The nature of prophets

Hmmm, this has been a long time coming. At first I thought I will call this as “Was Jesus Christ an Atheist ?”. But then decided that maybe he was not. Maybe there is more than that to it otherise people would not follow him so blindly. So, before we go on, I would like to quote some guy on the internet who describes Christianity as:

Christianity, noun: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree

Ahem ahem. Well, when told in that way it does seem pretty stupid, and that is the important thing here. For example, what if I were to tell you, that I am the son of god, and ask you to rub Vicks vaporub on your chest, drinking neat scotch whiskey every night praying to me and you will get salvation. Would you do that ? Absolutely not. First thing, you will do is yell at me “Are you mental ? Go away, you freak”. And the point is, even in Jesus Christ's time, there were people who thought he was mental and a freak. Then, how is it that Christianity is one of the major world religions today ? Or for that matter, what is the secret of survival of any prophet ? Why do we choose to follow certain men (we 'follow' all women, of course), and not others ? That is what I will try and examine today. Note that I take Jesus Christ as an example, but all this is equally true for any religious prophet.

In the first place, the atheist part. I believed for a long time that perhaps most of these prophets were actually people who absolutely did not believe in a god, and were only trying to help people lead a good life. You don't have to be a son of god to realize that people have a tendency to go from bad to worse. So, in my erstwhile opinion, I thought, maybe these guys knew there is no god, but since people believe in god so much, why not use that to make them do some good things. And the thinking can be found in their writings, for example there are a lot of sheep in the Bible, because perhaps Jesus Christ thought, “OK, people are stupid like sheep. What can I do to make these sheep, er.. people do good things?”. And so the prophets pretend to hear God (who the sheep.. er people follow), suffer from starvation and other things, perform miracles (which are almost always unsubstantiated) and ultimately their fans start following every word they say, however absurd it may sound to others (like sheep). But, then it is also possible that the prophets themselves believed in all that they do and so were self-deluded. Would such a person be followed so earnestly by others ? Perhaps not. So, for a long time, I believed that prophets are actually atheists, who are only trying to engineer society towards what they feel is right. But now, I no longer feel that such a delusion would make them unworthy of a fan following for a number of reasons. But first, a short analysis of prophets.

The most important fact that can be gauged from an analysis of prophets is that their version of God's message very strangely applies very very well to the particular society they live in. Take for example the history of the Abrahmic religions. Jews were preceded by the Egyptians who believed in a God-King and a hierarchy of gods which did not work well for the Jews (they became slaves). So, Moses comes and gives them a revision of the concept of One god and equality etc etc which is exactly what was needed for the Jews to make sense of the world around them and make them believ they are special (chosen ones). The Romans and to an extent the Jews became decadent and corrupt and the clergy abused the name of God, so bang comes Jesus with “repent you idiots, and you will be saved”. Also, he asks people not to take the lord's name in vain, and lead a pure and simple life. How appropriate given the circumstances. Or take for example Prophet Mohammad, who tells people that God told him that it is alright to fight other people who don't believe in what you believe. How very convenient for a tribal community fighting with each other (although this fighting part was allegedly told by Jesus too). So, my point is, the society in which the prophets lived became too complicated, and there was a need for relinquishing the old ways and embracing a new way. Now, if God's principles have remained constant throughout human existence, then ideally each of the prophets should come and tell us the exact same thing and kind of reboot the society to an ideal state. But curiously, that does not happen ever. Instead, God keeps changing his rules according to which prophet is now claiming to be the current favorite son of God and the society he lives in. I find that very weird. Does that mean that there are no generally applicable morals ? Does that mean that the God persona is fickle minded ?

The answer to that would be that none of them is true. The prophets realized that the only way to solve a society's problems is to redefine the framework within which it operates. But, it is not any man's cup of tea to do that, and this is where the genius of the prophets comes to the fore. Now, you cannot convince others for a long time, if you yourselves are not convinced. And this brings us to the God helmet. Apparently, this helmet stimulates a region of your frontal lobe, and many people wearing the helmet, 'feel an other wordly presence' while they were being stimulated. This is also seen in some frontal lobe lesions and tumors, where people believe that they can hear or 'feel the thoughts of another person' which they usually interpret as god (actually and allegedly there is a dissociation between the two brain hemispheres, and this leads to us being conscious of 'two minds'). Sounds similar ? Wait for a bit. Now, assuming that a random person is afflicted with this tumor. What happens ? The 'other wordly persona' drives them mad and we call them insane, and would certainly not follow what they say. But, what if it hits a person who genuinely wants to solve the problems of the society they live in. Here's a plausible scenario.

A carpenter named Jesus Christ is thinking about society's problems. He cannot disregard the rules told to him by the clergy and the society. Then he gets the tumor. Bang, there is dissociation of his hemispheres. Now, the social inhibitions earlier, no longer trouble him. Moreover, 'he perceives the thought of an other worldly being' telling him how these problems can be solved (maybe his right hemisphere, which is usually the creative side). Mix all this with the starvation in the desert, and wham, we have hallucinations and a truly genius solution to all problems facing the society he lived in. This scenario solves many problems. One, Jesus Christ gives a solution which is appreciated by his contemporaries (despite being against the contemporary rules). Two, because of the tumor, he is convinced he is hearing God, and face it, the guy did say a lot of audacious things, so either he is mad (the solution is a work of genius, so not mad), or he is actually hearing God's voice. Given that the ancient people did not know about frontal lobe tumors, they would believe that God is speaking and amending his constitution through Jesus, mostly because they are tired of the old rules and its complications. Thus is born a prophet. Of course, there are a lot of simplifications, but this idea appeals to the scientist in me. Just wish I had a cool frontal lobe tumor like that and there would be Krishnadevians everywhere centuries form now.