Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #24 - Resurrecting the Gnostic Jesus

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #24 - Resurrecting the Gnostic Jesus

Okay, good morning. Today we are doing Jesus, the most famous man who has ever lived. There are about 2 billion people on this planet, about a quarter of the human race, who worship him. So who is he? What does he believe? And why is he so important? Okay, so let's look at first what we know about the historical Jesus. There was a man who lived, who lived. And these are facts that scholars, most scholars, agree about him. He was born in the year 4 BC in a place called Galilee. And this is important because Galilee, it is in Judea, Israel today. And Galilee is a meeting place of many different cultures, religions,

and believes. This is part of the Roman Empire and this is really the center of much of the world at that time. And then he was a student of someone called John the Baptist. John the Baptist is a major Jewish religious leader who believed in baptism as a way of cleansing you. of your sins so that you may prepare for the kingdom of heaven. God is coming, but you must first cleanse your sins and restart yourself in order to be worthy of his arrival. But then, after some time with John the Baptist, Jesus started to create his own following.

And Jesus was preaching his own message that was very attractive and he developed a very large following. He was pretty well known for his healing powers. So if you were sick, he could heal you through the power of faith and belief. Then what we also know is about the year 30 to 33 C.E. So when it was like 34, 37, he was crucified by the Romans. Crucifurification. We don't know what.

why they crucified him, but we believe he was crucified. And crucifed, crucification was the worst way to die. And crucification was basically reserved only for two types of people, either bandits, pirates, or rebels, people who defied the Roman state. And it was really reserved for poor, illiterate individuals who had no status. Because crucification, you may not know this,

but when they crucify you, they nail you to a cross and they put you up, okay? You don't die because of bleeding or because of pain. You die because of suffocation. You suffocate the death. So what happens, you're on the cross, and eventually you start to lose power and you can't even hold up your nose. neck, okay? So you're suffocating to death because you can't breathe. It takes about three days to die. So it's really the worst way to die. Okay, and that's what happened to Jesus. And historically,

this is all that we know about him. Okay? This is what's been confirmed by scholars, by archaeologists, by researchers. Jesus is the most studied individual in human history. No one comes close. But we We really don't know much about him, okay? All right. So now that we looked at the historical Jesus, let's look at the biblical Jesus because these are two very different individuals. So Jesus in the Bible is the son of God, okay?

The son of God. And he's in heaven enjoying his life, but he sees the world underneath him, and he pities us. And he wants to liberate us from our pain and our suffering. He wants to redeem us and to atone for our sins and our crimes. And he's born of a virgin mother named Mary.

And from a very early age, he is a religious genius who attracts followers to him. And he has 12 Apostos, 12 Apostles. And he's determined to preach the coming of the kingdom of heaven. God is coming and we must be ready for him. He also preaches a religion of forgiveness and redemption and compassion and generosity and mercy.

So he will say things like, do not judge others. Let those who are without fault, without sin, without mistakes, be the first cast the stone. So we shouldn't judge others because we all have our own faults. We should be generous and open and compassionate to others. So he was preaching that message. He was also, in many ways, a social revolutionary because he was upset with the religion of the times.

At that time, the Jewish religion was controlled very much by the priesthood. So you show your faith by making animal sacrifices. But basically, paying a tribute to God. And Jesus thought that was wrong. You show your faith

by being a good person, by being generous, by refusing materialism and greed and corruption. You don't do, you don't show your faith-proof animal sacrifice. And, and, And as such, he angered the religious powers at that time,

especially the priests of the temple in Jerusalem. So eventually, he was betrayed by his apostle named Judas Ascariot, okay? Julius Ascariot reported the crimes of Jesus to the religious powers. And in turn, the religious powers, the priest of the temple, turn him over to the Roman governor of that time. His name is Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate. And Pontius Pilate really didn't want to be involved.

He didn't know what crime Jesus committed, but the priest insisted, the Jewish people insisted, and so as a sacrifice, Pontius Pilate agreed to crucify Jesus. So Jesus was crucified, and after he was crucified and he died, He was resurrected. How do we know? Because he appeared before his apostles and told him, look, I've come to this earth in order to redeem and atone for the sins of man.

