RP 1999: The story of Jesus was not about original sin or the fate of Adam and Eve. Jesus didn't speak ideas that denigrate sex. But then long after he died, writers for the Church created the story of the Messiah/Christ who erases original sin. Elaine Pagels cites biblical scholars "who are convinced that the titles Messiah and Son of God emerged later, from Christian communities." Long after his crucifixion, Jesus was recast as the Messiah/Christ of Eden. But to him, the word Messiah held a different significance. "In Jesus' time there was much talk of a Messiah who would liberate the Jews by force," writes John Romer, "This label of Messiah automatically challenged both Roman and Jewish authority in Judea and Galilee; for the belief that a Messiah would arise and, with the help of God, expel the godless, was often expressed in Hebrew Scripture . . . Many of the Gospel stories are designed to show how Jesus' life fulfilled the Messianic predictions of the Hebrew Prophets."

RP 1999: The original meaning of Messiah has nothing to do with sex and redemption from original sin. It's much more a metaphor for politics and justice…By the time Augustine went looking for links in Bible stories that could connect Jesus with the denigration of sex and condemnation of women, the Church had long since degenerated into a fraternity for men only. Rome itself degenerated as Christianity rose and spread around the Mediterranean. One could say that the fall of Rome was caused by the new Christian religion. In a desperate attempt to save the crumbling empire, the emperor seized upon the idea of "Church." The State took over the religion and redefined it to suit the leaders of the empire. The religion had to attract soldiers to Rome, the emperor needed bait, he needed beliefs that persuaded women to obey men. So Augustine, a Vatican writer, dreamed up the idea of original sin to link Jesus with Eden and the denigration of sex. With this creed the Church of the Empire offered men authority to order women into submission. Rome offered a religion that defined females as a race of slaves. Thus Bible stories became a way to lure men to fight for a corrupt and decayed Empire. Vatican writers began to portray Jesus as an antidote for the sexual "evils" of women and gays. The meaning of Messiah was changed; no longer did it mean a Savior for Jews under Rome, but rather a Savior for men over women. This is how the Vatican interpreted the four gospels that its members selected out of many to become the New Testament. But there were dozens of other gospels that were banned by the Church.

RP 1999: When Augustine invented the story of original sin it's as if he intended that, as long as we believe we are condemned sinners in need of a Messiah, women will remain blamed for bringing bodies into the world and blamed for tempting men with sexual pleasures. As long as we need a Christ who leads us to heaven by erasing sins, then women, the source of life and sin, remain villains at a disadvantage to men. So whether or not you "believe in Jesus," what really counts is whether or not you accept the idea of a Messiah as defined by the Roman Church. The first followers of Jesus may have been looking for someone to lead a revolt against Rome, but when Rome took over the Christian religion three hundred years later, it was the sexual aspect of original sin and the Messiah that served the needs of Imperial power. Men are motivated to believe in the story of original sin because it casts women in opposition with God. The story often inspires women to seek God's forgiveness by serving men. Such beliefs are used as tools to MANipulate women. After the spread of male religions, females ceased to be the regulators of mating that they had always been because the new religions now justified the supremacy of men, which meant that males had more leverage with which to access sex from women. This is what the inventors of the religions intended all along.

RP 1999: If the "Messiah" is explained as a belief system designed to dominate women, anomy is unleashed among people trained to worship Christ, and the explanation is labeled "evil and threatening to social values." No matter how well explained, no matter how true, any suggestion that "Christ" is a destructive symbol for society will be interpreted by Christians as evil reasoning…To be in a position of confronting the Christocentric cosmos that shields many from facing "the terror of anomy" is to be exposed to the wrath of those who fear their own latent madness and therefore will inflict madness upon those who threaten their fragile sanity. In other words, the binding of our minds by dominator society cannot be unknotted without treMENdous upheaval. A certain type of "madness" is required for so many people to expend so much energy denying that world religions incite harm against women and gays. Masses of people have been brain trained all of their lives to resist any explanation that lessens the supremacy of heterosexual men. To effectively discredit a male religion will threaten the mental stability of its followers.

RP 1999: The Hebrew scheme against women may be, as Campbell points out, "an extreme case," but it is not an isolated one. Most world religions are schemes of male supremacy. By enshrining the spirit as a separate realm held to be "higher" than physical desires, we cast sex as unacceptably "lower." World religions thus condemn the two groups most associated with sex/sensuality: 1) women, the physical bearers of life, and 2) gay people, a group defined in terms of sexual behavior…We are today unable to handle asteroids because our ancestors were so preoccupied with brutalizing women and gays.