interrogated, condemned to death, scourged, executed with a criminal, while another criminal went free - and a woman wiped off the heart's blood of the god, which oozed from a spear wound. At Caesar's death - the Athenian people praised him as a saviour, the Roman people generally believed that he had ascended to heaven and become God - the sun veiled itself, an eclipse set in, the earth burst, and the dead returned to the upper world. - Heracles, already revered around 500 B.C. as the Son of God and mediator for mankind, but at the time of Jesus as the world saviour, is finally exalted by the divine Father for his deeds and, parting with him, commands his spirit: "Take my spirit, I beseech thee, up to the stars.... Behold, my Father calls me and opens the heavens. I am coming, Father, I am coming." Luke's Gospel later says: "Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice the words, >Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!<"

Even more remarkable are the similarities between the religion of Heracles and the Gospel of John.

While in the three older Gospels the favourite disciple is missing under the cross - as well as Jesus' mother; yet here the women watch "from afar": Luke even writes: "All [!] his acquaintances, however, stood at a distance" - in contrast to this, in John's Gospel Jesus' mother and the favourite disciple stand by the cross: as at Heracles' death his mother and favourite disciple were present! As the exalted Heracles cries: "... do not lament, mother ... I am going to heaven", the resurrected Johannine Christ says: "Woman, why are you weeping? I am ascending to my Father." As Heracles dies with the word, "It is finished," so the Johannine Christ. Just as Heracles had the name "Logos" even before the Johannine Christ. And if in the religion of Heracles it was said: "For the Logos is not there to harm or to punish, but to save", in the Gospel of John it is said: "For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved." And just as the one guilty of the death of Heracles hangs himself in remorse and horror, so Judas finally hangs himself, whom the oldest Christian writings admittedly have killed three times, each variant excluding the other.

Even the famous biblical story of the empty tomb - "Offen stehet das Grab" (The tomb stands open), Goethe sneers. "What a glorious miracle, the Lord is / Risen! Who believes it! Rascals, you carry him away!" - could already be read earlier in the widely read Greek novel Chaireas and Kal-lirhoe by Chanton. For there, in the third book, Chaireas hurried to the grave of Kallirhoe early in the morning." See also under note 25: "Miracles" and note 149 on a possible other interpretation of the "resurrection" in John's Gospel.

28. "Assumption": The Assumption also existed precisely in many ancient religions (in which Cybele, Heracles, Attis, Mithras, rulers such as Caesar, poets such as Homer, and even among the Jews Moses and Elijah so miraculously disappeared), here a relief of the Assumption of the Emperor Antonius Pius and his wife Faustina (original in the Vatican Museums):

Deschner (p. 50 ff): "But it was part of the legend of the ancient messenger of God that he, the immortal, would show himself at some point after his ascension. For one wanted proof. So the resurrected Apollonios of Tyana, a contemporary of Jesus and the apostles, appeared to two of his disciples and even let them take his hand to convince them that he was alive. And since according to the old Jewish opinion, which was already found in the fifth book of Moses and which recurs many times in the New Testament56 , only two or more witnesses were conclusive, Christ also had to appear before several in order for him to be "truly" resurrected. This happened, even if not without (the blatant) contradictions outlined above. But he did more. He descended to hell immediately after his death - admittedly only in the 2nd century; the Gospels are still silent about this. Yes, the dogma of Christ's descent into hell contradicts the Gospel of Luke, according to which Jesus already spends the first days after his death in heaven. "Verily I say unto thee," he promises the "good" hag, "this very day shalt thou be with me in paradise!", which presupposes Jesus' expectation that he would enter paradise from the cross. This is why this word of Jesus, in order to avoid its contradiction with others, has occasionally been deleted and declared a heresy forgery. But the journeys to hell of deities were far too popular a theme for Christianity to have done without them. They had gained crucial importance in the ancient belief in immortality and we encounter them in Egyptian, Babylonian and Hellenistic myths.

In ancient Egypt, Re and Osiris fought the powers of the underworld. As early as the 3rd millennium, a journey to hell by Ishtar was known in Babylonia. In the 14th century BC, that of the god Nergal is also attested, who storms the underworld and defeats its armies, causing an earthquake, as in Christ's descent into hell.59 In the descent of the Babylonian world creator and good shepherd By Marduk, whose story has such striking parallels with that of the Christian cult object (p. 48), the motif of the violent opening of the dungeon and the prisoners looking joyfully at the Saviour is also attested. But even the journey to hell of Heracles, whose fate, as the philosophical image of Heracles and the religion of Heracles have handed down, probably shows the most similarities with the Christian hero, already aims at defeating the powers of the underworld, at breaking the devil's law. Not unlike Christ, Heracles already wanted to bring light to the languishing dead and redeem them from captivity. "The terrible death is broken, the kingdom of death you have conquered." And the historical Pythagoras also descended to hell - attested in the 3rd century BC. According to these examples, in a letter forged in Peter's name - the main biblical evidence for the dogma - Jesus was also allowed to go to hell and redeem the prisoners.

And since numerous ascents to heaven in a living body were known not only to the pagans (among whom Kybele, Heracles, Attis, Mithras, rulers like Caesar, poets like Homer disappeared so miraculously), but also - through Enoch, Moses and Elijah - to the Jews, Christ could not possibly remain behind. But what contradictions again! Matthew's Gospel not only does not know of an Ascension, but, according to some scholars, virtually rules it out. That of the Gospel of Mark is in a prolonged conclusion, which even Catholic New Testament scholars reject as spurious, but critical theology does so without exception. According to Luke's Gospel, Christ's Ascension took place on the day of the Resurrection, on Easter Sunday evening, according to the Acts of the Apostles 40 days later. And according to Luke's Gospel: at Bethany, according to Acts: from the Mount of Olives.

Yes, just as Heracles and Dionysus left divine footprints behind them when they ascended to heaven, so too did the ascending Christ; after all, everything had to be as close at hand as possible. St. Jerome, honoured with the rare title of Doctor of the Church, assures us that these footprints were still visible in his time, in the 5th century. And Beda the Venerable, the "Teacher of the Middle Ages," attests to them as late as the 8th century - and this, O wonder! although every Jerusalem pilgrim took from the earth Christ had last touched!"

29. "Plagiarism from much older (Buddhist) Sanskrit texts": The question naturally arises, where is the difference between Buddhism and the message of Jesus, when our Christian faith, as we usually know it, is more a variety of Buddhism, to put it briskly.

First of all, something about Buddhism. According to Buddha (always, of course, as far as we know him today) everything has two sides, one beautiful or good and one bad, of which we generally only know the beautiful one. For example, a nice meal: But when you then see what finally comes out of it when we have eaten and digested it, it is no longer so beautiful. Or a "beautiful" person: what remains when he dies? And a beautiful woman: if you have her then, you see how she is after your money, for example.

In order for our life to become somewhat bearable, we need enlightenment, that is, the realisation of the spiritual, the divine, whatever is meant by that. And when we have really achieved this enlightenment, then our life will also become bearable and we will also live morally. However, in the end, only those people who have freed themselves from everyday life, i.e. the monks, will achieve this higher quality of life. The "ordinary people" can participate in the enlightenment of the monks by supporting them with mild gifts.

The basis of Jesus' message is now completely different here: Man is good by nature and therefore also highly moral. He only needs "nudges" to be able to live this high morality - and of course an environment that does not make this completely impossible for him. If, dear reader, when reading this approach, you initially have difficulties as to what is Christian about it, this is certainly mainly because you have in mind a Christianity á la a variety of Buddhism and late antique thinking in general, whereas here we are dealing with an approach according to the real Jesus.

Regarding the Lord's Supper (or the Eucharist or Communion), please refer to the book "Eating God - A Culinary History of the Lord's Supper" by Anselm Schubert (Prof. of Modern Church History), 2018. So: It was all very different from what we are usually told in church!

And something else about the author Christian Lindtner: Yes, he was probably once a Holocaust denier. But according to his own statements, he is no longer one. However, he is still of the opinion that Jesus never existed, that he is therefore a fantasy figure. I think that the theologians of the Christian churches, who consider everything that has been handed down about Jesus to be true, have contributed to this attitude. It is easy to come to the conclusion that "everything" is not true. In my opinion, it makes more sense to say what is unreal from the outset, what is plagiarism and therefore obviously pure fantasy, and what is perfectly reasonable and therefore also probable. Then a Jesus can also "come to light" who is worthy of being an outstanding personality and who still concerns us today.

30. Loss of impartiality and cause of (sexual) shame: The cause of sexual shame (modern term: "preservation of privacy") is, in my opinion, quite simple: we humans do not live the "special human morality" given to us by nature (or we have not always lived it) - and for us humans that is a strict monogamous morality. However, it is also a cultural problem, i.e. one must at least outwardly go along with what others do. Of course, one can also free oneself from it for different reasons. Let us consider: We have received neither a bikini nor a bathing suit from nature, but the mind (which of course needs to be trained, see note 7 on the subject of "disposition"). This does not mean, of course, that we have to walk around naked all the time and everywhere, but just where it is appropriate and where we have so far needed these "bits of uptightness".

I can say that I have had very positive experiences with this in small circles. Just this much: When young girls clearly notice that everything is okay and their parents don't object (it doesn't even have to be explicitly approved by them), they are directly enthusiastic about the "completely without" and obviously like to "show and look" according to the motto: "Finally, for once, not having to be ashamed of being female and being able to show that proudly!"

31. Fertility couple at the sun temple of Konarak. See more under question 38!

The photo of the sculpture was taken by the author. Although neither the temple nor the sculpture are exactly in the Ancient Near East, where the Adam and Eve narrative originated, it should be a good illustration of the religious-historical background of the Adam and Eve narrative. And somehow the connection between snake and sexuality was already widespread; I have a drawing on a clay shard from Mari/Mesopotamia showing a woman kneeling before an erect snake, obviously on the occasion of a prayer.

As for the "fertility tree": this was definitely not an apple tree, because apple trees only came later from China, and moreover they do not thrive well, if at all, even in these subtropical regions where the Bible was written, so they would have been of no great significance in any case. No, the traditional tree in these areas is the date palm, which provides the inhabitants with carbohydrates that are used in many forms for food and drink. The problem with the date palm is the pollination of its flowers. Namely, there are - purely superficially - fruitful and barren trees. In the scarce fruiting land, therefore, one will have initially left only the fruit-bearing trees and removed the non-bearing trees. Until it was noticed that the fruit-bearing trees in themselves had no more fruit. Then they got the idea that the non-fruit-bearing trees had something in their blossoms that the blossoms of the fruit-bearing trees needed. Today we know that these date palms are dioecious, i.e. there are male and female trees (as with kiwis). But at that time, the explanation was that divine powers were present in the non-bearing trees, which were necessary for the emergence of life. So they left some non-bearing trees standing, collected their pollen - and pollinated the bearing trees with it. The first pollination of the year was carried out by the opera priest or the god-king in his position as head priest. And so that everything worked, there was also "cultic prostitution", as it is, there are always reasons for that ... For the authors of the Bible, all this was just a horror and idolatry ....

32. The painting "Jesus and the Sinner" by Lucas Cranach the Elder:

Strictly speaking, this is not the painting that hangs in the Franconian Gallery at the Rosenberg Fortress. Because the painting that hangs there was retouched about a hundred years after it was created, because it came into the collection of the Catholic Bavarian king and it was probably considered too frivolous for that, because Jesus touches the woman's hand with his. Therefore, the woman's hand was retouched out from under Jesus' hand, because at that time the touch was probably seen as something other than a nice gesture by Jesus to take away the woman's fear. Also, the Latin quotation "He who is without sin among you..." was replaced by vaulted arches through overpainting. At least there was once a copy in colour of what the painting originally looked like. But this copy was lost during the war, only a black and white photograph still exists. Based on this photograph, I have now had the picture repainted by an artist in Vietnam, because I consider this picture to be very important, because in my opinion it shows the real Jesus for once. However, I see that the churches are not interested in this real Jesus at all, although it is extremely plausible and also directly relevant today. One of the reasons for the churches' lack of interest may be that this Jesus completely lacks the mythological: this Jesus saw a very concrete grievance and was committed to overcoming this grievance. But that was not and is not in the interest of the religions; for the religions, it is above all the mythological that is important, i.e. the secrecy, because it all means power and business. A plausible and then also effective Jesus would destroy the business with the myth.

A very clear example of how religions are much more interested in secrecy or mythology (or fairy tales) than in explanations, however plausible and meaningful they may be, is infant baptism. Schoolgirls in particular sometimes complained that baptism was performed on children who could not defend themselves against it, and that this was simply a kind of coercion for a religion - and against the human being's right to self-determination. I had then always looked one such schoolgirl as sharply as possible in the eye and asked her: "What would you prefer if, at the age of five or six, six women came down on you, held your arms and legs, covered your mouth so that you couldn't scream, one then pulled down your panties, then spread your legs and finally one cut away your clitoris and labia with a rusty blade or some other shard and finally sewed everything up? Or if someone pours some water over your head while saying some pious sayings?" Sure, she would prefer the latter. "You see," I said again, "that's how you have to see baptism. You have to see infant baptism as a rite of release from such horrible and inhuman mutilations. What these mutilations are supposed to achieve, that people have a sensible sexual morality, we are now doing with the spirit, for which baptism is the symbol. Of course, the water and the calling forth of the Holy Spirit do not help alone - now the spirit must also be trained..." To which the young ladies usually respond: "And why doesn't anyone else say it like that?" Me again: "Then baptism would lose its mystery and mythology, and that is not what we want..."

For the role of the two men (or perhaps better "gentlemen") in the picture "Jesus and the Sinner" by Cranach on the right, see under note 65.

33. Today we are of course interested in the truth of these two "narratives".

Of course, I also took a closer look at the stories of the sinner in John 8 and of the beautiful Susanna in my lessons; after all, they are crime stories that should be examined more closely. So my first rhetorical question to the young people was how often it happens that couples are caught having sexual intercourse, and whether you can actually see that they are "doing it". And if they are strangers, how do you know if they are not married? And besides, you have to meet them with two witnesses, and who would be so malicious as to run straight to court when he knows that this means a death sentence, especially for the woman? In practice, such accusations will never or only very rarely have been made, or at most when malice, i.e. above all blackmail, was involved, as in this Susanna story. In any case, I think the story in John 8 is realistic, it might have really happened, whereas the story of the beautiful Susanna actually looks too good to have actually happened, but do we know? In my opinion, it looks more like a "pedagogical story", simply to make young people aware of how they are manipulated and ultimately directly abused by authority figures. But it can also be a "fresh meat procurement story" (for prostitution) - not properly understood by the author - I described this in the recent work "It's all quite different: Two criminal cases". In any case, this story can also be seen as a morality tale of what was "going on" at the time. It therefore slipped into the Bible rather by happy coincidence, because usually "such things" are not "widely publicised". It would be even nicer if girls and young women in particular became more intelligent here and thus at least had a chance not to "join in"!

Is it any different today? It's always the same! It is not for nothing that these issues are kept secret from young people or are tabooed. On the other hand, they now get INFO about condoms and STDs. That says it all ... They should remain stupid and naive and "go along" with what is so common, but not infect others with diseases, etc. However, it is certainly not always malice if "old people" don't want to talk about these topics in such detail with young people, "old people" simply don't like to talk about things in such detail where things probably didn't go so well for them either and which are long gone. And now to "tear it all up" again? Then rather a "pedagogy of piety and naivety" ... They don't want to admit that they are actually working towards evil.

I am now 77 years old and I once went through who I could talk to about these topics (only if I was good, of course) and with whom I was rather not, so who I obviously "got on my nerves". Yes, once young people knew what I was about, it went quite well with them (and again: I was nowhere near as good back then, when I was still a teacher!), but with the "old people" I had rather problems (of course, not with all of them). See my thoughts on Gandhi and Garcia-Márquez: http://basisreli.lima-city.de/gandhiundgarcia.htm. (Note: In the meantime I am three years older - and there I see everything a bit more blatantly, see book 1 at www.michael-preuschoff.de).

By the way: Please read the Bible to find out exactly how the case of the beautiful Susanna turned out; in any case, it is one of the oldest crime stories in literature, the knowledge of which actually belongs to general education. (Note: It is not included in all Bibles. One may have a lot against the Catholic Church, but it is included in their Bibles, so there were also people in this church who wanted to make young people "fit in morals" ... But you don't have to buy a Catholic Bible, you can also find the story on the internet).

34 Jesus and prostitutes:

It is generally accepted among theologians today that there were prostitutes among Jesus' girlfriends. This may well stem from the time before his preaching activity, when he was a wandering house builder, travelling the country with his father and probably with other relatives and friends in a construction crew. And as it is with migrant workers, they also come into contact with prostitutes. We don't know exactly how Jesus behaved here, but it is likely that he talked to them in any case and came to the conclusion that they had mostly or almost always not sought their "profession" voluntarily, but that they were often enough directly blackmailed into it. We know how something like that happens, especially how the prehistory might be, which is not included in the New Testament narrative in John 8, from the narrative of the beautiful Susanna in the appendix of the Book of Daniel (i.e. Daniel 13), in which a God-fearing and chaste married woman was to be blackmailed into sexual intercourse by two elders. The elders abused the law of the time, according to which a woman could be accused and convicted of adultery if she had been caught in the act by at least two witnesses. So they gave the woman the choice of either sleeping with them or suing them for watching her have sexual intercourse with a young man who was not theirs. The woman was lucky that the story ended well for her in the end, as an outsider who happened to be present was able to reopen the case and so the false accusers were exposed (and they got the same punishment that the accused would otherwise have got). But "normally" this might not have ended so well for an accused woman, at least once she was "on the kicker" of the men in question.

In any case, this house builder Jesus must have heard such stories from the women concerned, and he had immediately recognised that the case of the sinner woman according to John 8 was not about morality at all, but that a trap had been set for this woman to teach her and the other women a lesson. This had then motivated him to take appropriate action against such criminal practices against women, for example by exposing them publicly. Of course, this did not please the relevant circles at all. See note 65. If Jesus was committed to real morality here, then that is the argument par excellence that he was a sane and ethical man: he saw that something was wrong and tried to do everything in his power to make a change here.

And now a personal opinion of mine on the image of Jesus presented here: I do think that it is so plausible that it is more than surprising that no one else holds it today and that it is not even put up for discussion by anyone. This can only be due to the fact that one is either distant from the reality of Jesus or that one does not want to see this image of Jesus, just as presumably the "honourable society" at the time of Jesus did not want this either. Both are almost proof that this image of Jesus is the right one. What was the point, it was "only" about women anyway.

35. Study Room Scholars: There is also Jewish research on Jesus, for example by Pinchas Lapide, David Flusser, Shalom Ben Chorin, in which Jesus is recognised as a typical Jewish rabbi in the tradition of other rabbis. But the Jewish theologians mentioned are all typical study-room scholars, for it is clear that Jesus at least conversed with prostitutes and therefore presumably learned something about the society of his time from their side, but there is no mention of this anywhere in these theologians either. In any case, a consideration of "Jesus and prostitutes" does not occur in these theologians. Of course, what I say here only applies as far as I know their works. But I think that these considerations would be so important that I would have noticed them even in a cursory reading. But as I said, there is no sign of them. The work "Umwelt des Urchristentums" by Walter Grundmann (editor), (Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, East Berlin, 1966/1982) is different. This work does not mention prostitutes either, but it describes the situation of women in Jewish society at the time of Jesus. And it is quite miserable, for example: "There are hardly any testimonies from which it is recognisable that there is a community of understanding and life between man and woman". (S. 177)

36. On the film "Kids": If you watch this film once, then notice how this Darsy in the swimming pool, into which the young people have climbed over the fence in the late evening shortly before their deflowering by Telly, is "naturally" wearing a complete bikini, just as all the other young people are in complete swimwear. Conclusion here too: The filmmakers have observed well, sexual shame does not protect against anything, it is just not an indication of conscious morality, it is just fake morality!

37 Jesus as a house builder:

In the original Greek text, which served Luther as a model for his German Bible translation into German, the profession of Jesus' father was "tekton". And this word can also be translated as "master builder" or "house builder". In his time, the time of half-timbered houses, Luther had translated it as "carpenter" or "joiner", which then became something like carpenter or joiner in the general consciousness. Something like an idyll was associated with this: Joseph and Jesus carpenter furniture in the workshop in the back, which Mary then sells in the shop in the front. But this idyll is by no means correct. If Joseph and Jesus were house builders, they will certainly not have practised their profession only in Nazareth, which was still a small village at that time, but they will have had - together with other relatives and perhaps also with friends - something like a building business and carried out building contracts all over the country. In the process, Jesus came into contact with all kinds of people for whom the "building business of Joseph and sons" built, such as customs collectors, and certainly also with prostitutes, with whom Jesus had at least conversed. Therefore, Jesus was familiar with everything human, which may well have been the foundation for his preaching - together with the knowledge of his Jewish religion.

Here is a dpa report (in Die Zeit and DIE WELT of 11.11.1997):

New findings about Jesus' social status

dpa Rome - According to the latest research, Jesus of Nazareth was not the adopted son of a poor carpenter, but the offspring of a middle-class and wealthy family. Joseph was a self-employed civil engineer, Jesus himself was able to read and write, spoke several languages and probably attended Greek theatre in his homeland. This is the conclusion reached by the Jesuit and historian at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Giovanni Magnani (68), in his book "Jesus, Builder and Master". As the Roman newspaper "II Messaggero" wrote yesterday, the book radically clears up the previous "ideology of religious pauperism". Like his father, Jesus had also been a trained civil engineer (geometer) and had run a workshop in Nazareth for a time together with Joseph. (Note: "Pauperism" = "impoverishment", "destitution").

Comment: Whether Jesus was a house builder or a geometer (surveyor) is rather irrelevant for our context. What is important is that he was wealthy and travelled all over the country and that his field of work was not limited to a small workshop in Nazareth.

38. business model (or also "job creation measure"):

I did not believe it, but in the meantime I have made the experience: It is true that the churches lament and complain about the bad times today and that especially the young people are neither interested in religion nor in morals. But the fact is that the morals of young people do not interest the churches at all! And I know what I am talking about, because I have studied the theology of the churches and also follow what is "going on" in theology today. Unfortunately, it is like this: If someone benefits from the suffering of his fellow human beings, then this is at the expense of his ethical sensitivity. He dulls. So at some point there is no scientific commitment at all as to how it is that young people are the way they are, and certainly no scientific efforts as to what could be done to change something here. For scientific efforts, as is the case when it is supposed to be scientific, some or even everything would have to be put to the test, for example, to what extent education for piety or education for sexual shame is "pro-productive", but there is no sign of this.

Yet all this would be very important, especially with regard to the origins of our religion, especially because what Jesus wanted was certainly not a religion, but a new attitude to life. But as an Indian friend once told me: "religion is the biggest business". The fact is that the better business is with a religion, not with a way of life. In a way, it's like a car factory that prefers to produce cars that are prone to defects because more money is made from repairing them than from good cars that are as free of defects as possible. Or when doctors deliberately don't give their patients tips on how to live healthily because they can earn more money from curing illnesses than from healthy patients. We would classify such attitudes of car manufacturers or doctors as criminal - but what about religions? See note 43 on confession!

Or is everything quite different after all: Couldn't religions earn much more in the end with serious work, would that therefore be the better "business model", simply because the people who have the fullness of life are grateful and because they therefore possibly give even much more voluntarily than what indifferent churches take from them with a compulsory tax?

On the problem of "religion, death and expectations of the hereafter", I would like to quote from the book "Living Without Lies" by Arno Plack (1976/1978). On the one hand, the philosopher Arno Plack (1930 - 2012) sees very clearly our education to hostility towards the body, which largely prevents a conscious life; on the other hand, his prescription to live out everything without restraint (à la: "to affirm one's own vital existence in its libidinousness as well as in its temporal limitation") is certainly not the "yellow of the egg" either. For the way he imagines acting out, for example, solves neither the problem of sexual shame nor that of the orgasm. This makes it clear that living out sexuality à la Plack (and countless others!) does not correspond to our human nature - and that people are ultimately driven into the arms of the religions "as customers for their business model" again according to the lines "In old age, the whores become pious" or "When he came to old age, he sang pious psalms". As far as I can see, the typical sexologists only ever research in the direction of "human predisposition to poygamy and a living out of this predisposition", whereas I consider humans to be quite monogamous and doubt the current pedagogy of this predisposition. I think my suggestions on this are simply better. Nevertheless, take a look at the quotation from pages 51 - 54 under the title "Do not repress death":

"Education in unbiased sensuality is of elementary importance for the whole of later life. If moral rigorism demands that even the terminally ill should not be left in the dark about their situation, then it is forgotten that a self-consciousness alienated from its body is also not prepared to accept the consequence of its finiteness: because unfulfilled longings demand a continuation of life to the end. We have all not been brought up to be joyful and life-affirming in such a way that we could accept death as a given condition of life. We repress death as we repress sexuality: The double repression spares us an alert awareness of the fleetingness of our own existence. Sexuality tends to mean procreation; it points to coming generations. The repression of death and the repression of sexuality thus combine to repress the finiteness of our own existence. What prevents us from bearing it is a deficit of love received. We have to replace the serenity that could have been formed by lustful attunement to vital existence with "attitude". Shuddering, we no longer come to an uninhibited yes.

Fear of death and the tendency to repress it must increase in a society in which the individual, with his hopes and expectations, is largely left to his own devices, where one is the competitor of the other. There the individual becomes an individual, he cannot develop a "we" consciousness that would allow him to hope, fear and plan according to the necessities of a larger community. Even those who have to look after the whole of the state rarely think beyond the time of their own career. "After us, the deluge" is, consciously or unconsciously, the principle by which energy problems and environmental hazards are dealt with. Family egoism is, exceptions taken into account, the furthest thing from one's concern for oneself. But in the children one loves only oneself, one's "own flesh and blood", as it is treacherously called. In them, those who can no longer believe in an afterlife seek to imagine a survival. The secret point of reference of all care, however, remains one's own ego. In tyrannical care for one's own family, only one's own fear of death is repressed.

Religious attitudes that approach animism (note: this is what the religions of "nature people" who live outside our civilisations are usually called) further facilitate the repression of death. Those who believe in an individual survival after death do not need to take the uniqueness of their life, of any life, and the finality of parting in death so seriously. There is a superficiality out of "religiosity". A person who is no longer religious enough to believe in an afterlife, but who has not yet become morally free enough to experience every healthy day with relish, must suppress death as a real possibility. To live without lies would ultimately mean: to affirm one's own vital existence in its libidinousness as well as in its temporal limitation. But this is not something that the unkindly brought up person can willingly impose on himself as a brave attitude. No one can be expected to realise the shadow side of body affirmation. Only those who dare to enjoy the pleasures of the body in an unbiased way can finally get along without the lie of unreal comfort.......

An illusionless relationship to the finiteness of life is possible, but not for people who have never learned to live in an unbiased way, who have been prevented from doing so by "moral austerity". Such a life is suffering even in healthy days: suffering from one's own apparently "surplus" vitality. The theory of the "constitutional drive surplus" of man has only been able to develop in a culture that morally frowns upon "living one's life to the full". Those who timidly submit to such a valuation must develop a vital resentment that makes life itself seem less worth living. Unconsciously, however, the expectation of a fuller, freer life smoulders. Thus it happens that weariness of life, suicidal tendency and fear of death, hope for an eternal life, go together in one person, contradictorily enough. Expectation of the hereafter solves this paradox, which nevertheless stems from the tormented life, by referring to a fictitious point outside existence. But it does not redeem us from the suffering that, despite all faith, persists and manifests itself physically in many ways. In the so-called psychosomatic illnesses, the body asserts itself against the basic lie of our culture: against the belief that man can neglect his desires without danger or consequence."

39. travelogue "into hell": see http://ermland.lima-city.de/hoelle/hoelle.htm

40. excerpt from the rite of confirmatio before the reform (from: Die Feier der Confirmung, lat.-dt. Ausgabe für den liturgischen Gebrauch, Trier 1966): "Spiritus Sanctus superveniat in vos et virtus Altissimi custodiat vos a peccatis.... Oremus. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui regenerare dignatus es hos famulos tuos ... ex aqua et Spiritu Sanctu quique dedisti eis remissionen omnium psccatorum (Note: Translated in the German text as "Schuld"): emitte in eos ... septiformem Spiritum tuum Sanctum Paraclitum de caelis. R. Amen. Spiritum sapientiae et intellectus. R. Amen. Spiritum consilii et fortitudinis. R. Amen. Spiritum scientiae et pietatis. R. Amen. Adimple eos...Spiritu timoris tui, et consigna eos ... sogno Cru+cis Christi, in vitam propitiatus arternam. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

N. Signo te Cru+cis: Et confirmo te chrismate salutis. In nomine Pa+tris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. R. Amen. - Pax tecum. - Confirma hoc, Deus, quod operatus es in nobis, a templo tuo, quod est in Jerusalem ... Gloria Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. R. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et ..."

German under note 103 with explanations.

41 "Early sexualisation hysteria": What does "early sexualisation" mean anyway? For some, it is already harmful "early sexualisation" when children know that babies are conceived through sexual intercourse, so this knowledge must be prevented in children. It is forgotten that this knowledge already spreads among children as soon as some children have this knowledge, and that therefore this knowledge cannot be prevented at all. On the other hand, this knowledge is simply necessary if the educational goal is to be true monogamy, so that the children get a real idea of what "sexual morality" is and so that they can set up what they can and cannot do. See also note 147 on what lack of concrete knowledge can lead to, and note 45 "horror of a clergyman" and 48 "how to do it right".

By the way: Today all children with us know how children "come into being", and quite obviously they do not experience any trauma through this knowledge. What is still missing, however, is a concept about ethical behaviour against the background of this knowledge, i.e. how does one behave in the practice of life? That is the concern of this "faith concept", to call it that.

The problem is always how a young person finds out whether the friend he has "chosen" is also honest or whether he just goes along with everything so that he can be won over. I think one method is to talk together in the family about the topics that are mentioned here. And why not go to a sauna together, i.e. with the whole family and also with the new possible family member, or even to an "appropriate beach"? Does this "new family member" like to join in - or does all this somehow not fit after all?

I had of course written about such a "free stay at the beach" to the girl in the "preparation phase", i.e. long before she came to me, and also that she would have to assure me that she would join in. Because I wouldn't get involved in anything else here, because I already knew what it would lead to. The experience is that you can't hold a girl back once she has fallen in love and doesn't know any alternative to sex. What I have already experienced here myself, for example with the daughters of acquaintances! How they were at first "highly moral" about all these "problems" and knew everything better, and afterwards everything was always just "the same again"! (See note 77 "caught off guard by her feelings".) Yes, I have now looked for another way, because I think there should be one. She could talk to her parents about my approach. And, as the young woman told me later, she had done just that. Her father then asked an acquaintance who had been to Europe what kind of people go to "such beaches". And his answer: "It's more the upper classes who go there. There you go ... And it's not as if these "upper class" people are only aloof people who have nothing to do with "normal people". Not at all. It must have been in the mid-60s of the last century that the Cologne church newspaper published an interview with the priest of Germany's northernmost Catholic parish, the priest of Sylt. Somehow he was an original, "everyone knew him", I found his name on the internet, Father Bellmann. Among other things, he was asked in the interview how it was with the bathers who went to the "natural beach" there, that is, "textile-free". The pastor said: "There is no difference to the other bathers, they are just as much families as those who do not go to these beaches and they would come to the services just the same - or not. (Note: Possibly the parents in these families are telling their children similar things as I am?)

Of course, the typical "objectors" will have reservations about this "baptism" of a father of his own daughter, because they can hardly imagine such uninhibited nudity between father and daughter, and so because, in their opinion, incestuous relationships could easily occur in this way. I think I can give the all-clear here: Because uninhibited contact between father and daughter from childhood onwards (which of course has to be there!) creates a distinct father-daughter feeling that simply makes incestuous relationships impossible, because nature does not want a father and daughter to father children with each other and thus have sex. The problem here is that mothers who were themselves once abused by their fathers are now extremely afraid that the same thing will happen to their daughters at some point with their father, i.e. with their husband, and they are therefore suspicious that husband and daughter do not inseminate too closely or are also not alone unsupervised. But in doing so, they disturb the formation of a natural father-daughter relationship, and when the daughter is then old enough and thus also womanly-attractive, "relations" may then occur on occasion. The mothers now see their fears confirmed that "all men are like that". That it was they themselves who directly caused the incestuous relationships through their fears is of course something they do not want to admit.

And the result of this "pedagogical procedure"? I can only say, extremely positive. When I think how "green and immature" I was at the age my daughter was then, there is a huge difference. My summary: She took control of her life, she knew what she wanted, she was open, she was somehow mature. Somehow she saw what real morality is and what advantages it has, and what is basically ridiculous pseudo-morality, as her comrades have it in their heads and also live it. This obviously led to an aura in her that made the so-called Casanovas or Don Juans afraid to approach her. Yet she was by no means precocious and stuck-up, but rather childlike and open. Of course, perhaps this was not only due to "my upbringing", but certainly also, at least this upbringing might not have harmed an existing attitude of her own, but rather encouraged it. And that has remained the case to this day.

Another note on the role of fathers in the upbringing of daughters in particular: my professor Wilhelm Heinen, in Münster 1956-1974, advocated the theory that fathers are particularly important here. And that the bad moral situation today is due to the fact that fathers are not really strong fathers and therefore do not properly fulfil their role as fathers - and fail. (And yet they could still have a lot of fun with such an upbringing, because what father doesn't enjoy doing what I'm talking about here with his beloved daughter?) We students often smiled at some of this professor's bizarre theories, but where he was right, he was right - unfortunately he didn't see it so "concretely"! He was too narrow-minded for that, to say the least.

I would also like to talk about the problem of "crèches". Especially from the conservative side, parents and especially mothers are made to fear that it is irresponsible to put their child in a crèche about a year after birth, i.e. when maternity leave is over. Sure, that may not be the ideal, but mothers are also women and as such have often learned a profession with a lot of effort and commitment and naturally want to do it. So, willy-nilly, they have to put their child in a crèche. I don't think that this is so bad for the child's development. Last but not least, the crèche has the advantage that the child is together with other children and inevitably learns social behaviour such as among siblings. For the parents, there are plenty of opportunities during the time when the child is not in the nursery and especially during the holidays to provide their children with "very special endorphin experiences" that not only influence the young person's most important decisions, but actually control them. In the end, this makes the parents more meaningful to the child than even the most loving and caring "nursery mothers".

The question here is whether a girl really needs her own concrete father "for all that", or whether the concept of a father, if only it is sufficiently practical-concrete like this one, doesn't do just as well? I do hope that this is possible, if I would also recommend such girls to look for "such a (substitute) father". Because I can't really imagine that endorphins can also be formed without a corresponding practice ...

Here, special attention was paid to the relationship between father and daughter. And the boys? So for them, education in chivalry and respect for the honour of girls is the order of the day. But what is the use of all this fine education if chivalry and respect are not "demanded" by the girls afterwards, see note 2? And see also Volker Pispers' sketches about the "softie macho". So it is important for girls and boys to have a common (moral) education, so that the (moral) education of boys does not ultimately come to nothing.

Confession as feedback: I quote from the newspaper "Die Welt" of 16.11.2017, p. 28 "Knowledge" with small changes, i.e. instead of the words "hospitals", "health professions" and "between doctors and nurses" now the words "religions", "religious professions" and "priests and lay people". So here is the "new" text: "Religions traditionally do not see themselves as learning organisations that derive improvements for the future from mistakes and near disasters. Aviation has done this consistently and has become much safer as a result. In classical hierarchical systems, however, the energy does not go into avoiding mistakes, but into fear and pressure that mistakes should not become public if possible. Then nobody can learn anything from them. Another problem is that in religious professions there is an almost idiotic disparity, especially between priests and lay people."

A lonely example of a sensible use of confession is the story of the Jesuit priest Friedrich v. Spee: he was assigned as confessor for "witches", so he had to accompany the condemned "witches" on their last journey to the stake and hear their confessions beforehand. But he did not stop there. At some point during these confessions, he asked himself what was actually being played here. And he came to the realisation that these "witches" were probably not real witches at all, but poor maltreated women who were forced to make their confessions through sophisticated interrogations and torture, confessions that were not based on any factual facts at all and that would probably have been made by anyone who was treated in the same way as the "witches". But what to do? If he had now protested against these gruesome nonsenses, he would have been seen as having been "turned" by the witches and thus by the devil, and would also have been subjected to such refined interrogation and torture, and no one would have been helped. So he anonymously wrote a book against the witch craze, the famous "Cautio Criminalis". The friars who knew Friedrich v. Spee knew of course that the book was his, after all he expressed his thoughts in other ways. But they kept their mouths shut when he was finally also transferred to pastoral care for the plague patients - so also a kind of death sentence? Unfortunately, there was little positive response to the book; the belief in witches was simply too deep-seated. After all, the Bishop of Bolzano-Bressanone had read the book and banned witch trials in his diocese. Otherwise, the end of these unspeakable trials lasted another 150 years or so.

44 "Reason plays no role" - here the Regensburg speech of Pope Benedict:

https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/de/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html

45. this clergyman's horror at early sexualisation: see also note 39. I think that typical magical thinking was present in his case, just as it was in the Middle Ages and later with regard to the witch craze: you only have to pray well enough and God will miraculously sort everything out. There is not much more one can do. But ultimately that is magical thinking! That magical thinking is not limited to "old times" is proven by the stories of the doctors Edward Jenner (1749 - 1823), who discovered the smallpox vaccination, and Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 - 1865), who found out the cause of childbed fever and a simple but effective countermeasure. Both of them could hardly or not at all stand up to the magical thinking of even the greatest scientific capacities of their time, although they were actually able to present convincing evidence from practical experience.