I have now done so. Therefore, God will come and cleanse the earth of all sin. Spread my message. Spread my gospel. Gospel is Greek for good news. and I will return to you, okay? So there's a promise that there will be a second coming, and when Jesus returns, he will come, as prophesized, on top of clouds, and he will spite all of God's enemies, and they will build a paradise. So that's what the Bible says. And by the way, what's really important for us to understand.

understand is there are contradictions in the Bible because all that we know about Jesus comes from four biographies in the Bible okay the gospel is a good news and they're written by four different individuals who we named Mark Matthew Luke and John and again there are inconsistencies within their biographies okay but if you put them put them together this is a story of Jesus. Now when you hear this story, there's certain problems

with this story. The biggest problem is, sorry, the biggest problem is if he is, in fact, the son of God, if he is divine, how to explain the crucification and the resurrection?

Why does the son of God have to die? And how does a son of God die? Okay? And this is one of the most perplexing and confusion questions in Christianity and it's been with us for about 2,000 years okay so no one's really resolved this issue but the standard explanation is this why did Jesus have to come to earth the reason why is God and the children he created us are at war there's a religious war going on God

created us and put us in the garden of Eden Adam and Eve. And God told us, listen, this is paradise. You can do what you want. But there's only one rule you must not break. Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That's all we have to do. Don't eat that fruit. But we disobeyed him. And God, in his anger, exile us from paradise and in our stupidity in our ignorance in our in our selfishness we never came to recognize our own original sin our own failings and so we continue to make more and more mistakes which has led to a more corrupt and decadent world God up in heaven is waiting for

us to ask for forgiveness to omit our mistakes and we refuse to do so because we're kids we're stupid but God even though he's merciful even though he is wise must be asked for forgiveness before he can forgive us okay and Jesus who is the son of God he recognizes this conflict he recognizes this impasse and he decides this impasse and he decides he will come to earth and he will sacrifice himself in order to atone for the sins of man and release us from our own stupidity and our ignorance and allow God to forgive us. But if you think about it, this is all the work of God because God is allowing us to forgive ourselves. And in many ways, what this is doing is stopping the problem of Achilles.

Remember, we talked about the Iliad, right? And in the Iliad, there's a central conflict in the Iliad, and it's a problem of Achilles. Remember that Achilles is this great warrior who refuses to fight for the Greeks because Agamannon, the king, has insulted him. But he really wants to fight. Eventually, in his arrogance, he causes the death of his friend. Patroclus. And when Patroclus dies, it makes Achilles even more angry at himself. And that's why he takes out his anger on Hector. He doesn't recognize his own failings. He doesn't recognize his own sin. And it took Plyam to release him from his anger. Remember, Plyam forgave

Achilles. And when Plyam forgave Achilles, it released Achilles from his own guilt. The problem though is if Prime never forgave Achilles, then Achilles would have been stuck in his depression and his anger. So this is the Achilles problem. If we can't forgive ourselves, who will forgive us? And the answer, of course, is Jesus will forgive you. And this is the fundamental idea of Christianity.

Do not be anger at yourself. Do not hate yourself? Do not feel guilty? Because Jesus has forgiven you, which allows you to be a new you. You can now be whoever you want because Jesus has atoned you or taken away your sins and your guilt. If you believe in him, then you will become a new person. You can become whoever you want to be. All right?

So this is the idea of Christianity. Finally, Jesus made the sacrifice in order to release us from our own guilt and our own shame. So we can be free to worship God in his glory. Okay? Any questions? Not only that, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus, everyone is now free to worship God. Because before, remember, God was a religion within Judaism. Only Jews had access to God.

And even within the religion itself, really only the high priest had access to God. So Jesus came to earth to tell us all humans, the entire human race, God is within all of us. You don't have to be a Jewish person to believe in God. You can just be a person who wants to believe in God. who wants to believe in God. And this is an idea that is beautifully encapsulated in the Gospel of Mark. So let's read this section together.

And this is when Jesus has been crucified and he has died. Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. So the son of God has died. He's completed his mission. and the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. This is an extremely important sentence. The curtain is the door inside the temple. The curtain is what protects the inner sanctum, the holiest room.

It's called the Holy of the Holies, okay, from everyone else. When the high priest can enter there, why? because that room is where God is. Okay? So when the curtain is torn into, what this is telling us is God is now released into the world. God was trapped inside the temple, but now that the curtain has been torn into because of the sacrifice of Jesus, God can now enter the world and we can all have access to him. He's no longer trapped inside this curtain.

