Take a look at our glorious leader, Boris Johnson, the son of immigrants, but schooled at Eton and Oxford. Institutions established by the upper classes for their offspring. He sees himself above the law. — Punshhh

I think most politicians, and people with power and influence in general, see themselves above the law. Your "Norman" system doesn't really seem any worse than others. All or most systems have some form of social and economic hierarchy, including supposedly "egalitarian" ones like Marxism-Leninism.

Yes, Churchill probably considered himself "upper-class" even though he had no titles himself and he belonged to an impoverished upper-class family with a dodgy history and dependent on wealthy Americans like his mother's family. Like other British "aristocrats" at the time, his father was conveniently married to the daughter of Wall Street financier Leonard Jerome.

But the empire was largely built by middle- and working-class emigrants who went to the Americas and elsewhere in much the same way the Anglo-Saxons had emigrated from Germany to what had been the Roman province of Britannia.

Of course, it could be argued that British imperialism was started by professional robbers and pirates backed by the Crown, who raided other empires. But I think this tends to confirm the predatory nature of the British Empire when compared, for example, with the German Empire which was formed through the unification of German states, not through conquest of overseas territories.

America largely took over from Britain and continued the Anglo-Saxon or "Norman" imperialism by financial, economic, and military means. Organizations like NATO and the EU are manifestations of US imperialism a.k.a. Atlanticism or Transatlanticism.

But the torture did not take place only in these prisons. Russian police beat and abused Russian citizens for years, scalding some, raping others with broomsticks. A new word has appeared in Russian: "bottling", which means "raping with a bottle". You can imagine the level of violence in a society where this word appears. — Olivier5

I agree that this shouldn't happen in a civilized society. But the same things, or worse, are happening in NATO countries like Turkey, and in many other places like China, India, Pakistan, etc.

What I said was more articulated — neomac

Well, if a statement is "more articulated" that doesn't make it more logical, comprehensible, or true, does it?

You're claiming that my "propaganda is instrumental to Russian criminal expansionism".

But you have completely failed to demonstrate (a) that my statements were "propaganda" and (b) that they have any impact on Russia's foreign policy.

Moreover, I never said I was "against Western involvement in Ukraine", so there really is no need for you to make things up. As far as I am concerned, Russia and the West can do in Ukraine whatever they want to. Let them fight it out and whoever is the best fighter deserves to win. Very simple and easy to understand IMO.

Yes, I am against NATO and against the EU because I am against imperialism. But I think discussion forums are for people to exchange views without resorting to ad hominems and insults.

Ukraine entering NATO may or may not be a nuclear threat to Russia. That's for Russia to decide, not for you or me. But the situation is much more complex than that. If Ukraine becomes a NATO member, it might try to push Russia out of Crimea. This would be unacceptable to Russia (a) because Crimea has never been Ukrainian, (b) because this would result in NATO control of the Black Sea which Russia needs for access to the Mediterranean, and (c) because Crimea has been the base of Russia's Black Sea fleet for centuries (from 1783, to be more precise):

Black Sea Fleet - Wikipedia

So, I think an objective analysis of the situation needs to consider the concerns of both sides, not just one.

Anyway, if you think that "the US is preparing contingency scenarios with its allies", and is "not waiting", then there is nothing to worry about. So, you still don't make any sense.

In the meantime, I note that the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons is the US .... :smile:

On August 6, 1945, a uranium-based weapon, Little Boy, was detonated above the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and three days later, a plutonium-based weapon, Fat Man, was detonated above the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To date, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only two instances of nuclear weapons being used in combat. The atomic raids killed at least one hundred thousand Japanese civilians and military personnel outright, with the heat, radiation, and blast effects. Many tens of thousands would later die of radiation sickness and related cancers

History of nuclear weapons - Wikipedia

So, I'm not sure who is more likely to use nuclear weapons. A country that has never done it, or one that has?

Propaganda in the United States – Wikipedia:

Propaganda in the United States is spread by both government and media entities. Propaganda is carefully curated information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread, usually to preserve the self-interest of a nation. It is used in advertising, radio, newspaper, posters, books, television and other media. Propagandists may provide either factual or non-factual information to their audiences, often emphasizing positive features and downplaying negative ones, or vice versa, in order to shape wide scale public opinion or influence behavioral changes …

Psychological operations (United States) – Wikipedia

Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives. They are an important part of the range of diplomatic, informational, military and economic activities available to the U.S. They can be utilized during both peacetime and conflict.

Ukraine conflict: Further false images shared online – BBC

Misleading posts have come from "official" sources as well as from "ordinary" social media users.
One example was a tweet posted by the verified account of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
Footage of an aerial dogfight is accompanied by the caption "MiG-29 of the Air Force of the Armed Forces destroys the 'unparalleled' Su-35 of the Russian occupiers".
However, it's video game footage from the game Digital Combat Simulator World. This isn't the first time that game footage has been used to illustrate military action.
One clip of old and incorrectly labelled footage has been viewed over 18 million times on video-sharing platform TikTok ….

Of course, Wikipedia, BBC, Twitter, and TikTok are all owned by Putin. So, I guess it must be all lies ….

Your issue is trying to throw mud at Sweden and Finland — Baden

Of course, mud should only be thrown at Russia, Germany, and everyone else that disagrees with the mandatory EU-NATO line. And Wikipedia is Putin's troll army ... :rofl:

Now that's collboration — Baden

I never said it wasn't, did I?

But the issue was Nazism in Ukraine and other European countries. And as far as I'm aware, unlike many Swedes and Finns, Stalin wasn't a Nazi. He was a Marxist-Leninist. Or Stalinist, if you prefer. :smile:

BTW, even Marxism-Leninism was an import from the West ....

The point I was making was that National Socialism a.k.a. Nazism was an influential movement in Finland. And as you can see from the Independent article, Wikipedia, etc., Sweden collaborated with Hitler, engaging in trade, etc., with Nazi Germany. The same people are now saying that the world should stop trading with Russia. Why not China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey ...?

But I agree that Ukraine's Azov group raises some interesting questions that should not be suppressed. And let's not forget that Zelensky has imposed martial law on Ukraine, has taken over all the news media, has banned opposition parties and jailed opposition leaders, etc., etc.

Another interesting question is how much influence Western powers actually have on his government.

Several Nazi parties operated in Finland in the 1930s and 1940s, among them the Finnish People's Organisation (SKJ) led by Jäger Captain Arvi Kalsta with 20,000 members and the Blue Cross with 12,000 members. Even the Swedish-speaking Finns had their own Nazi organizations like the People's Community Society led by the former governor Admiral Hjalmar von Bonsdorff and Gunnar Lindqvist and the Black Guard led by Örnulf Tigerstedt

Even outside of the actual National Socialist movements, there was glorification of the Nazi Germany in Finnish society. The Finnish police magazine wrote about German police sports and the "Citizens' Reporting Service" (Volksmeldedienst) set up by Reinhard Heydrich uncritically and emphasizing the effectiveness of the Gestapo. The Finnish secret police operated under Ministry of the Interior, led by pro-Nazi and antisemitic Toivo Horelli. The State Police itself was led by also openly pro-Nazi and antisemitic Arno Anthoni and under him it cooperated with the SS, Einsatzkommando Finnland and Sicherheitsdienst. The State Information Service, responsible for propaganda and censorship, also employed the aforementioned right-wing extremists and published pro-German material like Finnlands Lebensraum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right_politics_in_Finland

IMO that isn't quite "nothing". And it's generally acknowledged historical fact, not "Russian propaganda". Wikipedia isn't owned by Putin last time I checked ....

Naziism had not yet been invented in 1918. — boethius

National socialist tendencies and even the term itself existed long before Hitler:

The term "national socialism" was used by a number of unrelated groups before the Nazis, but since their rise to prominence it has become associated almost exclusively with their ideas.

National Socialism - Wikipedia

Austrian Nazism or Austrian National Socialism was a pan-German movement that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. The movement took a concrete form on 15 November 1903 when the German Worker's Party (DAP) was established in Austria

Austrian Nazism - Wikipedia

The article says:

this was not intended to show allegiance to Nazi Germany, though the two nations were aligned.

Finland was aligned with Hitler at the time. And Fascism or National Socialism was quite influential in Finland:

The far-right groups exercised considerable political power, pressuring the government to outlaw communist parties and newspapers and expel Freemasons from the armed forces ... During the Cold War, all partied deemed fascist were banned according to the Paris Peace Treaties and all former fascist activists had to find new political homes. Despite Finlandization, many continued in public life. Yrjö Ruutu, the leader of the National Socialist Union of Finland (SKSL) joined the Finnish People's Democratic League. Juhani Konkka, the party secretary and editor-in-chief of the party newspaper National Socialist, abandoned politics and became an accomplished translator, receiving a cultural award of the Soviet Union. Three former members of the Waffen SS served as ministers of defense; the Finnish SS Battalion officers Sulo Suorttanen and Pekka Malinen as well as Mikko Laaksonen, a soldier in the Maschinengewehr-Ski-Bataillon "Finnland" consisting of pro-Nazi Finns who rejected the peace treaty.

Far-right politics in Finland - Wikipedia

It looks like some folks have their heads so deep in NATO propaganda, they forget that detailed info on Finland and Sweden’s collaboration with Hitler is all over the Internet.