On the subject of magical thinking: the Swiss author Luc Bürgin writes in his book "Irrtümer der Wissenschaft" (Errors of Science) that in 1855 in Vienna a respected professor had taken the trouble to compile dozens of hypotheses about the origin of puerperal fever that were circulating among experts at the time. We find there hair-raising attempts at explanations such as "surges of emotion", "dietary errors", "the long thirst", "rooms that were too warm" etc., somehow it was all magic. Only Semmelweis was not allowed to be right with his theory, namely that it is the doctors themselves who cause it because they do not wash their hands properly after dissecting corpses!

You can also let the usual reasons for the "bad sexual morals of young people" run through your head today, such as: "the fault of the media, especially television and Hollywood", "the lack of or not particularly good motherly love, especially in the first years of their child's life", "the early sexualisation through school and comrades", "the lack of a good example from parents, who themselves only manage to have patchwork relationships", "the permissive clothing of girls and women". There is only one thing that the clever educators, including pastors and teachers of all religions, fail to realise: that it is they themselves who educate young people to a pseudo-morality (see page 3 below in the text) and not to a real morality, see also note 147. (Note on the problem of the "lack of a good example from parents": We could also see the problem differently. Namely, that just in young people "so to speak by nature" the predisposition <s. Note 7> to a healthy partner relationship is there and he is basically repelled by the bad example of his parents and now he really wants to do everything right. So he is "super-moral" in the way he has been taught morality. But in doing so, he only practices the usual pseudo-morality and slips back into the very messy relationships he actually wanted to avoid. And the clever educationalists, sociologists and theologians are now saying: "We knew it from the start, if the parental role model is not good, then only the same thing will come out in the young people anyway." But in reality everything is quite different...)

On the "problem of early sexualisation": Even if this clergyman were right in his reservations about informing young people about sexuality at an early age, especially as it is already done in school today, this does not mean "break a leg" in the sense of "high morals". My impression from dealing with young people is that "modern sexuality education" has an unexpected side effect. Because by no means all of the young people are happy with what is also considered normal here "from above" and is therefore also directly recommended. That they should <or even must> first "try out" several intimate partners until one <or especially one woman> lands with the "right one". Girls in particular sometimes feel that this is an imposition, so should they first be free prostitutes in their search for a partner? But how should they do it differently? Often these recommendations come directly from parents - and especially from mothers. It would be the task of a church oriented towards the historical Jesus and committed to a "genuine sexual morality" to offer a plausible and attractive concept, but unfortunately so far there is no sign of it.

I can now literally hear the objection of the typical "doubters" that the church's chances here are unrealistic because it cannot reach all young people anyway. But the question arises: "Do we have to reach everyone at all?" But probably not! Because when it comes to really attractive ideas, only a few who respond to them are enough - and their positive experiences will spread to others. Young people, by the way, are probably the best advertising media here ...

46 About my profession before studying theology: At some point I had read in a Catholic newspaper that real monogamy and real monotheism belong together. So that means that genuine monotheism is dependent on genuine monogamy. So if you want true monoteism, you have to take care of true monogamy. If genuine monotheism then comes about, good, and if not, also good. Because then the problem of religions will have been solved anyway.

47 Better solution to problems: It is sometimes claimed that Jesus was not at all concerned with marriage and the family, nor with sexual morality, for he obviously made no mention of any of these. This speech does not even have to be! For if he was in favour of true monogamy, then it follows all by itself that healthy marriages and families will result. Also, a genuine morality to get there has nothing or little to do with the morality that the typical moralizers (or "bourgeois") have in their heads. On the other hand, honourable educators, theologians, sociologists and politicians today can advocate marriage and family as much as they like, but if people don't want to, for example because they think they can practise sexual intercourse "without a marriage certificate" and then also live together, then they just don't want to.

Or let's also think about abortions: The "reasons" for abortions are not "virgin pregnancies". Something has always happened "before". At a meeting of religious teachers with a woman from Caritas who was "there" when the certificates of counselling in connection with abortion were still being issued, she told us that she had the experience that all women who were thinking of having an abortion also had problems with their partnership. So that would mean that if there were only healthy partnerships of man and woman, then there would be no more abortion problems ... So the partnership of man and woman is also the "main problem" here!

And there are probably even connections with terrorism! The spokesman for the Oriental Christians, Simon Jacob, argues that the problem is that young men in the Arab region are sexually frustrated, hence aggression, violence and terror. Only those who are financially positioned accordingly can marry and start a family in the Arab culture. In Iraq and Syria, however, the desolate economic situation means that very few young men have such prospects. Any premarital approach to women is absolutely taboo. The so-called Islamic State (IS), however, offers its fighters money and the prospect of a sex slave, which, according to Jacob, is part of the reason why the terrorist group is so popular.

Finally, something about which religion is the best! An elderly lady once told me an incident from her childhood religion lessons, which the priest had given, which must have been around 1950. The priest had told her that the Christian religion, especially the Catholic religion, was the only true religion. She came forward and said that the priests or the corresponding people in the other religions would also tell their believers about the "only true religion". So how could one tell which was the really true religion? So the priest freaked out and scolded him, saying that the problem today is that even children are no longer believers. But I think that the question of that child was not so stupid. As we know, there are no stupid questions, there are only stupid answers - and the priest's answer was just stupid, it was certainly not intelligent. He had simply avoided an intelligent question. To take the young girl's question seriously for once: How can you tell which is the really true religion? Jesus gives a very practical answer: "By their fruits you will know them! So this could mean: After all, anyone can tell any stories and theories - also about and from God - and also with allegedly all kinds of more or less intelligent proofs from words, paper is patient after all. But the actual real proofs are always only in practice: that therefore what a religion tackles in practice must also be verifiable and work! But that is what all religions avoid. Yes, what would I say to this girl today? I think that today I would gently explain to her what I have written in this text. And then say: "That religion is the true one which best prepares you and the other people for life, so that you can really be a human being and live life to the full.

48. "Certainly very motivated for such talks" or "instead of first communion" and "telling the right morals right away": Yes, I have my experiences here too! Namely, once over forty years ago, i.e. when I was just starting my vocational training, I was supposed to make First Communion in a small parish in front of six girls and two boys. At that time I was still very traditional, but I didn't want to lie to the children in any case, and the lessons should be a preparation for life with overcoming machismo for the children. You know my attitude by now: Sexual abuse of children is something criminal, but leaving children stupid and naive or even lying to them so that they can slip into such abusive experiences during their childhood or even later when they have the opportunity (see for example note 16) is just as criminal for me. Above all, the children should also know what the girls' white dresses for First Communion have to do with their innocence. Sure, I had to tread carefully here so as not to confuse the children unnecessarily. So I read them the story of a girl about her inner escape from a very close family, about a friendship with a boy and finally about an abortion. Of course, I also explained what had happened so that the pregnancy occurred. The children, of course, needed "a few more seconds" to "get the hang of" what I was talking about. I could just hear and see the children's brain cells running hot and they were making connections that they had obviously never seen before. But then it was as if I had opened a barrel: The amount of questions, especially from the girls! And when the lesson was over and the parish hall was locked, some of the girls were still sitting with me in my car in the car park in front of the parish hall and wanted to continue "chatting" (that was their word) with me. They were also obviously looking forward to the next lesson: "Will we chat again then?!".

My intention was always "real monogamy" from the point of view of reason (that's what I would say today) and how Jesus wants to help us here to do everything right. Here, the reference to the strengthening with communion was also fitting, also in order not to give the children any fears of reality. Of course, this strengthening can also be dismissed as a placebo effect, but what if it does help? So what? I think I was obviously very helpful to the young people. Of course, I wasn't as far along as I am today, I hadn't addressed the problem of "innocence and nakedness" as a sign of liberation from original sin, for example, and there was no question about it. But I bet that if I had, I would have got away with it too! There was also a reaction from two mothers, those of the boys and individually. They came to pick up their boys and I wanted to explain to them what I was doing and what my intention was. But they refused: "Leave it, it's all right the way you do it." So the children had told something at home, and the mothers agreed and just wanted to see what kind of guy it was who was trying to teach "something like that" to their offspring. Only the priest did not agree at all, he wanted the usual .... Unfortunately, this is why there was no confirmation preparation, which I also had in mind. See the text under point 6.

But I think the way I did it at that time was right: the age of the children was right, it was within the framework of the group, it was the right occasion, so that the children could also be given an ethical evaluation and a promise of help, and obviously the "triangular relationship" of parents - teachers - children was right. Why do I have such difficulties convincing others to do the same? Instead, we let some completely inhuman ideology-obsessed ideologues take the butter off our bread ...

And for how well one can talk to children about the difference between "use and abuse of sexuality, I also have another experience from a conversation with a girl of about 11 years:. I simply wanted to "demonstrate" to the mother, an acquaintance, who knew many of my "written attempts", that you don't always have to tell children these usual children's or miracle stories from the Bible (so you have to dumb them down - with a Pauline ideology, but I didn't see the connection with "Paul" at that time), but can also come to them with realistic incidents and how children react here very intelligently and understandably and that they are also interested. So I told the child the story of the beautiful Susanna, how she was blackmailed by two men according to the "blackmail procedure" of the time ("either you have sex with us or we'll report you that we caught you having sex with a young man, then you'll be executed"), after all, children today also know what sexual intercourse is and can therefore finally understand the crux of such stories properly. The girl's comment: "Well, I'm lucky I wasn't alive back then..." You see, dear reader, this child had fully realised the seriousness of the situation and she could obviously put herself in the woman's shoes. But about all the (adult) church and media people to whom I presented the story are obviously not interested at all. Don't they have any empathy for women, is today's alleged philanthropy towards women "on all fronts" in the end just hypocrisy? So today I would continue to tell the girl that even today no one is interested in her happiness, because the basic attitude towards women is still the same as it was at the time of Susanna and at the time of Jesus: Only today, of course, things are a little different, I have described this in the text "The criminal case ...". The bottom line is that we are still just as misogynistic today as people were back then, it just expresses itself differently. Most people, whether male or female, obviously have it in their heads that all women are prostitutes anyway, so you don't need to have a bad conscience if one of them gets a nudge "in that direction". Or how should I interpret the general lack of empathy here other than contempt for women? In any case, it is very easy to talk to children today about right and wrong morality and thus also about the commitment of the real Jesus, and because they know today what sexual intercourse is, they also join in because they are simply interested in it. And why is this not being done, why are young people still being told these typical religious fairy tales and phrases? The only plausible reason I have here in the meantime is that people don't want girls to be able to consciously live their feminine morality with joy.

A rather embarrassing justification for "bad (sexual) morals" for theologians is the thesis of the church father Augustine that man is predisposed to "sin" from childhood and that he needs the grace of Christian faith to become at least somewhat free from this sinfulness. For if he were naturally predisposed to "high morals" (which is what I claim), then he would do so on his own without any further "coaching", for example through appropriate information. But obviously he does not practice "high morals" on his own, so he is not "predisposed" to them. A strange logic, see note 7 on the subject of "predisposition".

49. "Jesus and true monogamy" (on page 21): Today, even in the churches, we have the "Roman marriage model", to put it this way. According to this, those are married to each other who have registered their marriage before the "censor" or today before the registry office or have married in church. The Jews at the time of Jesus were somewhat different. I quote from "Umwelt des Urchristentums", Johannes Leipoldt and Walter Grundmann, Berlin (Ost), 6/1982, p. 176: "The man acquires his wife. The acquisition is parallel to the acquisition of a slave: `The woman is acquired by money, deed and coitus ... the pagan slave is acquired by money, deed and taking possession (i.e. by the first service he does to his master)'". Thus, for the Jews, prostitution is the sign of marriage par excellence; coitus outside of marriage is considered idolatry. In this respect, prostitutes are "adulteresses" because they always start new marriages which they then "break off" again. It follows that Jesus also saw this connection between marriage and true monogamy. Following Jesus therefore also means starting from Jesus' ideas about marriage. And I think it is possible to transfer them to our time - though at least with a view to a concept for the future.

50. "That the girls do each other's bidding!" or also: Bogus morality and the high morality of real monogamy (on the conversation with the schoolgirl mother on page 12): For me, this mother used to be realistic and open-minded, but many adults and certainly parents have terrible fears here. A father once told me that it wouldn't be so bad if his daughter had a disappointing experience, but that he would object to her being "naked on a plate somewhere". I later asked him about his opinion on the "disappointing experience", that he wouldn't mind if his daughter was fucked by an idiot. But he could not remember that he had once had this opinion. Of course he hadn't said anything like that, if you put it so clearly what the matter is and don't just always beat around the bush euphemistically. And why did he have this fantasy in his brain of "naked on a platter"? A girl who has real morals in her knows by herself how to behave and doesn't get such an idea, and if she does, she will know where and why. And if it does so sensibly, it can even tell its children about it later and laugh about it. In any case, it's easier for women to remember such things than messed-up sex stories. What kind of people are they who don't trust their children to have fun with harmless things and prefer to send them in the wrong direction, as this ex-prostitute complained (see p. 41)?

But there are plenty of other mothers! They virtually invite their daughters to "sex stories" or even "experiences" and guide them on how best to go about it. The problem of these mothers is obviously that they themselves, when they were "that age", were not allowed to "do it" and yet "did it". But more or less inevitably, these were not pleasant experiences. And the fact that they were not pleasant experiences they now attribute primarily to the fact that they did something because it was somehow forbidden. And their logic now is that if it hadn't been forbidden, then it would have been nice. So now they want to do better with their daughters than they had once done themselves - and formally "guide" their daughters to do so. However, they do not consider that in doing so they are instructing their daughters to first be sluts or even whores. The grandmother of the girls who were with me on the beach (point 4, p. 20 above) commented on "such behaviour": "They want to cure themselves in their daughters." I don't understand such behaviour either, because real emancipation looks different. That is also why I try to offer an alternative that has a different quality and level.

In addition, both the "grand dame" of Italian journalism Oriana Fallaci (1929 - 2006) ("The Rage and the Pride") and the German Turk Akit Pirincci ("The Great Conspiracy") accuse German or European men of putting up with everything and not being real men. At the same time, they consider it completely normal and have nothing against it when girls and women live out their "sexual self-determination". Yes, how is that now, should the men also put up with it and in the end also find it good when their wives, sisters, daughters "screw around" with whoever - the main thing is that it comes from themselves? Don't the German husbands, brothers, fathers make themselves the object of ridicule with such indulgence? By now you know my solution: the sisters and daughters should not tolerate "intercourse" because that belongs in marriage, hence at best skin contact. And the wives have hopefully also found the right man for him.

51. On the visit to the "natural beach" (it was simply an almost empty beach, not even a nudist beach) with the two girls (see p. 18f): I know, a delicate matter - probably always in Anglo-Saxon countries and now also here in Germany. But if you want beautiful blossoms and eventually beautiful fruit, you have to take care of the buds. Obviously, hysteria is spreading here when such naturalness and openness is seen as something like a corruption of morals or at least the beginning of a corruption of morals. We are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here and do not see a legitimate concern at all! After all, it is precisely the young ladies who are brought up "uptight" who, as experience shows, are the first ones who, a few years later, quite obviously can no longer stand this uptightness and start having completely different sexual relationships.

How come? Throughout their upbringing, they learn that nudity is something immoral, something bad. And since they don't want to be immoral and bad (after all, they have the drive for high morals in them by nature!), they naturally fearfully avoid nudity - so much so that shame is generally thought to be a natural human disposition. But life goes on: I have described here enough that now once in a while the interest for the opposite sex comes and then also the problem of choosing a partner. Normally, the young ladies would now flirt with their physical "parts" and present them in order to "make an impression" according to the motto "Look, I have everything, wouldn't I be the right woman for you? But it is precisely this kind of "unveiled presentation" that is not possible, because there is a block because it is supposedly so immoral and women do not want to be immoral in any case. But somehow women have to find out who the right person is, so sexual intercourse is the obvious choice, because it has to happen one day anyway, so it can't be immoral. And so it happens! It's almost funny who is supposedly to blame for today's "moral decay", the media, the lack of parental love, the lack of religiosity - but these typical moralisers don't realise the obvious, that it's themselves, because their moral education, although well-intentioned, is in reality (according to the motto "well-intentioned is the opposite of well-done") highly counterproductive for real morality! And now I come up with the idea of "never negative, always positive" - offering the fun of nudity as an entry point into partner relationships instead of demonising it as the usual moral people do. That's not only unusual, it's downright highly suspicious: there can't be anything good behind it!

But doesn't this "openness" and "uninhibitedness" that I'm advocating here actually encourage sexual intercourse, doesn't it virtually invite it? I can only keep pointing out here that for children, i.e. "people without experience", "all this" is just interesting folds of skin that do nothing more than tempt you to look at them. And for the others it is largely a question of attitude and habit. It would be bad if every gynaecologist had "fits" every time he saw a female genital. And what a gynaecologist can get used to, everyone else can get used to. And don't be afraid of being deadened to the charms of the opposite sex: if eroticism only comes from the "body parts", then it is only on the level of prostitution - real love between a man and a woman absolutely includes the spiritual-emotional! And that can only gain by getting used to nudity! Yes, what else do we want but that only the spiritual-emotional wins?

But doesn't educating girls to such openness also make them shamelessly careless? That's exactly the point: how stupid do the typical worriers actually think young people are? Once young people have a sense of real morality, such concerns are completely superfluous. Of course, young people know the usual morals of their environment and will also consider them in their actions. But for them, this morality is now no longer an incontrovertible absolute dogma of a morality imposed on us humans by whoever, but they can recognise what it really is: namely, an illusory morality. And they can juggle between the real and the pseudo-morality as it suits and makes the most sense to them.

And how did I feel during such "beach experiences, how did I feel about it myself? I don't think there was any "problem" here at all, which was probably due to the fact that I had and have a sister and my mother had made an effort that at least in childhood there were no problems here. And so it all went on completely "unexcited". What is perhaps nice is how I had arranged it: So the two girls knew that I didn't go to the beach with their family, but went to lonelier stretches of beach by bike. And there had also been conversations with the grandparents about meaningful "moral education" as I see it. So the attitude was there, "If the girls want it, they can go to the beach with you too!". I think it makes sense to briefly describe here how this "started" in concrete terms. So one day I asked them if they wanted to go to the beach with me on the bikes. So they wanted to. And I said: "But I'm going 'without'". The two of them: "No, but we're not." I said, "Then I'm ashamed of myself." After a short discussion, they said, "Well, then we'll go too. Me: "But I still have about fifteen minutes to do, so you'll have to wait a little longer." They: "OK." - But after five minutes they were already whining: "When are we finally leaving?" - So this is what it looks like when you let girls make a free decision ... And everything was absolutely harmonious. Unfortunately, I behaved a bit wrong again. This would have been the perfect opportunity to talk. Because the girls would have been open to talk about the ambivalence of nudity, why I'm so against the narrowness, why this uptight morality doesn't work after all ... At least there is still contact with the older of the two girls, I sometimes send him my "thoughts" or have them passed on to her and write to her about my father or better grandfather feelings and give him tips for dealing with boys. And I think she (she's 21 now) thinks that's good too. When we were sitting together with friends recently, her grandparents were also there, she came into the room briefly to say goodbye, standing next to me who was sitting in an armchair. Chic she looked - and she briefly and gently pressed her hand on my shoulder, I don't think anyone else noticed. So she seemed to like my ideas.

And one more thing in general: the official justification for the " naturist movement" (to call it that for once) is: "No nudity, no morality". Naturists assume that through the practice of nudity, i.e. the experience of nature, real morality comes of its own accord, so to speak. However, this is probably completely naïve, in any case - after the commitment to this concept here - the appropriate information is still needed. Yes, what if, in a suitable pedagogy of genuine monogamy, this were to be added, which is actually also plausible? See note 8 and especially in the text point 3 on the subject of "predisposition".

By the way: Why naturism ("free body culture")? Why should that be something special, and also a "culture"? It's actually natural and should therefore be the most normal thing, that we don't wear anything when we go swimming, i.e. that we are naked? And if we have problems with nudity, then surely it can only be because we are hostile to the body and that there is something in us that we have not worked through?

52. "Burdened with an original sin"   (see p. 22 below): What the church father Augustine did here is about the same as if we put a diesel injection pump from a modern Mercedes into an old Volkswagen Beetle that runs on petrol. We may think that we have made the old Volkswagen more valuable, because we have installed something much better and more expensive than what was originally in it, but what has happened here is at least completely unobjective and unscientific; now the "Volkswagen system" no longer works at all. But because we consider this old Volkswagen so valuable, because our great-grandmother once drove it well to Italy and liked to remember this trip all her life, we keep it and use it as a memento of our grandmother, i.e. as a cult object that now sits around in a kind of museum. Except: That's not the point of a car. And so it is with the message of Jesus - this Jesus was concerned with something completely different than what we have made of it today.

How little we today care about the origins of the Adam and Eve narrative can be seen in the famous commentary on Genesis by the theologian Claus Westermann (here volume 1, Genesis 1 - 11, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1974, p. 325). Westermann says here that the Adam and Eve narrative is clearly a story against a counter-religion of Israel. But in his investigations he misses a human phenomenon of evil in the counter-religions of Israel: "That evil.... .has its origin in the counter-religion of Israel.... .has its origin in the counter-religion of Israel. .can in no way be meant in Genesis 3, just as man's sin, the transgression. Adam in Genesis 2-3 in no way stands for Israel, Adam represents humanity.... The origin of evil remains absolutely mysterious". Westermann obviously cannot understand why the practice of a religion can be "evil" and he also does not see the human phenomenon that is really at stake in the original context. It doesn't even occur to him to do any further research here.

I wonder, however, whether Westermann overlooks the fact that the religion of Israel's neighbouring peoples is connected with a certain, very concrete practice of life, which also runs counter to the image of man in the Bible as presented by Westermann. Does Westermann overlook the fact that this practice of life is independent of a particular religion of a particular people, that this practice of life is supra-temporal? The psychologist Ernest Bornemann writes in his work "Das Patriarchat" (here Fischer Taschenbuch 3416, p. 264) that in a time when fertility and sexuality were equal, "worship often became sexual intercourse and sexual intercourse often became worship. So the authors of the Bible are not at all concerned with a "worship service" in our modern understanding, i.e. a prayer service or a worship service with a symbolic sacrifice, but with the rejection of this "worship of sexual intercourse" with a front against the breakdown of the most personal interpersonal relationships given with cultic prostitution?

Today we are certainly above the idols of antiquity, above the belief in Ishtar, Inanna, Mylitta, Astarte, Aphrodite, Artemis, Hepat, this whole society of gods, for whose worship there were the customs described. But are we today also above the corresponding life practice? After all, the people of antiquity could still refer to the necessities of worship, but we today? So-called "vulgar prostitution", i.e. the public offering of oneself for sexual intercourse in return for payment, is still of concern to relatively few people today, according to general opinion. However, there are said to be 400,000 prostitutes in Germany (about half of them registered) - if you add the "clients" and the families concerned, the number becomes more significant, which is bad enough? Does this mean that everything else is "fine"?

If we consider that the principled view of man in biblical prehistory condemns everything about sexual intercourse that is not in the sense of a perpetual partnership out of love in the unity of body and soul, we must probably also broaden the concept of prostitution today. Unfortunately, it is precisely today that much of the meaning of the biblical idea of partnership virtually flies in the face!

Is it in the sense of the biblical image of man when people have sexual intercourse with each other without even thinking of marriage? Whether this happens in the form of rape or voluntarily is irrelevant for the assessment from a biblical point of view. What if young people "have intercourse" with each other "on a trial basis", or if one partner believes that by being willing to have sexual intercourse he or she can persuade the other to marry? What if young people supposedly have to "sow their wild oats" before marriage? What about sexual intercourse that is performed in order to be "in" today, in order to be able to "have a say", in order not to be considered backward and uptight? What about the famous "experiences" that everyone supposedly has to have in order to know that their later sex life will work out?

The Epic of Gilgamesh (see p. 22 below): Here, too, a paradisiacal state is lost through the transgression of sexual commandments and a step is taken into the present. After the epic has described how a harlot sexually seduced the primeval man Enkidu, it reports on the consequences of this fall from grace:

Then he turned his eyes towards his beast

But now, when the gazelles saw Enkidu,

they fled from him.

The game of the steppe drew back from him,

and Enkidu was terrified, his body stiffened,

his knees buckled, and it was not as before,

but now he had knowledge; he understood.

Turning back, he sank to the feet of the harlot,

raised his eyes to her face.

and listened to the words she spoke.

The harlot raised her eyes to Enkidu:

Wise are you now, Enkidu, like a god!

Not only is the unconstrained interaction with the animals consistent with the paradise narrative, but in our context the promise of the serpent in Genesis 3:5: "As soon as you eat of it, your eyes will open; you will be like gods, knowing good and evil" is consistent with the last quoted line from the Gilgamesh epic "wise are you now, Enkidu, like a god!" In contrast to the Gilgamesh Epic, the Bible, which sees "good and evil" functionally, i.e. in the sense of "what is good and evil for man", also refers with subtle irony to the object of knowledge, i.e. "good and evil" - in the sense that now that you have the "thing" behind you, you know what would actually have been good and what a mess you have made... (The lines from the Gilgamesh Epic are quoted from Oswald Loretz, Schöpfung und Mythos, Mensch und Welt nach den Anfangskapiteln der Genesis, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 32, 1968. p. 114).

54 Albert Schweitzer (p. 26 m): See here (even better!) note 139. Somehow the train of thought that Jesus was in a different social class than our theologians is very plausible even without the confirmation by Albert Schweitzer. Nevertheless, I have also found a passage from which the quintessence of Albert Schweitzer's research emerges, at least roughly. He speaks here of the pride of the theologians, and that in the end they cannot penetrate to the real Jesus after all (p. 621f):

"And yet misguidedness must come. We modern theologians are too proud of our historicity, too proud of our historical Jesus, too confident in our belief in what our theology of history can spiritually bring to the world. The thought that with historical knowledge we can build up a new, vital Christianity and release spiritual forces in the world dominates us like a fixed idea and does not allow us to see that we have thereby only tackled a cultural task that precedes the great religious task and want to solve it as best we can. We thought we had to let our time take the diversions via the historical Jesus, as we understood him, so that it would come to the Jesus who is spiritual power in the present. The diversions is now blocked by true history.

It was danger that we placed ourselves between the people and the Gospels and no longer left the individual alone with the sayings of Jesus.

It was also a danger that we offered them a Jesus who was too small, because we had squeezed him into human dimensions and human psychology. Read through the lives of Jesus since the sixties and see what they have done with the imperial words of our Lord, how they have scaled down his imperious, world-denying demands on the individual, so that he would not go against our cultural ideals and enter into our world affirmation with his world denial. Some of the greatest words are found lying in a corner, a pile of discharged explosive shells. We let Jesus speak a different language to our time than it came across his lips.

In the process, we ourselves became powerless and took the "energy" out of our own thoughts by carrying them back into history and letting them speak from the past. It is the very undoing of modern theology that it presents everything mixed up with history, and finally prides itself on the virtuosity with which it finds its own thoughts in the past.

That is why it means something that in the research into the life of Jesus, no matter how long it resists and always seeks new ways out, it must in the end be misled by the true history of the one made, on which it wants to base our religion, and will be overwhelmed by the facts which, according to W. Wrede's beautiful word, are themselves sometimes most radical.

What is the historical Jesus to us if we keep him free from all false reckoning of the past for the present? We have the immediate feeling that his personality, in spite of everything strange and mysterious, has something great to say to all times, as long as the world stands, no matter how much views and knowledge may change, and therefore also means a far-reaching enrichment of our religion. This elementary feeling must be expressed clearly, so that it does not sink into dogmatic assertions and phrases, and so that historical research is not led again and again into the hopeless attempt to modernise Jesus and to weaken and reinterpret the temporal conditions in his proclamation, as if this would make him more to us.

All research into the life of Jesus has only one purpose: to ensure a natural and unbiased understanding of the oldest accounts. In order to know and understand Jesus, there is no need for scholarly tutelage. Nor is it necessary that the person concerned should understand the details of Jesus' public activity and be able to compile them into a "life of Jesus"...".

Man is a highly moral being (see p. 9, 3rd paragraph): We are usually told by our Christian religion the passage from the Book of Genesis 8:21, where God says after the story of the Flood: "I will not curse the earth again because of man; for the striving of man is evil from his youth...". First of all, who was there when God said that? Probably no one, so these words were put into God's mouth by an unknown Bible author. This statement of God is therefore by no means an incontrovertible dogma, even if one approaches the Bible with such piety. Unfortunately, however, this dogma has caused a lot of harm so far, because it always acted as a "self-fulfilling prophecy", i.e. people thought that man's evil was natural and therefore did not even try to change anything with full commitment. The consequence was, of course, that man only made mistakes because he was considered "evil" from the outset.

And let us assume that man is really evil from his youth. What are these "evil things" that he does? The reason for them is at least initially either educational mistakes by parents, teachers and churches or they are not really evil at all, but rather "minor negligences of life". And if he later makes a mistake, for example in sexual morals or in "other morals", then it was because he did not know any better and inevitably proceeded according to the procedure of "trial and error", which unfortunately sometimes had bad consequences, possibly also with really bad deeds. But the cause of these bad consequences was not because he was evil by nature, but because there were unfortunate circumstances - and these can be changed, and often very easily.

Forced behaviour (see page 36): This forced behaviour of their daughters with regard to sexual intercourse is probably the horror of every parent. Some parents comply and give their daughters "pills" and condoms when the time comes for them to have a boyfriend, and other parents suppress the problem or take all kinds of more or less helpless measures, for example by trying to keep a constant watch on their daughters. A fitting example of this is described by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez in his short novel "Chronicle of a Death Foretold": So a young rich young man marries the most beautiful girl in town, but in the evening the groom takes the bride back to her mother "because she is no longer a virgin". And now everyone is puzzling over how "this" could have happened, because the girl was actually constantly guarded by her parents and brothers, so nothing could actually have "happened". That is, she had possibly sought out the "deflowerer" herself in order to break out of her golden cage of surveillance. But read the (short) novel for yourself, it is exciting how it ends! The lesson is that neither moralising nor surveillance can influence a girl here - except with the "Atlantic baptism" I practise! Of course, it also works in any other body of water, as long as it's fun for everyone involved!

57 "Nudge" (see page 14 below): The American Richard H. Thaler received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2017 for the idea of "nudging". See her book "Nudge - Wie man kluge Entscheidungen anstößt" Ullstein-TB 2011/2017. The clou of the idea of nudging is that people are not forced to do something, but that they are told something more advantageous for them and "nudged" to do it. I think I have done that quite usefully here for sexual morality.

58. "Ingenious creation of a new faith" (see p. 21 below): Basically, most of today's theologians know this too, only not all of them say it so clearly in order not to get into trouble. And those who have said it openly have lost their teaching licence, for example Gerd Lüdemann, Eugen Drewermann, Uta Ranke-Heinemann. However, they may be right in what they reject, but what they bring instead is very weak. None of them sees a relationship between "old Adam and new Adam", not to mention a question about the background of the Adam and Eve narrative. They are "only" study-room scholars and thus have no access to a man from another social class. See note 54.

59. "What I don't want, I don't want!" (see p. 21 o), but also "non-binding test possibility with mere skin contact" (see p. 11 o) or also "test procedure without penetration" (see p. 46 m): If we assume for once that nature can think, then she certainly thought of something when she placed the vagina between the strongest muscles of a woman, with the nerve cells responsible for the orgasm "on top". Surely this can only mean that we can and certainly should test one without the other! And in general this is also quite possible, if only the girls would demand this firmly enough from the boys or men. See also note 72! Of course, in wars it is probably not possible for the women and girls of the defeated to express any wishes to the victors, especially since there are no possibilities of communication between the women and the enemy men. And this was certainly not possible with the women of Jesus' time, because they were blackmailed with the threat of the death penalty, so there could certainly be no question of women's wishes, see p. 29 m. I think, however, with the aforementioned modern "abusive men" today, the offer of the "testing procedure without penetration" would definitely have a chance of being accepted. And what about the risk of rape in "such games"? There is a study on this, which girls and women are more likely to be raped and which are not. It has now been found that it is not so much the perky and frisky girls and women who have problems here, but rather the well-behaved, the reserved ones. It looks as if the perky and lively ones have something like an invisible but all the more effective aura around them, so that a possible rapist does not even dare to approach these "female beings". So potential rapists tend to target the well-behaved and reserved "female beings". And what does that mean for me as an educator? To make all girls and women perky and perky!

Yes, why am I getting specific here at all, why not just warnings, as I am sometimes advised to do? First of all, because these eternal warnings are repugnant to me, I simply can't listen to them any more. And they don't help anything! They make the very things they warn about interesting and at some point fascinating. At a lecture on sensible advertising, I heard about the basic principle of good advertising: never negative, always positive! And warnings now mean that you should not do something, so they are something negative. And when I recommend to young people what they should do instead, i.e. to have fun with nudity or finally with skin contact, I am pointing to something positive, i.e. something they can do. And I think that then also has a chance that the young people will join in.

60. "Only too willingly adapted again to the usual business model religions" (see p. 1 m): It is quite strange: In ancient Egypt in Pharaonic times, women were circumcised, supposedly because otherwise they could not be faithful. Quite soon after the time of Jesus, the Egyptians became Christian, but the women continued to be circumcised. And at some point the Egyptians became Muslim - and the women (and girls) still continued to be circumcised. Or: In Israel at the time of Jesus, adulteresses were stoned to death - and in some Arab countries, which are "in the area of ancient Israel", "adulteresses" are still stoned to death now and then. So it seems that religions come and go in a certain region, but their influences are like whitewash, i.e. purely external, the basic attitudes of the people, here for example the hostility towards women and the body, always remain the same. But influencing these basic attitudes, i.e. people's inner selves, would be precisely what is special. And that is what is at stake here!

61. "more important ... than all truths of faith" (or in some booklets still "dogmas", see p. 2 m): Yes, what is actually Christian? Is it the actually "unbelievable truths of faith", which are sometimes a downright rape of our brains, because we are supposed to believe something that is absolutely impossible? Theologians have long since found the words "sacrificia intellectus", i.e. "sacrifice of the intellect", for this, which many of them also find more and more problematic. And finally, one can also say or babble about many things. Therefore, as a characteristic of a Christian attitude, I give preference here to "genuine monogamy", as it can only be achieved with information ("spirit" or even "holy spirit"!), freedom, honesty and openness. We can then easily answer the question of whether Islam belongs to Germany. It does not belong to Germany, because at least an education of young people with information, freedom, honesty and openness is unthinkable in Islam. See also p. 44f under point 8 "Further experiences".

62. "depending on their appropriate level of information" (see p. 1 m): A good example here is the problem of suffering from stomach ulcers. Until a few years ago, peptic ulcer was considered a prime example of a psychosomatic disease. Today we know that the development of an ulcer is based on the interplay of diverse mechanisms that greatly reduce the protective function of the gastric mucosa. But ultimately, certain strains of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori are responsible for the disease. And so we have a similar problem here, whether a young person wants to live true monogamy or not. Of course, through a loving upbringing, through contact with equally well-behaved and idealistic other young people, and through fortunate circumstances, genuine monogamy can succeed even without the appropriate information. But who can guarantee such good conditions? Therefore, the appropriate information is put in the foreground here, which of course also has to come across as convincing for the girls so that it really "sits". Of course, in the end it is men again and it depends on whether they are real men or machismo men, whether they pass on this suitable information to girls or not.

Now and then I am also accused that I am wrong, that it depends so much on the girls to enforce real monogamy, the decisive factor is rather the boys, whether they have a sense of responsibility, restraint and chivalry "in them". So the boys have to be educated to these qualities. There is a very simple mathematical way of thinking about this: Let's assume that 95% of all boys are perfectly educated in this sense, but 5% are not, and it is certainly realistic that even with the best education you will not "get" all of them in the end. And if the girls don't have the goal of real monogamy in them, then they all think that the perfectly brought up boys are either dear brothers or boring milksops and run after the 5 % "non-perfectly brought up". And so it comes back to the "non-monogamous confusion". If, on the other hand, the girls are educated with the appropriate information, they will influence the boys in the sense of real monogamy, because they want to "get close" to the girls and cannot "get close" to them in any other way.

63 "And he clearly identified this story as a punishment story from the demimonde": As it happens, one sometimes talks to neighbours about God and the world. And so one of the neighbours, a farmer, told me that he had converted his "quarry" into flats about 1.5 km away from the village in the middle of his fields. One day a prospective tenant came forward, and when he heard the price of 700 DM (at that time), he immediately offered him double. Of course, he had taken him on as a tenant. And he quickly found out about the tenant's "business model", i.e. the red-light trade and drugs and everything like that. And since my neighbour was also a butcher and his wife ran a snack bar, they both delivered cold buffet platters for this tenant's "parties" from time to time. In the process, they noticed all the guests, including criminologists and, of course, the tenant's "girls". And every now and then they disappeared with these gentlemen into other rooms ... And me too: Oh, so that's how it works, bribing the "cops" with free sexual intercourse so that they don't look so closely when prosecuting? So none of the girls in this area could go to the police and report it, but what if one of them does it somewhere else? Oh yes, couldn't it be that this "sinner" in the Bible perhaps also kicked "something like that" wide open and was punished for it? And he said: "Mishael, that's why I'm telling you this, it's always the same...". Of course, after I had heard in Father Lay's lectures that the story of sin according to John 8 was not a story of forgiveness, I was prepared, so to speak, and also open to this "solution" of the story of sin, see above all note 65 ..... And now back to this tenant: A little later, my neighbour found out that he was wanted for various offences, but he found out in such a way that he could first of all demand the outstanding rent from his tenant and then warn him. And he also disappeared, but was caught at a more distant border customs office for pimping, drug offences and human trafficking, so his relations with the police did not extend that far .... (Note for possible investigators: I think these cases have long been barred by the statute of limitations! By the way: In the FAZ of 27. 2. 1998, p. 14, there was a short report about a somewhat different case in the southern Sauerland, but here, too, police officers were rewarded with free coitus who had betrayed actions to the police ...). See also note 88.

