Pavlina Says Jesus was a Fictional Character

June 3, 2008

Pavlina Says Jesus was a Fictional Character Steve Pavlina is a smart man. He's owned a successful software company and has now, for several years, authored a successful and profitable blog focused on Personal Development for Smart People.

Steve has authored long posts in the past dealing with all types of things from ending dependence on caffeine, forming good habits, to public speaking. He has volumes of posts on consciousness and awareness. Some of his ideas are far out, like Lucid Dreaming for instance, but some offer good solid ideas and advice. Until now.

On May 27th Steve posted a rant titled "10 Reasons You Should Never Have a Religion". To be honest, this article seems like it's a deliberate attempt to create controversy: which is a well known tactic to generate links to your site and increase your readership. This in turn increases profits.

Steve blasts organized religion pretty hard. In some cases he's right, for instance, the Catholics protecting child molesting priests. I think child molesters should be crucified with big rusty nails, out in public, where all their perverted friends can see them, not shuffled from one cushy job to another. At a minimum they should be imprisoned, and I don't mean safely in solitary either, but in the main population, where their sins can be "discussed" over and over with their fellow inmates.

Steve says Jesus was a fictional character that was created from earlier mythical figures. He doesn't come right out and deny that God exists, but he uses the word "if" where God is concerned.

How can someone who has watched his own children being born even remotely question the existence of God? But then again, how can someone abuse a child? Both are beyond my understanding.

Steve tends to characterize all organized religion into stereotypical cults. Some are, some are not. Some will convince you to drink poisoned Cool-Aid, some, like the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) Polygamist cult in Texas will make you believe child molestation is normal and ordained by God. Then there are the Scientology nuts that believe we live on a prison planet where space aliens murdered billions of their own.

Some religions you can immediately categorize as good or bad. However most you can't categorize at the religion level, or in the case of Christianity, even at the denominational level. You have to look at a much more granular level. You have to analyze their "goodness" at the church level, i.e. one church may be exactly what Steve describes, while the next one is the exact opposite.

So you can see how one could get a bad taste where religion is concerned. I suspect that Steve's problem is rooted elsewhere, but I don't know him, so that's just a guess.

There are a lot of people out there that will agree with Steve's point of view. There are many, hopefully more, that will not.

I do not believe that organized religion turns us into zombie robots as Steve says. Some religions yes, that's what they want, but most do not. But as I said before, it has to be analyzed at the local, individual establishment level. If the place of worship you attend sounds like what Steve describes, perhaps you should visit another.

Here at Double Barreled Opinions, we aren't mindless slaves or zombies. I believe in God, Jesus, and this country.