After Jesus performed the miracle of loaves and fishes, the crowds returned asking for more loaves and fishes. He told them they were wrong.

When Christ came back, Saint Thomas, the original Doubting Thomas, wanted PROOF. He had to thrust his hand into Christ’s wounded side to PROVE it was Jesus.

Jesus told Thomas he was wrong.

The pagan religions, including the Old Testament, concentrated on THIS world. God punished the Israelites in the here and now.

So did Odin.

Romans actually wrote CONTRACTS with their gods.

Jesus offered NOTHING in this world. He did not promise to be the Prince of Peace. He said he brought war. He did not offer to make anybody healthy, wealthy or wise in the ways of THIS world.

When it replaced paganism, the Church had to find a replacement for the old gods, the gods of THIS world. You prayed to a particular saint if you had a particular disease, exactly as you had once prayed to a particular god to take care of your worldly ailments before Christianity arrived.

Ancient philosophers always sought some kind of Natural Perfection. So Galen built a General Theory of Medicine. The body needed its NATURAL perfect balance of humors, which Galen apparently took for granted. You bled someone to restore the Natural Balance.

All this has come down to us in a confused babble.

To most church-goers God is a complete formula. He has a Plan for this world. There is a natural balance you can find in the Bible to do what all the old pagan gods did. Cosmology is in the Bible. This version of God can’t fit into a world with Creation.

God, we are told, has A Plan for THIS world. God will make you healthy, wealthy and wise in the ways of THIS world.

Every one of the old fake Patent medicines had eye-witness testimony of how it had changed lives and made the world good for people who testified to it. True Religion must make people healthy, wealthy and wise, and we hear endless testimony of how True Faith makes you healthy, wealthy and wise in the ways of THIS world.

I don’t believe a word of it.

His Kingdom is not of this world.