More than 20 heads of state from around the world gathered in Stockholm yesterday to consider the lessons of the Holocaust against the background of a national awakening in Sweden to its own murky wartime record.
Swedes have long enjoyed the illusion of innocence, of freedom from Nazi-related guilt, but now, amid a welter of revelations, the country is slowly coming to terms with an historical truth that is more complicated than the idealistic neutrality thought to have been maintained throughout the Second World War.
Some Swedes were in fact engaged in close collaboration with Nazi Germany and their government deliberately chose to draw a thick veil over their activities when the war ended.
What has particularly shocked and disgusted many people in the run-up to the Stockholm conference on the Holocaust is a television documentary exposing how several hundred Swedish soldiers volunteered to fight on the German side during the war. Some worked as guards at Treblinka, the concentration camp where 900,000 Jews were murdered.
The Swedish authorities, it has now emerged, never attempted to investigate the deeds of these soldiers when the true horror of Nazi Germany came to light.
Sweden also enjoyed the profits of doing business with the Nazis. It is emerging now that some of the gold handled by its central bank, the Riksbank, had been looted from Jews by the German Nazis. There was evidence at the time that the gold was plundered but both the management of the Riksbank and the government turned a blind eye. Unclaimed accounts in Swedish banks at the end of the war were also handled ineptly.
Most Swedes behaved honourably during the war and this is borne out by the fact that refugee status was given to thousands of Scandinavian Jews. Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved some 20,000 Hungarian Jews by issuing them with Swedish passports is, of course, the prime example of personal heroism against evil.
Nevertheless, Swedes have begun to look at their past from a new perspective. The morality of neutrality is being seriously questioned.
At the same time, the Swedish neo-Nazi movement is growing stronger.
History makes it clear that among Swedes Raoul Wallenberg was an exception …

Murky truth of how a neutral Sweden covered up its collaboration with Nazis - Independent

Like their German counterparts, the Swedish Nazis were strongly anti-semitic and as early as May, 1945 became early adopters of Holocaust denial … At the end of the 1980s a new National Socialist movement developed in Sweden … Particularly in the 1990s, there was a plethora of neo-Nazi organizations, most infamous being the militant network Vitt Ariskt Motstånd ("VAM") which translates to White Aryan Resistance … Of neo-Nazi movements, the Swedish Resistance Movement (SMR) most resembles classical Nazism. It professes openly to National Socialism and believes that people can be divided into races with characteristic properties. It calls for a government with a strong leader … Many individuals who had been active in the Nazi movement have connections in established Swedish society. These include eminent individuals and professionals such as police officers … Only in recent years has the Swedish press acknowledged Queen Silvia's father, Walter Sommerlath, was a member of the German NSDAP, and never left it …

Nazism in Sweden – Wikipedia

Sweden not only collaborated with Hitler but tried to cover it up!

And of course Finland is up to its neck in it:

Finland's air force has been using a swastika ever since it was founded in 1918, shortly after the country became an independent nation and long before Nazism devastated Europe.
Until 1945 its planes bore a blue swastika on a white background - and this was not intended to show allegiance to Nazi Germany, though the two nations were aligned.
While the symbol was left off planes after World War Two, a swastika still featured in some Air Force unit emblems, unit flags and decorations - including on uniforms

Finland's air force quietly drops swastika symbol – BBC

Far-right politics in Finland – Wikipedia

Finland's Tarnished Holocaust Record - Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

So, yes, truth can be quite disgusting. But it shouldn't be covered up ....

All of these Russians want to be free from Western influence, so be it, let them do whatever they want. Let us put up anti-air defense weapons around their borders so no nukes will fly out whenever someone has dementia and then let them be alone, isolated from the "western nazis". Let's stop all the trade and every interaction with them, they don't want to be part of the western world anyway, so fuck'em. — Christoffer

What you seem to be saying is that if someone doesn't want to submit to your EU-NATO Empire, they should be destroyed. Sounds Nazi enough to me. And a bit unhinged, to be honest.

Plus, Finland has a long history of Nazism. It's a well-known fact that Finland aligned itself with Hitler in WW2.

Far-right politics in Finland – Wikipedia
Finland's Tarnished Holocaust Record - Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Nobody is going to wait for Putin to make the first move on this. — neomac

Dude, what you're saying there makes no sense to me.

1. First you said that Russia’s nuclear arsenal is a threat. But all nuclear arsenals are a potential threat, including those of America, Britain, and France.

2. Then you said that Russia is a threat and/or Putin invaded Ukraine because of my “propaganda”, which sounds pretty incomprehensible and irrational to me.

3. The quotes you posted do not show that the US regards Russia as an imminent nuclear threat. Statements like “if someone does x, we’re going to do y”, do not support your claim.

4. And now you’re saying that “Nobody is going to wait for Putin to make the first move on this”.

If that is the case, why are you waiting???!!! :rofl:

You miss the point, the point is class and privilege, not blood lines (I said institutions) The structure of the British class system was virtually as rigid as the caste system, going right back to the year 1066.
Where do you think this class system (and therefore British imperialism) originated? — Punshhh

Well, hang on a second. Your argument seemed to be that the descendants of the Normans are "still totally in control of the population", and "did the global empire building you refer to".

Moreover, class system doesn’t seem to automatically lead to empire building. The Indian caste system hasn’t resulted in India building a world empire.

The empire builders were not necessarily the upper classes. They often were from middle-class down. Middle-class merchants and adventurers played a central role as can be seen from outfits like the East India and British South Africa Companies:

From the early sixteenth century downward adventurers like Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh, Blake, Monk, and a thousand others, had followed the sea, and in their calling had fought more desperately than all armies of the kingdom put together. Also they had reaped their reward. They had established themselves in every quarter of the globe, and magnates like Sir Josiah Child, who controlled the East India Company under Charles II., ranked with the chief nobles of the land. Moreover the great modern British epic was a naval epic, although by no means lacking in triumphs upon land. Possibly no nation within an equal space of time ever developed a more splendid or more varied array of martial genius than did England during the hundred and twenty seven years which elapsed between the expulsion of the Stuarts and Waterloo. Marlborough, Boscawen, Clive, Hawke, Wolfe, Rodney, Collingwood, Wellington, Nelson: on land and sea, to east and west, the Anglo-Saxon race did not so much defeat their rivals as expel from their conquests, and confine within their borders, all races attempting to compete with them in the expansion of their empire …

- Anglo-Saxon Review, Vol. 2, Sept. 1899

So, essentially, middle-class trade and merchant shipping, backed by military power. This doesn’t mean that upper-class elements weren’t involved, but the middle class which was often in competition with the upper class, seems to have been the main driving force.

But I agree with your analysis () that the whole debate around Ukraine may have to do with more than just geographical features. The real crisis may be pandemic-induced aggro and frustration. Perhaps people should spend less time on forums and take a walk outside or something …. :smile:

I didn't see Kiev, Paris, London or New York invading Russia either. Yet Russia was considering Ukraine joining NATO and EU as an existential threat to them to the point of wage war against Ukraine and threatening the West to escalate to a nuclear war every other day. — neomac

Dude, whether Ukraine joining NATO is a security threat to Russia or not, is for Russia to decide, not for you or me.

In any case, if you've got a problem with Russia invading Ukraine, go talk to Putin. I've got nothing to do with it! :rofl:

So, first of all, there would be no pressure into monitoring “nuclear capabilities every day the best we can” despite the rhetoric if there was no threats in the first place — neomac

Dude, says WHO???

Rival nuclear powers monitor one another as a matter of everyday routine. At the end of the day, you react to a threat if you identify a threat. And you can identify a threat only by monitoring your opponent. So, you monitor your opponent irrespective of their being or not an imminent threat.

As far as I can see, the article says very clearly that Boris Johnson said "he did not expect any further Russian military failures in Ukraine to push Putin into using tactical nuclear weapons" and that CIA Director William Burns "said that the CIA has not seen a lot of practical evidence reinforcing that concern".

If you've got any evidence that Russia is going to nuke your house or village tonight, feel free to whatsupp Lloyd Austin and tell him. But you better do it quick before it's too late! :grin:

Dude, Russia is a direct existential threat to the West (primarily to the EU), given its nuclear arsenal — neomac

Dude, Russia has had a nuclear arsenal for decades and I don't see Russia invading Paris, London, or New York!

Plus, here's an official Pentagon statement:

We continue to monitor their nuclear capabilities every day the best we can and we do not assess that there is a threat of the use of nuclear weapons and no threat to NATO territory

U.S. sees no threat of Russia using nuclear weapons despite rhetoric - Reuters

Maybe you live in some remote area where there is no news or they can't read? :grin:



Nah, IMO claims like “Russia occupied Finland” as some kind of evidence that Russia is “evil”, aren’t very credible at all.

The reality is that Russia occupied Finland after Finland had been under Swedish occupation for like 600 years! And no one labels Sweden “evil”.

Ditto the claim that Russia “occupied Central Asia”, which ignores the fact that the Mongols had invaded and occupied the same area plus Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, the Mid East, Persia, India, and China.

The Mongols murdered, raped, enslaved, and sold into slavery millions of innocent people.

The Mongol Empire, by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastation as one of the deadliest episodes in history.

Mongol invasions and conquests – Wikipedia

The fires are burning beyond the river— The Tatars (Mongols) are dividing their captives. Our village is burnt. And our property plundered. Old mother is sabred. And my dear is taken into captivity.

- Ukrainian Folk Song, A. Kashchenko, Opovidannia pro slavne Viis’ko Zaporoz’ke nizove

From their base in Crimea, the Mongols (Tatars) kept raiding Russian and other Slavic territories until Russia took Crimea back in 1783.