And why I just got the hot tip from a farmer, i.e. from a "man of the people", and not from a theologian or from any other humanities scholar, with what the real Jesus had to do, see under note 139!

64. "better than the usual objective 'shame and morality'" : Here's a joke question: "What do a bikini (or swimming trunks) and a sat nav have in common?" Quite simply: "One loses one's orientation, in the case of the bikini in (sexual) morality and in the case of the sat nav in the maze of roads, because one relies on these `artificial aids' instead of learning to orient oneself to reality." Of course, this orientation, here for instance on maps and street plans and there for instance on indications for knowing people and dealing with other people, is something one can hardly or rarely do on one's own, but one can learn all that - and one also likes to learn. But there must also be people who teach you. And then the orientation "without bikini and without navi" finally works far better than "with", especially because you get a self-confidence through which you finally also have a very special charisma, especially in sexual morality.

65. "Against hypocrites, against sin, for love" (see p. 27 quite below, but I have also included this hint in "the Jesus ideology", albeit somewhat modified): Especially in societies where prostitution is forbidden, it does exist, something like prostitution always has something to do with an inner attitude of people.

Something like prostitution always has something to do with people's inner attitudes, and you can't just regulate that by law. But because prostitution is so (life-)dangerous for women, especially in such societies, they need "protectors", i.e. pimps. And they adapt the harsh laws "realistically and humanely", so to speak, by making sure that the law enforcers don't look so closely and thus leave their "protégés" alone - by bribing them with money, for example. But of course this comes at a price for the women, for example, these "protectors" get some of the money the women earn through their "profession". Depending on the situation, the women must also be available for "free sex" for those among the "law enforcement officers" who are susceptible to it (as is also sometimes the case today, see note 63), as well as for the pimps themselves, of course. And if a woman was "bitchy" and didn't do what and how the men wanted, then she was shown what would happen if the "protection" no longer worked, also as a warning for the other women. In those days, a trap was set for a woman so that she would be caught "in the act", as the law of the time stipulated, so that she would be brought before the "cadi" and pay for her "bitchiness" with her life. Whether the law enforcement officers knew or at least suspected what was going on is ultimately irrelevant. In any case, no one dared to uncover this swamp, after all, it was also dangerous for the "uncoverers", it was a matter of life and death here (see note 34), and how was this "uncovering" supposed to happen? There was, so to speak, a conspiracy - albeit presumably unspoken - of criminals and onlookers at work here, which held together in a diabolical way. Obviously, this Jesus was once the brave one and denounced the conditions in public speeches, which was so interesting for the people of his time that they even followed him into the desert for these speeches. (These speeches were later toned down, for example, when the authors of the Gospels made "sermons" out of them with the tenor "against hypocrites, against sin and for love" and simply omitted the details that were so dangerous to reveal, according to the motto: "Such unsavoury details are not so important"). But neither the pimps nor the law enforcers put up with these very concrete and very inflammatory speeches and so they finally made sure that this "troublemaker Jesus" was put away on occasion in a way that was "usual in this business" anyway - this time, however, with the enhancement of a crucifixion, so that no one would dare so easily to start such "uncovering" again in the future.

I would like to come back to this painting by Lucas Cranach on p. 35 - and here to the two men standing on the right side of the picture. It is not clear what these men are. Could it not be that with these men, who actually look very bourgeois-serious to highly intellectual, Cranach meant precisely these typical "well-behaved, respectable citizens" who prefer to look the other way and who therefore have no idea of the more precise contexts of what is happening here and who do not want to have any idea at all? And without their lack of interest and unworldliness towards real life (and also misogyny), this downright criminal behaviour of the accusers would not work at all?

I should also mention here who the pimps needed the prostitutes for at the time of Jesus - and there were definitely more women than were "needed" by the normal Jewish population. The problem at that time was that Palestine was Roman occupied territory, so there were certainly several thousand, if not many thousands, of Roman soldiers stationed there, including Gauls, Germanic tribes and Thracians (at least under Herod the Great). These soldiers were not allowed to marry until they were 35 (?) years old, so they needed prostitutes. And they were procured from the respective occupied country, with pimps also from the respective country. We know from the Susanna story how this worked, at least very often. Since such details were not generally known (because of the usual taboo on anything to do with sexuality, details are not discussed, as we still know today), everything could be blamed on the Romans. Obviously, they were also the reason for the "immorality". I think this was also the reason for the unpopularity of the Romans - at least to a very large extent, which is why they wanted to get rid of them.

Jesus must have differed from the rest of the population here, he did not see the cause of the people's "sins" with the Romans, but with his own people. So, unlike many, including Maccoby and Reza Aslan, I cannot see any conspicuous commitment on Jesus' part to get rid of the Romans; rather, Jesus' opponents were certain circles among his own people.

And it was not only the Roman soldiers who "needed" prostitutes, and the inhabitants of Palestine at that time! We know Jerusalem was also an important place of pilgrimage, to which pilgrims flocked from all over, not for nothing were there plenty of money changers. And, as is so often the case, one does not only go to such places of pilgrimage to pray. So it will not only have been the case at a more modern religious event like the Council of Constance (1414 - 1418) that many prostitutes (also from all kinds of countries) "served" the "guests", it will also have been the case in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

That is, there were many prostitutes, and where there are prostitutes, there are not only pimps, but also a demimonde mafia. And that's who Jesus was up against.

66. avoidance of error (see p. 38 m): The priest always prays in the consecration of the Catholic mass that this happens "for the forgiveness of sins". This means, then, that it is assumed that "sins" (or even mistakes) are first made. Once quite apart from whether the "primal banquet" took place at all: If this Jesus here had not brought us more, i.e. such "forgiveness", then our religion would be no better than all other religions, which were also only concerned with this forgiveness of mistakes. No and again no! This craftsman and businessman Jesus was concerned with "avoidance"! Everything else is the pure decadence of his concern!

67 Research on the "historical or real Jesus" (see p. 50 o): Since the middle of the 18th century (Hermann Samuel Reimarus, 1694- 1768 and David Friedrich Strauß, 1808 - 74) there has been research on the historical or historical Jesus, i.e. the Jesus who really once existed. It has long been obvious that the Jesus reported in the New Testament could not have been like that. The miraculous stories of the New Testament are not only implausible, but they are also reported in the same or similar way by any gods or sons of gods in other religions. All of this looks very suspiciously like plagiarism or even syncretism (i.e. "mishmash of beliefs"). For more on this, see the Google keyword "Historical Jesus".

I think the question of the real Jesus is by no means unimportant. For what if we "run after" a false Jesus, i.e. a phantom that is only a more or less empty shell, and thus also "run past" the real Jesus who would really bring something? I don't know how others think, but for me that would be unbearable. And the fact is that the traditional Jesus, the Jesus we know, has largely run down. Let's just calculate how many inhabitants a city has and how many of them attend church services more or less regularly. Or above all. How many young people adhere to the marriage morals of the churches? Doesn't everyone do what they like? And is that really so good, are people really happy with it? I now think that we really need another Jesus - and one that is also plausible to the best of our knowledge and conscience. And I think there is one - and I have also come across it. So I'm taking care of him!

An important representative of modern enlightened Jesus research was the Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann (1884 - 1976), who is particularly known for his idea of "demythologisation". This means that the Old Testament in particular was written in a world where people did not think scientifically in our modern sense, but mythologically, i.e. where many things were explained as the work of spirits and gods. Demythologisation now means that we have to translate this thinking in mythologies into our scientific thinking today in order to understand what "they wanted" back then. This is also connected to the fact that the authors of the New Testament, for example, were not concerned with depicting the reality of Jesus' life and work, but that they wanted to "produce" faith, attuned to the (mythological) thinking of that time. That is why they wrote about such stories as the virgin birth, miracles and resurrection, which are basically incomprehensible to us today; people simply needed something like that at the time, at least that is what the Bible authors thought. Bultmann called the Jesus who emerged the "Jesus of the proclamation" or also the "Jesus of the kerygma" ("kerygma" = "proclamation" or also "propaganda"). Theologians also refer to him as "Christ". In contrast, he called the real Jesus the "historical <or historical> Jesus", or "Jesus" for short. The problem is that this historical Jesus is not known, but only the "Jesus of the Kerygma", so that in our preaching today we can only proclaim a Jesus who basically did not exist. A very difficult subject: Are we therefore condemned to lie in our proclamation? At least some events in the New Testament could be attributed to the "historical Jesus". But this Jesus thus remains rather "colourless", as Pope Benedict XVI writes in his Jesus book, so he too prefers to stick to the Jesus of the Kerygma and tries to prove that this Jesus is historical after all. Rudolf Bultmann, too, is said to have recanted his theories on his deathbed that our churches proclaim a Jesus who never existed.

This discussion about the "Jesus or Christ of the Kerygma" and the "historical Jesus" gave me no peace, and so I think I was open to a historical Jesus whose concern was the man-woman problem and who had come across glaring grievances here and presented a concept of how these grievances could be overcome in his time. In any case, this Jesus is really not colourless. Why Rudolf Bultmann, Albert Schweitzer (see notes 54 and 139) and Pope Benedict did not also come up with this Jesus could simply be explained by the fact that they are, after all, "study-room scholars" (see note 35).

Note: In the meantime (February 2021) I have written the text "It is all quite different ..." - and in this text I have reported further findings. I would now like to save myself the work and revise everything and refer to the more recent references on the subject, for example to note 133 and above all to the text "It is all quite different ..." itself. Incidentally: In (Protestant) research, a distinction is made between the historical and the historical Jesus. As far as I remember from my lectures, the (Catholic) professor did not make this distinction, for him the term "historical" was the translation of the word "historical". I also do not make the distinction here, especially since this distinction between Pauline ideology and Jesus ideology is, so to speak, superfluous. For Pauline ideology is about the very questionable Christ of the New Testament or even the fantasy Christ of Kerygma, and the historical or historic Jesus is about the Jesus who in all probability really existed.

68 "Religious-historical method" (see p. 50 o): German Protestant professors of theology came up with this theory in the first years of the 20th century. It states that the Book of Genesis in the Bible reflects important revolutions of humanity in the Mediterranean area around 2000 - 1000 BC, in the Bible there are now stories of concrete people about this. Human sacrifices (mostly the first son was sacrificed) were replaced by animal sacrifices. In the Bible we find the story of Abraham wanting to sacrifice his son Isak (or rather having to sacrifice him at the behest of idol priests), but replacing the son sacrifice with an animal sacrifice. We know the story. It was, so to speak, a revolt against the idolatry that had prevailed until then towards a human God. See also note 137.

I also see the Adam and Eve narrative in this sense (see from p. 22 u and note 31): the cultic prostitution common in idolatry is condemned as "service to the devil" and replaced by the unique love and partnership of a man and a woman wanted by a new God. However, this change does not happen so easily and so quickly, the historical Jesus had to deal with it because the problem was not yet satisfactorily solved in his time, and we today also still have to deal with it, we know the problems.

69. "The Name Eve" by Jan Heller" (see page 23 m): I will gladly send a copy of this work to those who are interested!

70. monogamy as a natural predisposition of man (p. 1 o): The Viennese psychologist Prof. Gerti Senger is of the opinion that man is not monogamous by nature and that monogamy is a cultural achievement. Here it is now assumed that it is exactly the other way round, i.e. that man is actually monogamous by nature. Inevitably, depending on the basic assumption of what man is, pedagogy also looks completely different! If I assume that humans are not monogamous, I will inevitably have to educate children in a way that is hostile to the body if they are to be monogamous sooner or later, because everything that has to do with the body encourages them to violate the "monogamy commandment". And I will also avoid conversations about sexuality as much as possible, especially with children. If, on the other hand, my basic assumption is that man is monogamous by nature, then I don't need to be hostile to the body at all in my pedagogy and can also talk about everything that serves monogamy and everything that doesn't serve it, because I know that he eagerly absorbs everything he needs for the success of his monogamy. At the same time, there are no more problems at all in giving young people the right tips on how to do it right with monogamy in their lives. So it is in this sense that I am committed!

71 Nudity is disgusting! (p. 19 o): For parents who want to raise their daughters to be truly monogamous, such an attitude on the part of their daughters should be a warning sign. For what is freighted with disgust and shame before puberty, becomes just interesting and fascinating during puberty and especially during the first infatuation. And if there is a blockage to the fun of harmless nudity, it means that the prospect of sexual intercourse becomes interesting and fascinating, and the conversion into practice is virtually sought after.

72. nerve cells in the vagina and orgasm (p. 10 quite below): I see myself here as a man as a neutral third party, because there are very emotionally charged views and probably also experiences of women here. A very plausible argument for the thesis that there are no nerve cells in the vagina, at least none that have a particular influence on orgasm, is the use of tampons. For if there were nerve cells in the vagina, such use would be impossible, or at least difficult, because they would always be perceived as foreign bodies.

But perhaps this is a better and more convincing reason for renouncing or refusing penetration: There are situations of falling in love when you feel "madly" attracted to a person, your whole body is simply on fire, ablaze with flames.... You (or woman) are completely defenceless and ready for anything the other person wants. Well, for a girl (or a woman) the "pussy" is also on fire. But now please think about the "inside"! Nothing is on fire there, everything is calm. So why not "extinguish" only that which is on fire - and leave that untouched, where there is nothing at all? And you can also talk to your partner about leaving "that" alone when it comes to the longed-for "skin contact". I think a really good person will have full understanding here and stick to the agreements - especially since "he" will also come to his "relaxation" during the "skin contact" .... And if "he" is downstairs, nothing will "fall" on "her", so there will be no problems, and "he" will only be affected by something that comes "from him" ....

73 "Explosive abstinence in twos, threes, fours ..." (p. 42 quite above): I know, a sensitive topic because of possible rapes. Therefore, someone should only get involved in something like this together with people with whom one can really talk reasonably - and never under the influence of alcohol. It is very difficult for me to give good advice here, because it is precisely spontaneous decisions that have their special charm. And I think that many people here are also very honest and already say what they really want.

74 Hostility towards the body (page 4 above): If this indifference to the point of contempt towards such a value as virginity is not hostility towards the body par excellence! For obviously the young ladies (as well as all young people in general) can do nothing else with their "body" and thereby with their sexuality than "sex" - no matter what comes of it!

75 Rousseau (pages 5-30): It is interesting to note that Rousseau had five children whom he could not bring up himself, but who were placed in a foundling home. So theory and practice were very far apart in Rousseau's case!

But more about Rousseau:

When I mentioned Rousseau's concern, I already pointed out that the authors of the Bible's prehistory, like him, also wanted to return to the origin, each from the point of view of his own culture. And the sexual intercourse of prehistoric man with a prostitute is not only typical "non-monogamous sex", but also an act between the innocence of natural man and the depravity of civilised man. In principle - as far as I can see - the Bible's prehistory and Rousseau have different views here: The Bible considers man to be naked and monogamous from his origins, for Rousseau man is rather polygamous from his origins, and he is not interested in clothing at all. The Bible, as far as I can see, is more enlightened here, in contrast to Rousseau, who is usually seen as one of the fathers of the Enlightenment. And that is probably also the catch of the concept presented here, namely that behind the Bible lies the more real and genuine Enlightenment. That simply does not fit into people's minds ...

76. Jesus as an ethical educator and Paul with the idea of the second Adam: There is a theory that Jesus was an itinerant preacher without a sustainable concept and that only Paul made a "proper religion" out of Jesus' ideas. Basically, however, Jesus' ideas hardly played a role after Paul. This means that today we are not "Jesuists" (or "Jesuans") at all, but "Paulists" or "Christians" in the sense that Paul invented the "Christ". One can also see this in the sense that Paul laid the foundation for a (late antique) mystery religion from the ideas of Jesus, while this house builder Jesus saw himself as the second Adam or also as a prophet in the sense that it was necessary to overcome prostitution and sexual abuse and that the harmony of the partnership of man and woman in the unity of body and soul would become "fashionable" again. Therefore, he was not at all concerned with a religion in the usual sense, but with a very practical moral renewal in the form of a "movement for a new attitude to life" (which was then largely lost sight of by Paul's "refashioning"). My opinion on this now is: Possibly there was something like a vacuum in those days with regard to a religion that was at least somewhat reasonable. And Paul's religion obviously fitted perfectly into this vacuum, and Paul was also "a man of great work and organisational talent", because it was not for nothing that many people converted to it. But today it is different, this religion of Paul has somehow worn out, at least in our society of prosperity and progress. Many modern people simply can no longer do anything with revelations of a God and with a mystery religion resulting from them. In contrast, the ideas of Jesus are timeless and in a certain way also "cross-religious" and even - depending on one's point of view - atheistic, and I think that a "movement according to the ideas of Jesus" - properly presented - would have the chances par excellence especially today.

Paul is not discussed here because of the mysteries associated with him (one can even take the word literally in the sense of "mysteries"). In the end, alarming developments arose from this.

The Talmud philologist Hyam Maccoby also clearly describes Paul's disastrous role in his book "The Mythmaker". And even if the very negative view of Paul should not be true here, it remains that he decisively changed the message and the cause of Jesus.

But here are quotes from Maccoby's book "The Mythmaker":

P. 188: "IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS we have been able to reconstruct, on the basis of the NT alone, a picture of Paul very different from that which has been handed down. We have seen that when Paul presents himself as a profoundly educated Pharisee, he is not telling the truth. On the contrary, we have reason to suspect that Paul dealt with his failure to achieve the recognised rank of Pharisee by creating a synthetic religion out of Jewish and pagan elements, and that the paganism deeply rooted in his concept of Jesus speaks more for an extra-Jewish than a Jewish origin of the same. Furthermore, we have noticed that the impression of unanimity between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Jesus movement, so assiduously cultivated by the author of Acts, is a fiction and that there is much evidence, both in Paul's letters and in Acts itself, that there was a fierce conflict between the Pauline and Jerusalem conceptions of Jesus' mission. After this conflict had smouldered for years, it finally led to a complete rupture, at the end of which stood the founding of the thoroughly Paulist Christian Church, the organisational shell of a religion that was new in substance and separate from Judaism, whereas the Jerusalem Nazarenes by no means cut their ties with the latter, but considered themselves by their very nature believing Jews who additionally believed in the resurrection of Jesus, i.e. a Messiah figure who was human by nature." (Note: I would like to leave it open here how the church in Jerusalem came to believe in the resurrection, I can only imagine that the church could not come to terms with the death of Jesus and therefore still regarded him as "alive, albeit in a different form". It is possible that Paul had heard about this and used this belief as an opportunity to make an apparition out of it on the way to Damascus).

P. 194: In this quote Maccoby also addresses the cause of anti-Semitism - and I think how Maccoby sees Paul's role, for instance, is very plausible. However, Maccoby sees everything else politically, whereas I see it only indirectly politically; in my opinion, the problem is much more the interpersonal relationships:

"The belief in a millennial kingdom on earth with Jesus as king at the end of time inspired numerous political insurrectionary movements within Christianity and threatened the position of power of pope and emperor: for these ideas include that justice on earth must be attainable and that God's kingdom is to be a realised utopia on earth, not bliss in another world. The role of the Antichrist, of the worldly power, which is to confront the then appearing Jesus redivivus (Note. : "resurrected") was usually assigned to the Jews, which led to populist end-time movements often being viciously anti-Semitic ... ; but then and there the actual oppressors of the poor were identified with the Antichrist, and on such occasions the political aims stemming from Judaism and Judeo-Christianity threatened to turn Christianity into a "liberation religion", quite unlike Paul's theology, which set its sights on the world to come and always functioned in the interests of the rulers and the continuation of existing conditions. "

P. 226 ff: "Paul was the greatest fantasy writer of all. He created the Christian myth by deifying Jesus, a Jewish messiah figure whose real plans had run the gamut of Jewish political utopianism. Paul reforged Jesus' death into a cosmic sacrifice in which the forces of darkness sought to overpower the power of the good, but against their will only brought about a salvation event. This also transforms the Jews, as Paul's writings explain, into instruments of salvation who know nothing of their function; their wickedness, with which they brought about Jesus' death, strikes out for universal salvation, because this death was precisely what humanity needed for its salvation. The combination of wickedness and blindness described here is the exact analogy to the Baldur myth of Norse mythology, in which wickedness is personified by the evil god Loki, blindness by the blind god Hödur, both of which together bring about the salvific death of Baldur, who alone can bring about a good harvest that saves from universal starvation.

Paul took over the cosmic drama of the struggle between good and evil from gnosis, and therefore he also took over the Jews as a component of the drama, i.e. as the representatives of cosmic evil. But by combining the myth of gnosis with the myth of the mystery religions (which were not themselves hostile to Jews), he intensified and intensified the anti-Semitism already present in gnosis. The Jews did not simply remain the opponents of that figure of light who had descended from heaven, but became the executors of the cosmic sacrifice through which alone the visitor from the world of light can bring redemption. Thus the Jews merged with the dark figures who in myths bring about that death of gods which alone can bring about salvation - with Seth, Mot and Loki; and the stage is open for the long imaginary career of the Jews in the Christian imagination as the people of the devil. Whatever Paul took from Judaism to further polish his myth - the historicising-religious element that set Jesus' death in a world-historical panorama - only reinforced the anti-Semitism that came out of it, for now there was a streak of usurpation in the Pauline myth, a tendency to blacken the Jewish witness for the purpose of justifying the Christian self-superimposition of the "Abrahamic promise". Whatever the Jews had encountered in history up to that point was now couched as prefiguring their central role, namely the murder of the Lamb of God, a role I have explored in more detail in my >Holy Executioner<; they were cut off - in Christian ideology - from their prophets, who were now considered the forerunners of Christians and, much like Jesus, had been hounded to death by the Jews.

The myth prefabricated by Paul later unfolded an image-rich life in the Gospels, which were written under the influence of his ideas for use in his church. A rounded, novel-like narrative of mythological depth is there fleshed out on the basis of historical fragments of material, if these are suitable for letting a melodrama of good and evil unroll. The powerful image of Judas Iscariot emerges: a person chosen by fate or even by his victim Jesus to carry out the evil deed, possessed by Satan and fulfilling his evil role under inner compulsion - a perfect embodiment of the role of the holy executioner, designated to carry out his blood deed and yet cursed for its execution. In this, Judas fills his role on the personal level, the Jewish people - in the Gospel myth - on the collective: by being alternately afflicted by blindness or wickedness and, at the climax of the narrative in the Barabbas scene, demanding Jesus' crucifixion and at the same time taking responsibility for this sacrifice by chanting: "His blood be upon us and upon our children!" (Mt 27:25). What had been only an outline of a myth in Paul's letters was now shaped and given narrative quality, an instrument of cultural indoctrination and a vehicle of indestructible childhood impressions when children get to hear the story.

Thus, the myth created by Paul was set on its track and began to traverse the world: a narrative that brought many a comfort to humanity in despair, but also produced all manner of evil.

Out of his own anguish and despair, Paul created his myth. His belief that he had received it from Jesus himself, now in heaven, obscured his own creatorship. The misunderstandings he fostered and nurtured about his own origins kept New Testament readers from separating the Pauline myth from the historical facts about Jesus, about the Jerusalem church, about Paul's adventures clashing personally with his contemporaries. His character was much more colourful than Christian piety would have us believe; his real life corresponds more to a picaresque novel than to a familiar vita of a saint. But from the religious influences whose precipitates haunted his brain he forged an amalgam rich in imagery which, whether to its benefit or detriment, became the central imaginative basis of Western culture."

The question naturally arises as to why Paul eventually died a martyr's death if he was, after all, only an agent of an anti-Jesus clique and was basically not behind Jesus' commitment at all.

I think that precisely because of his martyrdom, everything could have been quite different: For example, that he really did honestly believe in the Jesus he had created for himself. We have to be aware that Paul had learned everything he knew about Jesus at second hand, so to speak, if we disregard the revelations through Jesus, in which one can believe or not. And among the people from whom he got his knowledge of Jesus, most were certainly of good will and had told Paul exactly how they had experienced Jesus and what he wanted - of course as they had understood him. But there were probably also people among the informants who were emissaries of the demimonde mafia and who had anything but an interest in the commitment of the real Jesus and who influenced Paul in their sense. Especially with the topic addressed here, it is difficult to distinguish truth from lies, even today. How easy it is to tell Jesus that the prostitutes (i.e. the "sinners") always complain when they come across a person like Jesus who talks to them nicely and tries to understand them, and that they have taken advantage of his good nature and lulled him to their senses. But that in reality the prostitutes are quite different. "They are too lazy to work, they like to fuck, and they do it for the money - and in the end they are all cunning and mendacious. We are familiar with such attitudes today. Out of all this confusion of information came what we know from Paul today. And Paul had been committed to "this faith of his" for his whole life and identified himself with it, because he considered it better than the commitment of Jesus, not least because of his own personal experiences. And we must always bear in mind that Jesus was not yet as important as he is today and was therefore not yet considered untouchable. Therefore, Paul had no qualms about "borrowing" from other religions as he found them good. Moreover, what chances would Paul have had with regard to his death sentence? Would they have believed his hypocrisy about his conversion, even if it was only a sham? I doubt it, because he had really convincingly stood up for the Christian faith as he understood it, or as he had made it up for himself. So he would have been certain of martyrdom in any case. And finally, there is also something like honour, that is, that one stands by what one fights for - even unto death.

However, Hyam Maccoby is of the opinion that Paul did not die a martyr's death at all, that it is all just a pious legend. For more on this and on the discord between Paul and the Jewish Christians and the "thugs and ruffians of the high priest", see "Paul" in the Online Encyclopaedia, Part 2.

In order to make accessible to readers how Maccoby thinks of the reason for Paul's conversion, I quote here the relevant passage (p. 112):

"As he pursued the followers of Jesus, Saul may have perceived Jesus more and more as a figure who seemed strangely familiar to him, responding to a soul need that he had held down without double bottoms under the pressure of Jewish ratiocination and the Jewish sense of awareness and truthfulness. Above all, the image of Jesus slowly dying on the cross must have inflamed his powerful imagination. For this image must have irresistibly reminded him of the iconography of the god Attis in its manifold manifestations, which he had encountered at every turn in Cilicia - the hanged god whose bleeding, abused body made the fields fertile and whose mysteries brought miraculous renewal to the souls of his believers who had been whipped into a holy frenzy. It is significant that Paul's imagination later repeatedly revolved around the Deuteronomy passage discussed above, which, as Paul understood it, was about the curse that should attach to the body of a hanged man.

At that time, of course, such thoughts had not yet entered the full light of his consciousness. Saul had tried to lead a spiritually very undemanding life as a policeman, since his hopes of attaining a respected rank as a spiritual Pharisee leader had been dashed. But this could not permanently silence his inner turmoil; and when his anguish of soul finally triggered a visionary seizure on the road to Damascus, a figure that had long been rumbling in his unconscious took the centre of his inner disturbance: the Hanged God, the focus of guilt and hope at the same time. By identifying this figure with Jesus, whose followers he had been persecuting until that very second, Saul gave meaning to the meaninglessness into which his life had previously sunk. Instead of being the hireling of a collaborating high priest who tortured people for money, he now suddenly saw himself as a person of historical significance, which he would eventually attain - he who had persecuted the dying and resurrected God could now, through this very guilt, change into the role of his main proclaimer, from Saul to Paul. This sudden change from the deepest depravity to the utmost spiritual liberation and atonement became the main motive of the new religion which Paul began to develop starting from that vision which had singled him out from the whole of humanity and called him. -"

In any case, Paul was obviously not only very idealistic, but also very ambitious and quite self-absorbed, but all this is not a sin.

But in any case, one thing is true: whether maliciously or benevolently, Paul made something completely different out of Jesus' commitment than what the real Jesus wanted.

Note: The story of how an agent infiltrates and then rises very high, which perhaps was not originally intended, does seem very familiar to us Germans who are a little older. You remember the Chancellery spy Günter Guillaume, who was also "conspicuous for his great dedication to work and his organisational talent" (I am quoting here from the keyword "Günter Guillaume" in Wikipedia, the famous Chancellery spy who had infiltrated the SPD)? So there are definitely strong parallels to Paul here! And to the alleged witnesses at the Damascus experience? They were also sent along by the high priest and were therefore not neutral, so their testimony is worthless.

77. Caught off guard by their feelings: I know several of these cases which are very close to me because they always involve people who are basically very morally high. How could it happen that they of all people (and I'm thinking of girls in particular here) started "sex stories" that they never expected and would never have been expected to do, and that they felt very sorry for afterwards? The explanation is quite simple: because of their morality of shame, which they believed in rock-solidly and which they considered to be a perfect protection, so to speak, but which was nevertheless only a pseudo-morality, they always considered themselves to have such moral integrity (and they were also told this by their environment, especially by their parents) that they had never prepared themselves for "case X", i.e. for the case that things could turn out differently. So they had repressed and banished everything connected with love and sexuality from their thinking because it was supposedly something indecent or even immoral. But they, too, were living human beings and not immune to falling in love. So one day it comes - to whomever. And if the "person in question" doesn't do everything "wrong", he overcomes this morality of shame (which is, after all, only a pseudo-morality, because a real morality works completely differently) and he gets what he wants.

The "slipping away from high morals" could not be due to the pedagogy, for what had not been done to prevent precisely such overreaching? And - this is the thesis of this engagement here - not everything had been done: the moral model on which the education of young people in (sexual) morality was based, namely that of shame, was simply wrong or unsuitable for real morality: young people had been educated in the pseudo-morality of shame and not in real morality. And shame and real morality are two different things and have only a very limited connection with each other.

On the subject of how strong emotional impulses can really trick reason, which then adds to the problem of pedagogy in the case of infatuation, a professor told us a little story during our studies: a police squad suddenly arrives in a class or in a family and orders a person to come along. This person is taken to a prison on some pretext or other and told to wait. Our person is not aware of any guilt, trusts that everything will work out and otherwise surrenders to fate. In the evening, food is served and a guard gives our person a plate of soup - but whispers that the soup is poisoned. Our person believes this and does not touch the soup. The next day the same, again nothing else except the allegedly poisoned soup, and again on the third day. Our person's hunger becomes stronger and stronger and he starts to think whether this is all just a test of believing something and that the soup is in fact not poisoned at all. So the thoughts revolve more and more around the fact that the soup is all right and can therefore be eaten - and our person is finally fully convinced that the soup is not poisoned and eats it. The (hunger) feeling has thus not only just influenced the mind, but has, so to speak, taken it by surprise, i.e. completely turned it inside out.

In this sense we can now also see an infatuation: The feeling overturns the mind - and (not only) the young person throws overboard his morals that applied until now and does something that was unimaginable for him without this emotional excitement and that he would always have felt as an impertinent imposition if someone had suggested to him that it might one day come to that.

The idea of this concept is that the young person is not taught to be hostile to the body, but to enjoy harmless paradisiacal experiences - and that he wants to experience them first and that he becomes suspicious (that he thinks critically) if a partner does not want them and he cannot even talk about them with him. Because if he were "all right", he would have to want to have such experiences and talk about them. See for example the fun of a father with his daughter with naturalness and with harmless paradise experiences (see note 42) and then also with "natural drugs" (see in the booklet page 53).

78. Typical Catholic monogamy: I call monogamy this for once, which is not a real one because it does not regard the various premarital sexual relationships as harmful to monogamy. Some may protest here, because it is precisely the Catholic Church that regards these relationships as a sin and therefore also condemns them. I can say that this is pure theory, in practice these premarital experiences do not interest the Church. I refer to the post-synodal apostolic exhortation "Amoris laetitia". But above all, with my commitment to genuine monogamy, I have so far always hit concrete, especially with my fellow Catholics, who did not know what I was talking about at all. If other Christian denominations now also practice this "typical Catholic monogamy" (and also non-Christians), I still think I can call them Catholic, because it is precisely the Catholic Church, which is supposed to be a role model after all, that sets a bad example. By the way: At the time of Jesus, sexual intercourse was considered a sign of marriage, so it was also marriage-forming in addition to the promise of mutual partnership. Therefore, prostitutes were "adulteresses" because they kept starting new marriages and then "breaking them off" again. So we can assume that Jesus was thinking in the same sense that I am advocating here when he spoke of marriage: sexual intercourse and marriage are the same thing. In contrast, we and also the Catholic Church have the Roman understanding of marriage, there sexual intercourse was no longer considered a sign of marriage, but the document of the censor. If we want to be followers of Jesus, however, we have to return to the attitude of the Bible and of Jesus. Well, we ourselves can no longer do anything about our own marriage, but we should at least work for the marital morality of those who still have marriage ahead of them, i.e. young people.

79 Jesus and sexual morality: Theologians generally doubt that Jesus cared about sexual morality. They think that with the best will in the world nothing can be found in Jesus. I can only say that the problem here is what these theologians understand by sexual morality. They actually always understand something with "shame" - and of course Jesus didn't talk about it and therefore didn't make any rules about kleindungs, because shame is only a pseudo-morality and therefore in a certain way also hypocrisy. And as we know, he had something against the hypocrites. Real morality, on the other hand, has something to do with men's attitudes towards women, as these here were not only sometimes, but very often in his time, not only contemptuous but even downright criminal. This was then also the subject of his commitment. So Jesus was very much concerned about sexual morality, but a real one and not a sham.

80. penetration without marriage or even without a marriage certificate = slut or also whore? If I am so crass here, it is not because I want to offend or even insult those who "long ago " once engaged in sex without marriage out of some ignorance and naivety or even stupidity - and now continue to do so because there is simply no plausible reason to change it. I can only repeat myself: If there is any blame here, it surely concerns those who had done nothing about the ignorance and naivety of the people in question when the option was still there. The reason for the harsh words is above all that I would like to motivate those who have not yet had sex to first experience and enjoy exclusively their skin (the largest organ of the human being!) and their body before marriage. Unfortunately, at least for the time being, this only seems to work if non-marital sex is seen as very negative. And then, from experience, there are also many girls "with sex experience" who ridicule and mock those girls who have not yet had such "experience" as unemancipated and frigid wallflowers that nobody wants - and thus instil complexes in them. I would really like to kick them in the shins with this very negative comparison, because you simply don't do "something like that" ...

Students have sometimes objected that I would be wrong to compare myself to a whore, because the characteristic of a whore is that she takes money "for it", whereas a normal emancipated woman or girl does not take money for it (or so I say: does it for free). I always counter that they should think about why they are being talked into such shit (the word really fits here!). Yes, why? The reason is that men tell them such things in order to enjoy free sex, especially with young girls. Yes, how nice and convenient that the girls then believe this and participate voluntarily and without payment, so to speak, "consensually" (as it is so nicely called in officialese)!

And about the word "penetration": I have been criticised that this word has been taken from the language of the military and is thus reminiscent of an act of war, i.e. a macho term. Bsser is "for it" the term "taking in". But I can't make friends with that one at all, because it sounds like "cleaning rags" - then I'd rather use the term "penetration".

81. High moral potential and pseudo-morality of shame - and in addition something so that real morality is not misunderstood: I see a very vivid parallel here in the problem surrounding stomach ulcers: until not long ago it was considered a foregone conclusion that the cause of these ulcers was over-acidity of the stomach as well as psychological factors such as stress. Bacteria were ruled out because it was thought that bacteria simply could not live in the environment of such an aggressive acid as stomach acid. Then in 1983, two Australian doctors (Barry Marshall and John Warren) found out that the cause of stomach ulcers was bacteria after all, which was finally named "Heliobacter pylori". It took another six years for the two doctors to come to the conclusion that not all people who have these bacteria develop stomach ulcers. After all, not all people who have these bacteria in them will develop stomach ulcers, because the bacteria cannot take effect due to fortunate circumstances and the avoidance of risk factors, for example. And the parallels to our problem of real monogamy? As I keep emphasising, I see the cause in the fact that girls in particular start sexual relationships that later turn out to be less than happy, that they put their high moral potential into the pseudo-morality of shame instead of into a real morality. This is then associated with changing sexual partners, which thus renders real monogamy obsolete. The deepest reason for this is that in our culture, it is precisely this pseudo-morality that they are taught, so it is a question of pedagogy. This connection is not easy to recognise - just as with stomach ulcers - because happy circumstances such as loving care from parents, a strong religious attitude (with the associated mysticism and cult, but also with the associated fears) and also a lack of opportunity, for example thanks to a high ethical environment (so also no access to "bad films" and only contact with "decent people") and quickly finding the right partner, simply mean that there is no "outbreak" of "less happy sexual relationships". But they still happen often enough. The comparison with stomach ulcers is true even down to the details: It used to be thought that it affected the poor and the underprivileged, i.e. only "the others in other social classes", but it is obvious, if one takes a closer look, that the "disease" occurs in all social classes. Hence here: The reason is the bogus morality of shame! If young people were educated to a real morality of monogamy from the outset instead of this, everything would be much safer, less complicated, less risky and certainly more harmonious and conducive to a conscious life.

Note: How such a "disease of infatuation" begins, which is already a force of nature against which one is powerless once it occurs, see under note 77.

82. doubled: In the case of nuclear power plants, double safety may make sense, not only double safety, but even eightfold safety! We saw this with the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, namely that "double safety" is not sufficient and how sensible our German safety standards are here. But "double safety" can also mean that we don't trust one single safety after all and therefore want to keep another and above all an old one, which has ultimately proved to be unsuitable, if it really had come down to it, then still prefer to keep it "for safety's sake". But an accumulation of no real collateral ultimately does not provide any real collateral: zero times zero remains zero, as the Cologne carnival hit so beautifully puts it. And what's more: sometimes securities also hinder each other or even exclude each other (what then: pleasure in nudity and then again swimming trunks and bikini?) and so several securities can prevent the effectiveness of a really good security. In this sense, we no longer rely on swimming trunks and bikinis as security, but on a sensible mental attitude. The fact that (especially young) people then sometimes use these "accessories" of an ineffectual morality is another matter. After all, it depends not only on one's own attitude what one does, but one's fellow human beings must also understand it, so that they don't misunderstand it. Therefore, swimming trunks and bikinis or even burqas and caftans can be very useful. However, it must be clear to the user that these accessories only provide imperfect protection and can therefore only be of a temporary nature.