Does that make sense? and when the saturian, the Saturnian is the Roman, not the Jewish person, who stood facing him, okay, so the Saturnian was watching guard to make sure no one came to save Jesus, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was God's son. So the first person to recognize who Jesus really is are not his apostles, but a Roman who saw him die so he the centurion is history's first Christian because he sees himself this man this Jesus was truly the son of God a divine figure who came to earth in order to liberate us from our sins and to build a connection

between us and God okay so this is the very basis of the Christian faith you believe that Jesus came to earth in order to atone for our sins and to liberate us from the corruption of religion and the world around us does this make sense guys any questions so far before I continue okay so while this is a beautiful story and it's touched people for thousand years and millions of people it's really doesn't make much sense okay there are problems with the story the biggest problem is the idea of atonement and original sin remember before we said

to the Bible we studied this we studied the story of Adam and Eve and we said very clearly what the Bible says is both God Yahweh and Adam and Eve were at fault okay Adam and Eve did disobey and did eat from the tree but God lied to them and God we also said recognize his mistake also remember God already punished us for disobedience God said to Adam from now on you have to work hard to grow food for your family and he said to Eve from now on you will suffer pain in your labor when you give birth you will suffer in men's pain So God has already punished us for our original sin.

Then the last problem is God kicked us out of paradise because he feared that we would eat from the tree of life, which would give us eternal life. So this idea of original sin, Natoma, doesn't make any sense. Also, why is God angry at us? God, this perfection. Why does he have to be angry at us? What do we do to piss him off? Would a father be angry at his children always? Is it the responsibility of the children to ask for forgiveness or the responsibility of the father to forgive his children? Okay. So this is an extremely problematic story. It sounds beautiful. When you start to think about it, it becomes extremely problematic. Also, there are things in the story that are not historically

accurate. All right? So the biggest problem is this. The Bible says very explicitly at times that it was the Jews who killed Jesus. And this is problematic because this has been used to justify anti-Semitic behavior and language throughout the centuries. Okay? But historically, this is not what happened. So let me give you a few reasons why I do not believe this is what happened. The first reason is what the Bible does not recognize is at this time in Jerusalem, there are many different religious authorities among the Jewish people, and there are in conflict with each other.

The three major factions are called the seduces, the Sadducees, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Aesans. These are three major factions. The seduces are the aristocrats. They're the little priests who are in charge of the temple. They're basically the central authority of the religion. But then you have the Pharisees who argue that what matters is not animal sacrifice, but obedience to the law of God. Okay?

And these are reformers. And eventually from them will emerge what we call the rabbis. Basically the current leaders of the Jewish faith. And then you have the scenes who believe that there is an populace coming. God is returning to earth. And what's important is to deny the material reality. To live frugally, to live in touch. peace, to live in harmony together, okay?

And guess why, guys, these three groups hate each other. They were always at conflict with each other. But they never went to war with each other because they believed that they were all God's people. Therefore, we should argue we should kill each other. So the idea that these priests would send Jesus' to his death, doesn't really fit into the culture and the practice of people at that time. Okay?

That's the first problem. Second problem is the Bible makes Pontius Pilate look to be a real. The Bible makes Pontius Pilots look to be very reluctant. And even at times sympathetic towards Jesus. It's a very pro-woman attitude. But we have a lot of information about Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea at this time. What we know about him is, here's a violent thug, like most Roman, Romans. The Romans have a notorious attitude of being violent first.

They're not very political, they're not very strategic, they like to kill people, okay? And at this time, Pontius Pilate had a major conflict with the Jews of Jerusalem. The Jews, the first law of the Ten Commandments is, you shall not worship false idols. But Pontius Pilate represented the Roman Empire. And their false idol was their emperor. So the emperor was, the face of the Emperor Tiberius was in coins, and there were flags and postures around him. And Pontius Pilate wanted to bring the cult of Caesar to Jerusalem, which offended the Jews.

Because the Jews are not allowed to have false idols inside their city, the Holy City. And that's create a lot of conflicts between Pineus Pilate and the Jews. There were some circumstances where the Jews went to Pontus Pilate to complain. And the Pontius Pilate says, if you don't get out of my house, I'm going to kill all of you. And the Jews start to line up and says, come, here's my neck. Come, come kill me, okay? And so Pontius Pilate had to relent. He had no face.