The Mongol devastation was carried on for centuries by the Turks who belonged to the same Mongol hordes and were given to the same destructive and genocidal practices:

Fall of Constantinople – Wikipedia

Armenian genocide - Wikipedia

Slavery in the Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia

Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia

10 Little-Known Facts From The Crimean Slave Trade

I don’t see how anyone can justify the destruction, the mass murder, and the genocide perpetrated by the Mongols and Turks.

I think the evidence rather indicates that the Russians saved European civilization (a) by pacifying the Mongols and making sure they could pose no threat in the future, and (b) by fighting the Turks from 1568 to 1916.

History of the Russo-Turkish wars – Wikipedia

I think most people agree that Russia itself became an important promoter of European culture with great architecture, music, and literature. After Greece and Germany, Russia is probably Europe’s greatest civilization.

Obviously, some Westerners seem to believe that guns, drugs, violence, and posing on Instagram constitute "cultural progress", but I think there are good reasons to disagree.

In any case, there is no point worrying or arguing over it.



I suggest you take a look at the board of the British South Africa Company (BSAC): the Duke of Abercorn, Alfred Beit, Herbert Canning, George Cawston, Horace Farquhar, the Duke of Fife, Lord Gifford, Albert Grey, C. J. Rhodes.

And their main financial backers included Beit and Lord Rothschild:

The BSAC was an amalgamation of a London-based group headed by Lord Gifford and George Cawston and backed financially by Baron Nathan de Rothschild, and Rhodes and his South African associates including Alfred Beit with the resources of the De Beers Syndicate and Gold Fields of South Africa.

British South Africa Company – Wikipedia

Of course, there were some individuals of Norman extraction among the imperialists, but even they were hardly your "pure-bred Normans". The Norman element would have been increasingly diluted over the centuries.

Churchill for one prided himself on being "Anglo-Saxon" and even got his mother to run a propaganda paper for the "Norman" elites, called The Anglo-Saxon Review.

In any case, it was still England (i.e., the United Kingdom) as an imperialist entity that built the largest empire in history which, moreover, was based on slavery and exploitation of other nations. But you are free to think otherwise. It makes no difference to me.

You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. :rofl:

The fact is that Russia was attacked, invaded, and occupied by the Mongols. It fought back, it defeated the Mongols, and took their territory. Very simple and easy to understand, even for uneducated NATO activists.

As for Siberia, most of it was uninhabited land that the Russians gradually colonized and took over, no big deal. It certainly doesn't compare with England occupying India, America, Africa, Australia, and enslaving hundreds of millions of people for no reason.

In any case, Russia went on to become one of the greatest nations on earth – unlike certain other countries that never achieved anything, hence their envy and hatred of everything Russian ....



Russia tried to conquer India? When? You mean after the Portuguese, the French, and the British had already got their hands on it?

Plus, NATO secretary general Stoltenberg said it's OK for Turkey to invade Kurdish territories because Turkey has "legitimate security concerns":

Minister Cavusoglu and I also discussed Turkey´s ongoing operation in Northern Syria … Turkey has legitimate security concerns … Turkey is a great power in this great region and with great power comes great responsibility… - NATO Joint press conference, 11 Oct. 2019

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_169576.htm?selectedLocale=en

And I don't see you guys campaigning for China to give back Tibet or for Turkey to return Cyprus and other territories stolen from the Greeks, Kurds, Armenians, and many other nations.

So, I don't find your arguments very credible or convincing at all, to be honest.

Hence Moscovy was a vassal of the Mongol Horde. Only after 1380 the battle of Kulikovo Moscow began to rise as the Golden Horde was decaying. So this idea of Russia being the defender against the attacks of the Mongols is typical dubious history from you. — ssu

On the contrary, I think that's typical dubious "logic" from YOU! :lol:

Of course Moscovy was a vassal of the Mongols as it had no other choice. Moreover, though you may not realize this, Moscovy being a vassal of the Mongols only proves that the Mongols invaded Russia, not the other way round!

Mongol invasions and conquests – Wikipedia

The fact is that the Mongols invaded China, India, Persia, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Mid East. Many nations had to submit to Mongol rule because they lacked the military capability to fend off the attacks and because their populations had been decimated by the invaders. That doesn’t mean that there was no resistance.

The Mongols invaded and occupied Russia in the 1200’s. Obviously, it takes decades to rebuild destroyed cities and organize a decisive counteroffensive. But Russia gradually recovered and defeated the Mongols in 1380. Parts of Russia remained under Mongol rule but the Mongols got finally defeated in 1480:

Moscow started its independence struggle from the Mongols by the 14th century, ending the Mongol rule (the so-called "Mongol yoke") in 1480, and eventually growing into the Tsardom of Russia.

Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' - Wikipedia

Basically, after the initial shock, Mongol rule contributed to the formation of the Russian nation centered on Moscow instead of Kiev (which had been destroyed) and when the Russians became strong enough they defeated the Mongols and conquered their territory. That’s how Russia became an “empire”. Very simple and easy to understand IMO.

In any case, I don't think you can seriously compare Russia’s liberation from Mongol occupation with England’s invading and occupying India, Africa, and other places .... :grin:

So a failed attempt in the 1990’s by the US to somehow control Russia, is evidence of an overarching US expansionism. I’m not convinced I’m afraid. — Punshhh

The evidence is the expansionism of US-created instruments of US foreign policy like the EU and NATO. If an entity is officially expanding, it makes little sense to deny that it is expanding.

I don’t disagree with your historical insights apart from the glaring omission of the Norman conquest and colonisation of England. Who’s descendants, still totally in control of the population, did the global empire building you refer to. — Punshhh

I think it is better to omit the Normans than to omit everything else in European history. But I don’t think I “omitted” them. The British Empire was built by the United Kingdom regardless of the ethnic group that was in charge of it.

Besides, were the founding members of the East India Company “Normans”? Was Queen Victoria “Norman”? Was Churchill “Norman”? Or Lord Milner? Are Balfour, Disraeli, Gladstone, Hamilton-Gordon, Primrose, Wellesley, etc., all “Norman” names?

Also your conflation of geopolitical issues with the spread of the capitalist economic system confuses the issue at hand. One might as well say that Britain is conquering the world through spreading the adoption of the English language globally. — Punshhh

Nonsense. The British Empire was a capitalist as well as imperialist entity. Imperialism can perfectly well be a manifestation of capitalism. Ditto the desire of British capitalists to exploit Russia’s natural resources.

Even Donetsk and Luhansk were industrial cities founded by British capitalists in the 1700’s and 1800’s. The British held extensive mining and other interests in Russia. This is why after the 1917 revolution, they intended to divide Russia into zones of influence with the French.

As admitted by Churchill, the Franco-British Agreement stated:

The zones of influence assigned to each government shall be as follows: The English zone: The Cossack territories, the territory of the Caucasus, Armenia, Georgia, Kurdistan. The French zone: Bessarabia, the Ukraine, the Crimea … ‘

W. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath, p. 166

And, yes, spreading the English language can be an instrument of imperialist policies. If nothing else, it is cultural imperialism. But its main source nowadays is not England but America.

In the 60’s and 70’s it was US (CIA)-promoted drugs, sex, and “rock’n roll”. Now it’s drugs, guns, and violent hip hop/rape-rap a.k.a. “gangsta kulcha”. All Made in America and part of American (cultural) imperialism.

In any case, I think we can see which way US-inspired Western “civilization” is going. Fentanyl is only the other side of the Twitter & Instagram coin that is set to become the global capitalist currency …. :smile:

Maybe nations are variably predatory towards different nations in different time periods, depending on their culture, norms, leadership, internal politics, economic situation, etc.? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, nations can still be predatory towards others to different degrees, which was the point I was trying to make. IMO there is a vast difference between (a) a British Empire consisting of England dominating India and other nations across the globe, and (b) the German "Empire" consisting of united German states. The former came into being through conquest, exploitation, and enslavement of oversea territories. The latter through unification of existing ethnic German states.

Plus, the fact remains that the dominant world power today is America. Germany was eliminated as an obstacle to American hegemony, and now it is Russia's turn to be eliminated, by economic, financial, or military means.

The US abandoned their proxy wars with Russia before the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR. — Punshhh

Well, the "abandonment" was only a temporary measure, as it was cheaper to do it by economic and financial means.

If they wanted to subjugate Russia, they would have done it long before now, when Russia was weak. — Punshhh

Actually, they did try in the 90's, didn't they? But Putin came to power and stood up for Russia.

The problem with Americans and Westerners in general is that they tend to be either uneducated or miseducated. It’s hard to tell which is worse, but the result in either case is that Westerners can’t see through their own ignorance and propaganda.

If we think about it, the vast majority of the world population (Russia, China, India, Africa, etc.) has a different perspective to that of the West. The West is, literally, an island of ignorance and self-serving propaganda promoted by the US-controlled global media. If this island were strong and stable, it might be a different story. But it is sinking under our feet as we speak.

The historical truth is that the Black Sea area was under Greek and Roman control for many centuries. This is why, to this day, many Crimean and other cities in the area have Greek names, e.g., Simferopol, Yalta (Yalita), Feodosia (Theodosia), Alupka (Alopex), Alushta (Alouston), etc.

In the 1400's, the area got invaded by Mongols and Turks from Central Asia who conquered Greece and transformed Crimea into a large slave market:

Slavery in the Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia

Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe - Wikipedia

10 Little-Known Facts From The Crimean Slave Trade

For several centuries, the Russians (and Ukrainians who at the time were one country) fought to push back the invaders. Unfortunately, England and France aimed to contain and eventually conquer Russia (including Ukraine). France had already invaded Russia under Napoleon. It now joined England and sided with the Turks against Russia in the Crimean War (1853-1856). THIS is where the current anti-Russian stance started.