83 Ulrich Becker and the story "Jesus and the Sinner" (also "Susanna's Story" or "Story of the Sinner") and how it was "defused": The author U. B. also comes to the conclusion that this narrative actually happened (p. 3): "No matter how questionable the external testimony may appear, there may have been repeated attempts to banish this passage from the NT, also for internal reasons: In the end, the pericope was convincing because of its content, and so it remained in the NT. For here one found spirit of the spirit of Jesus, yes, perhaps even more, here one found such spirit particularly purely preserved. No wonder that art and literature took to it with special love, that it often became the epitome of Jesus' proclamation even outside Christianity, and that even critical theologians could not escape its impression." However, Becker is also a typical study-room theologian and so he cannot recognise the change in interpretation of this narrative (or also pericope) and thus its defusing: From a narrative from the "milieu", which was about the liberation of a woman from a criminal situation, to a theological story of forgiveness, which is indeed very beautiful, but which completely lacks the explosiveness of the most likely original context.

84 Marc Gibbs: "The Virgin and the Priest". I did not use this book in my work, but it is part of the background, the author sees Jesus more like John the Baptist as a prophet. He also has a realistic explanation of who Jesus' biological father was. Be that as it may, this "fact" could of course not be included in the "proclamation of Jesus". The story of how the archangel appeared to the Virgin Mary fitted much better.

85. Jan Heller ("The Name of Eve", Archiv orientalni, Prague 26, 1958) was not an "anti-theologian", as far as I know. But I think that in the work on the name "Eva" there is already a very critical approach, which Heller, however, again as far as I know, did not pursue further - for whatever reasons. In principle, Heller has demystified the whole doctrine of original sin in the churches with his work.

86. confirmatio: I am using an approach here that I came up with in my diploma thesis in dogmatics on the meaning of the Sacrament of Confirmation. I tried to translate the meaning of the words in the original text into today's language. See the treatise by Dr. Karl Schlütz: "Isaias 11,2 (the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit) in the first four Christian centuries" in: Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen Breslau/Münster, XI. Volume, 4th issue, 1932). The work was rated "good", so with that I have confirmation that I am at least not completely wrong.

When I look at the text more closely and think about it and consider that there was probably both a Jesus and a Pauline tradition in the early church, then this text clearly belonged to a Jesus tradition!

87. Pimps: Let's talk about prostitution in societies where it is forbidden. It does exist, something like prostitution has something to do with an inner attitude of people, and it is not or only very difficult to get a grip on it with laws. And because prostitution is so (life-) dangerous for women, especially in such societies, they need "protectors", i.e. pimps. And they adapt the harsh laws "realistically and humanely" to their respective lives by making sure that the law enforcers don't look too closely and thus leave their "protégés" alone - by bribing them with money, for example. But of course this comes at a price for the women, for example, these "protectors" get some of the money that the women earn through their "profession". Depending on the situation, the women must also be available for "free sex" for those among the "law enforcers" who are susceptible to it (as is sometimes the case today, see note 63), as well as for the pimps themselves, of course. And if a woman should be "bitchy" here and not do what and how the men want, then she is shown what happens when the "protection" no longer works, also as a warning for the other women. In those days, a trap was set for a woman so that she would be caught "in the act", as the law of the time stipulated, so that she would have to pay for her "bitchiness" with her life. Whether the law enforcement officers knew or at least suspected what was going on is ultimately irrelevant. In any case, no one dared to uncover this swamp, after all, it was also dangerous for the "uncoverers", it was a matter of life and death here (see note 34), and how should this "uncovering" happen? Here, so to speak, there was a conspiracy - albeit presumably unspoken - of perpetrators and bystanders at work, in which all those involved were diabolically bound together!

88. The story of the sinner according to John 8 and why this story is probably truer than the rest of John's Gospel and the New Testament in general: The story of Jesus saving the sinner from stoning was added to John's Gospel later, but - according to the Jesuit Professor Rupert Lay - for this very reason it is probably truer than the rest of John's Gospel. I can no longer remember his reasoning in detail, but I reproduce mine here with the background of the "unmasking" of the New Testament in the text "The Criminal Case of Jesus": this narrative was simply too reminiscent of the concern of the real Jesus in the construction of the Gospels in what I consider to be the original sense. Therefore it was omitted, because it was precisely the memory of the real Jesus that was to be suppressed by the Pauline ideology. Even when the Gospel of John was written around 100 AD by whoever, it was not included in this Gospel at first. But because Jesus was so explosive in this narrative, because he was once a man who was the great exception among all other men, who really stood up for women, it was still remembered by the people. It had been passed on again and again from mothers to daughters and from daughters to daughters, etc. according to the motto: "There was once a man who really stood up for us women, but we know what happened to him. When the Gospel of John appeared, its truthfulness was measured "by the people" according to whether it also contained this story. And because it was not included, it was hastily inserted into it afterwards - speculating that the original meaning had been forgotten - now with a different meaning, namely that of Jesus' mercy and forgiveness and that we should take it as an example. So here again the real Jesus was defused - and that is how it has remained until today, at least for the time being.

In any case, this story is a wonderful example of how Jesus was concerned with a living morality, which is most human and which was directed against the ossified morality of his time. But more important than this attitude of Jesus is, in my opinion, the original meaning, that Jesus obviously saw through the criminal machinations in connection with women and stood up for women. So that would be my reasoning why it is more likely to be true than all the rest of John's Gospel.

And after reading the two books by Maccoby ("The Mythmaker") and Lindtner ("Mysteries about Jesus Christ"), I even think that this sin story is truer than all the rest of the New Testament. See also notes 63 and 65.

Of course: I justify my approach primarily with this story - and all those who do not like this approach at least try to cast doubt on the truth of this story or even its identification as a story of punishment from the demimonde, or even portray it as irrelevant. However, I think that these critics should ask themselves whether there is really a scientific interest in the person of Jesus behind their critical stance or whether this identification as a commitment to a valorisation of women simply does not suit them because they are ultimately much more on the side of the criminals who brought Jesus to the cross and falsified him afterwards?

Again, I point out that the attitude towards women is "just" the height of contempt for women, which is obviously common in Jesus' time, see under "contemporary history".

89. "about the criminal structures at that time": The classic story of how a woman is to be punished by death for adultery, which almost succeeds, is the story of the beautiful Susanna in the appendix of the Book of Daniel of the Old Testament - and there it is also explained that the background is a criminal one. So two "elders", outwardly honourable "superiors" of Jewish society, want to have sex with the beautiful Susanna, a chaste and God-fearing wife, and present her with the alternative of either "doing their bidding", i.e. having sex with them, or if she refuses, that they will report her and sue her for having been observed having sex with a young man (who, however, "unfortunately" escaped). I think it's an exciting crime story in which there is also a separate interrogation to find out the truth, and also two death sentences. In any case, it is worthwhile to read this story carefully (it can be found in Catholic Bibles and on the internet) in order to better understand the thinking at that time.

Why is it that no one has the idea that the background of the story of the sinner in John 8 is also a criminal one? First of all, let us look at the legal relationships of the time: Therefore, these briefly: Sex outside of marriage was considered idolatry by the Jews at that time; after all, cultic prostitution was part of the cult for the gods in many non-Jewish religions, and was therefore punished as idolatry, i.e. with death. The problem, however, is how to recognise who is having such sex with whom, so that there can even be an accusation and a trial? The rule was that the "culprits" had to be caught in the act by two (male!) witnesses. However, who had observed "something like that" in such detail, and also together with another witness, and who then runs straight to the "cadi" when he knows that this means the death penalty for the persons concerned? And who benefits from being so mean? So in practice, there were hardly ever such accusations and death sentences, even if there were plenty of such sex stories and even prostitution.

But when did charges and sentences happen? Presumably, this only happened when it was not a question of punishment for moral reasons, but when the laws were deliberately abused to blackmail women or to punish women who had not participated in such blackmail - just like in the Susanna story.

So that is how it will have been here in the condemnation and planned stoning of this sinner in John 8. Unlike Susanna, the woman had certainly had sex, she was probably a prostitute, but they had probably set a trap for her in order to have a reason to punish her - to warn her "colleagues" and all other women in general how they would fare if they did not go along with what the men or better pimps in the sex trade of that time wanted. For Jesus, this woman was only a victim, which is why he treated her so mildly. He was more concerned with the perpetrators in the background, that is, with the swamp behind it, with those who were the cause that such prostitutes existed in the first place. And for him, these perpetrators included not only the criminal accusers, but above all all those who always just look the other way and in addition teach young people false morals (or better, pseudo-morals), so that they slip into these "broken systems" again and again.

And in the process, he himself had to die in his commitment "against hypocrites, against sin, for love".

In any case, from this story and similar cases from cultures where adulteresses are stoned to death, one can now reconstruct the real Jesus very well, I think! The story is a little different in Jesus' case than in the Susanna story, but this much emerges when we think about this story more closely: the woman was not sentenced to be stoned because she had sinned, but rather because she had NOT gone along with what criminal men wanted her to do.

And since this was probably not an isolated case in an otherwise moral society, Jesus was committed to change. And such a change would have led to a real revolution. But nobody really wanted that, so Jesus had to be "taken out of the way".

Addition in summer 2020: In the meantime, I have come to the conclusion that both stories, i.e. the Susanna story in the appendix of the book of Daniel, and the sin story in John 8, are stories from the practice of the demimonde mafia: The Susanna story describes a failed attempt by men of the demimonde mafia to blackmail a woman into prostitution, and the sin story describes a failed attempt to punish with death a woman who had not submitted to the wishes of men of the demimonde mafia. Should I ever be embarrassed to do a book, I will rewrite everything ...and better from the start....

90. "Knacks of Nature": When visiting a farmer friend in East Prussia (in what is now Poland) who breeds pigs, I noticed the numerous rat holes around the barn and spoke to my friend about it. "Yes," he said, "unfortunately we have to live with these little animals. We do have dogs, and we need them to catch the occasional rat, but in general dogs are not suitable for hunting rats. Cats would be more suitable. But unfortunately our dogs don't get along with cats, we have tried to bring cats here, one has even come on its own, but the dogs always chase the cats and bite them to death. It's just no use."

I told this story to friends here in the west of Germany and one - obviously very wise - friend said that I should give my friend the tip to "foist" little kittens on the particularly sharp bitch, which she would then accept as a mother and raise - and the dogs would then also get along with these cats. At first my friend was sceptical whether this would work and he just didn't do it, probably he didn't have anyone who wanted to get rid of kittens, so I asked him about it again during another visit. And then when I visited him again, I noticed peacefully sunbathing dogs and cats outside his house - yes, he had done it the way my friend had said. And it had worked. Also, his farm was now largely free of rats.

Or another story: About 20 years ago, I had bought a cheap piece of land in the south of France on the Atlantic Ocean with an old supermarket, which I could easily convert with friends for holiday purposes. And since the rather large plot looked quite wild, I thought of planting trees and bushes to make it a bit like a park. This worked very well with the young plants, the "arbousiers", as the neighbours called them, which grew as weeds along the edges of the forest, but it didn't work at all with the small pine trees. Out of 25 little trees that I planted, only two came up. By chance I got into a conversation with a neighbour and he told me the "trick" with the pine trees. And of the 3 pine trees that I then planted, taking this "trick" into account, they all started to grow - and are now large, stately trees. If you want to know the trick, which is actually quite simple, please write to me. I will gladly pass it on!

And another story: If you have captured an escaped swarm of bees and prepared an ideal hive for it, you must not under any circumstances put the swarm into this hive, the bees would not accept it. But this is how it is done: You put a white board in front of the entrance opening and at the lower end of the board you put the bee swarm. If you are lucky, a few scout bees will march up the board to the opening and they will investigate the inside of the hive and they will march back to their mates and catch up with them. You can also help some bees "find" the hive with a spoon.

Why am I telling all this? Quite simply, when dealing with nature you must never give up, you just have to know the appropriate "tricks" (the word sounds a bit casual, but it is exactly the right word here). And if you know them and apply them accordingly, then even things are possible that would otherwise be considered simply impossible. I think it is the same with our human sexuality and especially with sexual education in terms of high morality, that is, a morality of true monogamy!

91. Outlook: Again and again: Barry Bennell, Harvey Weinstein, Rothenham, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Odenwald School, Catholic priests, Cologne Cathedral Plateau ...

But then again, there is often talk of sexism in a rather ridiculous way, for example when I think of the accusation about this poem "Avenidas" at the Alice Salomon University in Berlin.

In any case, all this is just the tip of the iceberg. For me, the "mother of all sexism" is that in our whole society, and by no means only in religions, girls are left stupid and ignorant with regard to real monogamy, and as a result they are virtually manipulated into questionable "relationships". This works quite easily and also looks very moral, sending young people with their highly moral potential towards a sham morality of shame and not talking. Soon it is hardly worth mentioning when "these questionable relationships" are finally presented to them as a sign of their right to sexual self-determination, which then also supposedly belong to the particularly successful emancipation.

I see the deepest cause of all that we are still a macho society with all kinds of possible and impossible rationalisations. Really making young people fit so that they can take their morality into their own hands, with the goal of a real morality, and that is a morality of real monogamy, nobody really wants that. Of course: even with this largely customary protective mentality, high morals can sometimes succeed, but only if a few lucky circumstances come together. But where can you count on those today?

For me, a good example of how to make young people really fit to be protected from the perishable is the smallpox vaccination. It works by not isolating the young person from all pathogens, but by infecting him with pathogens, but now in a controlled way with attenuated pathogens, so that he forms antibodies himself. And these antibodies make him immune to the real smallpox, if it should come at some point ("active immunisation"). Incidentally, this is how smallpox, once a dreaded epidemic with many fatalities worldwide, was eradicated.

Where are there now initiatives in our society, for example, how such an active immunisation in sexual morality could look like, which are also put up for discussion? There could certainly be different ways here.

In any case, it must have been different in our Christian religion once. For when I look at the ancient texts of baptism and confirmation in particular, they are obviously not about preserving the faith, as is seen today, but about making the young people to whom these sacraments were mainly administered fit (and above all intelligent) against evil. These texts suggest a previous "training" in which the young people were thus taught the appropriate information on how to live true monogamy even in a world hostile to faith and morals. So there was probably something like immunisation back then.

92. "beautiful well-behaved religion": Hyan Maccoby describes Paul as the "inventor of the Christian mystery cult" right up to the Lord's Supper ("The Mythmaker" p. 128): "In the synopsis of all the evidence, it can be stated at this point that Paul and no other was the creator of the Lord's Supper rite. He gave prestige to this innovation, which he had in fact derived from the mystery cults, through a vision in which he had seen Jesus at the Last Supper giving instructions to his disciples about the performance of this rite. This Pauline vision was later inserted as historical fact into the Gospels, namely into their narratives of the Last Supper, and was thus adopted as such by the vast majority of NT scholars (website author's note: to this day!). The followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, who as devout Jews would have found the idea of eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood repugnant, never practised this rite, but simply met for communal meals at which bread was broken beforehand, just as Jewish tradition recommends for individual communities within the Jewish community as a whole."

93. Science: Yes, what is science anyway? Günter Dueck, mathematician, born in 1951, also addresses the topic of "science" in his trilogy "Omnisophy - Supramania - Topothesia". He says something like: If someone on a mountain hike notices certain trees and plants, recognises certain discolourations of the soil and whatever oddities (all of which no one else notices) - and he draws the conclusion from this that there must be gold in the soil here, for example, and that this is finally really the case, then this is a sign of that person's scientificity. Getting the gold out of the ground, on the other hand, is "only" handicraft.

Or also: A professor reports on the research in his faculty at the end of the semester. He does not mention the excellent doctoral thesis of one of his assistants. The assistant feels left out and is annoyed. No, he doesn't have to be, because the idea for this thesis came from the professor, so he had the hunch that there was something important to research here, the thesis was then just "arts and crafts".

So: science has something to do with the unusual, with intuition, even with "crazy", seeing something that no one else sees - and not giving up here, but pursuing the goal to the solution with patience, creativity and perseverance. Of course, there really has to be something to the goal.

94. Pharisees: Maccoby tries to correct the negative image of the Pharisees that we Christians also have because of the negative view of the Pharisees in the New Testament. So it was not the Pharisees who had something against Jesus and his followers, but rather the high priest and his "team" who worked together with the Romans. However, I cannot believe that the Pharisees were entirely innocent in what Jesus was about, they will have looked the other way here just like the rest of the establishment at the time of Jesus. I quote two passages from Maccoby's book on the Pharisees and on the priests and the high priest:

P. 19: "IF WE are to answer the question whether Paul was a Pharisee or not - or even to understand the significance of his claim to have once been one - it is necessary to acquaint ourselves more closely than we are accustomed to do with who the Pharisees were and what they stood for. In this we must not trust the Pharisee picture of the Gospels, which is distorted by massive hostility. The Gospels portray the Pharisees as the main opponents of Jesus, who criticised him for healing the sick on the Sabbath and even plotted to kill him because of these sick treatments. Likewise, the Gospels portray Jesus as someone who massively criticised the Pharisees, calling them hypocrites and oppressors of the people. Because of this Gospel image, the word "Pharisee" has become synonymous with "hypocrite" for the Western mind, and the character flaws attributed to the Pharisees - self-righteousness, shabbiness, authoritarian rigidity and exclusivism - have contributed much to the stereotypes of anti-Semitism and have eventually been attributed to Jews in general.

In more recent times, many Christian scholars have also come to realise that this image of the Pharisees in the Gospels is propaganda, not fact.2 Our main source of authentic information about the Pharisees is their own extensive literature, which includes prayers, hymns, wisdom books, law books, sermons, biblical commentaries, mystical treatises, historical works and much more. Far from being dull and dry ritualists, they were one of the most creative groups of people in history.

Furthermore, however, the Pharisees - far from being rigid and mechanical law-applicators and religious prescriptivists - were known for the leniency of their legal decisions (as the historian Josephus, writing in the first century AD, points out [Ant. XIII 294] and as the Pharisaic expositions of the law confirm in all breadth), as well as for the humanity and elasticity with which they sought to adapt the "law" of the Bible to the changing conditions and more highly developed moral concepts of their time. ..."

P. 27: "Among the priests it was mainly a few families of considerable wealth and political influence among the (foreign and collaborating) rulers who were Sadducees. The Sadducees in fact formed only a small minority among the Jewish people, mostly wealthy landowners or similarly wealthy priests. Such people were the natural allies of all those in power at the time, be they Ptolemaic Greeks, Seleucid Greeks, Hasmoneans, Herodians or Romans. Accordingly, they were isolated from the unrest among the people. The temple as the visible centre of Judaism could be taken over by any ruling power and its functionaries filled with collaborators. But this could not be done with the true centres of the Jewish religion, which had acquired this function through their prestige, namely the synagogues, in which the Pharisees dominated, because they were too inconspicuous and too scattered; they could not have been "pluralistically" converted by infiltrating agents of influence, even if the Romans had recognised this as the best way to undermine Jewish resistance. In the time of Jesus and Paul, the Romans were the occupying power, ensuring the installation of a high priest they liked, just like Herod before them. They thought that by installing a servile Quisling as high priest they had already gained control over the Jewish religion, hardly noticing that in that religion the outwardly visible head, the high priest, in reality counted for little, since the majority of the Jews despised him and attributed little real authority to him even in the sphere of his official responsibilities."

95. "stark naked": Surely there is an obvious contradiction here in the New Testament tradition. On the one hand, the baptised are naked at baptism, on the other hand, we know the passages at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 11 that the woman is to cover her head when praying, and so on. And baptism is also a kind of prayer, so why naked? How does that fit together? The solution is probably quite simple: there are two "offspring" of our faith. One ("stark naked") is the "offspring of Jesus", and he stands for openness, wisdom, courage, rationality, progressiveness, real morality, against narrow-mindedness and superstition, and the other stands for the "offspring of Paul", and he stands for exactly the opposite of all that, i.e. for mysticism, secrecy, belief in the irrational, more or less blind obedience to everything that comes "from above", even hostility towards women and Jews. Unfortunately, the "offspring Paul" has so far alienated the message of Jesus to the greatest possible extent - the question is, for how much longer? Because once a problem is recognised, then it can also come to a solution.

96. "Greek and Roman culture": Yes, what in Christianity is Greco-Roman, what is Jewish? Was Jesus the one who was concerned about the real monogamy of human beings, that is, a real Jewish concern, which, according to all we know, was not so good in his time either? Last but not least, Pope Benedict also quotes the Protestant theologian Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930) in his Regensburg speech: "Harnack's core idea is the return to the simple man Jesus and to his simple message, which lies ahead of all theologisation and Hellenisation: this simple message represents the real height of humanity's religious development. Jesus had abandoned cult in favour of morality. In the latter, he is portrayed as the father of a philanthropic moral message. In this, Harnack is basically concerned with bringing Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, precisely by freeing it from seemingly philosophical and theological elements such as belief in the divinity of Christ and the tri-unity of God."

97. "the role of Paul .... not unchallenged": Maccoby here refers to the early Jewish-Christian sect of the "Ebionites", who stood in the tradition of the Jerusalem early church and would have paid special attention to the ideas of Esu. I quote here from page 197:

"Nevertheless, what has come down to us of their testimony about the origins of Christianity is of unique significance, for unlike the Catholic Church, they stood in direct continuity with the "Church of Jerusalem" and accordingly with Jesus himself. What they write about Paul and the circumstances under which he broke with the "Church of Jerusalem" deserves attention and respect, not, as is usual, gloating and rejection.

The testimony of the Ebionites has come down to us in two forms. First, we find summaries of their views in the writings of the Church Fathers Justin Martyr (2nd century), Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Tertullian (late 2nd century/late 3rd century), Origen (mid-3rd century), and Epiphanius and Jerome (4th century), as already mentioned. All these authors confirm that the Ebionites turned against Paul, whom they rejected as a false prophet.

The second branch of tradition is more indirect, the result of detective work by modern scholars, but nevertheless very convincing. Certain texts that have come down to us from antiquity and the Middle Ages do not appear to have been written by the Ebionites, but by other religious groups; but elaborate analyses by specialists have been able to show that all these writings contain a layer of text that originated with an Ebionite author and was later adopted and revised by a non-Ebionite author. The following two writings are the most significant for our topic:

The pseudoclementine writings. These writings remained as recognised writings of the Church Fathers because they were wrongly assumed to have come from the rather legendary Pope Clement L, who in turn was commonly believed to have been a disciple of Peter himself. In reality - as F. C. Baur already proved in the 19th century, and after being disputed for a while and Baur's work slandered, it is now accepted by the majority of experts - the core of these writings is of Judaeo-Christian or Ebionite provenance; it comes from 2nd century Syria. It testifies to a steadfast fidelity to the Torah and contains a passionate attack on people who impute anti-Torah views to Peter. Paul is not mentioned by name, but there are abundantly clear references to him as the worst enemy under the mask of "Simon Magus" against whom Peter polemicises in the text. Peter attacks Paul, who is only superficially disguised, on the grounds that he is a false prophet, that he has spread lies about him, Peter, and, most importantly, that he knows nothing about the true teachings of Jesus, having never met him face to face and basing his ideas about Jesus only on deceptive visions. The fact that this "Simon Magus" is really Paul has meanwhile been accepted by experts, after numerous religious scholars had attacked Baur's results in a desperate attempt not to have to follow this very conclusion, since they were quite aware of the far-reaching consequences such a concession would lead to. For this proves that Paul was by no means a unanimously accepted pillar of the Church like Peter, but a controversial figure whose role in the founding of Christianity was bitterly disputed.

The Arabic manuscript discovered by Shlomo Pines. Israeli scholar Shlomo Pines discovered an interesting testimony to the views of a Jewish Christian community at a later date, probably in 5th century Syria. He examined a 10th century Arabic work in Istanbul, written by one Abd al-Jabbar, and was able to show that a section of this work was in fact from a Judaeo-Christian source and had been incorporated into the Arabic manuscript. The text betrays a basic Ebionite attitude: belief in the continuing validity of the Torah, insistence that Jesus was a man and a prophet, and determined opposition to Paul as the falsifier of Jesus' teachings. If we follow this text, Paul abandoned Torah observance primarily to gain the backing of Rome and power and influence for himself. The text even blames Paul for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans: his anti-Jewish propaganda had incited the Romans against the Jews. His Christianity, according to our source, was in fact "Romanism"; instead of turning the Romans into Christians, he turned the Christians into Romans.

This Jewish-Christian source contains at the same time some statements of severe criticism of the Gospels, which are said to be untrustworthy and to contradict themselves. Only the original Gospel, written in Hebrew, is reliable; but whether the church that produced our source still had a copy of this Gospel remains uncertain. ...

Overall, the picture that emerges from the text is of a 5th century Jewish Christian community that has in many ways lost touch with its own sources and is just managing to survive underground, but still holding on to elements of faith that date from several centuries before its time, a community that at certain points still retains a connection with the very earliest Jewish Christians of all, the Nazarene community of Jerusalem led by James and Peter.

The Ebionites could not survive - for the simple reason that they were mercilessly persecuted by the Catholic Church. However, if for some reason this oppression became ineffective (e.g. by a region of land passing from Christian to Muslim rule), they occasionally came out of hiding and were able to openly profess their faith. There is even evidence that this occurred as late as the 10th century, in the work of the Jewish philosopher Saadia. In the vast majority of cases, however, the Ebionites were forced to hide behind the mask of orthodoxy, and gradually this led to complete assimilation. However, during the period when they still held on to their secret faith, they often had a profound influence on Christianity as a whole; there are reasons to believe that numerous "Juda'ising" heresies in the history of Christianity, including Arianism, can be traced back to Ebionite communities active in the underground. Their influence was in the direction of humanisation and concern for this world, directed against the limp adaptation to slavery and oppression, and endeavoured to keep the anti-Semitism of Christians in check. The Ebionites stood for an alternative tradition in Christianity that never fully died out.

For these reasons, the Ebionites are by no means a negligible or even ridiculous group. Their claim to represent the true teachings of Jesus must be taken seriously. It is therefore also quite wrong to dismiss their statements and evaluations of Paul as not worthy of consideration.

Let us therefore take a closer look at the oldest still verifiable formulation of the Ebionite assessment of Paul, which is found in the writings of St. Epiphanius (4th century)! "They say that he was a Greek [...] He went up to Jerusalem, and when he had lived there a while, a great passion seized him for the priest's daughter, and he wanted to marry her. For this reason he converted to the Jewish religion and had himself circumcised. When he finally did not get the girl, he was seized with rage and wrote against circumcision, against the Sabbath and against the Law" (Epiphanius, Panarion XXX 16:6-9). This account, of course, does not correspond to historical truth. It corresponds to what Epiphanius renders as the statements of the Ebionites in the 4th century, and bears the stamp of both Epiphanius' hostility towards the Ebionites and the Ebionites' hostility towards Paul. Nevertheless, there is a kernel of truth to be found in these statements.

Above all, two elements of the story have already emerged as important in our previous considerations: the fact that Paul was a "Greek" (i.e. a non-Jew from the Hellenistic environment) and that he had to deal with the high priest (here simply titled "priest"). The third element that can claim historical truth is found in the fact that Paul had failed in his ambition to be considered something among the Jews and that he then deserted from the service of the high priest and became involved in the Jesus movement. That Paul is portrayed here as a disappointed lover is a typical product of popular imagination, but it does not completely miss the point. Paul was indeed in love, if not with the daughter of the high priest, then with Judaism, of which the high priest was the symbol (though not the valid representative). It was the disappointed love of Judaism that drove Paul to invent Christianity.

On a less emotional, more realistic level, the high priest was indeed the key figure in Paul's life: he was his employer when he persecuted the Nazarenes, he was his implacable enemy when he deserted his services by falling away from their collaborator regime in Damascus, and he faced him again as a mortal enemy when, escaping the hostile Nazarene crowd, he took refuge under the protection of the Roman police.

The account of Epiphanius is clearly incomplete, for it contains no reference whatsoever to the relations between Paul and the Nazarenes of Jerusalem. The Ebionites of Epiphanius' day certainly had their own assessment of the relationship between Paul on the one hand and James and Peter on the other.

Nevertheless, as incomplete and romanticised as the account handed down by Epiphanius may be, it is in several respects more accurate than the account of Paul passed on by the Church, or even the information Paul gives about his person in his letters. Instead of the respectable Pharisee of impeccable Jewish descent, instead of the friend of James and Peter and leader of equal rank with them, behind the garbled and distorted statements in Epiphanius' account of the views of contemporary Ebionites, we still discover traces of the real, historical Paul - traces of an inwardly tortured adventurer who finds his way by cunning and pretence, always narrowly wriggling his way out of dangerous situations and finally founding a religion that is entirely his individual creation."

The question naturally arises as to why Maccoby, who has obviously done very good research, does not find in Jesus (and of course also in Paul) anything of what I have identified here as the core of Jesus' commitment. I think there are several reasons for this:

1. Maccoby is also a typical study-room scholar and therefore, according to Albert Schweitzer's thesis, only finds what corresponds to his "hobby" (see note 139), and in Maccoby's case this is the problem of anti-Semitism. In contrast, the problem of misogyny does not appear at all in his book.

2. The Ebonites, too, were probably very afraid of burning their fingers just as Jesus burned them - and they, too, thought to solve "the problem" through special godliness without explicitly addressing it,

3. possibly they had also not really understood the problem of Jesus' commitment, because of the tabooing of everything connected with the morality of sexuality, which was probably common at all times.

A few words about Maccoby: It is certainly an excellent book. But: He writes long and wide about the stoning of Stephen and that the whole story sounds a bit confused. But it's quite simple: I didn't learn much Greek and I was a very bad student. But this much I did understand: "Stephanos" is a Greek word and means something like "victory wreath" (or in ecclesiastical usage "martyr's wreath"). And it is absolutely improbable that someone would be called by the same name as what happened to him later. This means that this event of the "stoning of Stephen" never happened, it is therefore fictitious, the story was written for the edification of the faithful. It is similar to the story of Veronica, who hands Jesus the "sweat cloth" during his way to the cross and wipes Jesus' face with it - and afterwards finds the image of Jesus on the sweat cloth, i.e. the "true image". And so it is also called like that, "Veronia" is Latin-Greek and means "true image". To the credit of the authors of the Gospels, however, it must be said that this episode is not included in their writings at all, that is later popular piety initiated by the Church.

And the other is the reason for Jesus' crucifixion. Maccoby puzzles around: "....Therefore, we may assume that Jesus the Galilean died on the cross for the same reason as many other Galileans: because he posed a threat or challenge to the Roman occupying power..." (p. 49f). Or also: "All that remains, then, is an indictment of political rebellion..." (pp. 51 u.). So Maccoby too lacks any imagination that there is anything other than rebellion for political reasons .... As I always say, "typical study-room scholar", so also Hyam Maccoby, too bad ...

98. order tactics: But they don't always work either. Possibly the First World War was lost for Germany because the high-handed action of Colonel-General Alexander von Kluck thwarted the carefully prepared Schlieffen Plan, which was to lead to the capture of Paris and the swift end of the war in early September 1914.

99. literature. see under literature.

100. demimonde mafia. See under "Jesus-followers".

101. nudity. Since there are more than 20 photos, which were probably taken on the occasion of a nude bike tour in Germany (?) and I also wrote some text about it, I made a separate URL for it.

102 On the subject of "scientificity" I would like to quote from the work "Naturwissenschaften und manifestes Weltbild - Über den Naturalismus" by Ansgar Beckermann (Bielefeld, Germany).

by Ansgar Beckermann (Bielefeld) from page 13 onwards, how the Austro-Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis found out the cause of childbed fever with a completely "original scientific approach" and solved the problem, because his way of knowing is simply so interesting:

***

One of the main concerns of scientific investigation is the elimination of possible sources of error and the exclusion of alternative explanations of the phenomena to be explained.

I cannot develop this point further theoretically here, but I would like to illustrate it with an example.

At the beginning of the 19th century, more and more deliveries were carried out in hospitals. But this also led to problems. In the General Hospital in Vienna, for example, the number of mothers dying of childbed fever or puerperal fever rose sharply from the 1830s onwards. However, the infection and death rates of the First Obstetrics Department differed markedly from those of the Second.

"In 1844, no less than 260 out of 3157 mothers in the First Department (8.2 per cent) died of the ailment; in 1845 the death rate was 6.8 and in 1846 it was 11.4 per cent. These figures were all the more alarming because in the neighbouring Second Obstetric Department of the same hospital, which cared for almost as many women, the death rate from puerperal fever was much lower in the same years: 2.3 2.0 and 2.7 per cent." (Hempel 1974, 11)

One of the physicians to whom this development caused great concern was Ignaz Semmelweis, who first examined various explanations that were common at the time. "[E]veryone of these he immediately rejected as incompatible with unquestionable facts; others he subjected to specific tests." (Ibid.) One suggestion was that puerperal fever was due to epidemic influences "vaguely described as 'atmospheric-cosmico-telluric changes'" (ibid).

"But how, Semmelweis reasoned, could such influences have afflicted the First Department for years while sparing the Second? And how could this view be reconciled with the fact that, while the fever raged in the hospital, hardly a case occurred in the city of Vienna and its environs: a real epidemic, such as cholera, would not be so selective. Finally, Semmelweis noticed: some women who were admitted to the First Ward but lived far from the hospital were struck by labour pains on their way and gave birth in the street; despite these adverse circumstances, the death rate from puerperal fever in these cases of 'street birth' was lower than the average in the First Ward." (Ibid., 11 f.)

A second assumption was: the higher infection and death rate in the First Obstetric Ward was due to the overcrowding of this ward. But Semmelweis noticed that the occupancy rate in the Second Department was even higher. Moreover, there was no difference between the two departments with regard to the catering and general treatment of the patients. In 1846, a commission made a third assumption: the higher number of cases of puerperal fever in the First Ward was due to the wounds that were supposed to have resulted from too rough an examination by the medical students, who all received their training in this ward.

"To reject this view, Semmelweis argued that a. the injuries naturally occurring in the course of childbirth are much more serious than those possibly caused by rough examination; that b. the midwives trained in the Second Ward examined their patients in almost the same way, but without the same pernicious consequences; that c. when, in response to the Commission's report, the number of medical students was halved and their examinations of women reduced to a minimum, mortality, after a short fall, rose to a higher level than ever before." (Ibid, 12)

A fourth hypothesis was that the higher number of cases of puerperal fever in the First Ward was due to the fact that "the priest who brought communion to the dying women first had to pass through five wards to reach the sick room behind: the appearance of the priest, accompanied by the altar boy with a bell, supposedly had such a frightening and debilitating effect on the patients in the wards that it made them easier victims of puerperal fever". In the Second Ward this adverse factor was absent, as the priest had direct access to the sickroom." (Ibid., 13)

"Semmelweis decided to check this assumption. He persuaded the priest to come in a roundabout way and without a bell, in order to reach the sickroom quietly and unobserved. However, the mortality in the First Ward did not decrease." (Ibid.)

Finally, Semmelweis observed that in the First Ward women were delivered lying on their backs, whereas in the Second Ward they were delivered lying on their sides. Could this be the decisive factor? Semmelweis "introduced the lateral position in the First Ward, but again mortality remained unchanged" (ibid.).

Finally, in early 1847, an accident led Semmelweis on the right track. "One of his colleagues, Kolletschka, received a punctate injury to the finger from the scalpel of a student with whom he was performing an autopsy, and died after an agonising illness in the course of which he revealed the same symptoms that Semmelweis had observed in the victims of childbed fever. Although the role of micro-organisms in such infections was not known at the time, Semmelweis understood that 'corpse substance', having got into Kollechka's bloodstream from the student's scalpel, had caused his colleague's fatal illness. The similarities in the course of the disease in Kolletschka and in the women in his clinic led Semmelweis to the conclusion that his patients had died of the same kind of blood poisoning: he, his colleagues and the medical students were the carriers of the infectious material, for they usually came directly to the wards after performing dissections in the autopsy room and examined the women in labour after washing their hands only superficially, which also often still had a characteristic odour of decay." (Ibid., 13 f.)

Semmelweis tested this last hypothesis. Since chlorinated lime had already been used to clean and disinfect dissecting instruments, he ordered that all students coming from a dissection had to wash their hands with chlorinated lime solution before going to the maternity ward. "Mortality from puerperal fever promptly began to fall; it dropped to 1.27 per cent in the First Ward in 1848, compared with 1.33 per cent in the Second." (Ibid, 14)

"His idea, or - as we shall also say - his hypothesis, was also supported, as Semmelweis noted, by the fact that mortality was consistently so much lower in the Second Ward: there the patients were cared for by midwives whose training did not include teaching anatomy with cadaver dissection. The hypothesis also explained the lower mortality in 'street births': Women who arrived with their babies in their arms were rarely examined after admission and thus had a greater chance of escaping infection." (Ibid.)

Further observations eventually led Semmelweis to expand his hypothesis. "For example, on one occasion, after carefully disinfecting their hands, he and his colleagues examined a woman in labour who was suffering from a suppurating cancer of the uterus; they then continued their examinations of twelve other women in the same room after only washing routinely without disinfecting again. Eleven of the twelve patients died of puerperal fever. Semmelweis concluded that puerperal fever could be caused not only by cadaveric matter but also by 'putrefying matter from living organisms'." (Ibid.)

Semmelweis' approach illustrates the systematic approach to scientific investigation in a particularly striking way. First, if one wants to find out what is responsible for a phenomenon A, one must carefully compare cases in which A occurs with cases in which A does not occur. Once you have found a factor B in which cases of the first kind differ from cases of the second kind, however, you have not yet reached your goal. For then, secondly, one must check whether there is not just a coincidental connection here. This can be determined, for example, by investigating whether one can produce A by creating the condition B itself, and whether one can prevent A by ensuring that B is not the case. Experiments serve precisely this purpose: with them one tries to distinguish really relevant from only apparently relevant factors. Of course, experiments cannot be carried out in all cases, in which case one must

then one has to try to distinguish relevant from only apparently relevant factors in a different way. Science is therefore not committed to experimental procedures; they are only particularly useful for clarifying certain questions. But not because it is a matter of mastering nature, but because experiments are particularly suitable when one wants to distinguish actually relevant from merely apparently relevant factors.