The Jews were all willing to die to protect the religion. So Pontius Pilate was not a very political, not a very savvy individual. Okay? He continued to offend the Jews. So the idea that Pontius Pilate would be sympathetic towards Jesus. Makes no sense. If Pontius Pilate could kill a Jew, he would kill a Jew. Okay? Any questions so far? Okay. So I'm going to make an argument, okay? I'm going to explain to you that the Bible, what it says, isn't really accurate. All right? I'm going to, we construct the historical Jesus, and I'm going to tell you, based on my reading of the history and of the Bible, what he really believed. Okay? And just to be clear,

I'm not a scholar. I really haven't studied in the Bible that much. All I've done is not a lot of independent research. So take my words of grain of salt, okay? And feel free to challenge me or question my argument at any time. Just raise your hand. All right. So, before I talk about Jesus,

I want to talk about the historical circumstance of Jerusalem and Judea and Judea at this time. So let's do a brief summary of what we learned so far. We've learned that King David was the founder of the religion, one of the main founders of the religion. And at this time in history, in about 1,000 BC, this is really the height and peak of the state of Israel. And they're very confident, very open, very generous. But after David dies, his son, Solomon, is not able to keep the kingdom together, okay? And it splits into two.

The Northern Kingdom and Judah. Over time, because Israel is in such a strategic location, right? The Levant is the center of the world. Both of these places will be conquered by foreigners. The Northern Kingdom will be conquered by the Assyrians. Judah will be conquered by the Babylonians. And the elite are sent off into exhumans. sent off into exile in Babylon where they basically develop the religion of Judaism

of its modern form okay the Persians return the Jews back to Judea Israel and there they write the Bible okay and this comes about 4-4-4 and but then the Persia conquered by the Greeks by Exxed in 301 and now Ptolemy the Greek general is in charge of the area and Ptolemy is in charge of Egypt and Egypt is very wealthy so Ptolemy prefers to use money to resolve disputes so what he does is basically say to the Jewish elite the priest hey your religion is really interesting when you guys come to Exandria the capital of Egypt and translate your Hebrew Bible into the Greek Bible so that we can all appreciate the beauty and power of your words.

Okay? And we call this Bible the Septuant. Septuantuan. And it's very important. You don't have to know this word, but like, remember, this is the Greek Bible, it becomes the basis of Christianity. Okay? Because most people, by the time Christianity comes, won't read Hebrew, they'll be able to read Greek. But then, then In 167 BCE, Jerusalem is conquered by the Solution Empire, Antiochus. Antiochus is a thug. So he comes and he desecrates a temple by offering a sacrifice to Zeus, a pig sacrifice to Zeus, in their temple. And this offense the Jews so much, they launched a decades-long guerrilla warfare against the Solution Empire. In 63 BCE, the Romans conquest. Jerusalem Pompeii the great the Roman general comes and conquers lay siege to Jerusalem he kills tens of thousands of Jews and enslaves others and sends us across the

empire okay so at this point in history and Jesus is born a few decades later at 4 BCE right the Jews have become extremely fanatical about the religion they need they need to explain if they are the chosen people If God, Yahweh is the best God in the world, why is this crap happening, right? Why did their kingdom become dissolved and then conquered by foreigners? And not only that, but these foreign powers, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, they come and they insult their God. They burn down the temple, they desecrate the temple, and they kill a lot of God's chosen people.

So why is this happening? And the explanation, there's a two-fold explanation. The first explanation is we were not loyal enough to God. God sent these foreigners to conquer us because we disobey God. We worship foreign idols and we refuse to follow God's commandments. That's the first explanation. The second explanation is the idea of apocalyptic eschatology. Okay, apocalyptic eschatology, okay?