So, arguably, there are two basic kinds of nations and empires. Some tend to be hard-working, honest, and legitimate, and others are dishonest, predatory, and illegitimate.

Ancient Greece, for example, started off as a collection of separate city-states based on farming and trade. These city-states were forced to unite because of constant attacks from Persia. Under Alexander the Great they became strong enough to counterattack and take over the Persian Empire itself.

Similarly, Russia became an empire because it was forced to defend itself against attacks by the Mongols and other Central Asian invaders.

Germany became an empire simply through the unification of German kingdoms.

In fact, Russia never called itself “Russian Empire”, but simply “Russia”. The czar’s title was “Emperor (i.e., Ruler) of all Russia”. Similarly, “Deutsches Reich” simply meant “German Realm”, it did NOT imply rule over non-German territories. The title of “Emperor” (Kaiser) simply referred to the Overlord or head of united German states.

At the other end of the spectrum, England is a totally different kettle of fish, being an example of predatory empire par excellence. The Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles, conquered the Welsh, Scots, and Irish, and then proceeded to invade country after country in Africa, India, America, and other parts of the world until they built for themselves the largest empire of all times and came into conflict with Germany and Russia.

America replaced Britain when Britain was no longer able to pay and fight for its European wars, and so America became a world empire in its own right. Like Britain, America is largely founded on the financial and economic domination and exploitation of other nations.

When analyzed from a historical perspective, it becomes clear that Russia has been far less predatory and aggressive than Britain and America, and that the cause of the current conflict is Western, not Russian expansionism.

Why are Britain and America leading the international Jihad against Russia? How is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatening Britain’s or America’s national security? The truth of the matter is that Russia is threatening neither Britain nor America. What it is threatening though, is Britain and America’s economic and financial expansionism and imperialism. The EU and NATO certainly are expansionist entities and have been expanding from inception. And that’s where the real problem is. It's the same old problem, NOT a new one.

Of course, it is regrettable that the Ukrainians have to suffer because of this Western-instigated clash of rival economic and military interests. But if the world is to be prevented from being totally taken over and enslaved by monopolistic capitalism, someone has got to stand up to Western imperialism, i.e., rule by banksters and their political stooges.

Unfortunately, Germany can no longer do that, so it’s got to be Russia who is Europe’s last independent nation. And if Russia gets defeated, China will be the next challenger, and after that India, Africa, and Latin America.

With America’s fast-changing demographic situation, my take is that America will eventually lose and wind up in the trash can of history. And so will Europe if it fails to wake up and free itself from American domination.

The social collapse in such areas of the US is breathtaking. — Punshhh

But isn't this the Western "civilization" that you are trying to save from the "Russian barbarians"?

Russia and the West are on a collision course since the collapse of the USSR and the breakdown of the Cold War. — Punshhh

I think the collision course goes back long before that. Don't forget Napoleon, England's Great Game strategy, etc. The West has always wanted to get its hands on Russia's natural resources in the same way it seized resources in Africa, India, and many other parts of the world.

Incidentally, I think it is now clear that the West wants not only to push Russia out of Ukraine and incorporate the region into its growing empire, but to destroy Russia economically, militarily, and politically.

The question that arises is whether this is a new strategy or has always been the plan. Considering that Russia has been an obstacle to EU and NATO’s expansionist ambitions for some time, it seems likely that its destruction has been on the West’s agenda, if not as plan A, at least as plan B.

This is supported by the fact that the West has been secretly arming and training Ukrainian forces since 2014. In any case, though the West initially claimed that it doesn’t want a WWIII, it now seems hellbent to start one by constantly escalating in Ukraine.

Obviously, there is no way Russia can retreat or surrender, so Western escalation can only result in more Russian escalation. A logical thing for the Russians to do would be to take out a few military bases in Britain and Poland, for example. If that doesn’t temper Western belligerence, then all-out nuclear war seems the only way forward.

Meantime, China, India, and others are watching and learning their lessons. They will make sure not to be defeated by Western imperialists without a fight.

The third world, including Arab and other Muslim countries, are already drawing lessons. They have seen how white Ukrainians are received with open arms by the West and funded to the tune of billions of dollars, while non-white Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans are being stopped at the borders or deported.

They aren't going to forget this in a hurry and it definitely isn't going to go well in terms of relations with the West. NATO’s jihad on Russia may or may not lead to a military and economic defeat of Russia, but it may equally be the beginning of the end for America and Europe.

But the main fallacy of the pro-NATO camp is that they seem to believe that monopolistic international capitalism doesn’t exist, that banking, energy, and defense corporations and lobbies have nothing to do with anything, and that Western politicians never have agendas that are incompatible with the interests of ordinary people.

In any case, no matter how bad the Ukraine situation (or any other situation) is, it shouldn’t be used to cover up what is happening in the West. IMO the worst enemy is always the enemy within ...

Of course not. It must be said again and again and again that NATO is evil evil evil. Of COURSE! — Olivier5

There seems to be a growing trend in the West’s anti-Russia rhetoric to portray Russia as a “pariah state”. For example, Robert English, a “Russia expert” at the University of Southern California, has said:

Russia will be a pariah state in the eyes of many people forever — but at least for a decade to come, Until Putin goes, there'll be no sense of cleansing and starting over

Russia Will Be 'Pariah State' While Putin Is in Charge, Expert Says – Business Insider

This is being parroted across the globe by the West-controlled international media:

Russia invasion: Putin becoming 'pariah' before world stage, experts say - Fox News

Russia was once a place of fear and fascination – my children will know it only as a pariah state - The Independent

Russia will be a ‘pariah state in the eyes of many people forever’ and there’ll be no ‘starting over’ while Putin is still in charge, expert says - 198 Japan News

Putin’s Russia: From a ‘great power’ to a ‘pariah state’ - Al Jazeera

In the meantime, Zelensky is trying to blame Germany for the war and demanding that the Germans surrender their tanks to Ukraine. As correctly pointed out by Scholz, the Brits should provide the tanks, not the Germans. After all, this is America and Britain’s war, NOT Germany’s!

This shows that Zelensky is not only a certified clown but also increasingly irrational, as can also be seen from his claim that he is “ready to negotiate with Russia” but that he will keep fighting until Russia retreats or surrenders.

There are many other inconsistencies in the anti-Russian narrative. For example, we are told that Ukraine has been asking Britain for weapons for years but its request has been turned down “for fear of provoking Russia”.

But at the same time we are told that Britain has been supplying arms to Ukraine as well as training by special forces (SAS). This suggests that Britain has been backing Ukraine against Russia but won’t admit it. In other words, it has a hidden agenda.

Also, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has said:

We believe that we can win. We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.

War in Ukraine: Latest developments – France24

Note that he said “we” which means that the US military considers itself at war with Russia. Certainly, America and Britain are waging economic and financial war on Russia and now, it seems, also military war by proxy.

In any case, a central question that requires an answer is why America and Britain are leading this crusade against Russia. Why America and its British Poodle? Why not Germany, India, or China?

What is the significance of the fact that US and UK economies largely revolve on finance, whilst the economies of countries like Germany are based on more honest means like industry, manufacture, and hard work?

How did America and Britain got all that money, if not by imperialist means?

Megiddo was an Ancient Canaanite city situated on a hill at the foot of the Samaria Highlands and overlooking the fertile Jezreel Valley of northern Israel.

Its location on a main trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia made Megiddo a prosperous and strategically important city for many centuries. But it also attracted the attention of foreign powers like Egypt who sought to control the international routes that linked Egyptian economy to other key areas, and to acquire a share in the prosperity of city-states situated along those routes.

Archaeological excavations at the site have revealed many different strata of occupation which reflect Megiddo’s relations with regional powers. The following is a rough sketch:

Neolithic (Late Stone Age) period:
8300–5500 BC: the area is sparsely settled.

Early Bronze Age:
3300-2200 BC: the settlement gradually develops into a large Canaanite village (and later town) surrounded by a wall and with a temple complex.
2325-2275 BC: the region is invaded by Egypt (under Pharaoh Pepi I).

Intermediate Bronze Age:
2000 BC: Megiddo flourishes as a Canaanite city-state.

Late Bronze Age:
1479 BC to 1140: Egyptian domination (initiated by Thutmose III).

Iron Age I:
1100 BC: destruction by fire.
1000 - 926 BC: resettled and rebuilt as a Canaanite city.
926 BC: conquered by Egypt (under Pharaoh Sheshonk).

Iron Age II:
900 BC: destruction by fire (possibly caused by Israelites).
884 - 842 BC: occupied and rebuilt by Israelites (Omride dynasty).
842 – 800 BC: destroyed and occupied by Aram-Damascus.
800 BC to 747 BC: abandoned during this period.

Assyrian period:
732 – 610 BC: rebuilt by Assyria which makes it its provincial capital, followed by gradual decline and
Assyrian withdrawal.

610 – 600 BC: briefly held by Egypt.

Babylonian period:
600 – 539 BC: area under Babylonian control.

Persian period:
539 – 350 BC: Persian control and final abandonment.

Archaeology can identify different layers of truth or fact that can corroborate or contradict literary sources like the OT. This is how we know, for example, that the monumental structures found at Megiddo and elsewhere, belong not to the supposed time of “Solomon” (970-931 BC) but to the era of the Omride Dynasty who ruled over the northern highlands from their capital Samaria in the 800’s BC.

