A new Pope for Easter, just to prove how far we’ve come (NOT)

In the Christian calendar, Easter marks the date when tradition has it that Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and the easter egg, hot cross buns and rabbits are the familiar symbols we all know. Most people are probably aware that Easter was actually celebrated for thousands of years before Christianity appeared. It is the time of the equinox, marking the passage of the sun along the ecliptic. In the northern hemisphere this is the beginning of spring and is associated with growth and fertility, hence the egg and the bunny symbolism. The cross symbolism, refers to the four points of the solar calendar, two solstices and two equinoxes.

In fact the entire story of Jesus is an allegory of the passage of the sun along the ecliptic and through the zodiac constellations throughout the year. The lowest point of the passage of the sun towards the horizon occurs on the 22nd December, which is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. This is when the ancient cultures said the sun ‘died’. For three days it appears to stand still, just like the three days Jesus is said to have laid dead in a cave, and then the sun begins its upwards passage again towards the equinox point of spring. It is reborn. The three kings who are said to have travelled to witness this birth are the tree stars of Orion’s belt which line up with Sirius, the star in the east, to point to the place where the sun will rise on the horizon of December 25th. The larger constellation where this takes place was known in ancient times as the cradle or manger. The solar symbolism is endless, and would take a far longer article than this to explain further. Here’s a link if you’d like to read more.  http://www.solarmythology.com/

Jesus, the son of God, is actually a sun-god. Christianity is a solar religion, whether the church(es) admit it or not. The same ideas that were applied to Jesus, such as his birth date, his virgin mother (Virgo) his crucifixion and resurrection and so on, were all familiar to followers of the Persian Mithras, the Indian Krishna, the Egyptian Horus and a host of others around the world, which predated Christianity by thousands of years. The reason for this was that they were all sun gods. Their stories were identical because they were allegories of the same phenomenon.

It’s possible, despite all this, that Jesus actually existed. There may well have been a person who taught certain ideas to do with the purpose of life and spirituality. The early church may have attached the solar allegories to the real stories surrounding this person in order to create a religion and convert followers, since the sun-god myth would have been familiar to everbody then. Christianity has a tradition of adopting earlier festivals and beliefs and calling them its’ own, with various modifications.

It never ceases to amaze me that in this modern age, so many people remain religious in the sense that they adhere to the rules and teachings of their faiths that were dreamed up by people several thousand years ago, to apply to societies that existed then. It’s changing of course, though quite slowly. Wherever people are educated, free of religious influence, organised religion loses its grip. This is why religions flourish in underdeveloped countries and why fundamentalists hate the West, where freedom of speech and actions, and equality for all are the death knell of repressive religions. Yet even in arguably the most advanced nation on earth, the USA, religion retains a strong grip, at least outwardly. What president would ever be elected if he or she were to state that the story of Jesus is a solar allegory that the church adopted and adapted for its own ends?

Today, the science of the really small stuff, at the level of the structure of electrons and protons in the atom, is where we might find the answer to questions about god, spirituality and soul. It seems that consciousness might be an electromagnetic field of some kind, linked to the body and so part of it, but able to continue to exist when the physical body dies. Personally I think that’s the case, though the ‘me’ I identify with is largely bound up with my physical existence, so it stands to reason that that part of me must expire when my body does. We need something to replace the religious beliefs the world is currently saddled with. Something based on knowledge and science, but without the ‘we are simply biological animals’ approach of some scientists. Their approach is a reaction against religious superstition and ignorance, but they are in danger of replacing one blind inflexible doctrine with another.

This new global religion idea is actually central to my Black Sun novels, though the results aren’t what you might expect.