To put it in a nutshell, my thesis is: there is no such thing as a single or the scientific method. What there is is a variety of methods, but they have one common feature - they are all part of a particularly methodical or systematic approach to trying to find and evaluate evidence. But this procedure is always called for if one wants to find out what the world is really like or what is actually responsible for a phenomenon. And: this procedure excludes nothing; there is nothing that cannot be investigated in this way.

***

Yes, that is still real science, and completely different from, for example, this modern sexology, whose basis is "naturalistic fallacies", see question and answer 29 at https://basisreli.lima-city.de/fragen.htm!

In my "investigations" into why "innocent girls" start having sex without any need, I basically proceeded in exactly the same way as this doctor Ignaz Semmelweis - and I also meet with great incomprehension from some people at first (but not from everyone!). See the online brochure "Echte Monogamie von der Vernunft her" https://basisreli.lima-city.de/ehe-krim.pdf from page 8 and the solution from page 31.

103. resolution and prayer for an intelligent ethical life: It is noticeable that this text 86 is obviously about something completely different from what we see today in the sacrament of Confirmation, of which this prayer of blessing is a part. The prayer for the seven gifts of the Spirit, freely translated here, was common in the early Church according to the Church Father Justin (c. 100-165). It is therefore obviously an early Christian blessing, which should actually be recognised by all present-day denominations. From the context (Justin dial. 87,5 <Mg PG 6 683/684 A>) it is quite clear that at that time it was not a matter of an affirmation of faith in whomsoever or whatever (there was no such thing as a creed at all), but of a moral attitude and of a creative and intelligent fidelity to this attitude. Nor is there any mention of a vow on the part of the blessed. Thus this prayer of blessing still seems to belong to the Jesus ideology and not to the Pauline ideology - and thus it is not only acceptable here, but it is something like a central orientation!

If we now consider that a prayer for spiritual gifts, which are obviously the most important thing in this prayer, concerns above all young people who, after all, are not exactly faced with easy moral decisions in their personal lives, and that, on the other hand, quite obviously shame was not considered the basis of sexual morality at that time (at baptism the baptised were even stark naked), but rather the spirit or just the "information", then the prayer may have been used at that time in exactly the way that I also plead for today. For "these interpersonal problems" existed and still exist at all times - and yet also "in ancient Rome". The background of Christian pedagogy at that time could not have been the hysteria about early sexualisation that still dominates some pedagogues today, who often enough still consider themselves very Christian. Rather, it must have been so concrete that the young people had understood what was at stake, so that they could grow into a concept of real monogamy early and in time. This was the only way to avoid them starting "wrong" in the first place, because then the goal of real monogamy would already have been missed in youth. (How one could do it better, see under note 48.)

In any case, the text would certainly fit as the crowning conclusion of such a realistic pedagogy (even today!) (Latin under 40):

"Holy Spirit (or also best possible intelligence) come upon you and the power of the Most High keep you from sins (i.e. from mistakes in your human relations)!

Most high eternal God! Who hast granted these Thy children to be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit, we beseech Thee:

Pour out upon them Your sevenfold Spirit:

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding. So that you may be able to distinguish the good from the bad, the sensible from the stupid, the truly moral from the pseudo-moral, the problematic from the unproblematic.

The spirit of the right decision and perseverance. That you make the right decisions for you, not to do the problematic and to do the unproblematic, and that you persevere.

The spirit of knowledge and humility. That you recognise which ideas and ideologies are good and useful and that you do not run after wrong ideas and ideologies. And that you are always aware that you don't know everything and that you don't have a complete overview and that you are always open for meaningful new things.

The spirit of the fear of God. That in everything the commandments of God or even the rules of paradise are valid for you under all circumstances."

And now for each Blessed One individually:

"I signify you with the sign of the cross, that is, the sign of Him who, up to and with His death, committed Himself to the realisation of love, and to whom you should hereby commit yourself."

On the origin of the confirmatio, see under note 86.

The consequence of this obviously realistic pedagogy was that even the young Christians at that time were so much Christians that they even preferred to die for their faith than to act against it. Yes, who would want to renounce real love in life once they knew what it was all about?

In the early church, there was also a full-body anointing (of the naked body - by the bishop) with consecrated oil. The oil was seen here in terms of its healing power, which is also effective for things of the soul and spirit. We think a little differently here today and certainly do not want to expect a strange man, who is the bishop, to anoint our children with the whole body. But here too there could be something like a "triangular relationship between parents, church and children": Parents and church agree on the educational goal of true monogamy, so the church informs the young people about the idea of true morality in a group setting and inspires them with it, and the parents take over the "practice". That would be something, if the father were to perform the full-body anointing!

But shouldn't everything to do with sex education be the responsibility of the parents? I have my reservations here. The problem with such parental education is that in practice only individual young people would be addressed in this way. To use an image again here: What would individual children gain from parents who all come from other countries teaching them their special languages of origin that were spoken at home? The result would be a Tower of Babel chaos, no one understands the others - or always wrong! So it is the same with morality: it simply does not work to leave it to the parents to teach their morals to their young people. So moral education can only ever be a community affair!

104 . Or is everything completely different? I once took a closer look at the book "Heavenly Pleasure" by Ruth Westheimer and Jonathan Mark (Bertelsmann 1996) to learn something about the practice in the Jewish religion, here about that of interpersonal life. The American-German-Jewish sex therapist Ruth Westheimer writes, for example: "That is why the bride wears white ... However promiscuous the bride may have been before marriage, the wedding purifies her, she wears white as the colour of purity, as fresh as newly fallen snow. A wedding can put back together all that seemed broken, such as a disreputable past, it can heal old wounds.... " (p. 125f)

Of course, a great attitude towards those who - for whatever reason - did not always keep the commandments of a high sexual morality and yet eventually "converted" to the "right way"! But I think this great attitude also makes the theologians empathy-less and lazy! They no longer care at all about the original basic concern of a morality of true monogamy, everything is forgiven anyway, nothing matters anyway.... So also the passage on p. 48 from Ruth Westheimer's practical experience: "When an Orthodox girl sits in my practice and tells me that something bad has happened to her, I tell her from the depths of my Jewish tradition: 'What happened is terrible, just terrible, it should never happen to someone like you in the first place. How sad that you had to have this bad experience. But you have to go on living. We want to make sure that when the memory or thought of it comes up, you redeem it with good thoughts. Think of Miriam, who after crossing the Red Sea ...'

An attitude suggests itself to me here: "You are nothing, the big idea is everything." And here, especially for me as a German, an association from our unspeakable recent history comes up very quickly: "You are nothing, your nation or even the party is everything ..." Well, with the Jews it's not the party, but the community, the religion. But in any case it is not the individual. Therefore: isn't this attitude that Mrs. Westheimer has, which somehow seems to be the Jewish one in the first place, somehow fascistoid? However, when I look at other religions, it is not much different. In a similar way, the "sins" are "wiped away" in Catholic confession: the therapist or the confessor learns about the "mishaps of life" (and I think that this is about the same thing, that a woman has made a mistake in her love partner), but neither the Jews nor the Catholics have the idea that there is a pedagogical problem here, that young people are not adequately prepared for the "pitfalls of life" and that they therefore cannot really avoid them. And instead of the church or the synagogue finally starting to develop a sensible sexual morality for young people so that such "mishaps" do not happen, it lets a commercial enterprise (in our case the youth magazine "BRAVO" or the website belonging to it) and meanwhile also sociologists and pedagogues who are distant from the faith do it, who of course convey their areligious attitude to the young people accordingly. This eventually leads to young people asking themselves what the point of religion is, and that they at least largely detach themselves from the principles of religion. What remains are perhaps only external forms and a faith that can rather be described as superstition. And the theologians and rabbis shrug their shoulders and don't feel responsible and are inactive ("nothing can be done") and promise salvation after death. What do you think of that, dear reader?

From the point of view of "fascistoid", one can also take a look at the circumcision of male babies. I quote here - also from the book "Heavenly Pleasure" (p. 27): "Rabbi Nachman of Breslau ... taught ... that circumcision consisted of two different acts. In the first, the orla, the flesh covering the 'crown' of the penis, is removed. Then the krum, the membrane underneath the skin, is peeled off until the flesh of the crown is revealed. Rabbi Nachman explains that the orla symbolises evil, which must be completely removed. The krum is seen as a link between the orla and the flesh, referring to the fact that good is sometimes mixed with evil. Peeling off the krum symbolises that the good must be separated from the evil. The sexual instinct and act is capable of the highest dignity - the creation of life. Yet the same penis and the same act can set off a chain reaction of pain and lead to death. It is this dialectic that underlies the history of the Jewish attitude to sex."

My take on this: One can of course justify everything in a positive way! But the bottom line is that circumcision remains a cruel and gruesome and, in the truest sense of the word, an inhuman act - and then on innocent little boys! So we can say: In the case of the boys, forced recruitment through circumcision, and in the case of the girls, stupidity and ignorance, so that they finally also want such "misdeeds in love" and thus slip into an "inhumane" ideology, here into that of the Jewish religion... Is it possible to see all this in any other way than as "extremely fascist"?

And from this point of view, once again to the liberation of slaves and female slaves: Was it ever intended that girls were no longer sex slaves or prostitutes before marriage? Did that ever really change even after the end of slavery with the Egyptians or whoever? And did the freed slaves really become emancipated and sovereign people? Was emancipation and sovereignty ever intended? Perhaps that was once the basic idea and goal of the "original Jewish religion", but that was a long time ago. In any case, I imagine truly emancipated and sovereign girls more like the girl on page 29 ff! And that's where you can get to after all! Wasn't that the concern of the real Jesus in the end? So "Jesus against fascism", here not as a political system, but as an anti-human philosophy? If a change here were not a common task of Jews and Christians! And the circumcision of the young can then also be overcome at the same time! Although it is punishable by excommunication, as I read in Westheimer's book, it should finally be seen not as a divine commandment but as an outdated Stone Age custom that does not belong to the "basic inventory" of the Jewish religion, and there is no punishment from anyone for changing such a custom!

Something about an American experiment: Researchers once conducted an experiment on how to bring together hostile groups ("hostile" are not exactly Jews and Christians, but it could be better): For this purpose, they organised tent camps of two such hostile groups of boys, of course at a proper distance - with respective "imperfections" in both camps, for example a non-functioning water pipe. But the "imperfections" could be solved, but only if the hostile groups of boys worked together. And lo and behold, it worked and the groups became closer in other ways too! Don't we somehow "also have such a problem" here, which Jews and Christians could also solve each for themselves, but much better both together? In the text "The Criminal Case of Jesus" I have developed a concept for this - for the youth - and the youth is the future! There is the same concern here, a common task: from the Jews the beauty of the experience of sexuality and from the reform through Jesus the overcoming of abuse, so cooperation would be the ideal - against manipulation by commercial companies etc.! "Being a Christian is certainly not possible for everyone, but everyone could be a follower of Jesus! This would also be a liberation from any ideology that has even remotely to do with "fascistoid" and a return to the original Jewish basic concern. So the Jesus vision in its Jewish context? Perhaps there is no other way, at least not in the long run?

105. mafia: I came to the conclusion that there was already something like a mafia back then through an article from 28.5.2018 in the newspaper DIE WELT file 2 "Russian mafia is omnipresent in the West" about a book by Mark Galeotti, head of the Centre for European Security in Prague. And when I consider what I have heard so far about various mafia organisations that exist today, i.e. the southern Italian and Sicilian mafia in Italy, the Italian mafia in the USA, the mafia in Japan and in India - and what they are all about, i.e. prostitution, drugs, gambling, subsidy fraud, money laundering, extortion of protection money, awarding of (public) contracts and jobs, then that means for me that mafias probably exist at least in all anonymous societies. The condition is that something is forbidden in a society, which nevertheless exists, and/or that there is relatively easy money to be made with something (a lot and easily) and above all that there is a need for it up to the point of addiction and that people are prepared to spend (a lot of) money on it. And if such mafias exist today, why shouldn't they have existed two thousand years ago, when the same or comparable conditions existed as today, i.e. "anonymous society" and "prohibition of something that nevertheless existed and for which there is great demand"? Of course, it is never easy to see where there is a mafia and how it works and how it is run, and so it is only a guess that there was a mafia in Israel back then too, but one with very good reasons. And then it is also obvious that not all people of a time simply "go along with it", but that there are sometimes intelligent and courageous people who do something against such mafias - and here Jesus could have been such a person. In any case, I am firmly convinced that this was the case. I see myself confirmed in this conviction, because this topic is nowhere addressed and not even remotely thought of, yet it is all 'very obvious. There is simply a lack of perception here.

Incidentally, it certainly never hurts to be on guard against a mafia, i.e. to be vigilant, just as it never hurts, for example, for a city to protect itself against floods that have never happened before, but where the conditions for these floods exist. And does not our military armament also exist under the aspect that a state is armed against something that does not exist at all, but where this armament is nevertheless very useful?

106. Paul and the New Testament: I contacted the Danish Sanskrit specialist Christiam Lindtner at the beginning of September 2019. And he wrote to me that clearly Paul too is an invention of the authors of the New Testament, so Paul too belongs to plagiarism from the Buddhist texts. The solution to this can be that the demimonde mafia has given the Buddhist specialists commissioned with a new interpretation a free hand as to how they go about this new interpretation of the New Testament, whether they only incorporate their Buddhism or parts from other religions and also from what was still remembered about Jesus. The main thing is that the real Jesus is radically erased. And Lindtner on Paul: "You can trace Paulos back to Pûrnas in The Lotus sitra - the most eloquent of all disciples", well, the eloquence would also fit.

The fact that Paul is also an "invention" of the Buddhist monks or specialists would also explain why Maccoby cannot consider him a Pharisee, because he did not really think and write in a Pharisaic way. Yes, the way it is written about Paul in the New Testament, that is how Buddhist specialists thought of the Pharisees. Whether Paul existed or not, it does not change anything about the real Jesus - and that alone is important and decisive for us.

107 Abuse of sexuality: Yes, what is all abuse of sexuality? Clearly, the natural purpose of sexual intercourse is, first of all, fertility, because it serves the purpose that a "sperm particle" connects with an egg cell of the woman, so that it comes to new life. For a long time, it was considered abuse in the church if this first purpose was deliberately excluded by contraceptives. But in the meantime, people in the church are thinking differently. For new life to come into being, it is not enough for a child to be conceived, carried to term and born, it must also be brought up until it is itself capable of life - and can itself produce and care for offspring. And we must bear in mind that human beings did not come into being in a welfare state that provides well for its citizens, but in an environment that is often very hostile to life. And it made sense for the woman and her child to have a "provider" who brought them food and also protected them (and usually other children). And in order to motivate a provider and protector to stay with the woman, and that he also liked to do this providing and protecting, the woman thus rewarded him with the granting of sexual intercourse, because it would be quite cumbersome and costly, at least in the long run, for a man to always find new women for the drive. So it was already an advantage for him if he had "a certain steady woman" for it. And so the "cement" of frequent sexual intercourse led to a particularly intimate relationship - and the "cement" worked best, of course, when the woman also had her pleasure, the orgasm. So we can assume that the woman's ability to orgasm "created" the family and perhaps even monogamy.

And to come to the abuse of sexuality: So sexual intercourse without the purpose of fertility is not necessarily "abuse" at all, because the promotion of the community of man and woman is also a completely legitimate purpose! So religion should not interfere here at all in how married couples form this "legitimate purpose" of "promoting the community". But it becomes problematic when this "legitimate purpose" is not there at all, when it is merely a matter of satisfying drives or passing the time or self-affirmation or even looking for a partner, i.e. "trying out" different partners until one (or of course also woman) has found the right one. And this is where not only the term "abuse" but also the term "sin" comes into play.

The confessionals of the Catholic Church (as long as they still existed) dealt with all possible and impossible sins in connection with sexuality. Some of it can be nonsense, such as at least some violations of sexual shame, but some of it makes perfect sense and is then definitely a "sin" and even a "grave sin". This is mainly everything that has to do with sexual intercourse outside of marriage, without it having anything to do with partnership. This also includes paedophilia, i.e. sexual intercourse or any other sexual act with children, because such a thing clearly has nothing to do with partnership.

A difficult case is sexual intercourse before marriage, because this can also be an "early marriage", i.e. both partners are already living in a marriage and this is also fully intended, but for some reason it has not yet come to a marriage. The problem with such an "early marriage", however, is that one of the partners can be very willing, that he or she also expressly wants a marriage, but does he or she know for sure whether the other is also so willing or whether there is not a more or less sophisticated fraud behind the beautiful appearance? Yes, how can one be sure that the other person is not only interested in an adventure and/or a pastime and/or in abusing "her" as an "exercise mattress" and/or as a "show-off object" ("I've already eaten her too")? How does one know that "the other" (or "the other") is ultimately only interested in non-committal sexual intercourse? I think that this possibility is a good reason for those who are willing to be protected and also want to be protected to wait until marriage. After all, not everything is ruled out until then, and if the woman in particular experiences orgasm during harmonious skin contact, then she should be more than fully satisfied - and so should the boy or man who really loves a girl! After all, what is it about the body that actually burns so much when you are really in love? Surely we can still deal with the "abdomen" - isn't it rather the chest, where the heart beats, and perhaps also the stomach? Well, let's extinguish the fire of the breast and the belly - and leave "the underneath" to itself without penetration ... (On the orgasm see especially under note 124.)

108. resolution of an intelligent ethical life: The way sex education is done today is actually unbelievable: It is done by a commercial enterprise (the website of the youth magazine "Bravo" is visited more than 2 million times a month!) The basis for this is a "naturalistic fallacy" (i.e. a pseudo-science according to the fad: "What everyone is doing must be right!", more on this under Questions and Answers No. 29) and this basis is now also that of school sex education. And our churches? They make an empty cult with the purpose of remaining faithful to an ideology that is more or less distant from life, namely the one they proclaim - although sex education or better a meaningful moral education would be exactly their task - at least if they were following the real Jesus.

109. Jesus and the human condition: I admit that I judge here somewhat "from my gut feeling" what is "real-Jesus" and what is not. But I think that it can be seen throughout the New Testament (and even the authors of the New Testament could not change this) that Jesus was indeed a Jew, but that he had an enlightened attitude towards the Jewish faith, to put it this way. This enlightened attitude becomes clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25ff). The priest and the temple servant passed by the injured man, not because they were too lazy or too stingy to help him, but because he was bleeding and because they would have become unclean by touching blood - and to become clean again would have required complicated purification rites. So Jesus condemns such worship here - and presents the unbelieving Samaritan (in the sense of the pious Jews), who is free from such religious hindrances, as a shining example. This means that for Jesus being human was more important than (Jewish) religion.

110. Manipulation: Manipulation is always an influence to the disadvantage of a person. The characteristic of manipulation is that it is done so skilfully that the manipulated person does not even notice what is being done to him, and ideally even thinks that everything he is actually being manipulated to do comes from himself. In our case, which is about sexuality, what is actually harmless and even paradisiacal (namely the joy of nudity, which is after all deeply human) is thus made so bad and often even expressly forbidden that it virtually comes to a blocking: nudity is thus henceforth considered immoral. How the manipulation then happens, see in the box how the chief devil gives advice to the half-world chief mobster.

111. ideal of Judaism. I quote once on this what Maccoby writes ("Mythmaker", p. 148):

"On the other hand, the Messiah was also significant in an indirect way for non-Jews, for the coming of the Messiah would, after all, mean the end of imperialist military powers throughout the world, especially that of the Roman Empire. Although the Messiah would not be a world ruler, he would be the leader of a priestly people who would assume their proper role as the spiritual leader of the world in the Messianic age: the doctrines of monotheism, peace and charity, which the Jews had first espoused, would be held up as a guide by all peoples, and the chosen people would be given special honours for their centuries-long struggle for these ideals.

Numerous non-Jews were attracted to Judaism, if only because of its rules for everyday life without its messianic aspect, and had therefore become either full Jews or "God-fearers". A Jewish movement characterised by a strong messianic impetus and promising the imminent arrival of the messianic age - an age of peace where swords would be reforged into ploughshares - was bound to have a special missionary appeal even to gentiles who were weary of the politics of the sword."

We can imagine that Jesus was entirely Jewish in his commitment. However, I may note that he was obviously not only concerned with love of neighbour, which is after all an ideal in other religions, but with love par excellence, that is, love that has to do with sexuality and then also with our whole humanity. And a general longing for the success of this love in terms of a realistic chance - starting with young people - would then presumably also have a world-changing effect, as Ortega y Gasset saw it (see p.19f or 21f below) - and also Jesus. So he committed himself to it.

Unfortunately, the awareness of this world-changing love was not only lost in Judaism at the time of Jesus, it is obviously still the case today. In any case, it is not a characteristic of the Jewish religion. Instead, there are Stone Age customs such as the circumcision of boys and men and the cruel torture of animals during slaughter through butchery. For me, at least, these customs have more of a chilling effect, and I think other people feel the same way. In order for the Jewish religion to have an impact on humanity again, a reform would certainly make sense. This could also have an effect on the bar mitzvah, the Jewish counterpart to the confirmatio (for the followers of Jesus), in that it is no longer about being Jewish, but first and foremost about being human. Yes, isn't being human the more urgent concern in our world today, rather than some group affiliation? And with this most urgent concern, Jews and Jesus-followers could then meet and also carry others along ...

(Note on the rite of the bar mitzvah: You can find (almost) anything on Google today. So when I google the history of this Jewish initiation rite, I find that it goes back to the first century AD, that is, to the time when the Christian confirmatio came into being. This leads me to believe that both rites have a common origin, namely in Judaism! Last but not least, the text of the blessing prayer of the cofirmatio comes from the (Jewish) Old Testament, namely from the Book of Isaiah (Is 11:2). Could it not be that there was initially a Jewish rite for boys, possibly inspired by the Jew Jesus, which was of course also practised by the followers of Jesus? But that this rite then fell into oblivion among the Jews in this form and it was replaced in the course of time by a rite of faithfulness to the Jewish religion, but in contrast it survived among the Christians, even if only "externally", that is, that the goal of the prayer of blessing according to Isaiah was also forgotten here or also suppressed? Last but not least, biweilen was and is also here about a rite of loyalty - as the case may be - to the Catholic or to the Protestant faith - and precisely not about a blessing for a successful human being).

112. Conversations with prostitutes: The question arises as to how Jesus came to converse with prostitutes, i.e. why did he converse with prostitutes, especially when he was after all a person of high moral standing and thus most likely not a typical "prostitute customer". Johannes Lehmann (L. "studied theology, psychology, journalism and and philosophy" and "undertook many journeys to the Near East, Israel and Sinai") argues in his book "The Secret of Rabbi J." (Knaur 1990 - by "Rabbi J. is meant Jesus) the thesis that Jesus was a member of the sect of Qumran, i.e. an Essene. But, according to Lehmann, not all Essenes lived a strictly secluded life from the public, but "were obviously able to pursue a profession outside the monastery" (p. 86). In doing so, they were of course also allowed to transfer their Essene principles into the world: "And these are the ways in the world: to enlighten the heart of man and to smooth before him all the paths of justice ..."(p. 85). So we can be sure that he was interested in the background of prostitution and talked to prostitutes about it.

And as it was then with Jesus, so it still is today. In the biography "Venus Dienst" (op. cit.) there is a passage where the prostitute writes how men ask her how she came to her "profession". She deals with the subject only briefly (p. 242): "`Why do you do this, how did you come to your profession?' That was the most frequently asked double question during my eleven years, and it was hanging out of my throat after only a few months. I think very few clients will ask their lawyer why he earns his living by practising law." The woman may be rather flippant about the question here, but she may not put the subject away quite so easily, for what else did she write this book for, there are at least lengthy passages in it about how "it all" began? - And to come back to the possible conversations of Jesus with prostitutes: I think it is not only probable, but also absolutely normal that Jesus also talked to them about this topic. And I think, especially if these women were blackmailed into their profession, they would like to get these stories off their chest to a man they find trustworthy. It is incomprehensible to me that many of my contemporaries find it difficult or even impossible to see the connections here.

For the pages where the author of "Venusdienst" quotes and comments on me, see under Venusdienst text.

113. On the duration of a lie: The German Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (1897 - 1945) is said to have said: "You only have to maintain a lie long enough, then it will eventually become the truth". There is no proof that he actually said this, and it is also unlikely, but there is something to this sentence! The longer a lie is presented as truth, the more difficult it becomes to overcome it, even if there are fewer and fewer factual arguments for its credibility and many people even make fun of it. A typical example of this is the witch craze and all the things that were said about alleged witches, and presumably believed. Towards the end of this "plague", all kinds of factual reasons had long been known that this thing about witches was nonsense, that there were no women who were in league with the devil, and so on. But women were still accused and executed for the sole reason that what has always been the case cannot be wrong. Because when something has been going on for a long time, it appears to many as "always". And it was wrong after all! - And that is how I see it with the Pauline ideology, it has now been asserted for a little longer and is still considered true by many, although it has long been doubted even by theological luminaries: It really is not true and must finally be overcome and "disposed of"! I think the best chance of this overcoming succeeding is if a plausible and well-documented real Jesus can be brought to the centre with a commitment that is still the "scoop" par excellence for us today.

114. on the compassion of the Jews: In the Dalai Lama's book "Das Herz der Religionen - Gemeinsamkeiten entdecken und verstehen" (Herder 2012) I found the following quote on page 150: "The word Hasid is derived from the Hebrew chesed, which in biblical usage means "loving kindness", "mercy" and "love" and implies the reciprocity of compassionate relationships between man and God and between people. So says a famous sage, the "Maharal" Judah Löw of Prague (1525-1609):

Love for all creatures is also love for God, for whoever loves the One God also loves all the works He has made. If one loves God, it is impossible not to love His creatures as well. The opposite is also true: if one hates creatures, it is impossible not to love God who made them."

The question is, how does this self-assessment of the Jews, which they also told the Dalai Lama, fit in with the circumcision of babies and the slaughter of animals for slaughter?

115. "By nature benevolent and highly moral": The eminent Jewish theologian Leo Baeck (1872 - 1956) sees two main currents of tradition in Christianity: 1. Paul-Augustine-Martin Luther and 2. Jesus-Pelagius-Calvin. I think it makes sense to quote here the rabbi and rector of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam (from his book "Jesus of Nazareth in the Mirror of Jewish Research" (2010, p. 80):

"Baeck's preoccupation with the historical Jesus is exemplary of numerous Jewish attempts to understand the teachings of Jesus as an integral part of Jewish tradition and history. Baeck's critique of Christianity unfolds in a model of "polarity": the contrast between "classical" and "romantic" religion and the tension between "mystery" and "commandment" in every religion. The evaluation criteria for a deeper analysis of Judaism and Christianity can then be derived from this polarity. For Christianity, Baeck identifies and distinguishes two main currents of tradition: Paul, Augustine and Martin Luther represent the element of "mystery", the domain of romantic religion, - Jesus, Pelagius and Calvin the element of "commandment", the domain of "classical religion". While in the "classical" religions, to which Judaism belongs, there is a perfect balance between "mystery" and "commandment", Christianity is predominantly influenced by Paul and Luther and therefore embodies the "romantic" religion, which ultimately denies man the power to shape ethics.

Baeck's typology strips Christianity of entire pillars, but also points in an important direction for understanding his concern: the doctrine of man. For the difference between Judaism and Christianity is not to be seen in the person of Jesus: "The fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity, as it comes from Pauline theology, has its decisive starting point in the doctrine of man. It is the old biblical view that man is created in the likeness of God, that thus a creative power is inherent in him and the ability to decide, freedom is given to him, so that the commandment of God can come before him as a moral task" Man can freely decide between good and evil in his life. If he errs, he can repent. And because he can, he should.

This view is clearly opposed to the doctrine of grace of Pauline Christianity with its need for human redemption. And it is here, in the area of morality and ethics, that the real gulf between Judaism and Christianity is to be seen."

It is worth saying a few words about Pelagius here: Pelagius (350/360 - 418/420) was a contemporary and opponent of the Church Father Augustine (354-430). Pelagius rejected Augustine's doctrine of original sin and imputed Manichaeism to him, i.e. a doctrine that there is a good and a bad principle everywhere and that man by nature has a tendency towards the bad principle and that he is therefore in need of salvation. Pelagius, on the other hand, advocated a positive anthropology, i.e. that man is intrinsically good and that the human will is consequently capable of obeying God's commandments only by virtue of its natural capacity.

Although Pelagius was acquitted of the charge of heresy at a synod in 415, Augustine's greater influence succeeded in having him finally condemned as a heretic at the synod of Carthage in 418.

However, I, i.e. the author of the present concept, would like to agree with Pelagius that man is essentially good, etc. It is only important that obstacles to his being good are removed so that he can also develop his being good.

116. Why did Paul write something other than what was the concern of Jesus? The theologians seem to be helpless here, or rather the question is not asked at all. The American theologian James M. Robinson at least tries to answer it in his book Jesus and the Search for the Original Gospel (2005/2007) (p. 75): "The evangelists wrote more than half a century after Jesus' public ministry - at a time when the first disciples, mainly farmers and fishermen, had been replaced by second-generation Christians, some of whom were educated enough to write gospels in Greek. They may have unconsciously understood Jesus differently from how he understood himself. They belong to the ranks of the many who made an image of Jesus according to their own image of Jesus. This is how a scripturally literate Jesus came to be."

I now think that more plausible is the reason I have come up with in my engagement, namely that the cause of Jesus did not suit the influential circles of people and that therefore a new Jesus and a new concept of faith was brought into the world. For what I have come to should not be so easily forgotten or misunderstood. From "unconsciously understanding Jesus differently" is more than unlikely. Here, there must be a conscious desire to forget and/or misunderstand. And if the authors then prefer to make up their own minds, that is quite brazen.

117. sexology a bogus science? and "naturalistic fallacy": That today's sexology is largely not a particularly serious science becomes clear from two indications:

1. largely uncritical transfer of observations of the sexual behaviour of apes, especially bonobos, to humans. Thus, female apes sometimes "cheat", which has not been directly observed, but they do have offspring that, according to genetic analysis, do not come from the pasha of the group. And from some similarities between humans and bonobos, many sex researchers now conclude that human females in particular suffer from the cultural constraints of monogamy and that it is actually in their nature that they too would like to "cheat" (if they were allowed to).

A m. In my opinion, a very plausible argument against this thesis of modern sex researchers is shame. If female apes are promiscuous, i.e. they sometimes like to cheat, it is obviously in their nature - the characteristic of this is that they know no shame about it. They do hide their "cheating" from "their pasha", but there is no such thing as "body parts hiding shame" among them. But when human women cheat, they also need such shame. I think that this is a very sure indication that animal sexuality is not also human sexuality, that animal sexuality is therefore not in the nature of humans and that the transfer of a bonobo female morality to human women is nonsense.

2. thoroughly also from the research on the nature-loving inhabitants of South Sea islands such as Samoa by the "not uncontroversial" American anthropologist Margret Mead, modern educators or sex educators conclude that it is in human nature that already children begin to "playfully learn" sexuality up to and including sexual intercourse - if they are not prevented from doing so. And if children can already practise such childlike sexuality in an unconstrained and playful way, then they will supposedly later become well-balanced adults without exaggerated striving for power and possession, etc.. Therefore, it is the task of a humane sexual education to inform children in such a way that they can practise this playful learning of sexuality without danger, i.e. without the children contracting venereal diseases and without girls becoming pregnant.

The most important argument against such pedagogy is above all that behind it lies a pseudo-scientific "naturalistic fallacy", i.e. that the yardstick for the goal of this pedagogy is what the average person in a society does. This then seems to be the natural and normal thing that young people should be educated to do. But I think that this is far from being right! And apart from the fact that it is simply not true that South Sea Islanders deliberately bring up their children according to this pattern, it seems that to a large extent there is nevertheless such free behaviour on the part of the children. The problem in Samoa etc. is not that the adults like such behaviour of the children and educate them in this way, but because they simply do not know what they can do against such "shenanigans" of the children. Because it is also the case in Samoa that the result of such childhood games is not balanced people at all, but that there are relatively many psychologically disturbed people: The rate of suicides is probably the highest in the world, and then there are an unusually high number of legal proceedings because of personal problems. Just google "Margret Mead" and "Derek Freeman"! Derek Freeman is the New Zealand anthropologist (1916 - 2001) who spent a long time in Samoa and spoke the Samoan language, and who largely refuted Margret Mead's "research".

So it all looks like the morality of high monogamy is the typically human one after all.

But the more or less uncritical adoption of the alleged findings "from Margret Mead's anthropology" has finally led to the fact that the sexual morality of young people in our country is mainly made by a commercial company, which of course represents the corresponding own interests of the company. (The websites of "Bravo" have over two million hits a month - and the pseudo-science that is their background has long since found its way into school sex education). According to the logic of the naturalistic fallacy, it would also not have been wrong to educate young people to drink alcohol and smoke and take drugs, if that's what everyone was doing. Nor would it have been wrong to murder witches and Jews, because everyone did it or approved of it, at least from the point of view of the guards. And yet it was wrong and even criminal.

So the sensible and positive scientific thing to do would not be to educate young people to do what everyone does, no matter how good or bad that is, but to take ideals as a yardstick and develop ways to educate young people to those ideals. As I see it, our Christian religion would be suitable for such a "procedure" - at least if it is oriented towards the real Jesus. Because the standard of our religion is really different from that of the profane sexual sciences, or should be! It should be about the education to real values of love, fidelity, partnership, (real) monogamy. And because this is often not very successful, only the symptoms have been and are still being treated, so that in the end nothing has changed or is changing. Sexual education that is real must simply be oriented towards real values.

And if religion does not get involved here, then perhaps it would be the task of sophisticated media to become active here and "step on the toes" of the churches, for example. But in my experience, they don't want to do that either ...

118. "Moral nutrient value of shame": There are no scientific studies (at least none that I know of, and I have searched intensively for them) on whether the pedagogy of sexual shame has any "moral nutrient value" at all, i.e. that it leads to a higher morality, and a higher morality can only be a morality of true monogamy? The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset reported in his booklet "On Love" on his observation that it is not the men who "seduce" a woman, but that it is the women who begin to do so - in other words, the men only take what is offered. Y Gasset means this in principle, so it also applies to the "first time" of girls (without, however, directly addressing this "case"). I then went through the cases of the "first time" that were reported to me, either by the women themselves, how it started with them, or also by boys or men, with which reasons girls had or wanted to have their first sex with them, where no marriage came about or was not intended from the outset. It is astonishing, but infatuation did not occur at all, nor did greed (or "horniness"), that a girl could not stand it without sex, and certainly not fun on a nude beach, which then became "more". Nor was there blackmail to prove love, though it may be that these cases led to marriage, and that I therefore did not hear about them.

I once put together what I found out in the text "Monogamy from reason". I quote from it here:

"With some girls, it was certainly infatuation that made them defenceless to say 15 "no" to the boyfriend's urging, especially since they had no real plausible reasons for saying no. But others had started doing it with no infatuation at all or any discernible other pressure. Some had started simply because they thought it was a sign of emancipation and adulthood and that they felt inferior if they were still a virgin at 17. (It's interesting that in English the word for "fornication" is a derivative of the word for "adult"). But that didn't suit girls who were really good-looking and obviously intelligent, who didn't need such complexes. Others thought that "this" would lead to marriage, which they actually wanted, and others knew from the start that they never wanted to marry this first man, because - according to many - "the first man" was never "the right one" anyway. (Everyone supposedly says that - even the mothers all too often.) Or also, according to one girl: "My parents' marriage is obviously shitty; as far as I can see, that's because my mother had gone into the marriage virginal, as she had always told me. So I want to do it more sensibly and not go into marriage as stupid and naïve as she did and at least have a hot introduction to sexuality beforehand, no matter with whom." (Note: So the girl made such an "entrance", but it was a pure disaster. And afterwards the girl found out that her mother had always lied, she was not a virgin at all before her <marriage> husband. So the cause of the shittiness of her parents' marriage was not that her mother had gone into the marriage virgin!) And still others just wanted to leave home because they couldn't get along with their family, and the easiest way to do that "between 16 and 18" was to move in with a man. But still others got along with their family, their mother was even their best friend, and they started anyway. And still others just wanted to get "it" over with. Also, religion obviously had no influence, some who started "it" were very religious and devout, others were not religious and devout at all. Particularly impressive for me was how a mother vividly agreed with my commitment, which at that time was still very immature, but still, a start was there. So her daughter had come back from a school trip one day and had complained to her about her "experience": "Mother, mother, you told me about everything and you enlightened me about everything, but not about this." In any case, the mother encouraged me not to be put off and to continue on my path, to make it clear to parents how quickly their daughters can one day be taken by surprise by their feelings, against which they are then powerless - if they are not (see note 77) adequately prepared for them. For parents or other educators can very well do something here - beforehand, of course. I finally heard about blackmail from an elderly lady, because she actually didn't want to go. But in the last days of the war, a German soldier friend had told her that she would have to expect to be raped by Russian soldiers a little later, but she thought she was too good for a German soldier who would defend her with his life. Yes, she had never been taught any arguments to say something plausible against this and to offer him an "innocent alternative" as a substitute, e.g. a "therapeutic full-body massage to strengthen him", which would have been more appropriate for a soldier? Most of them - and also those who had started "voluntarily" - wanted to be faithful to a man, but their attitude was that in order to do so, a woman has to know beforehand to whom she wants to be faithful and whether she really likes being with this man. So in the end it doesn't matter with whom a woman starts "it". The main thing is that she starts sometime."