The critical analysis of biblical literature can be equally revealing. Biblical criticism has a long history. Already in the 1600’s scholars began to doubt the official account according to which the main OT books (Pentateuch) had been written by Moses. But it was only with the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiforms in the 1800’s, that scholars were able to compare the OT text with other texts of the Ancient Near East.

By the time of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1939), it had become clear that many of the OT’s key narratives could not be taken at face value. There was growing suspicion that Moses and his story may have had more to do with Egypt than officially acknowledged, so much so that some scholars suggested that Moses may have been an Egyptian. Indeed, archaeological evidence not only raised serious doubts about the supposed “kingdom (or empire) of David and Solomon”, but showed significant Egyptian influence on Canaanite, including Hebrew, religion.

On the available evidence, it seems increasingly clear that the original religion of the Hebrews was a form of Canaanite polytheism that was replaced with an Egyptian-influenced royal cult and developed from monolatry to monotheism over the course of many centuries.

The next great influence on Judean religion after Egypt, was Greece. Following Alexander’s conquest of the Near East, Greek kings actively promoted Greek language, culture, religion, and customs. In Palestine (as the Greeks called the area between Syria and Egypt), this gave rise to Hellenistic Judaism.

Though sometimes thought to have obtained mainly among the diaspora Jews, this form of Judaism that incorporated many Greek elements was highly influential in Greek, and later Roman, Palestine itself.

Indeed, a growing number of scholars believe that Greek influence extended not only to Judaism but also to Jewish scripture. It is generally acknowledged that some OT books like the book of Wisdom and Maccabees show strong Hellenistic influence. With the exception of Maccabees 1, which was written in Hebrew, they were written in Greek, and this tradition was later followed by the NT.

Some scholars point out that Wisdom and Maccabees 2, 3, and 4 were composed in the diaspora, mainly in Alexandria, Egypt, and therefore they are not representative of Palestinian Judaism. But the fact is that Alexandria was the cultural center not only of the Hellenistic world, but also of Hellenistic Judaism which under Greek and Roman rule was the dominant form of Judaism.

Alexandria was particularly important not only because it was the home of the largest Jewish community outside Palestine, but because it was the home of the Mouseion (Latin Musaeum), a large, Greek-language research center dedicated to the Muses, which also housed the Library of Alexandria, and where many renowned scholars carried out research for their works, including Zenodotus of Ephesus, Callimachus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus of Samothrace, Apollodorus of Athens, and many others.

Alexandria is also where the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. The translation, named The Translation of the Seventy (Hē Metáphrasis Tōn Hebdomḗkonta) and later known as The Septuagint or LXX, was made between the third and second centuries BC, and became the central text of Hellenistic Judaism. However, the exact date of the Hebrew original is unclear as the earliest manuscripts (Dead Sea or Qumran Scrolls) only go back to about 250 BC, i.e., the Early Hellenistic period.

The absence of manuscripts preceding the Hellenistic period raises the question of when the OT was actually composed. It is generally accepted that the OT was written by several authors and produced over a period of centuries. It is also suggested that the first five books - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy - reached their present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC), i.e., after the return of exiled temple priests from Babylon.

However, there are a number of problems with this suggested dating. One of them is the apparent Greek influence. To begin with, there are some striking parallels between the world described in the OT and what we know from Greek history.

The core of the OT narrative is a founding story or myth that serves to explain the birth of the Israelites as an ethnic and religious group. Such myths were common in the ancient world, especially among the Greeks who had a long tradition of settling in new territories and founding colonies and city-states throughout the Mediterranean. Plato’s Republic deals in great detail with precisely the founding of such a city-state.

In Greek tradition, the founding process began with the announcement of the will of God by a prophet or oracle, followed by a journey to the “promised land”, and, on arrival, the performance of ceremonies accompanied by blessings and curses, erecting a stone inscribed with a covenantal oath, building an altar outside the city perimeter, building a city with temples to the Gods and surrounded by a wall, dividing the land among twelve groups of settlers, etc. All these elements are found in the OT narrative.

Moreover, like the Hebrews, Greek society was organized by kinship, i.e., divided into tribes, brotherhoods, clans, and households, and was governed by very similar laws.

Lists of ethical precepts, especially in the form of advice from father to son, were very common and formed part of the wisdom literature of the Ancient Near East, for example, The Instructions of Shurrupak, a collection of admonitory sayings addressed by the Sumerian king Shurrupak to his son Ziusudra, in which the latter is advised against committing theft, adultery, rape, slander, cursing, lying, etc.

In the Egyptian tradition, such precepts were specifically linked to a happy after life. To insure that one was not found guilty by the divine tribunal and barred from entering paradise, one had to be able to truthfully assert that he had not committed murder, theft, adultery, perjury, blasphemy, that he had not told lies or cursed, or used evil thoughts, words, or deeds. Here we have at least eight equivalents to the biblical ten commandments.

If Moses was indeed an Egyptian, or Hebrew raised at the Egyptian royal palace as claimed in the OT, then he would have had knowledge of the rules of ethical conduct that were current among Egypt’s educated ruling elites.

However, the Greeks, too, had a highly developed ethical and legal system, that had been transmitted orally for many centuries before being put into writing by the lawgiver Draco (7th century BC) and reformed by his successors Solon, Cleisthenes, and Pericles.

Greek city-states had laws against murder, theft, adultery, perjury, blasphemy, and slander, and maxims or gnomic statements including “Honor the Gods” and “Honor your Father and your Mother.” A collection of such maxims, known as The Commandments of the Seven Sages, was inscribed on a wall in the temple precinct at Delphi, lending them a degree of divine authority.

The observance of religious festivals was a civic duty and the establishment of religions that were contrary to the official religion of the city-state (polis) was an act of impiety punishable under treason laws, as reflected in Plato’s Laws:

After the prelude it will be proper for us to have a statement of a kind suitable to serve as the laws' interpreter, forewarning all the impious to quit their ways for those of piety. For those who disobey, this shall be the law concerning impiety:—If anyone commits impiety either by word or deed, he that meets with him shall defend the law by informing the magistrates, and the first magistrates who hear of it shall bring the man up before the court appointed to decide such cases as the laws direct; and if any magistrate on hearing of the matter fail to do this, he himself shall be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of him who wishes to punish him on behalf of the laws. And if a man be convicted, the court shall assess one penalty for each separate act of impiety. Imprisonment shall be imposed in every case … (907d-908a).

Like the OT, Greek laws dealt with such matters as the constitution, citizenship, homicide, assault, theft, marriage, inheritance, sexual offenses, slavery, livestock, property, agriculture, commerce, military service, treason, religion, and ethics.

Some OT laws, for example, concerning polygamy, bride-prices, and dowries, are clearly remnants of local Canaanite or Near Eastern customs. Among the Greeks, bride-prices had been customary in the time of Homer. Dowries were still common in Classical Athens, but legislation against the practice had been introduced (though not implemented) by Solon, and leading philosophers like Plato were opposed to it (Laws 742c, 77c-d). Athenian law allowed a man to have only one wife. An exception was made in the 5th century BC when war had greatly reduced the male population and men were permitted to have legitimate children by a concubine in addition to the official wife. The “law of retribution” (lex talionis) invoked in the OT is another example of dependence on Near Eastern (Babylonian) law codes.

But the vast majority of OT laws have close parallels to Greek legal tradition. From Athenian citizenship laws which conferred citizenship exclusively on legitimate offspring of Athenian parentage on both sides, flowed prohibitions against marrying foreigners. From kinship laws flowed the obligation of the next of kin to avenge murder. The blood of those slain unlawfully was said to cry out for vengeance and to arouse the Furies, making it necessary to avenge the killing. Even in later times, when the punishment was taken over by the courts, the responsibility for prosecuting the murderer remained with the next of kin.

Further customs that are common to both biblical and Greek tradition include: execution by stoning; punishment of animals; the belief that the shedding of blood constitutes pollution (miasma) and requires ritual purification (katharmos), etc.

Though stoning as a form of execution is currently associated with the fundamentalist Islamic regimes of the Near East (who have inherited the practice from OT law), it was established custom among the Greeks and is expressly mentioned by Plato:

If, however, any should be overtaken by a disaster so lamentable that they have the audacity deliberately and of free will to reave soul from body for father, mother, brethren or children, in such cases the ordinance of the law of the mortal lawgiver stands thus […] and if any man be convicted of such a murder, and of having slain any of the persons named, the officers of the judges and magistrates shall kill him and cast him out naked at an appointed cross-roads outside the city; and all the magistrates, acting on behalf of the whole State, shall take each a stone and cast it on the head of the corpse, and thus make atonement for the whole State; and after this they shall carry the corpse to the borders of the land and cast it out unburied, according to law (Laws 873a-c).

Plato’s Laws also provides the killing of animals found guilty of a human’s death:

If a mule or any other animal murder anyone,— except when they do it when taking part in a public competition,—the relatives shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and so many of the land-stewards as are appointed by the relatives shall decide the case, and the convicted beast they shall kill and cast out beyond the borders of the country (Laws 873d-e).

In short, while some biblical laws have very little in common with Ancient Near Eastern law, they clearly have elements in common with Greek law. Among these, some, such as judicial proceedings against animals, seem to have examples only in biblical and Athenian law and, in particular, in Plato’s Laws.

Contact between Greek and biblical law was already noted in Greco-Roman antiquity by Jewish and Christian historians such as Josephus (Apion 2.151-286) and Eusebius (Preparation for the Gospel 12.35-47), and the topic has remained a subject of scholarly study and debate ever since. Attempts to explain away the many indisputable points of identity or correspondence as “Greek plagiarism of OT material” had to be abandoned when modern research showed that the emergence of OT laws was not prior but contemporaneous with similar developments in Archaic and Classical Greece.