This is a very big term, and I need you guys to know it because it's important for future classes. So let's look at what this means. Eschatology is Greek, comes to the Greek eschaton, which means the end. Okay, the end, end of the world, end times. Apopalips is Greek for revelation or unveiling, okay? Revealing. So apocalyptic eschatology means telling you how the world ends with the return of God. So all this crap is happening because God is planning to make his return to smite all his enemies

to destroy all these empires who have defiled his name. And this is what most Jews believed at this time of Jesus. Jesus was born it was assumed that God was about to return to the world and destroy all its enemies and there were a lot of prophets running around preaching this message Jesus was one of them but it was not unique in his message that the kingdom of heaven was returning so any questions about this history are you guys clear okay let's continue all right so this is the history but at the same time What's happening is because the Lavant is really the center of the world, it's a meeting place of the world,

every single major religion is in the Levant. And Jesus is absorbing and trying to understand these different religions. So let's talk about the major religions. You have the Greeks with Plato. So let's remind ourselves of what Platonic philosophy is. Plato believes God is called the form of the good. From the good. And from the form of the good will emanate other ideas like reason, truth, beauty, justice.

And then these will emanate fiscal manifestations called the forms. This is called the realm of forms. This is basically heaven, okay? You can see this as heaven. We live in a shadow reality. in a shadow reality which is this an imitation of the form of the good. And our objective in life is to study philosophy in order to return to the form of the good. Only mathematics will help us return to the form of the good.

Plano got this idea from the Egyptians, okay? And the Egyptians called this idea, sacred geometry. mathematics because say with geometry is a language and thought of the gods doesn't make sense that's what's Plato also at this time because of the influence of the Persians you have Zoroastrianism remember in Zoroastrianism the creator is a Hora master he is the perfect god of light and he creates a perfect world where we humans are free to choose whatever we want this world eventually became become corrupted by an evil god who is equal to a Zora master okay and now we

humans must fight for good we can choose to fight for evil but we fight for good that will allow good to win out in the end eventually we emerge a savior a Messiah hero who will lead the Army of Light into a final battle against the army of darkness. And in this battle, the army of light will triumph. And then will emerge a river. And then everyone who's ever died will be resurrected from the dead.

And everyone will be forced to cross this river. If you've been a good person, if you've fought for the truth, if you've been compassionate, you will cross this river, and you will feel clansed of all your... sins and your mistakes and you will emerge as a perfect soul who will live in paradise forever but if you've been a bad person okay you will burn in this

river and then you'll be condemned to suffering for eternity okay this is Zoroastrianism then you have Buddhism and Hinduism okay and again guys remember this world is interconnected so the Greeks know Buddhism very well and the Buddhists know the Greeks very well okay so and Jesus will have access to Buddhist and Hindu teachings in the Buddhist and Hindu tradition there's a true reality called Brahman okay so think of this as a form of the good we live in a false reality where we have to suffer in pain but through our good works through dark

we can achieve moksha what is moksha moxha means liberation back into the Brahmin okay so Hinduism is very similar to Platonism at the same time besides religions there are also major philosophies that are roaming around this area okay so you have soakism which is what the Romans believe you have cynism and you have epicurism okay so these are some of the major ones Sinicism is what Jesus believed, which is the rejection of all material reality. Cynics believe that it's important to wear bad clothes and to beg for food,

because material reality is a lie, or it's evil. At the same time, you also have these what we call pagan religions or pagan rituals, usually around the cult of dynesees. We will talk about this later on in our class. This is very important. But all I want you to remember is these are pagan rituals where people come together and they use psychedelics, they use drugs, to get really high in order to increase their religious ecstasy.

And this is to create a feeling of oneness, interconnectedness. What's really important of these pagan rituals is to focus on You got a terrorism. Okay? So you can be a slave, you can be a rich person. But when you enter these rituals, you're all one and the same. And they reject the social hierarchy of the real world, okay? Not all, but many of these pagan rituals do that.

So as you can see, at this time, there's just tremendous religious fever in the world. Everyone's seeking truth. seeking a more peaceful, more interconnected, a more real world. And Jesus is operating within this major climate. And Jesus is a major religious, sorry, Jesus is a unique religious genius who is able to synthesize all these ideas into a new religion. But it's not called Christianity. It's not called Christianity.

Jesus is not the one who is the founder of Christianity. That person is named Paul. We'll do Paul next class. But Jesus found a new religion that attracts major followers. And so what is this new religion called? Okay. So at that time, obviously, there was not a name for this new religion. But today we call this new religion's Gnosticism.

Okay. Jesus was the founder of a religion called Nazism. Not Christianity, Nazism. There's a difference. All right. So what is narcissism? All right. If you look at most religions, there are three major liars. There's a secret leer, okay, which is only available to the founder as well as his closest followers. There is an inner layer, which is what he teaches his disciples. And there is a public layer, an outer layer, which is what he preaches to the public. Okay, do you understand?

