Aim for a higher life than just looking sweet

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Grail Follies

Boys [were] snooping around, in the most conscientious way, though none of them had any idea where the Holy Grail really was, and I don't think any of them actually expected to find it, or would have known what to do with it if he had run across it. [Mark Twain]

The Grail of traditional, Western Christianity is said to be a mystical revitalising means, but not an explicitly religious thing. We cannot say what it was if it was anything in particular at all, and all stories of it are works of fiction.

The legend combines a dash of Christian lore with imagery of early Medieval romances that draw on a Celtic myth of a cauldron that has special powers: Bran the Blessed's life-restoring cauldron, of the Mabinogion, a work of early Celtic myth and folklore.

The term "grail" comes from the Latin gradale, which meant a dish brought to the table during various stages (Latin "gradus") or courses of a meal, according to the Camelot Project [1].

The Grail is first featured in the incomplete poem "Perceval, The Story of the Grail" by Chrétien de Troyes. The influential poem dates from the late 1100s. The grail in it was a bowl or dish and not particularly holy. The idea that it was holy was added in later verse romances, which were heavily associated with legends spun around the fabled King Arthur and his court, where the quest for the grail was the highest spiritual pursuit.

"What were they going to do with the Grail when they found it, Mr Rossetti?" [Max Beerbohm]

A Thing of Folly

Keeping yourself intact and developing yourself should work better than looking for some obscure "thing", and clowning.

Others of the late 1100s and later centuries got other grail ideas. The results of it all include many cups claimed to be the Grail in several churches. Also, in Wolfram von Eschenbach's telling, the Grail was kept safe at the castle of Munsalvaesche, entrusted to the first Grail King. This grail was a stone which provided sustenance and prevented anyone who beheld it from dying within the week. Other stories claim that the Grail is buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel or lies deep in the spring at Glastonbury Tor. Still other stories claim that a secret line of hereditary protectors keep the Grail, or that it was hidden by the Knight Templars in Oak Island, Nova Scotia's famous "Money Pit", while local folklore in Accokeek, Maryland says that it was brought to the town by a closeted priest aboard Captain John Smith's ship. Turn of the century accounts state that Irish partisans of the Clan Dhuir (O'Dwyer, Dwyer) transported the Grail to the United States during the 1800s and the grail was kept by their descendents in secrecy in a small abbey in the upper-Northwest - and so on.

[Main source: Wikipedia, s.v. "The Holy Grail"; secondary source: The Camelot Project, University of Rochester.]

Much tendentious in a life comes from a faith, and some forms of belief derive from misunderstanding a lot. Example:

A father was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt."

His son asked: "What happened to the flea?"

It is often good to see the difference between fiction and non-fiction

The grail of fiction fairly often identified with a dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Medieval minds spun legends around the blurred concept, after the the Roman church was beginning to add more ceremony and mysticism around the sacrament called Holy Communion. The Grail legends were outcomes of the Western church, one may say. In most versions of the grail legend the hero must prove himself worthy to be in its presence. Not unlike God's grace, the grail may be available to all but fully seen only by those who prepare themselves.

James Russell Lowell's "The Vision of Sir Launfal" was one of the most popular American poems of the 1800s. In it, he gave a democratised notion of the Grail quest as something achievable by anyone who is truly charitable, according to the Camelot Project.

Every tub needs to stand on its own bottom, says a proverb. Dare to ask, then, "What does the Grail of fiction stand on if not shared fancies or imaginations? Isn't that its downside?"

Mark Twain: "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

About Jesus

Jesus is for rounding up degenerates and sinners, he says, but they have to be Jews

Back to Jesus who said his teachings and kingdom was for Jews only: What has happened to all non-Jews in the world among those who claimed Jesus as their "Lord, Lord", without showing him the respect of not studying his teachings for Jews only? You can only guess, or what? Guesswork and theology may or may not become the basis for a good life. Theology has slowly changed Jesusism to get less destructive, or less openly destructive.

It might have been hard if a God was born to save some people, and sacrificed himself at his Father-God's behest, only to find it failed for most part. God's plan - not even good at getting Jews. Jesus aspired to save them together with his Father, but it failed, the gospels also tell. Afterwards, the "fisher net" was cast over Gentiles. Acts tell of that. (e.g. Acts 15).