Indeed, further research has identified significant biblical dependence not just on Greek law but, specifically, on Plato’s Republic and Laws. A major breakthrough came with Russell Gmirkin’s excellent study, Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible (2017), in which he writes:

The first reliable external evidence for the composition of the Pentateuch is the Septuagint translation at Alexandria ca. 270 BCE, well into the Hellenistic Era. The current volume therefore adopts the position that comparative methods used to illuminate the biblical text should include Greek literature and cultural institutions from the Classical and early Hellenistic Eras alongside those of the Ancient Near East. Striking parallels will be shown to exist between biblical and Greek constitutional and social institutions, laws, law collections and legal narratives that are for the most part absent from Ancient Near Eastern legal tradition.
Many of these points of comparison show a special relationship between biblical and Athenian laws and institutions as well as those described in Plato’s Laws. Such parallels are exceedingly difficult to explain under the hypothesis that biblical legal traditions developed in the Persian Era or earlier, when direct Athenian influence on Jewish legal writings can be ruled out, even under the theory of an Eastern Mediterranean cultural sphere.
However, Jewish access to the legal collections found in the Great Library of Alexandria provides a direct mechanism whereby the biblical authors could have become familiar with both Athenian laws and with Plato’s Laws. In Chapter 6, it is further argued that the Hebrew Bible as a whole was created in the third century BCE under the influence of Plato’s Laws, which featured instructions for creating a national library of approved texts with ethical content (§§ 1-2), and that the Jewish theocracy historically established in the early Hellenistic Era was directly patterned on the novel form of government under divine laws also laid out in Plato’s Laws (§§ 4-6).
A picture emerges in which Plato’s Laws, which describes how to establish a new government with its constitution, laws and other institutions, had a decisive influence on the refounding of the Jewish nation and the creation of its national literature ca. 270 BCE (pp. 4-5).

Plato certainly regards his dialogues like Laws as divinely inspired or conducted “under divine inspiration” (epipnoia Theon) and the discussions described as proceeding along the path along which God leads the speakers (811c, 968b). Moreover, he calls the supreme Hellenic God, Zeus, “the Patron of the State” (Zeus Poliouchos) and he says:

Let us invoke the presence of the God at the establishment of the State; and may he hearken, and hearkening may he come, propitious and kindly to us-ward, to help us in the fashioning of the State and its laws (712b).

It is clear that Plato envisages the City-State as a kind of enlightened theocracy or hierocracy modeled on established Greek tradition. Indeed, in addition to civil government officers from kings to judges, all of whom were democratically elected, Athens also had a number of religious officials such as priests, experts in sacred law, and prophets. According to Plato, these were to also perform civic duties.

Consequently, Plato proposes the establishment of a college of priests of Helios (the Sun-God) and Apollo, presided by a high priest (archiereus) and consisting of twelve examiners or judges (euthynoi) each responsible for examining a twelfth of all public offices, serving as members of the City-State’s supreme ruling council or divine synod (theios syllogos), and presiding over public ceremonies and functions (946c, 969b).

Thus, Athens not only had priestly families comparable to the OT’s Aaronites and Zadokites, and itinerant priests comparable to the Levites, but was to also have a ruling religious council presided over by a high priest, comparable to the Sanhedrin. As the exact date of the establishment of the Sanhedrin is not currently known, and the name itself is Greek (Synedrion), there is a strong possibility that it was formed in the early Hellenistic Era.

Gmirkin concludes:

The Great Library of Alexandria housed an extensive section on laws that prominently included books on constitutions, laws and politics by Plato, Aristotle and other notable Athenian philosophers. Jewish access to the Great Library with its comprehensive collection of legal writings is attested in The Letter of Aristeas in connection with the Septuagint translation at Alexandria, an occasion at which the biblical authors could have conducted legal research into Athenian and other political systems as they were devising the system of constitution and laws found in the Pentateuch.

Of course, contact between Greeks and Judeans goes back many centuries before. Greek pottery and tableware, among other products, were highly popular in 7th century BC Palestine and other parts of the Levant, and some elements of the Hebrew Bible must have originated during the Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and even Canaanite Eras.

But the fact remains that after Egyptian influence, Greek influence seems to have been significant, in any case, far more extensive than commonly assumed and that when Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17), he implicitly meant not only the law and prophets of Israel, but also the law and prophets of Greece, and - if Moses and his religion turn out to have been Egyptian - the law and prophets of Egypt.

This demonstrates that Jesus’ message is not only universal, but also philosophical and consistent with that of Plato and other great Greek thinkers.

Money is not a problem. There's vast amount of it everywhere. Europe is rich. Now that the Brits are gone, the EU has a better chance of making progress. We were slowed down by these free wheelers. — Olivier5

I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that.

1. The Brits will never be “gone”. They will always be there operating in the shadows to promote US (and their own, i.e., the City of London’s) interests.

2. Europe is “rich” in theory. In practice, it hasn’t even got its own armed forces.

3. If money was “everywhere” and not in banks controlled by governments and other people, the West wouldn’t be able to put a ban on Russian banks, freeze Russia’s foreign currency reserves, or seize them for its own purposes.

In fact, the current situation pretty much shows who controls the world’s finances and I don’t think this is about Ukraine at all, but about the Western drive for a unipolar world dominated by America and its European client-states.

The whole pro-NATO rhetoric is full of arguments that don’t really hold water, for example:

The notion that the more weapons are being supplied to Ukraine, the quicker the conflict will end in Ukrainian victory, can only be true if Russia (illogically) decides to cut and run instead of (more logically) retaliating and escalating, and eventually winning.

Another dodgy claim is that shifting Europe’s energy dependence from Russia to America and other sources is intended as a punitive measure against Russia. But it isn’t clear whether this “punishment” is temporary or permanent.

By definition, measures to make Europe independent of Russian energy supplies are permanent or at least long-term. This means that if Russia decides to withdraw from Ukraine tomorrow, those measures aren’t going to be reversed anytime soon, Russia’s economy is going to be crippled or degraded permanently, and all incentives for the Russian government to change course on Ukraine or other issues that are of importance to the West, disappear.

IMO it just doesn’t make sense and it rather shows that the destruction of Russia as an economically, financially, and politically independent nation is the true objective of America’s economic and military jihad in the region.

Meantime, it looks like not everyone in Europe agrees with a ban on Russian oil and gas:

Any sanctions that cut off the westward flow of Russian gas need to be well-thought-through, otherwise those laying the sanctions might suffer more than those sanctioned, according to multiple German business and labour leaders.
The question of whether to lay an embargo on Russian fuel is tying Europe up into knots. On the one hand, few want to buy Russian oil and gas and funnel payments to a country that has attacked its neighbour, Ukraine.
But, on the other hand, most of Europe is unsure how it will heat its homes and power its economy without Russian fuel, which makes up a significant portion of the continent's fuel imports. Germany is particularly reliant on Russian gas to keep the lights on, with 50% of its gas originally from Russia.
In a joint statement, umbrella groups representing German employers and unions told dpa that they are worried that not enough care is being put into making sure that any sanctions are targeted, apply pressure properly and prevent harm to the economies implementing the sanctions.
"We don't see that in the current gas embargo debate," said Rainer Dulger, head of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and Reiner Hoffmann, head of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB).
The two said current proposals would harm the German economy and employment levels more than it would those same factors in Russia, arguing that no gas means production stops, industrial slowdowns and loss of jobs.
The way to help Ukraine, they argued, is to make sure Germany has a stable economy and labour market.

Germany eyes Russian gas import ban nervously, fears economic damage – DPA

Greek philosophy (see Plato) draws a clear line (a) between belief and knowledge and (b) between false belief and true belief, i.e., belief contradicted and belief corroborated by evidence.

The general consensus among historians, archaeologists, Egyptologists, anthropologists, biblical scholars, and others, is that some key OT events cannot have happened as described in the “official” narrative. (It is essential to remember that as shown earlier, alternative narratives existed for centuries until the “canonization” of Hebrew scriptures.) To the extent that they are disproved by the evidence, such events belong to the category of false belief.

Obviously, we cannot prove or disprove that God appeared or spoke to any of the OT characters. This must remain a matter of faith, for now. However, we can prove or disprove, for example, the existence of a particular city or state at a particular time and at a particular geographical location.

The OT states:

For he [Solomon] had dominion over all the region on this side of the River [Euphrates] from Tiphsah even to Gaza, namely over all the kings on this side of the River (1 Kings 4:24).

By comparison, Egyptian inscriptions, copies of which have been found in Canaan, describe Pharaoh Amenhotep III as:

A mighty king whose southern boundary is as far as Karoy [in northern Sudan] and northern as far as Naharin [in northern Syria] (Ancient Records of Egypt 2:344-45).

The resemblance is striking. But while we have ample evidence for an Egyptian empire ruled by Amenhotep whom Canaanite and other vassal kings address as “my Sun”, “son of the Sun”, and “my lord, my God, my Sun”, there is nothing to support the belief that an “empire of David and Solomon” stretching from Thapsacus (Hebrew Tipsah) on the Euphrates to Gaza existed in Canaan.

So, the choice is between (a) blindly believing what the OT text says, and (b) looking at the alternative narrative as supported by the evidence.

Very briefly, what the evidence indicates is that the Hebrews were a pastoralist seminomadic Canaanite group with Canaanite language, culture, and religion. The designations “Hebrew” and “Israelite” may be connected with Habiru/Apiru, a term originally applied to a social group in the region, and with the Jezreel Valley (Hebrew Yizre'el) in the north of the country.