So that was then obviously in most cases the reason for the so-called "first boyfriend" that girls had sought out "just for that". The virginity had only been a nuisance, so away with it like a dirty rag (see note 14)! But what if such a way of dealing with our bodies is not also a kind of "hostility towards the body"? (See also note 74.) And today it will be no different, a girl's "first experiences" are still likely to begin like this.

119. "leaving girls stupid and uninformed": At the time I am writing this, the topic of feminists, and not just them, is the Metoo debate. This is all about rape, "hitting on" and other "unbecoming behaviour". In order for men to dare to practice this and possibly be "successful" in doing so, girls and women must be receptive and possibly also willing to participate. A come-on can be perceived as an annoying sexist approach, but also as a transparently immature and awkward approach that can be more or less humorously repelled. And depending on how well-informed a woman is, she could also "return" the come-on in a humorous way. There are also studies on rape. Interestingly, the victims here are not the perky, the brave, the self-confident women and girls, but rather the well-behaved, the reserved, the naive. It looks as if the perky and self-confident women and girls have an invisible but nevertheless very effective aura around them, so that the rapists and other hallodris don't even dare to approach them. The task of a sensible pedagogy would therefore be to educate young people less to be "well-behaved and reserved" and more to be "perky and self-confident". And those who have the opportunity to do this but don't, aren't they at least as guilty as the Harvey Weinstein and Placido Domingo types? Yes, as the poignant war song by Matthias Claudius so aptly says: "And I desire not to be guilty of it!" So I am trying to change that reticence and bravado through this concept.

The problem with "leaving the women and girls uninformed" at that time was not only this blackmailing "sometimes of a woman here, sometimes of a woman there", but the insecurity and fears of all the girls and women associated with it. Since the real backgrounds were not known to the normal well-meaning people and were not told to them, the girls and women were told, as is always the case, that they themselves were to blame for everything because they irritated the men through their "behaviour". And "behaviour" could and can be anything and everything, "unchaste clothing", "laughing in public", "talking to strange men", etc. And isn't that still the case today in principle - it's just that whatever sex happens then is presented as normal and as a sign of emancipation - even if it's basically just stupidity? In any case, the problem has not been solved!

120. Genuine monogamy: Whether the ideal of genuine monogamy already existed in the Bible is a difficult issue. Not least, the practice of the persons known by name in the Bible very often looks quite different; some did not think much of monogamy. But the escapades of those concerned are not glossed over in the Bible, but are clearly condemned, for example the liaison of King David with the wife of Uriah or also the many wives of King Solomon.

And while there may not be an explicit commandment of true monogamy in the Bible, I think it just follows.

1. the Adam and Eve narrative is about sex with a prostitute - and it is very strongly condemned, being seen as the cause of the loss of paradise

2. the ideal of nudity, which is explicitly mentioned in the paradise story, can only or at least most easily be lived with true monogamy

3. a woman's orgasm is conditional on her being able to let herself go with a man without hesitation, and this too is only or at least most easily possible in genuine monogamy.

4. the Ten Commandments belong to the history of the origin of the Jewish people (not the Abraham story with the order of circumcision, that is a story from afterwards!) - and there "the neighbour's wife" is taboo. And if we consider that with the Jews sexual intercourse and not marriage before the "censor" (as with the Romans) constituted marriage, then this means that a woman who already has sex with a man is considered married - and is no longer free for other men.

5. alternative to the conditions in slavery (see note 152): The only real alternative to the "disorderly relationships" in slavery are "orderly relationships", as they only exist in true monogamy.

6 The strict Jews (i.e. the Orthodox Jews) observe strict monogamy, which indicates that strict monogamy is indeed part of the Jewish faith. Unfortunately, however, this observance and, above all, the education for this observance is done in such an uptight and unworldly way that "real monogamy" is something rather deterrent for outsiders. Therefore, it is no longer or only rarely practised even by normal Jews. But what if real monogamy were taught differently to young people - as I am trying to do here?

7 If the demand for monogamy in our faith is not about true monogamy, then why all the effort? Since human beings are usually thin-boarders, everything would remain the same anyway.

According to the original Jewish tradition, only the commandment of true monogamy remains, even if it is not so clearly stated for us today. The question naturally arises whether this commandment is also tenable under the aspects of modern sexual science, or whether man is not being raped here into a way of life that is not his own. Time and again, sexologists say that true monogamy is not appropriate for human beings; not only men, but also women are not created by nature for only one sexual partner.

However, I think that the monogamous way of life is the typical human way after all, and if it doesn't work, it's because the pedagogy of this way of life is not professional or not professional enough:

1. the view is widely held that (sexual) shame is the condition for proper (sexual) morality, i.e. also for chte monogamy, there is neither scientific research nor any proof for this. At best there is a scientific animal experiment, see note 145.

2. The Catholic Church says that the sexual education of children is the task of the parents. The question arises, what if some parents perform this task reasonably and others do not? After all, when young people choose a partner according to the principles of true monogamy, they depend on the other young people thinking the same way as they do. If all parents now teach their children different attitudes, genuine monogamy is no longer guaranteed. So putting true monogamy into practice is a community task! And since it is a special ethical problem and not all people can be committed to this special ethical problem, it would be a task of or a religion. After all, one can choose the religion.

3. reasonable teaching of young people is very often rejected, at least so far, especially by people who are faithful to the church, because it would mean "early sexualisation" of young people. See notes 41, 45 and 103.

It is actually unbelievable how educators can even come up with the idea that monogamy can be consistently achieved with all these obvious capital errors. They can only be explained by cultural factors, "it's always been that way" - or that there is no real interest. But this also means that these mistakes can or even must be changed at some point. For many people, real monogamy may now work despite the mistakes, congratulations! But it will also often be the case that at some point the mutual attraction, which certainly existed at first mainly because of outward appearances (one simply found the other person beautiful and interesting and also very nice and there was also the prospect of a cultivated satisfaction of drives...), will be over. And then the reality sets in that you realise that you don't really fit together at all. Also, it had not even come to the woman's orgasm - so she looks for another partner - also another sexual partner who promises her more fulfilment. The sexologists then say that this is normal, the woman is just not made for monogamy, the man anyway. But if sexual morality were not based on the hiding of body parts and on ignorance and a lack of knowledge of the other, if the important interpersonal relationships were thus established differently and more sensibly - people would also be more monogamous.

It is incomprehensible to me why the sexologists (and also the religions) do not come to these very obvious connections. It looks as if the thesis of polygamy - which is more commonly called polyamory here today - is fixed from the outset as a kind of dogma and hardly anyone or no one takes the trouble to question this dogma and finally to "throw it overboard" as completely inconsistent.

And whoever thinks that man is not predisposed to monogamy should not demand that a religion which "relies" on monogamy should bend towards it, but should use his freedom and look for another religion which is more in line with his ideas.

121. "How women had no opportunities ... that Jesus had now witnessed": The question always comes up how Jesus' relationship with women was. Was he married, how did he relate to prostitutes, with whom he was obviously friends, did he have intimacies with such women, did his circle include female disciples, and also those with whom he also had intimacies? My opinion on this: We don't know and what we do know is probably all fictional. But research on Jesus' (sexual) relationships with women always overlooks something (as in the book "Jesus and Women" by Hubertus Mynarek, which deals with Jesus' allegedly lively love life): Especially in the area of sexuality, there is also a kind of "placebo effect". Placebo effect means that the knowledge about the effectiveness of a medicine influences its effectiveness. So if I am well lied to and deceived about the effectiveness of a medicine, that it works very well against an illness, then it also works - at least sometimes! Conversely, this also means that a medicine does not help if I firmly believe that it is not a real medicine, even if it really is one. It's a similar story with women, and not only when it comes to married women or women in a committed relationship, because these women are "taboo" for most men anyway: If it is clear to me that a woman only loves me for my money, or even if I know that a woman has a dangerous venereal disease, then it is quite possible to "lose your desire", which means that their sex drive can also drop to zero.

We should consider how the prostitutes Jesus was dealing with might have got their "job" at that time. Jesus had certainly seen how women and girls had been blackmailed into having sexual intercourse outside of marriage, at least in the beginning, by abusing the laws of the time. For according to these laws, women were considered to be convicted of the offence of adultery and were punished by death if caught in the act by two witnesses. And now this law was abused by brutal men according to the motto: "Either you have sex with us or we will report you for being caught with a man who is not yours, then you will be punished with death". Since the women saw no credible way out for others, they had no chance to successfully defend themselves (who would believe them if they told the court and others that they had done nothing "in that direction"?) and wanted to live, they agreed to what the men wanted - and that was the beginning of their dubious "career" as prostitutes - in ever increasing dependence on these "brutal men" (we would say "pimps" today). Once you were in their clutches, you couldn't get out. Jesus, however, was once a man who believed what these women said about how they got their "job", and who wanted to change something here and committed himself with public speeches "against sin, against hypocrites, for love". After all, he had heard about such experiences again and again. And for him, the culprits here were not only the typical perpetrators who had blackmailed the women, but also all the outwardly so well-behaved authorities in society, and at that time these were mainly priests and scribes who looked the other way and did not want to admit what was going on and therefore did not do anything meaningful about it.

In any case, this could be the background that Jesus no longer saw women as sex objects, but as human beings whom he had to help to bear their fate, or for whom he had to develop concepts so that they would not slip into such a fate when they still had "everything ahead of them". - I think it could have been like that with Jesus. What is strange, I know I am repeating myself, is that no one else has come up with these connections.

122 "... on the hot track of the real Jesus": The Bible passage in Matthew 11:19 would fit perfectly with the Jesus I have come across: "The Son of Man has come, eating and drinking; and they said: This glutton and drunkard, this friend of publicans and sinners! And yet wisdom has been vindicated by the deeds which she has wrought." The real Jesus was not concerned with some breathtaking deep faith in God and with asceticism far removed from the world and with a contempt for all earthly pleasures, but he wanted to change a single grievance, and that would be the shabby and even criminal treatment of women. And in order to change that, one does not have to be a dreary moralist and chastise oneself and preach such mortification to others, but one must above all be a real human being and have compassion and be able to think objectively!

123. "... first and foremost about a community ...": As far as I can see, "the special" of Paul's ideology is not so special at all, but typical for all known religions! When I read the Dalai Lama's book "The Heart of Religions", for example, it is always about faith in God and questions about the ultimate truths, about compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation, about protecting the environment, about peace, about mutual religious understanding ... This may be all well and good, but I think these are all typical goals in patriarchal systems (one can also say in "macho systems"). The machismo of religions is very obvious when, like the Jews and the Muslims, they "forcibly recruit" new members as babies or will-less children through circumcision, without these young people having a real chance to defend themselves and decide otherwise. In any case, the idealistic goals of interpersonal relationships, as I described them at the very beginning of the "criminal case" as the "scoop" of the original faith, and as Jesus in all probability also saw them, are not at issue anywhere. These goals are not even mentioned in the Dalai Lama's book. Yet the fulfilment of these goals should be the basis for everything else to follow automatically, so to speak. That is why I am committed to these (original Jewish) goals!

124. "... the experience of orgasm ..." (of the woman) and ... (this religion) "will win...": At some point I came across a nice and very interesting "story" from the Orient or Tunisia - in the book "The Fragrant Garden" (Sheik Nefzaui, early 15th century). It is about how a "miserable" man complains to a wise man that his wife does not want to know anything about him and therefore he cannot get hold of her fortune. The wise man explains to the pitiful man that he must know: "The woman's religion lies in her crack" and so he gives him a prescription for a remedy for his corresponding body part - and from the application of this remedy, the relationship with the woman works brilliantly, also she puts everything she is and has at his disposal. - Now I think that with this "remedy" nothing else is achieved than what Wilhelm Reich also means and with him the whole of modern sexology, i.e. a "technically" better sexual intercourse. But in reality it is not, or at least less, about the perfection with which the man thrusts his member into the woman's vagina, but whether she experiences a real orgasm. And this includes above all "the special personal feelings". The task of a girl is now to find the partner with whom there are "these special personal feelings" - and who, of course, also otherwise makes her feel responsible for her. And I think that the religion or even worldview that gives young people useful concepts here about how women (or girls) can achieve "this" in their lives will "win". This also means that all religions that do not manage to do this will disappear and only the religion will remain (or religions will remain) that helps or help people to solve their human tasks.

But what actually is orgasm? I don't think it is the twitching and moaning that is generally seen in porn films, because orgasm is something very personal and I doubt very much whether it can even happen when a film crew is standing around a couple to film them "doing it". When I wanted to explain to young people or even children what an orgasm is, I compared it to something like an earthquake - it is a completely new different reaction of the human body and especially of the female body. Of all the reactions we know about ourselves, it is perhaps most closely "related" to sneezing, which is also a "completely different" reaction of our body. And just as with sneezing, there is also an urge to experience it once it is "in prospect". And again and again: it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with penetration - even light touches on the surface of the genitals are then enough.

And how important orgasm is once a woman has experienced it, and how she wants to experience it again and again, is something I can tell you about from an experience during my student days. We students had a discussion in a small circle with a pair of psychologists who told us something from their practice, I was in the woman's group at the time. She showed us a tape recording she had made in a discussion group with couples whose marriages were in crisis but who, because they were "good Catholics", were very interested in continuing the marriage. I will reproduce here the statement of a woman in my own words, as far as I can still remember it, which was not only particularly impressive for me, but which was even extremely formative, I think. So the woman said: "Here we come together again and again, but my problem is not addressed at all, so I would like to finally get to it! The sexual experience between me and my husband is just not right at all, it's even the case that sexuality with him makes me completely uncomfortable. When I see him arrive with a bottle of wine, I already know what it's going to lead to - and some kind of reluctance arises in me. At the same time, I don't think I'm at all asexual or frigid. Because I was in a relationship before I got married and everything was completely different. When I saw my boyfriend coming in the distance, everything burned inside me and I always had an orgasm, but at some point I broke up with him because he moved to another city. And when I met my husband, I thought it would be the same with him, but unfortunately there is "nothing at all" in that direction. And now every now and then I meet a man near our house with whom I would know that everything would be like with my first boyfriend, but I don't want to...I love my husband, my children, my family - and I don't want to destroy all that. But it's horrible that I know I'll never have 'anything' like before again." And you could hear the woman crying.

Yes, what should I do differently after such an experience than to try to make young people understand that they should pay close attention when choosing a partner? After all, nature has given us the chance to "test" the orgasm without the "fait accompli", i.e. without "penetration" and even without petting (whereby I understand petting to mean touching each other with the genitals). All that is needed is a nice contact and especially a harmonious skin contact where the woman can really let herself go. And I think couples who want to stay together forever should have had this experience beforehand. And this is also exactly the experience that the book "The Fragrant Garden" talks about.

125. "...what others think about Paul...", Pauline ideology: Among theologians the dubious role of Paul has long been known, but many still hold on to him and consider what Maccoby writes and what I quote here and build on as spinning or even conspiracy theory. Therefore, I would like to cite two sources I came across that basically say the same thing about Paul as I do. The difference, however, is that the authors of these sources still impute something good or, in any case, something understandable and excusable to Paul, whereas for me he is a deliberate deceiver whose main concern was to eliminate the real Jesus from the world. Regarding Augstein's quote: "What pushed him, we don't know" - and yet we do know!

And here are the quotes:

Johannes Lehmann "The Mystery of Rabbi J." (by "Rabbi J." is meant Jesus), Knaur 1990 p. 287ff:

"It is true that such statements as "the saving death of Jesus" is the "central Christian act of salvation" or "if man wants to be saved, he is referred solely to Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for all men and whom God raised from the dead", are all based on the "theology of the cross", which is taken for granted in the Christian Occident, as formulated by Paul: "But if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is also null and void, and null and void is your faith . . . then your faith is senseless, then you are still in your sins." But Paul is suspected of not being interested in the truth of Rabbi J., but of reinterpreting the fact of Jesus' death out of "intrapsychic processes" in order to remove his difficulties of faith. "The tragedy of Paul lies... in the fact," J writes the Jewish religious scholar Shalom Ben-Chorin, "that this vertical Christ also erased Jesus of Nazareth, so that all that really remained was a theological abstraction that has something ghostly about it: The shadow of a vision." For as little as Paul found salvation from reality (he found it instead in a vision), so little did he care about reality. He adapted the world to his vision, not his faith to historical reality. Paul, the first theologian, was also the first ideologue of the Church.

....

Since the discovery of the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, we also have more circumstantial evidence that shortly after the death of Rabbi J., foreign thoughts began to override the Rabbi's teaching and that Paul spread a teaching of which Rabbi J. knew nothing."

and Rudolf Augstein, "Jesus Son of Man", Bertelsmann 1972, p. 107 ff:

"This medial theologian (Paul) was himself the message. Pauline Christianity, with its hostility to the body and its consciousness of sin, its predestination and its will to send, is so shaped by him that we cannot even imagine a non-Pauline Christianity. As little as we can grasp Jesus, the man from Cilicia in the south of today's Turkey becomes so vivid to us, even if we only take as a basis the epistles that undoubtedly originate from him. A tornado of justification, such as Paul unleashes in the 11th and 12th chapters of his second epistle to the Corinthians, cannot be found in ancient literature before him. When Paul affirms that he accomplished more in his missionary work than the other apostles (all together? - 1 Corinthians 15:10), one may take this at face value. According to Freud, he was "a religious man in the true sense of the word; the dark traces of the past lurked in his soul, ready to break through into more conscious regions".

A historical Jesus remains with him without any contour, indeed it seems as if he is fond of not knowing "Christ in the flesh" - Paul uses the dignitary title "the Anointed" as a first or last name, as the case may be. He appeals to direct inspiration, never to one who knew Jesus; the Lord Himself communicated His views to him. The Lord's sending command to the disciples ("Go into all the world"), which is only asserted in a later layer of the Gospels, he heard immediately after Jesus' death. He seizes the absurdity by the scruff of the neck, he turns the negativity around and designs a theology of failure. Credo quia!

...

Of course, we do not know what triggered him. But it is believable that, as a young man of perhaps twenty or twenty-five or thirty years, he pursued the early Christian community in the Jewish land with his hatred, because he was pregnant with a new theology, and just did not yet know to whom he should attach it. A Son of Heaven hovered before his eyes, full of mighty qualities, yet without reality in his human level. That this someone had existed, and in such a way that he no longer had to deal with him, this blissful realisation came to him like an attack. How good it was that he did not know the object of his new love! Only a dead Jesus was a good Jesus for him.

Jesus had not been a man at all, but had, as it were, only entered into the, therefore meaningless, shell of a man. He, who lived in a divine existence, had stripped himself of it in order to enter into a slave existence (Philippians 2:6-7), had been sent by God into our sinful existence (Romans 8:3), had become poor, although he was rich before (2 Corinthians 8:9), came (1 Corinthians 15:47) from heaven. It was "original Christian conviction", says Wilckens, that "Christ had been with God in heaven before his birth". Paul pronounced and enforced, if not substantiated, this original Christian conviction."

126. "... abusing the laws of the time": In any case, the question arises to what extent laws can really lead to an improvement or even a change in ethical matters. Ethical behaviour is a matter of attitudes, and attitudes cannot be influenced by laws, or only with great difficulty; usually there are always loopholes, so that the wicked can continue to do their evil, or at least believe they can. Sometimes it gets much worse: An American lawyer friend of mine (+ Henry Cohn, Albany N.Y.) once told me that those who make the laws plan from the outset and thus also know how they can make their wickedness even worse through these very laws. And so one such perverted law that had only made everything worse was that women caught having sex with a man who is not theirs must be punished by death. Did this law make anything better? On the contrary!

127. Real morality and false morality or substitute morality: In my experience, even seasoned psychologists do not question sexual shame (i.e. the culturally determined "compulsion to cover up") for its effect (and for its value) for real morality and thus do not even get the idea that it is not only not a natural morality, but can even confuse or even destroy every natural morality and usually does so. We are so in favour of "nature" today, but not here of all places! Of course, one cannot simply leave out this "unnatural substitute morality", but one must replace it with a real morality - and that can only be a morality "from the spirit" - and the spirit must be educated!

128. On the "truth" of the early stories of the Bible: Again and again the objection is raised that the early stories of the Bible are all fairy tales - and then reference is made to the creation of Adam and Eve and to the creation of the world in seven or six days. - I have talked enough about Adam and Eve in the meantime, but the problem of creation and the creator god is much simpler than that: we first have to realise that the Bible is not a science textbook, but a book that is about ethics, and the meaning of the belief in creation in the Bible is not the belief in a creator god, but the overcoming of idolatrous cults that despise human beings, such as human sacrifice and sex in honour of all kinds of gods, in the technical language of theologians "cultic prostitution". But these "customs" cannot be abolished that easily, because behind them there are always tangible fears and compulsions: "How might the gods punish us if we no longer worship them properly and sacrifice to them properly?" We have to realise that in typical pagan belief, behind the sun and moon were the gods Sun God and Moon Goddess, and also behind the other stars and the plants and animals and natural phenomena such as earth, wind, water and fire were some other gods. Therefore, human sacrifice and (cultic) prostitution could not be overcome so easily. The most effective and sensible thing was therefore to somehow abolish the gods, and the easiest way to do that was to degrade them to things and thus make the deification of these natural phenomena superfluous - and the "worship" could then also be stopped. For this purpose, the authors of the Bible's prehistory constructed a creator God who had created these natural phenomena, to call them that. In this sense, the creation narrative "God created ... "is an ingenious early deification of these natural phenomena and thus also an enlightenment according to the motto: "The stupid pagans believe that these natural phenomena are all gods and sacrifice their first-born children to them and make their wives and daughters available to the idol priests and other men for sex, and also pay them to work themselves to death in the temple's own fields, and the cliques of priests lie on their lazy skins and live on it in luxury. Yet all modern enlightened people know that the sun and moon are only lamps in the sky (i.e. things) that indicate the seasons and the feast days, etc. ..."

Again: Above all, it is also about overcoming promiscuity for what reasons! And since promiscuity no longer runs in us today out of any belief in gods, but for other reasons, and since a god constructed against these "cults" also no longer means anything to us, I am precisely trying to work through these "other reasons" effectively, and thus above all to overcome them without hostility to the body.

So everything is really quite simple, the more disconcerting is that children are still largely told everything as if it were fairy tales - and some sects and others also still fanatically cling to the fact that everything was "as it is written in the Bible". And this includes sects that are otherwise quite in favour of high morals among their believers.

129. "damnatio memoriae" ("destruction of memory"): We have to imagine such a "destruction of memory" like the deletion of a file on the hard disk of a computer. If it is simply deleted, then it is still there, it is just not shown that it still exists, so it cannot normally be found. The file is only really deleted if it has been overwritten with a new text, for example, then it is really "gone". And this is how we have to think of Jesus' commitment: His person and his concern were so perfectly "overwritten" with a "new Jesus" and a "new commitment" that today only this "newness" remains in consciousness. It is very difficult to get to the real Jesus and his commitment. In any case, the texts with which the real Jesus was "overwritten" are to be used with extreme caution, because they were most likely given a different meaning than the original meaning they had with Jesus. Thus the story of sin according to John 8 became a story of forgiveness or at least a story of kindness to women. The fact that it was originally a story about how Jesus saw through the methods of the demimonde mafia, how they dealt with women in a criminal way, has been completely "erased", at least in the general consciousness, especially that of the theologians. One can only find the original meaning if one is made aware of it by "experts", in this case people who know at least a little about the demimonde - and if one is also open to it.

We can see a "destruction of memory" in our Christian religion, for example, from feast days and places of pilgrimage, i.e. from popular "memorial sites" of earlier religions. Thus, the festival of the "Sol invictus", the "invincible sun god", became the festival of the birth of Jesus, i.e. Christmas, and many old pagan pilgrimage sites became new Christian pilgrimage sites.

A famous "annihilation of memory" was also attempted with the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his monotheistic belief in the god "Aton", here everything was "erased" that only somehow reminded of him. Thus the magnificent city of Amarna, which he had built, was so thoroughly destroyed that one can only tell from the different coloured gravel on the site of the former city that buildings made of different stones once stood here. But the erasure was not as perfect as Jesus', because he did not quite succeed in "overwriting" what he wanted with a new meaning. Or did it succeed? Do we really know the original meaning of the Aton faith? It is always said that he wanted to disempower the priestly castes that were common in his time. But wasn't it more than that, isn't this where the origin of the Jewish one-god faith with the high ethical standard of the Ten Commandments is to be found?

Here we could also consider how it was that the Gospels were presumably not written in the area where Jesus lived and worked, but far away from it in Greek territory, and why this was also of interest here with the prostitutes and the demimonde mafia. First of all, we have to consider that even today the worldwide trafficking in women is one of the biggest business fields, and how much more will that have been in the ancient world - for example, in Pompeii there were two brothels in every street, i.e. that what happened in Jesus' area "on this work" also happened everywhere else in the world at that time and that many women were needed. And the women must have come from somewhere. On the one hand, they were certainly war slaves (the Romans sometimes waged wars for the sole purpose of obtaining slaves and slave women, see note 7), and on the other hand, women who were bought up all over the world. How they came to be the object of purchase was certainly not only never beautiful, but often downright criminal. And of course the women had different prices "depending on their quality". It will probably have been the same as with the gladiators. In general, they were slaves from wherever, who also had different values depending on their appearance and on their ability to fight. There were also free men who were particularly "good" and for whom gladiatorial combat was a business. So it will have been the same with the "fighters in the beds" - the women. I think we also have to see it in the case of a woman like the beautiful Susanna, that she would have been sold "far away" if her "conquest for prostitution" had been successful. She would certainly not have been worn out in a cheap village brothel in her old neighbourhood, where there was always the danger that someone knew her and that she would therefore have been inhibited, but far away, perhaps even in a luxury brothel in Corinth or even in Rome or in a private home.

(Perhaps something about the prices at that time: a simple legionary earned about 1,000 sesterces per year, luxury slaves and of course slave girls cost up to 100,000 sesterces. And that was always a lucrative business for all concerned, even if even top Jewish women perhaps didn't bring quite so much. But do we know? Perhaps Jewish women were considered particularly racy and were therefore in great demand and had a particularly high market value, so that selling them was worthwhile, especially because there was always something left over from the "intermediate trade"? Then one can already imagine that unscrupulous elders, when they saw the beautiful Susanna, thought not only of having sex with her, but also of a crazy business deal and came up with something so that this business deal would happen, even if it was connected with a certain risk. - Two comments on this: I realise that the Susann story had happened about 200 years before the time of Jesus, but it will not have been much different in Jesus' time and: The prices according to Prof. Hartwin Brandt/University of Bamberg in the newspaper DIE WELT of 3 Nov. 2020, p. 26).

130. "successfully harnessed to the cart" / "... that it was about more than just having sex with the woman ..." / "there was also a lot of money involved": So it may well be that Paul and consorts (or perhaps better "collaborators") wrote the New Testament on behalf of an international (demimonde) mafia and were blackmailed in the process according to the procedure "Either you work for us or you won't live long and we'll find you wherever you are in the world, or even your family members". And Paul and others then made the best of it and coped with it.

Something also needs to be said about this: It is not just a matter of a woman being brought into prostitution in this way from time to time, but a general climate of fear. Because somehow word gets around about "such methods" of getting prostitutes - but without any details becoming known. What remains is a diffuse climate of fear, i.e. that women basically no longer dare to be open with men, that they hide what they look like and what they think, that they are - in short - unapproachable. Of course, this is not entirely practicable and the fears can also be overcome by creating an attitude among women and girls that nothing really matters and that sex with whomever is not a question of morality. And that girls and women become "loose" and seek "sexual encounters" of their own accord without marriage. But I don't think that's a good solution, especially since women and girls eventually get the impression that all men are pigs anyway (and if they're not, then they're bores) and that men should be taken as they are.

I think something should also be said here about the more or less intensive veiling of women and girls in some cultures. In my opinion, the reason for this veiling is not so much the concern that women and girls could incite men to rape through their "openness", but rather that especially in patriarchal societies, in which there are rulers who look for the most beautiful girls and women as concubines "from the people" or have them brought to them at will, they wanted to protect themselves from such "searching". And the best way to do that was to make themselves as unattractive as possible, i.e. ugly. For this purpose, they used veils to the ugliness of scarecrows. And since the abduction of a woman into a harem or the like was somehow considered immoral (the women were the immoral ones here, not the abductors!), veiling became a sign of high morals. That is, if you wanted to be moral and not be abducted, you had to make yourself ugly and veil yourself. And the attitude of what high morality is, namely to make oneself ugly, has remained so in some societies to this day. (I once heard that at least some Muslim prostitutes leave their headscarves on during sex - as a sign that they are moral. It can't get any crazier than that, when people want to demonstrate their morality, which they clearly don't have any more ...).

So I think that the fears, however they are expressed, are most likely to disappear in a morality of high and genuine universal monogamy. Therefore, this morality would be incomparably better than anything we know in this respect. So I advocate such a better morality!

131. "In this respect, traditional religions always have an "easy game": that's just it, we humans virtually want such a religion! Not only the sects live from this "will", the great religions also live from it and often not badly: from the sense of community of people who are actually "victims" and even their victims, from the beautiful church services, from the old traditions, from the pilgrimages and not least from the ceremonies for the dead. They do not see that such religions unfortunately forget to make young people fit to take their own lives into their own hands in a completely different way, so that the fate of the generations before them is not repeated in them. So it is like a vicious circle, it goes on and on ... We can see how it could be different and how beautiful it could be in other areas of human life: Yes, why do we actually plant young trees, which costs a lot of money after all, when we have "harvested" the old trees, we have nothing left of them? This means that we are not so selfish and bourgeois, we can think of the people who follow us! And why not here too, when it comes to high morals? And as with the joy of a walk or even a hike through a young forest, surely we can also enjoy happy young people who are full of life? Surely they also have value, even if we have nothing left of them immediately? (And besides: many festivals etc. can stay!)

132. Senseless fears: Senseless (or irrational) fears naturally also include fears of "divine punishment" for non-moral behaviour, be it here and now through some misfortune or only after death through burning in the fires of hell. Such fears are (of course) senseless and generally do not lead to real morality, but at best to a pseudo-morality and thus also to the opposite, not least one then very often throws the whole religion overboard. And since, according to the theologians, this should not happen because church taxpayers would then be lost, they maintain the thesis that a "good Christian" will be forgiven for everything anyway through Christ's atonement, if only he has the right faith. Or - depending on the denomination - he can buy his freedom from punishment - in the past with indulgences and today with good works (whatever they are).

On the subject of "what doesn't go together", I came across an interesting train of thought in the book "What Money Can't Buy" (by Michael J. Sandel, New York and Berlin) that sometimes the prospect of reward with money has a rather negative effect on an idealistic attitude. Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel uses the example of a survey of the inhabitants of the village of Wolfenschiessen (2100 inhabitants/central Switzerland). It was a question of setting up a final storage site for radioactive waste, and the subsoil of the village would have been ideal for this. When an appeal was made to the public spirit of the inhabitants, because the waste had to be stored somewhere and the storage would also be absolutely safe for the inhabitants, 51% of the inhabitants agreed. "Obviously, their sense of civic duty outweighed their concerns about the risks. Then the economists sweetened the imposition: Suppose the parliament proposed to build the nuclear repository in your community and offered to compensate all residents with an annual compensation payment - would you agree? Result: Support weakened, not strengthened. The financial incentive halved the approval rate from 51 to 25 percent. The money offered reduced the willingness of citizens to accept the repository. Even more: when the economists increased the amount, the rate remained unchanged. Residents even stood firm when they were offered the equivalent of $8700 a year - more than the average monthly income. Similar, though less dramatic, responses to financial offers have occurred in other places where the resident population opposed nuclear repositories." (p.143f) Conclusion: the sense of common good and a financial reward simply do not go together, the offer of a financial reward simply destroys the sense of common good.

And I think it's the same with "our subject": fear of punishment and genuine moral behaviour simply don't go together either, you can't achieve moral behaviour with fears, and especially not with irrational fears. This may work at first with some people, especially young people, who have a very firm faith and who (still) take everything they are told about pious stories at face value. But such an attitude cannot be relied upon, because in the case of a strong "temptation", doubts always arise as to whether these pious stories are not just fairy tales that need not be taken seriously. In addition, there is supposed to be God's forgiveness anyway, but after the "deed" there are new fears because one has a bad conscience because of it. So such fears and good moral behaviour basically have little or nothing to do with each other. Linking morality (and especially sexual morality) with fear of punishment does not provide a reliable foundation for ethical action. Moreover, such a linkage is even counterproductive and thus also fatal for any genuine morality, because the values that should stand behind a morality are not cultivated with it. Morality has much more to do with an ethical attitude, with a sense of honour and dignity, with a feeling for aesthetics and beauty and standard, with information and intelligence and wisdom and joie de vivre, in short with a genuine humanity - and all this is only ruined by fear of punishment and not at all promoted (as perhaps some small-minded people think). I now assume that the better and firmer and more insightful the rules of a morality are, the more is possible, the freer and more human man becomes. Suddenly things become possible that are usually considered impossible today.

Note on our times: A fear of punishment is generally no longer taught to young people. But "nothing" is also "nothing", because that leaves the field to others who then teach young people a morality in their sense. Something positive must now also be added. I hope to have shown in my work that morality can be taught not only through fears, but also through the "joy of morality". And that is very possible today, when one can finally talk "about everything", especially to children. I.e., even to them you do not have to tell them something wrong!

133. "Jesus von Nazareth im Spiegel jüdischer Forschung" („Jesus o. N. in the Mirror of Jewish Research“) (Walter Homolka, Berlin 2/2010, p. 80f): Basically, what I am writing here is not new at all. Jewish researchers have long since seen exactly this Jewish Jesus that I see here, though not as concretely as he was committed against the abuse of women and sexulity. This is why the important Jewish theologian Leo Beck does not see a consistent concept that man should not go the wrong way in the first place, but sees first and foremost the possibility of conversion. And this view is again very similar to the Pauline ideology ... I think that is also the reason why Christians and Jews have never really come together. So the cause of the rift is not only with the Christians, but also with the Jews.

I quote here from Homolka's book:

"Baeck's preoccupation with the historical Jesus is exemplary for numerous Jewish attempts to understand the teachings of Jesus as an integral part of Jewish tradition and history. Baeck's critique of Christianity unfolds in a model of "polarity": the contrast between "classical" and "romantic" religion and the tension between "mystery" and "commandment" in every religion. The evaluation criteria for a deeper analysis of Judaism and Christianity can then be derived from this polarity. For Christianity, Baeck identifies and distinguishes two main currents of tradition: Paul, Augustine and Martin Luther represent the element of "mystery", the domain of romantic religion, Jesus, Pelagius and Calvin the element of "commandment", the domain of "classical religion". While in the "classical" religions, to which Judaism belongs, there is a perfect balance between "mystery" and "commandment", Christianity is predominantly influenced by Paul and Luther and therefore embodies the "romantic" religion, which ultimately denies man the power to shape ethics. (Author's note: The theology of the Catholic Church also belongs to the Paul-Augustine-Luther line).

Baeck's typology strips Christianity of entire pillars, but also points in an important direction for understanding his concern: the doctrine of man. For the difference between Judaism and Christianity is not to be seen in the person of Jesus: "The fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity, as it comes from Pauline theology, has its decisive starting point in the doctrine of man. It is the old biblical view |...] that man is created in the likeness of God, that thus a creative power is inherent in him and the ability to decide, freedom is given to him, so that the commandment of God can come before him as a moral task". Man can freely decide between good and evil in his life. If he errs, he can repent. And because he can, he should.

This view is clearly opposed to the doctrine of grace of Pauline Christianity with its need for human redemption. And it is here, in the area of morality and ethics, that the real gulf between Judaism and Christianity is to be seen.

At the centre of the dispute, however, was the question of Jesus' messianity. Harnack's phrase that the gospel of Jesus was "nothing new" was quoted again and again in this context. Following on from this statement, Jewish theologians and scholars emphasised that the elements that separated Judaism from Christianity had only been brought into Christianity by Paul."

134. "Peak of contempt for women" and "...even much less value than today": I first quote from the keyword "contemporary history" from the standard work "Environment of Early Christianity" Volume I by Johannes Leipoldt and Walter Grundmann, 1966/1982, Berlin (pp. 172ff), so that we get an impression of the situation of women at the time of Jesus:

"The overall disparity of Jewish thought in the post Old Testament period shows...a consistent disparagement and disrespect for women, also in contrast to their position in ancient Israel.".... "In the composition 'women, slaves, children', the low esteem in which women were held is expressed. For Josephus (note: Roman-Jewish historian 37/38 - after 100 AD) she is 'inferior to man in everything'. Rabbi Jud ben Elai says: `Three praises must one say every day: Blessed be He who did not make me a Gentile! Blessed be He who did not make me a woman! Blessed be He who did not make me ignorant! Blessed is he that made me not a heathen: all heathen are as nothing before him. Blessed is he that made me not a woman: for woman is not bound by commandments. Blessed is He who did not make me an uneducated man: for the uneducated man does not fear sin'....Thereby the position of the woman to the law is touched. From Rabbi Eliezer the sentence is handed down: `Whoever teaches his daughter Torah, teaches her silliness'"....

"As early as Sir. 9:9 it says: `Do not converse much with a married woman, and do not hold long conversations with her, lest your heart be distracted and you go down to the underworld with guilty blood.' Jose ben Jochanan says: `Do not talk much with the woman' (Abot 1:5); `because of an unnecessary conversation that occurs between a man and his wife, the man will be taken to task at the hour of death.' All this reveals: Woman is essentially seen as a sexual being who has a seductive effect on man....In law-abiding circles, wives and daughters are locked in the women's chambers and are only allowed to show themselves in public veiled. Sirach (42:9ff) says of daughters growing up: 'A daughter is a treasure to the father (note: but probably not in the ideal sense - see above), which makes him uneasy, and the care of her disturbs his sleep....Where she dwells, let there be no window, and where she spends the night, no entrance all around. She shall not be seen in the presence of any man, and she shall not communicate with women in confidence'....

