Does it sometimes make you wonder that for the last 2000 years there have been two unalterable facts in every life that has lived in this Western (now Global) society, have been death and taxes? Our culture is based upon the message of a man known as Jesus Christ. The red white and blue of our United States Flag are the colors of the Christian Church who got them from the colors that were given to Moses when he was instructed by God as to the building of the Tabernacle.

Make no mistake, our country was founded on Christian Beliefs and our laws and mores are steeped in Christian tradition. When the Israelites made their exodus from Egypt, they were alleged to have wandered the wilderness following a convicted murderer and terrorist named Moses, who not only murdered a man and fled to escape justice, but came back to Egypt and proceeded to inflict a set of terrorist attacks against the Egyptians that make the attack on the World Trade Center look like a slap on the back of the hand. When Israel was re-established after the Second World War, millions migrated to it looking for a place of refuge and peace. Yet in less than a century the nation of Israel has become one of the most warlike and bloodthirsty peoples on the planet. Just today there was a report on the BBC in which the Israeli army used a murderous artillery shell to slay a reporter from the BBC while he was driving a car that was clearly marked “Press”. It doesn’t take long to see that the Bible glorifies the bloodthirsty practices of the Israelites which included animal sacrifice, slavery and genocide, as faithfulness to the one true god.

Who was Jesus? Was he the messiah? Or was he a rich kid with a good education who rather than go in to the family business decided to start his own cult instead? Eventually he got a few helpers like Peter who wasn’t having much luck with fishing for fish decided why not fish for men. Yes he told them some parables and did a little faith healing, and even got his disciples to spin up some good yarns about him walking on water and such. But did anything change after he came and went? No, not particularly. Paul managed to take up his story and carve out a nice consulting business for a time until he was eventually put to death. But it wasn’t until Emperor Constantine decided to use the Christian myth to further his political aims in Northern Europe that Christianity really got a foothold.

Yet when he was asked about whether taxation was fair he essentially told his followers that it was OK to pay taxes to both church and state. Let the government control your property, and let the church control your mind. This bargain was struck between government and state, and it made Christianity the perfect tool for the psychological subjugation of a people who up until that time had not only been able to resist Roman conquest, but had in fact turned the tides and even went so far as sacking Rome itself. Clearly Constantine recognized that a different kind of warfare was needed in order to defeat his fierce northern opponents. Christianity was the perfect tool for the job.