So most religions will have this three-tower system, a secret layer, which is a secret teachings, an inner layer, which is what the disciples are taught, and then there's a public layer. okay so and what's important first to understand is these three layers operate at different levels and they speak different truths but they're all interconnected okay they're coherent and they're one and the same all right so Jesus was a Gnostic what does this mean let's look at the outer layer okay what Jesus was preaching was a religion of compassion of forgiveness of mercy of

got a tyrannism so let's look at Matthew the gospel Matthew this is from the sermon on the mount okay and this what he says blessed of the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven the people in this world who have value are not the rich but the poor because God favors them if you're a poor person you will find fall as you will find solace and comfort in this idea you may be poor you may not be able to eat enough but God loves you the most okay so this is what Jesus teaches the public but the other question then is why would this be true all right why would this be true and so for this makes sense we need to understand the

inner and the secret layer which is not revealed to us in math you but there's a secret gospel called the gospel of Thomas which we recently discovered okay this was discovered in 1945 in a town called Nakh Hamadi and this gospel is not in the Bible but it reveals to us what Jesus thinks okay so let's look at what he says there are two things okay there is light within in a man of light and he lights up the whole world if he does not shine he is darkness okay what does this mean it can mean many things so and as I explained to you you can look at this quotation from three different layers

at the public layer there's light within a man of light and he lights up the whole world if he does not shine he is darkness in the public layer it means we have to be good people okay God favor people who do good things who are generous or compassionate okay that's a public layer then there's an inner layer okay the inner layer is what he's saying to his disciples is if you want to follow me you must give up the world if you're wealthy give up your wealth if you have if you're poor give up your children and your wife and follow me be an example to everyone else okay

But there's also a secret layer, a secret layer. And let's look at the secret layer. The secret layer is a secret knowledge about the world, a secret understanding of how the world works, that only Jesus and his closest followers understand and recognize. And this is what we call Nazism. The idea is this. And it basically follows along the lines of Plato and Buddhism, Hinduism. Okay?

All right. In the beginning, there's a god, a perfect god, called the monad. Or the one. And he's perfect. He is eternal. He is immutable. And he's perfect. Okay?

The god of Plato. The monad creates dyads, okay? Peers that are perfect. One of them is called Sophia. And then these peers create, with the permission of the monad, triads okay and this is all a perfect world because perfection creates perfection the problem is one of these gods in Sophia which is knowledge she decides she can be like a moment monad remember what makes a monad special is he creates new

things out of his own thoughts the dyads are forced to couple of each other in order to create new things so Sophia wants to create her own thing herself without permission of her partner our permission of the Monad okay but when she did that she's defying the rules of the universe and therefore she creates a monster okay this is a monster and Sophia is a shame by what she's done okay she's like oh my god this was a mistake this was a travesty so what she does is she hides this monster in a different reality okay she clouds up this reality this monster is ignorant of the true reality so the monster

doesn't know that he's a monster and he thinks he's a god and he's lonely so he starts to create the world us okay the in the Bible the monster's name is Yahweh and he writes Adam and Eve and he creates the world and the world is completely screwed up because it's all being created by a monster okay And so this is the origin of sin and corruption and evil in this world because our God is a monster who is in defiance of the true God. And that's why blessed of the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Because if you're poor, you are defying the material reality. To win in this game created by a monster, you have a human.

yourself have become a monster therefore the wealthy the powerful are evil people you're poor you don't participate in this evilness and therefore you're you are blessed by God and there was God who will redeem you and reward you at the end of the world and who is Jesus Jesus is the son or a a son of the monad who's come to the world to reveal us this truth about our world okay and this is what he says there is a light within a man of light and he lights up the whole world if he does not shine he is darkness okay we our bodies are evil why because we feel pain we die if a good God would not make us alive because it makes no sense why would a

perfect God condemn his children there's something we suffer every day that makes no sense or a monster would do this but even though the monster creates us there is still a divine spark in us that comes from the monad and if we recognize this and we choose a life of goodness by seeking true knowledge this light will let the world but if we do not do this then we will continue to suffer in darkness okay and this is what the secret teaching is guys in each of of us this is the divine spark of the monad and so we can defy or escape this reality created by a monster but yet to recognize this okay and this is a