The acquisition (note: of the woman) is parallel to the acquisition of a slave: 'The woman is acquired by money, deed and coitus.... the pagan slave is acquired by money, deed and taking possession (i.e. by the first service he does to his master)'....The young woman passes from the father's possession to that of the husband.... If the bride (note: i.e. before the wedding, after the legally valid engagement) becomes involved with another man, she is considered an adulteress who can be punished by stoning, while the married woman is punished by strangulation. Since in both cases two witnesses must testify to the adultery, however, the death penalty is relatively rarely enforceable. (Note: Presumably this only happened if the witnesses played a false game, see Jesus and the sinner)....

There are hardly any testimonies from which it is recognisable that there is a community of understanding and life between man and woman...(Note: that there was therefore something like partnership). Since only the man, but not the woman, could divorce the marriage, she was at the mercy of the man."

So the way this Hlbweltmfia treated the women at the time of Jesus was obviously something completely normal at that time, it was at most something more extreme, just the peak - and it is more than remarkable that this Jesus noticed that something was wrong here and that he obviously tried to do something about it....

The problem of our Christian faith is unfortunately still the old contempt for women and the anti-Semitism that is also in it. By distinguishing Jesus from Paul we can clearly say that the contempt for women (and also the anti-Semitism) are connected with Paul's teaching, Paul was obviously stuck in the old attitude towards women, and I think fully consciously. What I find strange on the point of "contempt for women" is that there have been women theologians for a long time, and in non-Catholic churches also women pastors and even women bishops. But this has not brought about a fundamental change in our theology as far as women are concerned, namely to find out the cause of contempt for women (or even misogyny) and thus to recognise the devastating effect of Paul's teaching. Then again, a man has to come up with a blatant thesis and a concept developed from it that could finally overcome Paul's teaching. It would be nice to see if this could also overcome anti-Semitism, which also has its roots in the Pauline doctrine and thus in our traditional Christian faith. In any case, I am optimistic!

135. Acceptance of the concept: I have also presented the concept to some Catholic faculties (though not yet in its present form). At least the dean of the faculty in Münster answered me and I sent him the present version. He wrote that this would mean that 1800 years of theological research had been nonsense and that the several hundred years of Jesus research had been in vain. No, no, I replied, the 1800 years only tell us how good the falsifiers (or also fraudsters) were at that time, and what I came up with is, so to speak, the quintessence of the Jesus research that I heard in my studies and elsewhere. Anyone could have come up with it if the relevant coincidences had also "crossed" their path as they did mine - perhaps even a much better one.

136. "Something as incomprehensibly ephemeral as the air formations": I particularly like this quote by Ortega y Gasset, above all it reminds me of Jesus' ideal: changing history "without the steel of the god of war", i.e. without weapons and without war - that's something! Could Ortega y Gasset have meant exactly the same thing as Jesus? Consciously or unconsciously?

137. On the construction of God: Is God only a construction? For this we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people of perhaps 3000 years ago - and instead of talking about marital morality, I would perhaps better talk about human sacrifices, which were above all sacrifices of the first-born sons. At that time, people firmly believed that illnesses, strokes of fate, epidemics, famines etc. were the work of gods - and this belief was then also fuelled by priest castes wherever possible. Because this belief meant fears and fears were (and still are) not only the perfect business model of religions - and that means sacrifices and drudgery for the gods! What can't you tell people, all that matters is that they believe it! And it's not just about business, fears also mean power for those who "sit at the lever".

And the more blatant the sacrifices, the greater the fears! Especially something like the sacrifice of sons, it can't all be for nothing!

Of course, at some point there are doubts, but who dares to express them aloud? Belief in God is considered a terrible crime that the gods will punish! And among those who will be punished are of course also those who knew about such outrages and did nothing against them, i.e. those who did not report such outrages, etc.

But at some point the doubts of many people became too great, at some point something like a critical point came.

And this critical point was reached when a "superior", a "ruler", was also supposed to sacrifice his son. And that person decided to do it himself - probably with ulterior motives from the very beginning. So on the way to the place of sacrifice on a certain mountain, he sent the two servants away - he only wanted to be alone with his son destined for sacrifice and did not like to have any witnesses for what he wanted. And so the son was now initiated into the story as we know it from the Abrahamic narrative in the Bible. So: "Dear Isaac, actually you have to die now, because you have to be sacrificed for the gods. But I can imagine that you do not want to die, that you would rather live. For that there is only the possibility that a new, a better, a higher God has appeared to both of us on the mountain, who has given me the command that from now on we must be obedient to him alone - and who then also gave us the command not to sacrifice you, but a ram that happened to get caught in the undergrowth with its horns. And we'll have to tell them all about it when we return safe and sound to our family and our fellow men, who will of course be amazed to see you alive again! And you must keep absolutely tight here, because if you blurt out the truth here, then it will be both of us!"

And here begins a new religion, a religion of humanity: no longer is man there for the gods, but God (there is now only one God!) is there for man! And so the sacrifices of girls and women for the gods also cease, which of course mostly look somewhat different from the executions, of course, who kills beautiful girls and women, you can rather do "something else" with them!

So this is the beginning of the belief in God as we know it today. However, this belief in God has become independent, it has completely detached itself from the occasion of the sacrifice of a son or daughter and is now only an end in itself. And human sacrifices today would be considered murders and would be punished by state authorities. And the solution to the problem of sex without marriage, i.e. the problem of strict monogamy (i.e. having only one sexual partner), no longer works with faith in God, it has to work differently today. That's why I advocate other ways here.

And what about faith in God? I leave that to you, dear readers! I do not want to intrude on your private sphere .... See also note 68.

138. "as a phantom constructed with malicious intent": I have pondered for a long time whether I am allowed to write this so crassly, because a great many very well-intentioned people are, after all, attached to all these miraculous stories. So this devaluation of supposedly indispensable Christian faith contents may sound rather brutal, and it was not easy for me either. But I think that at some point the stove is simply out - and you have to accept that according to the procedure "Better an end with horror than horror without an end ...". In any case, I remember how I always tried to teach these beliefs (or "truths of faith") to my students. I could easily derive the virgin birth from some pagan myths without questioning the whole faith, but the resurrection of Jesus? There too there are parallels to pagan myths (see note 27), but what would then remain of our faith if this "super miracle" were to disappear? But if I now, since about 2019, see the commitment of Jesus differently and the New Testament with all its contents of faith as a grandiose diversion from the real and very justified concern of Jesus, then I can (or even must) also disregard "these contents of faith" and may well also call them nonsense. For only in this way can Jesus' real concern, namely his commitment against the abuse of sexuality, attain the significance it deserves. And it is not simply a matter of not doing something, but much more. Because if we know where there are "possibilities to do something wrong", then we also know where they are not - and we can live much more freely, consciously and intensively - see also note 149.

And one can also ask: What kind of people were these at that time who wrote a "New Testament" and put it into the world with such invented "truths of faith" in order to distract gullible and well-intentioned people from the real problems and above all from the concern of the author (Jesus) and to send them astray? Were they not really brutal and even criminal? In any case, they were not serious. I could even imagine that they laughed their heads off at how they got the followers of Jesus in their pain around the crucified Jesus to believe in the nonsense that they fabricated and successfully launched into the thinking of the people of the early church and finally also into the holy scriptures, and that finally dogmas also came out of it and more and more believers were added in this sense - and will be added again and again in the distant future. Is it not time, then, to finally set something right here - also and especially in the name of the real Jesus?

139. "to write as a life-Jesus" or "it has nothing to do with the real Jesus": First, praise to German Protestantism, to which we owe Life-Jesus research, from the pen of Albert Schweitzer ("Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, Siebenstern-Taschenbuch 77/78, 1966, p. 42): "It belongs to the essence of Protestantism that it is a church which is not faithful to the church, but faithful to Christ. Through this it is given and given up to be absolutely truthful. If he ceases to be fearlessly truthful, he is only a shadow of himself and thus unfit to be to the Christian religion and to the world what he is called to be.

The Life of Jesus research is an act of truthfulness of Protestant Christianity. In presenting its course, I am reviving an epoch of scientific Protestant theology before later generations. May they experience the will to truthfulness that inspired those generations and thereby be strengthened in the realisation that unswerving truthfulness belongs to the essence of genuine religiosity.

In all the difficulties that historical knowledge creates for faith, we can take comfort in Paul's words: "We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth" (2 Cor 13:8). Lambarene, 19 August 1950" (Note on the quotation from Paul's work: Whether what one understands by truth is also the truth is another question. Wasn't the communist party newspaper also called "Truth" ( = Pravda), and what was written in it all too often was anything but "truth"? Anyone who needs to talk so much about truth is suspect from the outset - and that applies to Paul in particular!

And then further on p. 45: "The problem: if once our culture lies before the future as something closed, German theology stands there as a greatest and unique event in the intellectual life of our time. The lively juxtaposition and intermingling of philosophical thought, critical feeling, historical view and religious feeling, without which no profound theology is possible, can only be found in the German mind.

And the greatest deed of German theology is the study of the life of Jesus. What it has created here is fundamental and binding for the religious thinking of the future.

In the history of dogma it lays the negative foundation of religious thought. By describing the seizure of Jesus' ideas by the Greek spirit, she pursues the construction of something that had to become and has become alien to us. We experience her efforts to create a new dogma as ones that are history itself. It is indeed interesting to follow how modern thoughts flood into the old dogma in order to combine there with eternal ideas to form new structures, to penetrate into the essence of the thinkers in whom this process takes place: but the true reality of what confronts us there as history we experience in ourselves."

But a comment on this from the author of the website: All well and good with the achievement of German Protestantism! But the Jesus that German Protestantism has come up with is actually colourless (as Pope Benedict writes in his Jesus book) and not very suitable for a real renewal. This is probably why Albert Schweitzer's concern, namely to find the right Jesus, is hardly known today (2021), not even among German Protestants. It would take another Catholic to come up with the solution, namely that the "Jesus problem" is a criminal case. And from there, one can then conclude on the commitment of the real Jesus and translate it into today's time!

And here now to the quotation about the historical Jesus (p. 47 f):

".... For Reinhard, Hess, Paul (meaning the theologian H.E.G. Paul, 1761 - 1851) and the other rationalist presenters, he is the wonderful revelator of true virtue, which agrees with reason. Thus each succeeding epoch of theology found its thoughts in Jesus, and could not animate him otherwise.

And not only did the epochs find themselves in him: each one created him according to his own personality. There is no more personal historical enterprise than to write a life-Jesus. No life comes into the figure unless one breathes into it all the hatred or all the love of which one is capable. The stronger the love, the stronger the hatred, the more alive the form that arises. For one can also write the Life of Jesus with hatred - and the greatest ones are written with hatred: that of Reimarus, the Wolfenbüttel fragmentist, and that of David Friedrich Strauß. It was not so much a hatred of the person as of the supernatural nimbus with which he allowed himself to be surrounded and with which he was surrounded. They wanted to portray him as a simple man, tear off the splendid robes with which he was clothed and throw on him again the rags in which he had walked in Galilee.

Because they hated, they saw most clearly in history. They advanced research more than all change put together. Without the nuisance they gave, science would not be where it is today. "Trouble must come: but woe to the man through whom trouble comes." Reimarus escaped the woe by keeping the nuisance to himself all his life and remaining silent. His writing "On the Purpose of Jesus and His Disciples" was only published after his death by Lessing. But the curse was fulfilled on Strauss, who, at the age of twenty-seven, revealed the nuisance to the world. He perished from his Life of Jesus; but he did not cease to be proud of it, although all his misfortune came from there, "I could resent my book," he wrote 25 years later in the preface to the Conversations of Ulrich von Hutten (1), "for it has done me (by right! cry the pious) much evil. It has excluded me from public teaching, for which I had a desire, perhaps also a talent; it has torn me out of natural circumstances and driven me into unnatural ones; it has made my life lonely. And yet, if I consider what would have become of me if I had kept silent the word that was laid upon my soul, if I had suppressed the doubts that were working in me - then I bless the book which, though it has severely damaged me outwardly, has preserved the inner health of mind and spirit for me, and I may comfort myself that it has preserved it for many another."

See also note 54.

140. Magi: This narrative is a typical "confirmation story" for the people of the East. It is exactly the story of how in East Asia, I am thinking here of Tibet, after the death of the old Dalai Lama or also of the God-King, the new one is found. They believe in the transmigration of souls, which means that when the old god-king dies, the soul passes into the next male child to be born. The problem is how to find this child. That is why birth registers are kept in all the pagodas of the corresponding area, for example in Tibet, with exact dates - and the determination of the time used to be done by the stars. So when the old god-king died, monks would swarm out to check the birth registers all over the country. Then they came together again and discussed which was the next-born male child. And then "higher monks", who can also be seen as "astrologers" because they followed the stars, went to this one and brought him "gifts" from the property of the old god-king. Of course, this took some time in the large country, after all, everything had to be done on foot, and then sometimes winter intervened, when the passes were snowed in and therefore impassable. And when the "chosen child" was found and eagerly grabbed the "gifts", the monks assumed that he was the right successor because he recognised "his things". Hence these strange gifts of the Three Kings for a child: gold, frankincense and myrrh. These are the typical marks of a priest-king. Of course, one can also interpret this "eager grasping of a child" in another way, i.e. that it is curious and interested, i.e. healthy - and that it will therefore most likely fulfil the expectations placed in it by a priest-king. The rest is then education. If this story is also told in a similar way about Jesus, then it is a story through which the East Asians who believe in the transmigration of souls are told that Jesus is also the right one for them, the one they have been waiting for a long time. And just as this story was inserted into the New Testament for the East Asians so that they could believe according to their expectations, so too were the other stories of the virgin birth etc. inserted so that the Western peoples could also believe according to their respective expectations.

141. trinity construction: Here, then, something about the trinity, into which Jesus was "promoted" as one of the three persons: Here too there are religions before Christianity with this "God construction". In Hinduism, for example. The deities are Brahma, the source of everything (could correspond to our God the Father), Vishnu, who redeemed us from evil and still does so through his rebirths (could correspond to the Son of God), and Shiva, the God of the Spirit, who destroys and creates anew and dwells in the Hamalya on the mountains and occasionally comes to people and impregnates virgins (could correspond to our Holy Spirit). If you mention to Hindus that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are three different deities, they immediately protest: No, no, they are only one and the same deity, but one cannot dictate to God under which form he shows himself. Somehow, we find the same problem here as with the Christian Trinity (three persons, but one God). (Note: The idea of the Trinity comes quite late in Christianity, beginning in the 4th century. It cannot be ruled out that it was influenced by the "East", i.e. by Eastern religions. In any case, there was always a lively exchange with the East, and certainly not only in material things, but also in spiritual things).

I would like to say here that I do not think that the belief in the Trinity was deliberately and maliciously introduced into the faith of the early Church (in order to erase the real Jesus), as was the case with the virgin birth and the miracles and the resurrection up to the Ascension. I rather think that here a development of faith had simply taken on a life of its own: if one was already in the process of adopting some borrowings from other religions that had nothing to do with "common sense", then it was no longer a question of "common sense" and one stayed in the once-beaten track. So why not borrow even more from other religions? Exactly in this sense, the veneration of the Mother of God may have come about. See note 142.

142 .Veneration of the Mother of God: The provisional climax was the 3rd Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431, at which Mary was officially declared the God-bearer or "Mother of God". The background to this dogma was the dispute between Greek and Egyptian Christians: In the course of the "elimination" of the goal of the Christian faith, the fulfilment of this world was of course increasingly neglected and the old slovenliness set in again among Christians with the usual consequences of "personal sorrow and personal disappointments". We know, for example, that the customary circumcision of women in Egypt continued to be practised among the Egyptian Christians, which is a sure indication that the miserable situation of women had not changed fundamentally in the end. The only thing that had changed with the new religion was the name and history of the deity and the rite. This meant that a mother goddess or a mother of God was needed again as the comforter of the afflicted and finally as an intercessor with God for eternal salvation in the hereafter - and because the Egyptians still had the memory of the goddess Isis (who had everything that was now missing), the cult of a great mother goddess was very obvious - and the mother of Jesus was ready for this. And so the elevation of Mary to the role of God-bearer at the Council was a popular celebration among the Egyptians who had travelled to the Council; it was what people wanted, because it at least made Christianity, which was already largely degenerate at that time, more or less human again.

143. Sacrificial death ideology: I will first quote from "The Mythmaker" by Hyam Maccoby. Maccoby, however, is not as "crass" as I am, because he does not assume a hypothesis of fraud; I came to this only by combining it with other sources. Here, then, are the quotations that testify to the fact that a sacrificial death ideology existed long before Jesus in the pagan religions:

P. 112: "While he (Saul or Paul) persecuted the followers of Jesus, Saul may have perceived Jesus more and more as a figure who seemed strangely familiar to him, since it answered a spiritual need that he had held down without double bottoms under the pressure of Jewish rationality and the Jewish sense of awareness and truthfulness. Above all, the image of Jesus slowly dying on the cross must have inflamed his powerful imagination. For this image must have irresistibly reminded him of the iconography of the god Attis in its manifold manifestations, which he had encountered at every turn in Cilicia - the hanged god whose bleeding, abused body made the fields fertile and whose mysteries brought miraculous renewal to the souls of his faithful who had worked themselves up into a holy delusion."

S, 226: "Paul was the greatest fantasy writer of all. He created the Christian myth by deifying Jesus, a Jewish messiah figure whose real plans had run the gamut of Jewish political utopianism. Paul reforged Jesus' death into a cosmic sacrifice in which the forces of darkness sought to overpower the power of the good, but against their will only brought about a salvation event. This also transforms the Jews, as Paul's writings explain, into instruments of salvation who know nothing of their function; their wickedness, with which they brought about Jesus' death, strikes out for universal salvation, because this death was precisely what humanity needed for its salvation. The combination of wickedness and blindness described here is the exact analogy of the Baldur myth of Norse mythology, in which wickedness is personified by the evil god Loki, blindness by the blind god Hödur, both of whom together bring about the salvific death of Baldur, who alone can bring about a good harvest which saves from universal starvation."

And then from "Das Ur-Evangelium" by Herbert Ziegler and Elmar R Gruber (although neither of them are academic theologians, in my opinion their findings are well researched and they definitely substantiate their findings with "academic theologians") p. 43 f: "Already in 1903 William Wrede (1859-1906 - note. by MP: from 1893 Protestant theologian in Breslau, he already saw in Paul the founder of a second Christian religion!) pointed out in his important writing "The Messiah Mystery in the Gospels" that the belief in Jesus as Messiah only arose long after the crucifixion among the followers of the Jesus movement. With unhistorical literary means, the writings of the movement tried to cover up this fact.

Jesus, of course, knew nothing of a "Christ", nor of his alleged role as saviour. The core ideas of Christianity go back exclusively to Christ, who was raised to the status of God by Paul. Conversely - and this must surprise every Christian - Paul knew next to nothing of the life and teachings of the man Jesus. Modern textual criticism has been able to prove this, and it was certainly not easy to make this finding. For almost all the letters summarised under Paul's name in the New Testament are forgeries. Only very small parts of a few letters go back to Paul. The rest are interpolations, enrichments and new creations of his followers from later times. The motives that led to these forgeries are manifold and cannot be detailed here. But they all have a "religio-political" basis.

Paul's great achievement was at the same time a rejection of the original teachings of Jesus. Paul invented the resurrection and placed it at the centre of his theology. But he did not think of the idea of resurrection in bodily terms. Paul meant a supernatural event."

What was said in Maccoby also applies here: Herbert Ziegler and Elmar R. Gruber do not think of a fraud hypothesis either - and so they just try "other solutions".

144. "Crucifixions of the gods" or "crucifixion of Jesus": This is also a very delicate point for me, since I am convinced that the crucifixion of Jesus actually took place. Last but not least, it is a general consensus among theologians - and especially from the beginning of church history. But even it is doubted today by some theologians and, of course, by opponents of our faith, especially because it occurs in other ancient religions and could therefore be a kind of plagiarism - and always with a similar meaning and in a similar context.

My opinion on this: The same crucifixion as in other religions could well have happened once with this Jesus. So why not a crucifixion story like this, which is after all realistic and which was then certainly still alive in the consciousness of many people for decades? After all, it was an obvious judicial murder of a popular person who was also perceived as particularly just and caring, especially for women? For opponents of the real Jesus, who wanted to erase the memory of the cause of the real Jesus, it was now obvious to turn this crucifixion story into a sacrificial death story, as was known at that time from the usual god myths, and thus to shift its meaning into the nebulous. And then it was not a long way to go to construct all those wondrous stories that were otherwise known from the various mythologies (and also other realistic-sounding stories, such as those from Buddha mythology) around this sacrificial death story. Unlike Dionysus (and others), the crucifixion of Jesus is probably true, but all these miraculous stories and some other stories are not.

But if I am wrong here and the crucifixion did not happen in Jesus' case either, this is not necessarily the downfall of our religion. For Jesus' commitment to the liberation and upgrading of women and to genuine monogamy also makes sense if he had not died on the cross for it. And I have not found such a commitment to women with simultaneous insight into the often downright deceitful criminal machinations against women in a society as in Jesus anywhere else (not even in other founders of religion such as Moses, Buddha and Mohammed), and I think this commitment is definitely true. Comparatively, the commitment against slavery of the Quaker William Wilberforce (1759-1833) also has a meaning and is still considered magnificently humane today - without Wilberforce dying a martyr's death because of his commitment. For a person to be significant in terms of humanity, a martyr's death is really not needed.

But here are the paragraphs on the crucifixion of gods or sons of gods from the book "The Counterfeit Faith" by Karlheinz Deschner" 1988/1991 from p. 48:

"Crucified gods are Prometheus, Lykurgos, Marsyas, Dionysos. The Dionysus communities, as is certain, worshipped their god over an altar table with wine vessels on the cross even before the Christian era. According to the theologian Hermann Raschke, the crucifixion of Jesus is only one form of development of the crucifixion of Dionysus. However, even if other traditions may have had an influence, one may nevertheless sum up with Raschke: "Dionysus riding on the donkey" - the donkey is with Dionysus, as later with the biblical Jesus, the animal of peace -, "Dionysus on ship and as the lord of the sea, Dionysus and the dry figs, Dionysus and the vine. the mockery and suffering of Dionysus, Dionysus whose flesh is eaten and whose blood is drunk, yes, the Bacchic Orpheus on the cross - it only takes these fleeting references to realise that the evangelical stock of myths (note : "the stock of myths of the Gospels") is the same. : "the mythical stock of the Gospels") is interspersed with Dionysus motifs." (Hermann Raschke "Das Christusmysterium", 1954, (154) 95, 97 ff., 218 f).

In part, down to the smallest details, there is a repetition in the death of Jesus of what already happened in the death of the pagan deities. Thus Bei Marduk, the most esteemed deity of Babylon, who was regarded as the creator of the world, the god of wisdom, the art of healing, of conjuring, as the redeemer sent by the Father, the awakener of the dead, the lord of all lords and the good shepherd, was captured, interrogated, condemned to death, scourged, executed with a criminal, while another criminal was set free - and a woman wiped off the heart's blood of the god, which welled from a spear wound. (cf. Brückner ...) At Caesar's death - the Athenian people praised him as a saviour, the Roman people generally believed that he had ascended to heaven and become God - the sun veiled itself, darkness set in, the earth burst, and those who had died returned to the upper world. (Trede 98; Vergil, Georgica 1, 463 ff) - Heracles, already revered around 500 B.C. as the Son of God and mediator for mankind, but at the time of Jesus as the world saviour, is finally exalted by the divine Father for his deeds and divorcing him commands his spirit: "Take my spirit, I beseech thee, up to the stars.... Behold, my Father calls me and opens the heavens. I am coming, Father, I am coming." The Gospel of Luke later says: "Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice the words, >Father, into your hands I commend my spirit !<" (Luke 23:46).

Even more remarkable are the similarities between the religion of Heracles and the Gospel of John.

While in the three older Gospels the favourite disciple is missing under the cross - as well as Jesus' mother; yet here the women watch "from afar": Luke even writes: "All [!] his acquaintances, however, stood from afar" - (Mk 14, 40 f; Mt 27, 55f; Lk 23,49), in contrast to this, in John's Gospel Jesus' mother and the favourite disciple stand by the cross: as at Heracles' death his mother and favourite disciples were present! As the exalted Heracles cries: "... do not lament, mother ... I am now entering heaven", so then the resurrected Johannine Christ says: "Woman, why are you weeping? ... I am ascending to my Father." (Jn 20:15 ff). As Heracles dies with the word, "It is finished," so the Johannine Christ. (Jn 19:30 etc.). Just as Heracles had the name "Logos" even before the Johannine Christ. And if in the religion of Heracles it was said: "For the Logos is not there to harm or to punish, but to save", in the Gospel of John it is said: "For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved." (C. Schneider 1954 vol. 1, 142) And just as the one guilty of the death of Heracles hangs himself in remorse and horror, so Judas finally hangs himself, whom the oldest Christian writings admittedly have perish three times, each variant excluding the other. (cf. Deschner <1962> 120 ff).

Also the famous biblical story of the empty tomb - "Open stands the tomb," Goethe sneers. "What a glorious miracle, the Lord is / Risen! Who believes it! Rascals, you carry him away!" - could already be read in the widely read Greek novel Chaireas and Kallirhoe by Chariton. There, in the third book, Chaireas hurried to the grave of Kallirhoe in the early morning.

He is full of despair, but behold, the stone has rolled away, the entrance is free. Frightened, Chaireas dares not enter the tomb. Others hurry to hear the rumour, they too are full of fear, until finally one enters and notices the miracle: the dead man is gone, the tomb is empty. Now Chaireas also enters and finds the unbelievable confirmed. (According to Carl Schneider "Geistesgeschichte des antiken Christentums", 1954, vol. 1, 73 ff, and Richard Reitzenstein "Hellenistische Wundererzählungen" 1906, 94 note 3)"

145. "counterproductive for a genuine morality" or "completely counterproductive": There is actually a scientific study on the effectiveness of shame for a genuine morality - on rats! I quote here the short interview from Geo magazine from February 2015

RAT SHAME

Jim Pfaus, a psychology professor from Montreal, has trained rats to have a jacket sex fetish

GEO: Professor Pfaus, how do you come up with the idea of dressing rats in sexy jackets?

By chance. We originally only used the jackets to tell male rats apart in another experiment. When we later used the animals in a new study, they suddenly stopped copulating - even though the females were recognisably hot. We went back and forth. At some point we put the jackets back on the males - and they had sex again.

So what did the study find?

Male rats that wear a jacket themselves during their first sexual experience or copulate with a female wearing a jacket develop a kind of fetish: the jackets stimulate them sexually, nothing happens without clothes - or at least very little.

What does this say about human sexuality?

Early experiences that are rewarded change the brain and thus our behaviour - and make us react differently to stimuli: So a fetish is something natural - and hard to get rid of.

So a 40-year-old man who has already had sex but has never seen sexy lingerie would not be stimulated by a nice bra?

According to this, probably not, no.

So there are still: coincidences that inspire, or at least could inspire, scientific investigation. Unfortunately, this has obviously been omitted here, except for a rather ironic remark. In any case, I take this observation more seriously and come to a slightly different conclusion: it is now the case that all the clothes we usually wear (and not only the sexy underwear - in the case of the rats it was not about sexy underwear, but about completely normal jackets) are not natural and somehow have a fetish effect and therefore upset our natural human sexuality, which I am convinced is monogamous. We must always remember that we humans were created in hot Africa where we did not need clothes, which means that our sexual disposition only functions "normally" in the heat and without clothes. This now means that in so-called civilised societies we are more sexually stimulated by the "certain parts of the body" when they are hidden under textiles, and less by the essence of a person. This then leads to sexual desires and eventually also to relationships with people who do not fit us at all and who would normally be totally uninteresting to us sexually - up to and including children. If, on the other hand, nudity were common or even just "normal in certain situations" (i.e. for example in a swimming pool or on a beach), that is, if we lived "naturally", there would no longer be any attraction at all through the body parts that are usually "hidden". This means that "relations between the sexes" would become more serious - and more moral. Of course, a mental attitude is also part of it, but what did we get our brains from nature for?

I can tell you about an interesting experience with young monkeys. It happened completely unplanned that I was a "volunteer" for one week on a "monkey island" in the Amazon near Iquitos in Peru during my last trip to South America (November/December 2019). So on this island they raise young woolly monkeys that were "left over" from hunting their mothers. The little monkeys had all been torn away from the breasts of their dead mothers, so to speak, and so they are actually all traumatized in some way. But they seem to feel very comfortable on the island, especially since there are many monkeys in their situation there - and most of them also seem to get along very well with each other. It was also interesting to me how these little monkeys sometimes clambered around in trees with obviously very elastic branches, with incredible stamina and without any sign of fatigue.

And at some point I thought about whether I could recognize something here about "my subject matter". So I noticed that the genitals of the monkeys, as is the way with animals, were quite fully visible. But they were obviously completely uninteresting for the little animals. This was also confirmed by other "rangers" whom I asked about this. And since we nowadays tend to transfer observations of the behavior of animals to humans, I asked myself: "How is it that already human children playfully occupy themselves with their own genitals and especially with those of the opposite sex - up to sexual intercourse - which the (controversial) anthropologist Margret Mead allegedly observed during her research in the South Seas (see note 117) - and these little animals obviously do not? The problem is, after all, that Margret Mead and, in her tradition, our sex researchers consider such behavior by children to be natural-typical-human-healthy and that such behavior by children must therefore be encouraged for their health. Couldn't it be - based on my observations of the monkeys - that this interest of human children in the genitals only comes from the fact that they usually have to be "hidden" and that they only become interesting through this - and that the problem would be solved if they could be as natural-naked and unbiased as the monkey children? But our super-smart sex researchers do not go into this! And why not? They know it or they at least suspect it that these considerations could question the "significant results" of their researches!

This also raises the question of why we humans only have pubic hair from puberty onwards. In boys and men it has no effect on the visibility of the genitals, but it does in girls and women. As far as I know, there are no studies on the meaning of pubic hair only appearing after puberty. And again from the point of view that we humans evolved in hot Africa, where "everything" was always otherwise visible, because humans were naked: could it be that due to the "free view" of the body parts of young girls, everything mysterious and exciting was missing in them - and therefore there was no paedophilia in these early "natural" cultures? And that the sexual atractivity of girls and women only came when the special body parts were hidden under the pubic hair? For us today, this would mean that if there were natural intercourse among us humans, there would be no paedophilia at all. (I would be pleased if my attention were drawn here to scientific studies, if such exist!)

146. Jesus' redeeming function: The question naturally arises as to what Jesus actually redeemed us from. From original sin? But what do we understand by this? That Adam and Eve had eaten a forbidden apple that they were not allowed to eat? Or a redemption from eternal damnation in hell?

I briefly described what Adam and Eve and the Fall are all about on page 60 f in "It's all very different ...". And the idea of being saved from eternal damnation in hell is, unfortunately, a typical religious scaremongering, so we can forget that meaning as well.

Let me quote what Deschner says about Jesus' redeeming function (p. 44): "Before beginning his teaching activity, Jesus goes into solitude; he falls into temptation, is led to a high mountain, and is shown all the kingdoms of the world - not unlike Heracles, who, before beginning his public activity, goes into solitude, falls into temptation, is led to a high mountain, where he is shown the kingdom of the king and of the tyrant. There is also such a story of Zarathustra's temptation; likewise of Buddha, who began his career at the age of about thirty, the same age as the biblical Christ, first (like Jesus later) won two brothers as followers, went about in voluntary poverty, accompanied by twelve chief disciples, including a favourite disciple and a traitor, communicating himself in sayings, images and parables. Like Jesus later, Buddha already forbids killing, stealing, lying, illicit sexual intercourse; like Jesus after him, he demands the veneration of parents, he praises the peaceful; he teaches to overcome evil with good, preaches love of one's enemies, rejects the useless collection of treasures and prefers mercy to sacrifice. Like Jesus, Buddha calls himself "Son of Man", like Jesus he is called "Prophet", "Master", "Lord"; and Buddha's designations as "Eye of the World" and "Light without equal" correspond to Christ's designation as "Light of the World" and "the True Light". But also the other pagan saviours are mediators, revelators, redeemers even before Jesus. They already proclaim: "I am a light for humanity", "whoever believes will be saved, whoever does not believe will be condemned", and the like. They already act out of love for mankind, prove themselves through prophecies, through miracles. Buddha, Pythagoras, Socrates and many others handed down prophecies; and like the Christians, even the pagans debated whether a prophecy came from the deity in its wording or only in its content."

But I think there remains something of a very special redeeming function of Jesus: His commitment to women, especially how he began to see through the methods and tricks of male society, to make women submissive to their will, that was already unique and one of a kind. There was and is no other founder of a religion or "saviour".

147. "Recognising connections" and "by investing the potential of high morality in the wrong object": Sometimes I have the impression that some people simply do not want to recognise the problem of false morality and real morality. But since I cannot imagine this "unwillingness", I have here - as I think - two suitable examples at hand that can perhaps plausibly explain the problem to these "unwilling" people:

1. about 25 years ago a German Turk (she was perhaps in her mid-twenties at the time) told me about a "childhood problem" that was obviously still vivid in her memory. So, when she was four or five years old, her parents had once taken her to Turkey in the car. On the way, she had terrible problems with "going to the toilet" - and she didn't do it, which even caused her insane and hardly bearable pain. The toilets on the road were all too dirty, she was disgusted and didn't go. And in the forest? Someone could have seen her bottom and of course Allah, no, that was not possible either. Because she was terribly afraid of that, because in her opinion that would have been something very bad with probably incalculable evil consequences.

2 But I also learned about the exact opposite! It was in Heinz Helfgen's book "Ich radle um die Welt" (I cycle around the world), which came out in the 1950s and which I read enthusiastically at the time. So this Heinz Helfgen was once cycling somewhere in the Middle East on a dirt road more badly than well. And in the distance he saw a child, obviously a very young girl, coming towards him. But when he got to the place where he should have met the child or the girl, there was nothing, the girl had disappeared from the face of the earth. So he dismounted and searched. And finally he discovered her, crouching fearfully on her knees behind a bush - his skirt pulled up and covering his head with it - and stretching his bare bottom upwards. (That must have been a picture for the gods! Yes, we laugh at it, but what fears must the girl have endured, indeed, what fears must both girls have had to behave in such a nonsensical manner, what junk must have been in their little heads).

So this is what happens when you make children think something is evil when it is not evil at all! It is possible that no one had explicitly told these children that their bottoms or faces had to be hidden from strangers at all costs, but the children, in their natural predisposition to high morals, had understood this to be the case. In any case, the two girls were absolutely terrified that strangers might see something of theirs that they thought was something very bad and that might have triggered something like a divine court of wrath. For they had probably also been told about such a judgement. But they were not at all aware of the real problem, which was supposed to be the issue. And fears about the one do not automatically generate fears about the other, where they might make more sense.

We might think, well, they were little girls in a still not very civilised camel-driving culture, but here, of course, it's all very different! Well, really? What are we doing? I have experienced time and again that girls in particular fearfully hide their nipples and pubic parts, but sex, even with different partners who are often even without any acceptable level and whom they don't even love, they can't even imagine marriage, is what they do. So they do exactly the opposite of what would actually be sensible and also moral. How come? It's simple: young people are very successfully deprived of what is actually natural and normal, such as being able to see and show themselves "properly" (after all, also in connection with the search for a partner). So they do with "persons of the opposite sex" what has to happen at some point anyway, but which should actually only happen when they have found the right person and have entered into a firm relationship, namely sexual intercourse. They just want to get "it" over with, like an unpleasant operation that has to be done. Of course: Our so great and often so pious educators are not to blame here, it is always the fault of others, the comrades, the media, the family, the disposition, the sex education at school, the immoral times of today.... But the fact that these moral educators are the ones who always focus the naturally high moral potential of young people in particular on trivial things or even on completely irrelevant things (or do nothing relevant about it if there is such a focus), and in this way only teach them a pseudo-morality that is then the cause of wrong decisions with real morality, doesn't occur to them.

I do hope that I have explained the problem well and plausibly in the "booklet", how educators can better teach young people about sexuality - and why an education in "openness", i.e. also in the enjoyment of nudity, can have a very high moral value, if only it is done properly.

148. "Blessing of the Church": This is actually about Jesus' possible saying according to Matthew 19:6: "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder."

Usually this biblical passage is always interpreted in such a way that two people who have said "I do" to each other in front of a priest (or if they are not Catholic, also otherwise) may no longer separate, that their mutual promise must therefore last "forever", i.e. "until death do them part": The question arises, however, whether such a relationship was really joined by God. Were they not much more two people - and was God at best a kind of witness (because the promise took place in a church and before a priest)? Well, and if God really did connect something, how can you tell that it was really God?

I think that we may be completely misinterpreting this saying of Jesus (if he ever did it at all). We have to consider how marriages were conducted in his time. It was very seldom the bride and groom themselves who initiated something, but rather the parents who brought the young people together - and there was never a real freedom of choice for the young people, or only to a very limited extent. And this bringing together only worked because the young people were kept very protected and prudish - and if you are kept very protected and prudish, then it is rather easy to become so keen on people of the opposite sex that you take almost anyone - the main thing is "you have one" and you are out of home. The consequence is that in such relationships people very often don't really fit together and that the women end up being just better "sex satisfaction and childbearing machines" (and then of course also work animals), so there is often no question of real love and partnership. It is probably not for nothing that there is always an extensive culture of prostitution in such societies, because with prostitutes at least one has the choice. But of course it doesn't have to be that way, especially since most parents already make every effort to find suitable partners for their children.