In consequece, it seems wrong or bad on many levels for a non-Jew to claim brutal Jesus who taught self-maiming, giving in to bullies, embracing poverty, and that the Law was valid - a law that regulated slavery. But to call a spade a spade may help some people who are not all victimised yet.

Here is a list that might help reborn Christians with their foreskins intact and no miracles to prove they are genunine followers or not. [Miracles check-list].

But first of all, the Bible tells that if you want to be healthy and have a good life (the old pact is very much like it), then Jesus-Christianity, also called "original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ" cannot be for you. And note that sane humans do not need Jesus, says Jesus. Is getting ill of mind and body what you prefer, you say? [Mark 2:17; cf. Matthew 9:12-13]

Jesus is for rounding up degenerates and sinners, gospels tell, but they have to be Jews, it stands out too. The Missionary Command "of Jesus" at the end of Matthew is a later-added piece of forgery, and much theology developed since.

There is foolish drivel that is not as it should be, but the renowned bible scholar Dr Geza Vermes sums up much gospel content very well. He writes:

During his days of preaching, Jesus of Nazareth addressed only Jews, "the lost sheep of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-8; 15:24). His disciples were expressly instructed not to approach gentiles or Samaritans (Matthew 10:5-8). On the few occasions that Jesus ventured beyond the boundaries of his homeland, he never proclaimed his gospel to pagans, nor did his disciples do so during his lifetime. The mission of the 11 apostles to "all the nations" (Matthew 28:19) is a "post-Resurrection" idea. It appears to be of Pauline inspiration and is nowhere else found in the Gospels (apart from the spurious longer ending of Mark [Mark 16:15], which is missing from all the older manuscripts). Jesus' own perspective was exclusively Jewish; he was concerned only with Jews. (Vermes 2012)

Jesus reserve his teachings and salvation for Jews (Matthew 15:24; 10:5-8; Vermes 2012), but only depraved Jews: those of sound moral and spirit are not called by him, and the healthy do not need him (Mark 2:17; Matthew 9:12-13; 12.11). Jesus further puts his sheep on a path to perdition in that he teaches his sheep what is opposed to sound self-preservation. Thereby eyes, limbs, property, fit living-conditions and life itself soon enough are at risk (Matthew 5: 29-30; 39-42). Finally, marring losses come to those who call him 'Lord, Lord' without doing as he tells. (Luke 6:46)

For Gentile followers, all the disciples and the Holy Spirit dispensed with all but a few laws for Jews. And not a word by Jesus for ill Jews was included in the Apostolic Decree from 50 CE either (Acts 15:19-29; 21:25). The four requirements for all Gentile Christians include no to eating blood sausages (blood food) and wrangled chickens and other poultry (choked animals)

The healthy man does not torture others. - Carl Gustav Jung

How could the four corner-stones or pillars be so ignored for so long?

Granted that the "missionary command" at the end of Matthew is a later addition, and a forgery, according to Joseph Wheless, you are ideally not a slave or sheep of Jesus. You may do well to aim for a higher life. Maybe you don't believe Jesus in the matter in order to keep on saying that you "follow him"? To be ridden that way could be the sign of being screwed up and confused, among other things. [Mark 2:17].

But since you are not really bound by the demands of Jesus (they were for Jews, he tells), but think that the real deal for non-Jews (described in Acts 15) is all right, then shun adultery and eating wrangled poultry as much as having black pudding and blood sausage. The four "pillars" of Christianity are there in Acts 15:19-29, and confirmed in Acts 21:25.

There is a disputed quotation by Winston Churchill: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." In Denmark, black pudding is Christmas food. We might stay awake to to that "following Jesus" has been outdated for nearly 2000 years, but the Christain foundation, including "no to blood food and strangled poultry" is there still, as Christianity is about getting a Spirit on board and follow the four requirements for non-Jews. Along that road one could adjust to the Second Vatican counsil as fit and comfortable, for the Church rejects nothing that is holy and true in such as Buddhism and Hinduism, it says.