secret teaching of Jesus all right listen to that one more quotation from the Gospel of Thomas to truly understand this idea when you make the two one and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below and when you make the male and the female one the same so that the male not be male or female and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye then will you enter the kingdom okay how can you escape this world you can escape this world by seeing this world everything is interconnected these categories rich poor male female are created

by the authorities in this world who worship a monster. We must recognize the connectedness of the humanity in each and every one of us. That's why it's important to show mercy, to be compassionate, because we're all stuck together. And it's only by recognizing our common humanity that will allow us to escape this world. When you fashion your eyes in the place of my eye, okay, when you truly see, then you escape. You have eyes and you think that what you see

is true, but it's not true. It's all fake. It's all a lie. You have to see with your soul, with the divine spark that is in you. And then you will see the truth. In this religion,

why did Jesus die? Well, I mean, he died because it's a good thing. die you are able to escape back into the true reality but also he died in order to awaken us to inspire us to grab our attention all right because his death was so tragic that it all of us into focus our attention into Jesus and we focus on Jesus we focus on his teachings and slowly over time for our own discovery process we're able to recognize the true teaching the secret teaching

of Jesus and when to recognize the true teaching of Jesus we're able to practice a compassionate generous and merciful life we're able to bring light onto the world and in our death we're able to escape back into the true reality okay and that's the true teaching of Jesus okay so does that make sense guys All right, so now that we've reconstructed his true belief, let's look at his life. What happened? Okay, so Jesus at some point, he's able to develop his theory of the world, his religion, and if you believe in your theory, you want to spread it out, okay?

You want people to know your theory. So he goes to Jerusalem, which is the religious capital of, the Jews okay if you want people to pay attention to you you want people to recognize you're speaking the truth you have to go to Jerusalem the problem is this first of all the Romans are in Jerusalem and they want to kill prophets because they see Jewish prophets as problematic second problem is when you go to Jerusalem you're competing against other religious authorities okay you're now threatening the authority of the seduces the Pharisees and the Ascines

But Jesus doesn't have protectors. He doesn't have a powerful political faction protecting him. So the Romans saw an opportunity to teach a Jews a lesson. So he arrested him, and then they crucified him. Does that make sense? But after they did so, what they didn't recognize is this would turn him into a hero. Because at this time, everyone is thinking about apocalyptic eschatology. They're thinking the world is ending, the messiah is coming.

And they are so shocked by the death of Jesus that they start to talk about him, okay? Let's do a thought experiment. Let's just say I'm a king, and everyone hates me. Everyone hates me. I'm a king, but everyone hates me. And there are three prophets who speak against me. The first prophet, prophet A, says, I am a son of a whore. my mother was a prostitute

the prophet B is I kill my brother to use up the throne that's what prophet B says prophet C says I steal from the army the money that's supposed to go to the army I steal

all right so these are three prophets who talk trash about me and the people are confused as to who to believe Who do I follow? Prophet A, prophet B, or prophet C, right? So how do you know someone speaking the truth? Well, you know when the king kills someone, right? Does that make sense?

If I kill Prophet B, it means Prophet B must be speaking the truth. And therefore, you will start to follow the teachings of Prophet B. So in this time, because the Romans killed Jesus, they turned Jesus into a hero. And people are now interested in the teachings of Jesus. And that's why he became so famous. And also, if you think about it, Nazism is really appealing to people. It makes a lot of sense.

But then comes the most important question in Christianity, which is this. If Jesus himself was a Gnostic, if this is what he taught, that there is a light in us and we must constantly work hard to let the world to shine the world with our lightness how do we go from here to Nazism to the Bible

Martin-day Christianity which teaches us that Jesus came to the world to redeem us from our sins and that he will return to save the world how do we get from here to here and these are like two radically different conceptions of the world in

fact if Jesus were a lot today and he saw that we worshiped him as a redeemer he would be appalled by our but but but but by what he's seen he'll be appalled by Christianity okay and so this is what we would discuss next class what i'll show you next class is the true found of Christianity the person who developed this religion is not jesus but paul okay paul all right so christianity the religion about jesus is very different from jesus and what he really taught okay all right was this clear to you guys any questions do you have any questions like okay so next class we will look at Paul, okay?