And here this saying of Jesus might have addressed an original Jewish method of choosing a partner, that young people and especially girls can look for their partner themselves in full freedom and that others should not interfere. (Perhaps we can best imagine the role of God in finding a partner if we take a look at the pagan religions and the role the gods played. Let us think of the divine boy "Eros" with his lightning bow and the arrows he sends as he pleases. Just as one should not defend oneself against these arrows, neither should one defend oneself when the Jewish god has directed something ....). So Jesus is the inventor of romantic love - why not? However, this search should of course also take place according to divine or even the typical original Jewish "rules of the game", so that one can also say that a relationship has actually connected God - as this girl, who wants to have arrived in the third millennium (from page 38), tries to do. And it is now the task of parents or other educators not to look for partners for their young people, but only to effectively teach them the appropriate rules of the game for their search.

So Jesus was fully and completely an "old Jew" when he said, "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder".

And I think, especially today, these rules of the game would be a good idea for everyone!

149. "a deliberately sophisticated work of disinformation about Jesus": Of course I have reservations about classifying the entire New Testament as a work of disinformation against the real Jesus and thus devaluing it. After all, the real Jesus, of whom there was still something in people's minds, cannot be erased quite so blatantly. In any case, I would see the three synoptic gospels, i.e. Matthew, Mark and Luke, and of course also the Pauline epistles, regardless of whether they are genuine or not, as largely problematic. On the other hand, I am more "comfortable" with the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John, which were all written much later than these three Gospels and are generally regarded as even less historical as far as the real Jesus is concerned. See note 159.

150. "Paul and his `team' (or also his accomplices)": I don't want to commit myself here as to how the "Pauline ideology" came about at that time, I don't think it matters much either. It may be that there was a single contact person of the "half-world mafia" here, but it may also be that there were several contact persons who did not even know about each other, and who then tried to outdo each other with wondrous and abstruse and highly spiritual and pious-sounding stories about Jesus. Not only would the stories about the virgin birth, miracles and the ascension of Jesus fit in (see p. 18 in "It was all very different ..."), but also the plagiarisms from Buddhism.

151. "Confusion in the Early Church": In her book "Adam and Eve and the Serpent", the American religious scholar (a. d. Princeton University) Elaine Pagels (1988/1991, dt. by Rowohlt) describes how she came to her preoccupation with early Christianity. She had originally assumed that she would find true Christianity "in the decline to the primitive and early history of the church". But she encountered the opposite of what she had expected in her search. In any case, she could not find a "golden age" of purer and simpler Christianity, but only "a diversity to the point of antagonism of divergent voices and viewpoints" (p. 306f). This would support the thesis of the concept of "Jesus ideology" that there were circles in the early church in particular who, as opponents of the real Jesus, infiltrated the communities of early Jesus followers in order to falsify the real Jesus quite deliberately - especially also with all these stories from the pagan mythologies and also from Buddhism. Of course, they were not allowed to admit this, but cleverly concealed their true intentions (see note 149). There may even have been various "influencers" who, independently of each other, virtually competed to see who could put the best stories into the minds of the early Jesus followers - with the sole aim of destroying the memory of the real Jesus' involvement. This is how these "divergent voices and points of view" may have come about.

I am sometimes asked what remains of this Jesus, if all or most of it is plagiarised from pagan mythologies or Buddhism. Yes, there really is a lot!

- Of course, there is the sin story from John 8, which has been dealt with extensively here. And then:

- The story of the "Prodigal Son". I am not the only one who thinks that this story is autobiographical of Jesus himself. Interestingly, this son is even welcomed by the father with a feast, although one would actually think that he should be rebuked by the father. But no! The reason might be that the father somehow finds it good that this son had dared to do something, he had gone out into the world and had let the wind blow around his ears. And he will not have squandered the money only with prostitutes, because it must also have been clear to him that his father's money would run out at some point and that he would have to provide for a "replenishment". So he probably got involved in risky business - and speculated. And so he ended up "on the street". But he had dared to do something! For a good citizen, of course, this is incomprehensible, but for rather rebellious-minded people, as perhaps the father still is at least a little, this is rather a lesson to learn from, and therefore not necessarily negative.

- the parable of the "Good Samaritan". The point here is not so much that the priest and the temple servant walked past the beaten up and robbed victim of a robbery out of stinginess and lack of empathy, and Jesus rebuked them for it, but the point is that the two were on their way to worship and if they had helped the maltreated man would probably have stained themselves with blood. And that would have made them unclean and therefore unfit for the service, in which they wanted or perhaps even had to take part. Perhaps they also felt sorry for the wounded man, but because of the service they simply could not help him. And here Jesus brings the church back into the village: If it is about helping a needy person, that is the true service of God - and whoever does this service has understood the "true God" - unlike the priest and the temple servant with the usual cultic ceremonies. The question here is whether Jesus believes in a "God of ceremonies" at all.

- the parable of the two sons, in which the one son, in response to his father's command that he should go into the vineyard and do the necessary work there, says that he will go, but then does not go after all, while the other brother says that he will not go, but then does go after all. Jesus is saying that it does not matter what one says, but what he does. It is possible that this son, after refusing to go, saw what was wrong and decided that he had to do something to reduce it.

Certainly there are more passages in the New Testament that point to the real Jesus. I think they can be recognised by the fact that they are above all very practical in life and perhaps also somehow rebellious. And above all, that remains: This Jesus is not about some cult or belief in God, but about being fully human! And if a belief in God and/or a cult promotes this humanity, why not? I have heard of dilapidated or decaying village churches in the new federal states that are being restored with the help of non-believing villagers, simply because these churches belong to the village and because people want to have a village centre and also a place where they can meet for community experiences, for example to experience beautiful concerts. And if these concerts are even masses by Bach and Mozart and Haydn - they also have a value without explicit belief in God!

152. "Original Jewish religion": How might the "original Jewish religion" have come about at all? Yes, how did the people of the Jews come about at all? First of all: The stories of the Bible (i.e. the Old Testament) about it, for example those of Noah, Abraham up to Jacob and his sons Joseph, Benjamin and the others, are probably all stories that pious authors of the Jews made up in order to give their people a history. Unfortunately, the story of slavery in Egypt and of the liberation from it with the train through the desert and thus also of Moses is, according to newer findings, largely a legend. It is perhaps most likely true that in the area of today's Israel nomads found themselves together with freed or escaped slaves from wherever and with survivors from other oppression. And these were people who were able to talk reasonably with each other and thus also worked together to find a way of life according to which they could live with each other from then on. It is quite conceivable that these rules were not only set up by old men and imposed on their fellow men, but that first of all everyone discussed them, including the women, and also young women who had once been slaves. This means that it was also about overcoming the contemptuous and degrading "disorderly love relationships" of women, which were common in slavery. In slavery, women and girls were always sex slaves of their owners with all their more or less perverse desires and/or business interests. Such women could be "rented out" at will, after all, they wanted to "earn back" the money they had invested in them. It was always about the greed and business interests of the men, the feelings of the women and their moral attitude were completely indifferent. And so the "new attitude to life" was about the full emancipation of women, which was certainly discussed: Is the continuation of the "disorderly love relationships" that were common in slavery, but now under different auspices, the true emancipation or is it the concept of an "orderly love relationship" in partnership and love of man and woman? In this context, an outstanding head, who in further history became the "leader Moses", must have put an end to the idea of the "proper love relationship" with a word of power - and established it as an irrevocable rule through the commandments that he had (allegedly) received from the God of Mount Sinai. And so it came about that the original Jewish religion is the only one in which the woman also has the right to sexual fulfilment, i.e. to orgasm - with the simultaneous condition of genuine monogamy. And I would like to add the idea of the nakedness of paradise here, because it can only be implemented if everything connected with monogamy is lived out of an inner attitude - and also gladly and with the deepest conviction. It is impossible to date all this, but I will put the time around 1000 BC, about 3000 years ago.

A m. A good argument in my opinion that I am right here is the fact that Jewish men are still circumcised today, just like the Egyptians today, and Jewish women are not circumcised, unlike the Egyptian women today. It is simply the legacy of slavery! Because the male slaves also had to be circumcised like their male owners, because circumcision was seen as a prevention against venereal diseases - and one could not prevent the sex slaves from "consoling" themselves with their male companions in slavery. So if they had been uncircumcised, they would have been a source of danger for the spread of STDs. In the case of women, on the other hand, circumcision had nothing directly to do with the possible contagion of STDs. So female slaves were not circumcised, because they were supposed to feel like "taking part", which they would never really have with circumcision. Because circumcision very often means a wound that never heals properly and therefore always hurts, especially during sex. (Even today in Egypt, "normal" Egyptian women are circumcised, but the daughters of prostitutes are not, because they will become prostitutes "again" ...). For the freed slave women, this circumcision was replaced by the law of draconian punishment, i.e. the death penalty, if they had "disorderly love affairs". The possible abuse of this law was not thought of - or was it? See note 104.

It is incomprehensible to me that, as far as I know, today's Jews do not even think about the fact that male circumcision is an imposed custom from the time of slavery and that it should therefore be forbidden among free (or emancipated) people! Actually, the Jewish religion has what it takes to be the most modern and enlightened religion - see note 169.

153. "Islamic religion" and "ideology": One of the advantages of the concept I have come up with is that an ethical practice of life is no longer an appendage to this theology as in traditional theology ("out of gratitude for the redemption through Jesus we should now be moral and keep the divine commandments"), but that this ethics is the core of Jesus' concern. I think that such a practical reference is an indication that we are on the trail of the real Jesus, because the real Jesus was a craftsman and not a theologian - and the indication for a craftsman is that he always has a practical reference. And if this practical relevance that I have come up with should work, which according to my experience as a professional school religion teacher has the greatest chances, then this should also radiate to non-Christians and even atheists, because especially the young people "from all these circles" also have the same problems and questions - and are, however, also in an unworldly ideology. Yes, I do see the Islamic girls here, but also the boys: There are also very intelligent ones among them who can see what is in store for them in a typical Islamic marriage and that it is not at all desirable. But our traditional Christian moral model, to put it mildly, is not an option for them either. In any case, another moral model, and I mean the one that is (for once!) in the spirit of the real Jesus, might well call the whole of Islam into question for them. Yes, for me, no religion is "unbreakable" for all eternity, it just needs the right "push" and the appropriate concept for life. And such an impulse will never come from old people, especially not from old men who determine our religions, it can only come from young people. Independent media would have their task here! And last but not least, what was going on in Jewish society at the time of Jesus and what Jesus committed himself against was in many ways exactly the same as what is going on in Islam today.

154. "A brutal gang": A group of people who have no inhibitions about bringing their opponent to the cross can also be trusted to come up with something cunningly witty to thoroughly erase the memory of him and his commitment (see also "damnatio memoriae", note 129), and to cost themselves something to put it into practice. And on the acceptance of the concept, see note 135.

The problem with the concept is that it amounts to a very rigid sexual morality, but at least one without fears, and one that is also so attractive and intelligent, and gives such pleasure in life, that young people in particular can enjoy living it. Experience shows that for young people it is not important whether something is rigid and therefore easy to live, but that it is attractive and intelligent and above all exciting. In any case, I would like to be a teacher again with this concept!

I refer again to the quotation from the biography of a prostitute on page 30. The woman agreed with me that we are sent in the wrong direction of a pseudo-morality in our moral education - and that an education towards a real morality could easily be designed differently. For today's adults, what I am talking about may not mean any advantage, but we are also committed to changes that do not mean any advantage for today's generation, for example, when I think of some things to protect the environment. Here we are also thinking of future generations. So we are not so narrow-mindedly egotistical that we always consider what we are committed to only in terms of whether we ourselves have an immediate advantage!

156. "There are no awakenings of the dead today", or "belief in the afterlife": I have received considerable protest about this from a good friend. I reproduce once the mail - and my reply:

"I am sorry to have to clarify a few things.

You say: there are no raisings of the dead today, so there were none 2000 years ago, there are no ascensions today .....

I am not suggesting that there are or ever have been physical pie awakenings or ascensions. But my experience with my husband is that such things can very well happen on a spiritual level.

When my husband left his body, he did not stop living. I could feel his love and gratitude so strongly. I can still feel it. He is glowing. There is no death, my husband used to say and he proved it to me.

I have the same problem with the statement: on top of that, first the judicial murder of the crucifixion and then this ingeniously clever gigantic red herring with the invention of a "New Testament" with the miraculous stories and the promise of life after death!

It is true that the Church has often promised a reward in an afterlife instead of trying to solve people's problems in their lives on earth. (There are reports from Father Damien, Abbé Pierre and Sister Theresa).

But there is life after physical death, because in fact we have a soul living in a physical body, like a driver in a car, and this is not only a personal experience, but also that of my sister and my grandfather. Dr Raymond Moody and the scientist, sceptic and neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander have explained and lived this. Even my neighbour had an experience as a child of how she, in a very serious illness, left her body. Many people who have really loved someone have had the same experience as I had with Martin. I don't think you have to deny the spiritual life to explain your story."

To this I would say: the accounts in the New Testament, for example of the resurrection and ascension, were certainly not about such deeply human experiences, but were intended from the outset as diversions from the real purpose of Jesus. After all, the point of Jesus' concern was that people experience the fullness of the present life. And so that this does not happen sensibly, they were to be confused by whoever from their youth and distracted with a belief in a life after death from how they can consciously shape the present life and, above all, how they deal with sexuality. In other words, they were to continue to be manipulated as usual, as it was customary in his time, because it also suited Jesus' opponents.

I would see the problem of "present life and life after death" like giving young people tips for climbing a high mountain: "Worry about how you will successfully manage the path! Find the right companions with whom you can make the way together! Don't waste the energy of your torches at night looking for and shining on the summit, but rather on the path, because the path is the goal! Perhaps the ascent of the north face of the Eiger is a fitting image: it's not so much the summit that matters (because you can reach it more comfortably from another side of the mountain), but the path. And once you have reached the top, everything else will follow by itself! You should rather not worry about that during the path, because such worrying would distract so much from the mastering of the path, which is not only an effort but also a beautiful adventure, that the path is no longer the main thing and you make mistakes!

But it doesn't have to be about a great scramble to a famous peak, a nice hike somewhere will do! In an article about hiking "The main thing is outdoors!" in the newspaper DIE WELT of 24.4.2021, I found the beautiful paragraph: "Ultimately, the goal is secondary, for the majority it's about the enjoyment. Christian Hlade, author of the new guidebook `Wandern kompakt', owner of the tour operator Weltweitwandern, also says: `Hiking works like a cure. You get new perspectives, breathe in fresh air, thus ventilate your brain, can switch off and gain distance from problems. A lot of young people are now discovering hiking for themselves - that's great!"

And the tasks of educators following Jesus are those of a mountaineering school or even a hiking advisor, that young people learn to walk the path successfully. This "successful walking" is then also the summit - and people who succeed in this will realise that they don't really need another summit or another special goal.

157. "After all, he does everything": First of all, I refer here to note 21 (whole body massage), whether such behaviour of young people is at all possible with each other from the point of view of tension.

And on the background of why this possibility is not told to young people, I quote a few sentences from the book "Das Kreuz mit der Kirche" (The Cross with the Church) by Karlheinz Deschner, Heyne Sachbuch 1973/1996, page 209: "Hypocrisy is one of the typical traits of Christianity. Along with its violent crimes, its wars and its exploitation, it determines its physiognomy, the epitome of its being, like nothing else. Since the New Testament commandments are partly too rigorous, partly too perverse to be obeyed, all that remains is the theology of the as-if, the pious deviousness, the double standard. "Many," already admits Origines, the greatest Christian theologian in pre-Constantine times, "teach chastity, but they have not observed it. They teach differently publicly and act differently secretly and in secret; all they do out of consideration for men and for vain glory."

I think hypocrisy is not only about "vain glory", it is mainly about "continuing what you once started with because you have nothing else". And that many things are also wrong here today can be seen from the fact that the preachers of chastity either give recommendations for ways that demonstrably do not work (see the absolutisation of shame as a basic condition of sexual morality) or give no recommendations at all from the outset and thus let everything go. Of course, it is also possible that this reticence or misinformation was taught to them in their training and that they therefore do nothing or do the wrong thing.

The thesis of the "Jesus ideology" concept is that in any case the deepest reason for this hypocrisy or inactivity, as far as lifelong abstinence is concerned, is Pauline ideology, because it is simply against nature - with Jesus ideology it would all be quite different! So on to the Jesus ideology!

158. "The Gospels are not a biography of Jesus.": I think it is easiest if I quote here once from the book "The Jesus Myth" by the author Peter de Rosa (p. 29), so that my readers may also experience another voice:

"Most Christians in the pews think the Gospels are moving, factual stories of Jesus. They have no idea that they are probably the most complex, contradictory literary constructions of all time. Therefore, they have no idea how to read them. They passionately insist that the Gospels are the one thing they cannot be: different and complementary biographies of Jesus.

Most biblical scholars have been saying for generations - mostly to each other, though, in tomes of labyrinthine complexity - that the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus and provide no material for his life story. There is no Jesus biography, and by the nature of things there never can be. The search for a detailed life story of Jesus is doomed to failure from the outset.

We must abandon certain cherished notions. First, that the fourth Gospel was written by John, one of the twelve apostles. He was most likely killed forty years before it was written, along with his brother Jacob. Second, that the fourth gospel is reliable history. It is rather a long theological meditation. Jesus did not make that glorious speech at the Last Supper. He did not speak to Nicodemus at night, nor to the Samaritan woman in the midday heat at the well. Nor did he entrust his mother to the favourite disciple on the cross. He did not even miraculously turn water into wine at Cana. Perhaps Christ does these things now; Jesus did not do them. They belong in the development of the myth that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. If we give them up as the story of events, we can still accept them as the mythology of what is happening to us unceasingly.

There is not a single line in the New Testament about Jesus. Every line is about the Jesus who became Lord and Christ. In short, the Gospels are different faith images of Jesus, who is believed to be Lord and Messiah. He only became the Christ at his death and resurrection. That is not where the Christian gospels end - that is where they begin.

That is why the evangelists are not bothered by mutual contradictions and occasional self-contradictions. With facts, contradictions are unacceptable; with myths, legends and images, they can be interesting and thought-provoking. The Gospels are not historical in the modern sense, but mythical narratives. The evangelists disregard history almost entirely. Often they invent "history" as in the case of Jesus' birth and resurrection. Sometimes they deliberately distort history for theological reasons, as when they write of their own bitter disputes with Jews as if they were controversies of Jesus during his lifetime.

The worst distortions - not only in a quantitative sense - are in the Fourth Gospel. In order to convince his readers that the Jews and not the Romans were responsible for the crucifixion, "John" invents the fact that the Jews were not authorised to execute Jesus or anyone else who violated Jewish law (18:31). Why then did they put Stephen on trial and execute him by stoning? Why then did some members of the high council want to kill Paul (Acts 5:31) - a fate the apostle escaped only by invoking his rights as a Roman citizen? We must acknowledge that "John" was not only a religious genius, but also a great enemy of history, and - whenever it served his apologetic purposes - a liar. This is all the more outrageous because he accused the Jews of being "sons of Satan", the liar from the beginning.

Jesus was certainly crucified. This scandal has been tamed by Christians who cross themselves as naturally as they scratch themselves. Jesus is the boy who made it big, whose crucified image makes itself beautiful on our wall, above our bed, who was so respectable that he could come from an old Boston family, have a "von" in front of his name or be a founding member of a London gentlemen's club, the first to speak up when Christian institutions want to teach conformity to deviants. In short, Jesus, the pillar of the establishment.

In fact, Jesus' respectability was entirely posthumous. He was a misfit, an outsider, a mongrel among mongrels, a pariah among pariahs. He consorted with collaborators and whores. He was an anti-institutional figure, a drop-out whom we would keep as far away as possible from impressionable young people, in no sense a gentleman. He didn't even like it when someone called him "good" - such words were reserved for God. He would have reacted just as badly if he had been asked to wear recognisably "religious" garb or to be addressed as "Reverend", "Excellency" or "Holy Father". If he came back today and bumped into us who call ourselves his disciples, it's hard to imagine who would be more embarrassed, him or us."

MP's note: I see the Fourth Gospel (i.e. John's Gospel) somewhat differently from PdR: it is certainly the least historical of the Gospels, but the author must have come across traditions that primarily said something of Jesus' concern that the Gospel writers before him overlooked or simply did not want to see. See note 149.

159. "a much more intense and fulfilling life is possible" or "things suddenly become possible" or "vision of a harmony of people without fears": In general, the Gospel of John is seen more in the direction of rooting the beginning Christianity in Greek thinking - and therefore it is seen very sceptically, especially by critical theologians, because it no longer has anything to do with the Jewish world in which Jesus lived and worked.

But is it not also possible that the author of the Gospel of John (he has nothing to do with the favourite disciple "John" and the Baptist "John" had been dead for a long time anyway) came across traditions that gave him an accurate idea of what the real Jesus was about and with which he then wanted to make a bow, so to speak, across the Synoptic Gospels into his Greek world? In the Gospel of John and in the Epistles of John (which, according to general theological opinion, are by the same author), the stories of a virgin birth and of an ascension into heaven are not included at all, possibly because the author at that time had already recognised these as plagiarism from other mythologies and therefore felt them to be completely inapplicable to Jesus and thus omitted them, and the Lord's Supper is only about the breaking of bread; there is no trace of any words of institution, i.e. that it is about the flesh and blood of Jesus. However, long before the Last Supper and thus also before the crucifixion, there is a transformation of water into wine at the wedding of Cana and a miraculous multiplication of bread - with a philosophy about a heavenly bread that is given to us for our salvation. But there is no mention of flesh and blood. And then it speaks of the "greater things" (the famous "meizona erga") that we will attain if we live in the right faith <Jn 14:12>, and very forcefully it speaks of "keeping the commandments". Presumably by the "greater things" is meant a "more intense and fulfilled life" . Perhaps it is about the fire that Jesus speaks of in Luke 12:49 ("I have come to bring fire, and what do I want but for it to burn") - it could be a very different fire from the one that Prometheus had brought! Last but not least, Prometheus is a mythological figure and the fire would also have come without him - but for the fire of true love, a "bringer" and corresponding commandments are needed ... And they are not even difficult, you just have to know them <John 5:3>. Yes, in John's Gospel, the fact that we keep the commandments is, so to speak, the indication that we have recognised God. Here and elsewhere, I see clear parallels to the concept of faith that I have come up with and for which I am committed. This is also about something greater or - in other words - about a more intensive life.

In a way, "resurrection" can also be seen as an awakening to a humane life - once "sin" is overcome. However, the way Jesus' resurrection is portrayed in John's Gospel has nothing to do with "overcoming sin", but rather a "resurrection from the dead" is explicitly described.

And last but not least, the sin story (see note 88) is also only contained in John's Gospel, albeit in a different sense than the one I assumed, but nevertheless, it is contained. This, too, is an indication for me that the author still had information about the real Jesus from somewhere, which the Synoptics may have deliberately suppressed. Perhaps the author of John's Gospel also had a thirst for knowledge about the "original" like the Brothers Grimm many centuries later, who had also asked around among people who still knew old stories? And so this author had also asked around among "old believers" in Jesus - and then also learned something about the real Jesus?

160. "Many new possibilities for self-realisation without a bad taste" and "a high sexual morality plays a very important role": I am referring to the page with the female cyclists, but of course there is much more! I remember a short video (i.e. a clip) that I received many years ago. A pretty girl, or rather a young woman, I guess in her early to mid-20s, came on stage with "nothing" but a violin and a violin bow and stuck the violin bow in her crotch and played the well-known Anglo-Saxon Christmas song "Jingle Bells" with the violin on top of it - not as usual with the violin bow on the violin, but the other way round with the violin on the violin bow! Intentionally or unintentionally, the girl also moved her body back and forth, but this did not seem offensive at all, somehow it matched the girl's effort to play the song "sensibly". Somehow it even looked like a satire on typical porn films - somehow successful. It was impossible to tell what kind of event it was (probably in the U.S.A.?), according to my memory the audience consisted of young men in suits and ties. In any case, the girl radiated an innocent pleasure at the display. - Unfortunately I don't know the girl's attitude, actually I would have liked to know it, but for me such openness and naturalness would be the goal of a Jesus ideology!

161. "which has nothing to do with the commitment of the real Jesus": Usually it is said that this poetry was mainly done by the "newcomer" Paul (but also by others) out of pure piety. But there's a big problem: one does not, with a clear conscience, accuse a loved and honoured deceased person of any obvious nonsense out of piety. And we can expect a good conscience from people who love a deceased person. So who and why does someone do such a thing? How can one find out what really happened?

I remember the report from a Dumont travel guide on Crete on how the archaeologists G. and E. Sakellaraktis interpreted the excavations around the sanctuary of Anemospilia on Mount Jouchtas in 1979. The small temple, consisting of three chambers, had apparently been destroyed in a particularly violent earthquake. In one chamber was an altar and on it lay the skeleton of a young man obviously killed with a ceremonial sword, the ceremonial sword still lying beside him. And in another room lay the skeletons of older men who had obviously been killed by the falling temple beams. And next to or between them lay the shards of a sacrificial bowl. The archaeologists interpreted the findings as follows: "The earth is shaking, the quake is getting worse. What to do? The priests come to the conclusion that the gods are angry and can only be appeased by a human sacrifice, a measure that has not been practised for a long time. But now there is obviously no other way. And everything has to happen very quickly: A young priest is laid on the altar (or he even lays himself on it?) and killed with the magnificent sacrificial sword. The blood gushing from the dead man is collected in a sacrificial bowl and taken to the neighbouring room to be offered to the image of the god. But in the process the temple collapses, the priests are slain, the bowl falls to the ground and shatters." So that was then. The image of the gods has now decayed and is no longer there, nor is the temple frame, because it was all made of material that was not durable - but other things have survived and so this story can be reconstructed well from that. And it is also recognised as such in archaeological research today.

So you can definitely reconstruct something - and probably also very correctly. And that's how it should work with Jesus, but here from the written records. But you have to interpret the "found objects" critically: So why is something in this place and not in another? Why are some things preserved and others obviously not? Why does something happen in such and such a way and not differently, although the other would actually be the more normal? Why is the story of the sinner (Jo 8) always interpreted only with regard to the sinner and not with regard to the would-be stoners? And above all, we should finally conclude from these "stories" in the Bible, which are usually told by pagan gods, not the benevolence of the authors - but a malevolence. It was obviously not a matter of enhancing the real Jesus, but the concern of the authors was to falsify him and to defuse his concern. Everything else in this work.

162. commissioned work: In a book, of which I can neither remember the author nor the title, I had come across it on the internet, the author advocated the thesis that the New Testament was a commissioned work from the Julian imperial house, either to create a new universal religion or to defuse this "universally dangerous Jesus". I also don't remember the purpose of this Jesus construction. Somehow the author's theses seemed absurd to me. But the book gave me the idea of the "commissioned work" to construct an unproblematic Jesus who hurts no one and who, however, has nothing or almost nothing to do with the real Jesus.

163. two-witness procedure: Regarding the "two-witness procedure" a small experience from my last East Asia tour, during which I was also in Bali. In a street restaurant where there were many people (for me this is an indication that the restaurant is good), I sat down at one of the long tables opposite a guest who looked European, hoping that I could talk to him a little at least in English. As it turned out, he was an Egyptian businessman who dealt in "handcraft" (so he said) and who was also obviously happy to tell me about the rotten conditions in Egypt today and about his business and also about his attitude to the Islamic religion (see note 153). He would buy these "handcraft" cheaply in containers in Indonesia and then sell them on in Europe as "Made in Thailand".

When he had told me enough about this, I thought that I should also tell something, and so I came to talk about my conception of the real Jesus and also about the "two-witness procedure" (or rather "two-witness method"). And he laughed and said: "Just like today in Islam, only there have to be four witnesses. But when does it ever happen that a woman is caught red-handed having sex with a man who is not hers, with four witnesses? It never happens - and when it supposedly does, there's always something else behind it, like wanting to get rid of the woman or something else criminal!" "Yes," I said, "that's exactly what I would have told my students, but I was a little unsure whether I was really right. But now it was clear to me that I was on the right track about what Jesus was all about back then..."

So Jesus obviously knew at least some of these connections - and he could only know them from affected women, i.e. prostitutes, themselves.

164. "with unique funeral rites": The deceased are not "removed from the realm of the living" soon after their death, but are somehow "kept" until the money for a proper funeral service has been collected and perhaps the pain of mourning has largely passed. And that can take a year or even two years. And then, on the estate of the deceased or in the vicinity, lounges or better pavilions are built for the mourners out of arm-thick bamboo poles that grow everywhere there - also for the tourists who find their way to the "festival site" on their own or are taken there by guides. Because the dead person says goodbye to his family, to the neighbourhood and to the world, which is represented by the tourists. And everyone brings something with them - preferably buffaloes and pigs, which are then ritually slaughtered on the "festival site" near the beautifully decorated coffin. And the richer and the more influential the dead person was, the more beautiful and valuable the animals are; a guide once took me to a market where particularly beautiful white buffaloes cost up to 70 000 US$ (so the people there are really not poor). At these "funeral ceremonies" (that's what I call them), a lot is very well-rehearsed: There is an "organiser" who also has his special elevated place where he has the overview, and the next of kin have another elevated place, so they don't mingle with the mourners, everyone is festively dressed. At the entrance to the "fairground" is a smaller bamboo booth where a tax official sits, because the animals have to be taxed and also get a tax stamp (which is also checked afterwards). And then the guests come in "processions" and are met at the entrance of the fairground by fantastically dressed girls with great hairstyles and led past the coffin to their "bamboo pavilion". Of course there is also a dance of death by a group and food for the guests. Immediately after slaughter, the dead animals are quickly taken apart and put into dark plastic bags, which are distributed to the mourners at the end of the ceremony - presumably to provide protein for the population (the meat recipients then in turn supply the population again when it is their turn to celebrate the dead).

And finally, the coffin is brought into a cave or into prepared holes in a rock face, sometimes "high up", where the dead can then look forward to the resurrection. This kind of "burial" is traditional in the Tanja Torada area and is practised today by all, i.e. Reformed, Catholics, Muslims. I seem to remember, but not by Christian alternative churches (not to use the word "sects"), who reject such rites as unbiblical.

In any case, it is a crazy spectacle from another world.

165. "Vision of a girl" and "digging deeper than the steel of the God of War": It may seem crazy and illogical if I start with the girls, because normally one would start with the "old men" in order to change something in a society, because the "old men" are the ones who have something to say and who therefore also determine "where things go". But there is an interesting experiment from Japan. There was a small island where wild macaques lived, a kind of monkey. And you threw them dirty potatoes, which they ate eagerly - with all the dirt that was on them. But at some point one of the macaques, a young female, discovered that the potatoes could be washed in a stream flowing by - and then they obviously tasted much better. And gradually all the other macaques adopted this procedure of washing the potatoes first before eating them. Only the old males did not follow suit, they still ate the dirty potatoes. One day, one of the monkeys, again a young female, discovered that the potatoes could also be washed in the nearby sea, in salt water, because then they obviously tasted even better. And little by little the other macaques also adopted this procedure - only not the old males, they still ate "dirty" ... And what does that tell us? So there are behaviours, no matter how reasonable and beneficial, but you don't even need to try to get the "old males" excited about them, they never do it anyway - for whatever reason. If it's a question of changing behaviour, so start with the young females!

166. "infiltrate according to the scam of 'undercover investigators'": On this first: theologians always puzzle over why this Judas of Iscariot had betrayed Jesus. Was the reason that Judas had hoped that Jesus would organise and start an uprising against the Romans, and he was disappointed when he realised that Jesus only talked about love and was also in favour of loving his enemies, or was the reason that Judas had to play a role in the plan of salvation of Jesus' atonement and was just "on" as a traitor? I can only say here that these assumptions are probably all complete nonsense. For from the concept of the "Jesus ideology" Judas had infiltrated the Jesus movement as an "undercover investigator", just as Paul did later, and had to carry out the orders of the principals. And finally, the order was to betray Jesus to the police squad that was supposed to arrest Jesus and of which presumably no one knew Jesus, or to show them who this Jesus was who was supposed to be arrested. So this betrayal most probably had nothing to do with a personal reason of Judas.

And this Judas now carried out the betrayal. But when he realised what this betrayal amounted to and what he had done, he committed suicide out of despair. For he had - although he was supposed to be only a more or less neutral observer - come to appreciate and perhaps even love Jesus as a good and honest friend. Paul, on the other hand, never had a real relationship with Jesus, he didn't even know him personally, and so he "did the thing", as the clients wanted. And obviously he soon liked his role as an "improver of Jesus' ideas" and increased it to the role of an apostle to the nations, which suited his in some ways even pathological need for recognition.

167. Revelations (of God): Revelations of God are a double-edged sword. For someone invents a story about a God who is known, or a new God is invented in the first place, and then something is put into the mouth of this God which the inventor himself considers to be good and right or which he also only considers to be good and right for his fellow human beings. It may be a cult that hurts no one, or it may be commandments whose observance is good for a community. But the content of the revelations does not necessarily have to be something good and humane. It can also be something with which some customs, which may even have long been felt to be pointless and superfluous and outdated, are confirmed and codified from "on high" instead of being finally thrown into the dustbin of religious history. An example of a meaningful "revelation" is, for example, the "instruction of God" to Abraham not to practise human sacrifices any more <presumably such an abolition of human sacrifices in superstitious societies only works via the prohibition of a god>, a revelation that is nonsensical, at least for us today, is the instruction of God to Abraham to circumcise the male babies.

In any case, we should always be very sceptical when someone refers to revelations of God, the person does not necessarily have to be a good person who wants something positive humane, he can also be a liar and a deceiver who wants to leave his fellow human beings uninformed and unemancipated and harness them to his own cart. This is true for us today and also for what happened in the past.

168. confirmation, bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah: see under confirmation!

169. The original Jewish religion is the timeless enlightened religion par excellence: The original Jewish religion is therefore presumably not at all about a belief in God and thus also not about a cult of God, but only about the fulfilment of being human - and this fulfilment has something to do with the harmony of the male and female worlds, to put it this way. The belief in God was only introduced in order to have a supreme authority against the other religions with their inhuman "cults" such as human sacrifice (this also includes wars, because killing enemies is something like a human sacrifice), cultic (and other) prostitution (this also includes any turning away from monogamy) and exploitation through labour. And if these "cults" are overcome, then in principle the belief in God with the worship of God is also superfluous. Or is it not? I think "no", but that is a personal attitude, that we humans need some kind of community experience - and religious festivals and religious buildings are ideal for that. And there are occasions that are really worth celebrating, such as the liberation from slavery and stupidity, the birthday of the liberator and, as a silent memorial day, the anniversary of his death, and of course also the day of true (sexual) morality - preferably in summer, when it can be celebrated in an appropriately "permissive" way (!). So we should definitely keep "something like that" alive. But we should always be aware that the most important thing is always the fulfilment of being human.

170. Jesus: In the concept of "Jesus ideology" we deliberately only speak of "Jesus" and not of "Christ" or of "Jesus Christ". For "Christ" is an honorary title ("The Anointed One") that Paul had given to this Jesus, or better, it is the name of the one that Paul had made out of Jesus - "Christ" is therefore not the real Jesus. The name "Christ" belongs to Paul's ideology and is therefore not used here.

171. An ingenious and also clever religion of plagiarism: Interestingly, the parallels to the ancient "pagan" religions and also to Buddhism are generally hushed up by the established theologians. But they are obvious and they are also well known. And certainly there is no synopsis, why there are so many parallels to pagan religions and what one can conclude from it. Above all, many things would be much easier to explain from a synopsis, I think for example of the problem of the resurrection of Jesus. There many theologians and others struggle to explain it, i.e. whether it really took place or whether the disciples had a hallucination or whether Jesus was only seemingly dead and after the crucifixion he was walking around again and appeared several times to the disciples. In any case, I consider all these speculations superfluous, if one would accept that the resurrection story is a plagiarism from pagan religions and that there is "nothing to it" with Jesus.

And why in the concept "Jesus ideology" the "dead silence" may be superfluous? Quite simply: Because there is a plausible alternative here! Instead of talking about plagiarism, when it concerns religions, up to now rather derogatory is talked about "syncretism" (or also "mishmash of faiths"), i.e. when a religion has taken over several or even many parts from other religions - and therefore it is not to be taken seriously. This derogation may be the reason why the phenomenon of "plagiarism from other religions" in the Christian faith is hushed up or at least reluctantly admitted

172. Freedom. I quote here from an article by the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie ("Satanic Verses") in the WELT of June 26, 2021: "And yet freedom is a powerful word. Is there something like a need for freedom in our genetic makeup, a desire to throw off shackles and constraints? Are we naturally predisposed to the search for freedom? ... There is overwhelming evidence for this. Wherever freedom is suppressed, people want it back...."

Salman Rushdie sees freedom here more in the political sense, I see it in the personal sense. Well, one wants to bind oneself to another person and one also wants the other person to bind himself to one, in a certain way binding also means lack of freedom. But it is a long way to that point, at least this binding or unfreedom, which one hopefully likes to enter into, should be done in complete freedom, so that the parties involved will be happy. But what is "complete freedom"? And are the bonds that do not happen in complete freedom doomed to not be happy?

I don't think we can condemn from the start everything that doesn't look like freedom, but we can try to gradually question and overcome the bonds that control us. So how about starting with the "shackles of clothing" - of course only where it is possible and makes sense? Because my impression is - I know I'm repeating myself - that girls in particular at some point can no longer stand the constraints that clothing entails. But since the liberation from clothes is considered immoral, especially since this liberation never has to be, they then always start everything right away, and often very hastily - because that has to be one day anyway, because that's part of having children, etc. Whether the "liberation" could not happen much more prudently and reasonably and less hastily without these "fetters of clothing"? I think: yes! So let's grant young people this freedom - let's lead them to this freedom!

Copyright:

For private use, which I however interpret generously, you are welcome to print out the text and also parts and also pass it on, but please do not take it out of context and cite the source. I see it like this: what I have written here is definitely part of my religious education. And I have already been paid for them by the "taxpayer". So what could be more natural than for him to get something complete back from me, and unfortunately, when I was dismissed, my teaching was not yet complete. However, I would be very happy to hear about your experiences!