As the lowlands or coastal plains of Canaan were controlled by other groups and, increasingly, by foreign powers, the Hebrews gradually settled in the central highlands, founding villages, cities and, eventually, kingdoms. As the emergence of Hebrew institutions such as monarchy and organized state religion took place when Canaan was under Egyptian domination, they were naturally influenced by long-established Egyptian traditions.

Indeed, there is plenty of biblical and extrabiblical evidence for Egyptian influence on Hebrew religion and culture.

For starters, according to the OT narrative, Moses:

1. Was born in Egypt.
2. Was adopted by an Egyptian princess.
3. Was brought up at the royal palace.
4. Could not speak Hebrew.
5. Was unfamiliar with Hebrew religion.

In light of this, I think it stands to reason that if “Moses” introduced a religion to a group of Hebrews or Canaanites, this religion would have been Egyptian. Indeed, there is no logical reason why it shouldn’t have been. Nor is it necessary for it to have been a complete religion. It would have been sufficient for “Moses” to introduce elements of the Egyptian royal cult that were relevant to the establishment of a new state. References to God could have been simply part of a suzerainty or vassal treaty in which the vassal group pledged allegiance to the Egyptian God. In fact, the pharaoh himself was regarded as “God” and addressed as “my Lord” and “my God”, especially in official documents and diplomatic correspondence.

If “Moses” was an Egyptian royal (adopted or not) he may have been in a position to offer protection to a Canaanite group inhabiting a small territory like the central highlands, in exchange for submission to his rule. In a world of small warrying tribes and city-states in need of protection by a bigger power, this was common practice.

Extrabiblical sources show that Canaanite religion, which was initially similar or identical to that of Syria, became increasingly Egyptianized. Hebrew kings adopted Egyptian religious symbols (winged sun disk, ankh cross), the Egyptian calendar of three seasons with numbered instead of named months (which was later exchanged for the Babylonian one), Egyptian numerals, etc. Even the Hebrew script is derived from earlier forms of Egyptian writing.

As with many colonial ventures before and since, military conquest led to a new cultural order in the occupied lands. Across Israel, archaeologists have found evidence that Canaanites took to Egyptian customs. They created items worthy of tombs on the Nile, including clay coffins modeled with human faces and burial goods such as faience necklaces and decorated pots. They also adopted Egyptian imagery such as sphinxes and scarabs …
Written in Akkadian cuneiform, the diplomatic lingua franca of the day, the [Amarna] letters give a rich sense of how abjectly the Canaanite chieftains obeyed the Egyptian ruler and how they jockeyed for his favor. About 300 of the tablets were addressed directly to the pharaoh. One, written by the ruler of the city of Shechem to Amenhotep III, starts with the Canaanite vassal declaring himself “your servant and the dirt on which you tread. I fall at the feet of the king, my lord and my Sun.” He then offers to send his own wife to the pharaoh if asked …
Egypt’s power wasn’t felt only in mighty sculptures. It also wielded a strong cultural pull on Canaan’s elite, who were attracted to Egypt’s graceful jewelry and symbols. Archaeologists have found hundreds of Egyptian-style objects in Canaanite burials, including alabaster, glass, and carnelian jewelry, scarabs [beetles associated with Sun-God Ra] decorated with sphinxes and hieroglyphs, and clay pots. Wealthy Canaanites liked to stock their tombs with imitations of Egyptian ushabti, figurines of people who would tend to the dead in the afterlife. “There was an Egyptianization, so to speak, of Canaan’s material culture,” says Ben-Tor. “The Canaanites were burying their dead with objects imported from Egypt or with local imitations of them” …
Sometimes the Canaanites added their own twists to Egyptian customs. About 130 clay coffins, some decorated with naturalistic human faces, have been excavated near Beth Shean and Gaza. Such caskets were commonly used in Egypt, but in Canaan they were filled not just with Egyptian-style mortuary goods, but also Canaanite items. Sometimes two people were buried in a single coffin, which was unheard of in Egypt but a common practice in Canaan …
Along with adopting Egyptian burial practices, or their version of them, the Canaanites also came to worship the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Her distinctive look, with almond-shaped eyes, long curls, and the ears of a cow, appears on objects both plain and fine and in archaeological contexts ranging from houses to palaces … (“Egypt’s final redoubt in Canaan”, Archaeology, July/August 2017.

As described in the OT, the Canaanites, of course, were an unruly bunch. Their profession of subservience to Egypt must be read with caution. Lab’ayu, the same ruler of Shechem, above, who offered his wife to the pharaoh and wrote that he would put a bronze dagger into his own heart if the pharaoh so commanded (Letter EA 254), was also accused of being a collaborator of the Habiru. Rebellions, however geographically limited and short-lived, did occur. But the Canaanite use of the formula “my Sun” when addressing the Pharaoh, illustrates the importance of the Sun in both Egyptian and Canaanite culture, and cultural influence of Egypt on Canaan was certainly extensive. See also:

Egyptian culture influenced ancient Israel after Exodus, unearthed antiquities reveal – Jerusalem Post

This is entirely natural, given that Canaan was an Egyptian colony for several centuries, with Canaanite rulers pledging allegiance to Egypt by means of suzerainty treaties (which may have served as models for the Israelite’s covenant), and maintaining close commercial and cultural links with Egypt. After all, neighboring cultures do borrow from one another, and it is clear that ancient peoples had no problem whatsoever with accepting foreign influence in the spheres of culture, technology, and even religion.

While there is no doubt that the Egyptian Goddess Hathor was highly popular in Canaan, it is equally beyond doubt that archaeological evidence has brought to light solar symbols suggesting that a solar cult existed among Canaan’s royal elites. Indeed, Hathor herself was a solar deity, being none other than Sun-God Ra’s consort!

Hathor was a solar deity, a feminine counterpart to sun gods such as Horus and Ra, and was a member of the divine entourage that accompanied Ra. She was commonly called the "Golden One", referring to the radiance of the sun, and texts from her temple at Dendera say "her rays illuminate the whole earth."
At Ra's cult center of Heliopolis, Hathor-Nebethetepet was worshipped as his consort, and the Egyptologist Rudolf Anthes argued that Hathor's name referred to a mythical "house of Horus" at Heliopolis that was connected with the ideology of kingship.
She was one of many goddesses to take the role of the Eye of Ra, a feminine personification of the disk of the sun and an extension of Ra's own power. Ra sends Hathor as the Eye of Ra to punish humans for plotting rebellion against his rule. She becomes the lioness goddess Sekhmet and massacres the rebellious humans …

Hathor - Wikipedia

As shown by cult figurines from Ancient Canaanite temples, the Goddess Hathor was worshiped alongside a male deity. While the Goddess wears her hair styled in Egyptian fashion, the God wears a headdress or crown (Hedjet) associated with Egyptian deities and kings. Like Egyptian Gods (and pharaohs), the Canaanite God is depicted with a raised arm poised to smite his enemies, which later appears as a central feature of the OT God El/Yahweh or Yahweh-El. The God’s original name seems to have been El, his various forms or aspects being known as “El-Shaddai”, “El-Elyon”, “Yahweh-El” (Exodus 34:6, Psalm 10:12), etc., which are later replaced by the abbreviated epithet of “Yahweh” (which refers to his function of creator god). In any case, like his Egyptian and Canaanite counterparts, the Hebrew God El/Yahweh seems to have had a female consort referred to as Asherah both in the literature and in the OT:

Between the tenth century BC and the beginning of their Babylonian exile in 586 BC, polytheism was normal throughout Israel. Worship solely of Yahweh became established only after the exile, and possibly, only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC). That is when monotheism became universal among the Jews. Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshipped as the consort of Yahweh, the national god of Israel – Wikipedia

The OT itself claims that “King Solomon” was married to Pharaoh’s daughter in addition to other women, and was persuaded by them to worship other Gods:

For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites … Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods (1 Kings 11: 4-8).

What seems clear from this is that:

1. Hebrew kings were not opposed to foreign influence.
2. Foreign, including Egyptian, influence was common.
3. If Solomon built a shrine or temple for his Egyptian wife, its deity may have been the Sun-God Amun-Ra, as corroborated by the OT statement to the effect that the kings of Judah had chariots and horses dedicated to the Sun:

And he [Josiah] took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the Sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the Sun with fire. And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made … (2 Kings 23:11-12).

So, it wasn’t just Solomon but all (or most) kings of Judah and Israel. As shown by Finkelstein (The Bible Unearthed), Smith (The Early History of God), Taylor (Yahweh and the Sun), and other leading scholars, this is corroborated by the archaeological, epigraphical, and other evidence. Horse figurines with a sun disk above their head (that may be miniaturized representations of the originals), have been discovered at Iron Age levels at Lachish, Hazor, and Jerusalem.

Incidentally, Finkelstein is one of Israel’s top archaeologists and winner of several academic and writing awards including the Dan David Prize for his revision of the history of Israel in the 10th and 9th centuries BC. He revolutionized not only Israel’s archaeology by introducing the most accurate methods and technologies, but also its history. This doesn’t mean he is infallible, but it does mean that he has far more specialized knowledge and experience than the average person. The same is true of Smith whose book is extremely well researched and sourced, and Taylor. Their opinion and, above all, the evidence they are presenting, cannot be ignored.

Moreover, OT verses specifically refer to the Hebrew God as the Sun of righteousness (Shemesh sadaqah) with healing in his wings, i.e., WINGED SUN (Malachi 4:1-3), as well as “covering himself with light as with a garment”, and “riding on the clouds as on a chariot” (Psalm 104:2-3), and generally employ solar language in connection with the deity, such as “dawn”, “rise”, and “light”.

The king himself is compared to the rising Sun exactly as in Egyptian tradition:

And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds … (2 Samuel 23:4).

As noted by many scholars, all this suggests a royal Sun cult followed by Israelite kings. Smith writes:

Solar imagery for Yahweh developed during the period of the monarchy, perhaps through the influence of monarchic religious ideology. It may be argued, however, that the “idolatry” was an indigenous form of Yahwistic cult. Psalm 84 and other evidence for solar language predicated of Yahweh militates against interpreting solar worship in the temple as non-Yahwistic. The theopolitical function of Yahwistic solar language may be further understood in the context of solar language predicated of the monarchy, both in Judah and elsewhere.
To summarize, solar language for Yahweh apparently developed in two stages. First, it originated as part of the Canaanite, and more generally Near Eastern, heritage of divine language as an expression of general theophanic luminosity. Yahweh could be rendered in either solar or storm terms or both together. Second, perhaps under the influence of the monarchy, in the first millennium the sun became one component of the symbolic repertoire of the chief god in Israel just as it did in Assur, Babylon, and Ugarit. This form of solarized Yahwism may have appeared to the authors of Ezekiel 8 and 2 Kings 23 as an idolatrous solar cult incompatible with their notions of Yahweh.

However, solar Yahwism is consistent with “Moses’” religion being a form of royal Egyptian cult that he would have been familiar with from his time at the Egyptian palace, and later criticism may be an attempt to cover up the Egyptian origin of the royal cult as a result of nationalist, anti-Egyptian polemic.

Tensions may have first arisen between an educated elite concerned with centralized state authority appealing to a male deity on one hand, and the general population concerned with fertility, birth, health, and other every-day issues, and focusing on a female deity, on the other.

Growing centralization of power next led to tensions between the political elite adhering to a monarchic theology and the priestly class which sought to impose its own ideology on the Jewish state. Thanks to the backing of the authorities, El/Yahweh or Yahweh-El became the dominant and, eventually sole, deity whose original solar character was subsequently replaced with a purely anthropomorphic one.

So, basically, the OT narrative is built on a Canaanite background to which Egyptian and other elements were later added.

This is why the OT should be re-written in order to bring it more into line with historical truth, especially in light of the fact that its authors themselves re-wrote it time and again for many centuries, and that their primary concern – as observed by numerous scholars - seems to have been not religious and spiritual but political.

If not monotheism, but nationalism, was the motivational factor behind the OT narrative, this would support the view that the true origins of the biblical belief in one divine being are to be found in Egypt, not in Canaan. This is consistent with the Egyptian connections described by ancient authors like Hecataeus, Manetho, and Strabo, and alluded to in the OT, NT, and Talmud.

Indeed, though Ancient Egyptians had no single codified account of creation, there are numerous texts referring to a self-created deity who at the beginning of time created all things and beings, including the Gods, by proclaiming their name and thus bringing them into existence, i.e., by verbal fiat.

In about 2000 BC Egyptian texts mention a solar Creator-God who makes humans in his own image along with plants and animals to nourish them, who watches over them by day and by night, listens to their prayers, and punishes them for rebelling against him. The same Creator-God (named as Amun-Ra) is later referred to as “sole King among the Gods, without his equal, who made all things that exist”. By the time of Akhenaten, the deity is described as “sole God, with no other beside him”.

Clear parallels occur in the OT where the Hebrew God is first described as “without equal among the Gods” (Exodus 15:11-12), later as having “no other God beside him” (Isaiah 44:6) and, eventually, as being “one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Thus we can see that, in spite of its apparent “polytheism”, Egyptian religion developed the concept of a supreme Creator-God long before Akhenaten introduced the cult of Aten, and many centuries before the Hebrews adopted monotheism proper. By the time of Moses, the religion found in the OT complete with covenant, ark, law tablets, and rules of conduct, was established Egyptian royal cult. Even the story of the Ten Plagues seems to be based on existing Egyptian tradition going back many centuries before Moses.

This doesn’t mean that there is no truth in the OT narrative. However, given that Israelite religion emerged in an Egyptianized environment, the truth can be discerned only when we are familiar with Egyptian history, culture, and religion, and we realize that political reasons led to historical fact being distorted and covered up by anti-Egyptian rhetoric.

Interestingly, the idea of an Egyptian origin also occurs among the Greeks. Herodotus states that the Egyptians introduced temples, processions, statues, ceremonies, even the names of the Gods, and that “the Greeks learned all that from them” (Histories 2.5, 2.58). While this may seem exaggerated, there is no doubt that the earliest forms of Greek religion entailed sacred groves, stones, caves, springs, and open-space altars. Cult statues and temple buildings made of wood and stone appeared later. Some Egyptian influence may be seen in temple architecture, and Egyptian concepts such as a supreme Creator-God who imposes order on the universe and is described as “Craftsman of the world” appear in Greek religion and philosophy.

After the decline of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, Persia became the dominant power in Canaan, followed by Greece. Due to Alexander’s empire that stretched from Macedonia and Egypt in the west to northwest India in the east, Greece became the main source of influence on language, culture, and religion throughout the region. This is precisely why Hellenistic Judaism (which is totally different from present-day Rabbinic Judaism) emerged in the 300’s BC and lasted into the 500’s AD.

Palestine at the time of Jesus was a Hellenized Roman province. King Herod I (72 BC – 4 BC) himself had been thoroughly Hellenized. He attended the Greek elementary school in Jerusalem, in which the sons of the Jewish aristocracy were instructed, and later pursued philosophical, rhetorical and historical studies under the direction of his friend and adviser, the Peripatetic philosopher Nicolaus of Damascus. Herod also had his sons and successors, including Herod Antipas (who sent Jesus to Pilate’s court) and Philip, brought up completely in the Greek style.

In addition to renovating and expanding the Jerusalem Temple, Herod also built large Pagan temples at Caesarea, Sebaste, and Omrit (or Caesarea Philippi, according to Josephus), as well as theaters and hippodromes, and introduced games and spectacles. He bore the Greek title of basileus and minted coins with Greek inscriptions and symbols including sunburst.

Under Herod, the high priests and the Sanhedrin lost much of their traditional power and influence, and even more so when Judea came under direct Roman rule in 6 AD, which is why they later resorted to inciting the crowds in order to get Pilate to execute Jesus. As the NT relates, Pilate offered to release Jesus from prison and execute a notorious prisoner of the name Barabbas instead. But the crowds, incited by the chief priests and members of the Sanhedrin, demanded that Barabbas be released and Jesus crucified (Matthew 27:20). It was not Jewish society in general, and even less the political rulers, that were hostile to Jesus and his teachings, but radical elements within the religious leadership.

At any rate, it is clear that Christianity emerged within the cosmopolitan, Hellenistic culture of first-century Roman Palestine, which is why it was a combination of various cultural and religious strands, including Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian, as is evident from the NT.

Though parallels may be found in other traditions, all the elements that are central to NT teachings will be instantly recognized as Hellenistic by the perceptive reader:

God as Truth, Light, Wisdom, Goodness, Justice.
God as Father.
God as Judge.
Divine Judgment.
Son of God.
Virgin birth.
Divine Family.
Resurrection (Anastasis).
Heaven (Paradeisos) and hell (Hades).
Eternal life in paradise a.k.a. Salvation (Soteria).
Cultivation of moral and spiritual perfection (Teleiotes) as a means to achieve eternal life in heaven, etc.

The fact is that Jesus is recorded as saying “I am the Way and the Truth” (Ego eimi he Odos kai he Aletheia) (John 14:6) and there is no evidence that his teachings are not the way to Truth. Of course, lower levels of truth may differ from person to person, and the above statement may have been understood differently, then and thereafter, by people of different religious persuasion, educational level, or intellectual/spiritual capacity. But there seems to be little doubt that at the highest level, Truth or Ultimate Reality is one and, therefore, identical with the Truth of the philosophers.

See also:

M. Smith, The Early History of God – Internet Archive

S. Smoot, Ancient Egyptian Monotheism

G. Rendsburg, “Moses the Magician” - Rutgers

As shown by the archaeological and historical evidence, the Philistines invaded Canaan in the twelfth century BC, and settled in the south-west. Over the next few centuries they spread northward along the western coast and into the Judean hills where they came into conflict with the Hebrews. They were not conquered by the Hebrews. They fell under Assyrian domination along with the Hebrews and were finally destroyed as a power by Babylon in the 500’s BC. It follows that David and Solomon’s “empire” never existed and that the OT narrative cannot be taken at face value.

IMO there is nothing wrong with having religious beliefs. But I think those beliefs should (a) make sense and (b) be supported, or at least not contradicted, by the evidence.

Truth or Ultimate Reality either exists or it doesn’t. If it does, then it must manifest itself in some way in order to be known.

In religious terms, Truth or God manifests itself either directly, or indirectly, for example through a human being called the “son” of the deity.

There are several basic ways in which a person can be “the son of God”.

(1) As the product of physical or sexual union of God and a human being.
(2) As the product of a non-physical or non-sexual union of God and a human.
(3) As a human appointed as representative and spiritual offspring of God.

There are numerous instances from Greek and other religious traditions where the physical or sexual union between a divine being and a human results in the birth of a “son of God”, i.e., a semi-divine human, e.g., heroes such as Heracles, son of Zeus and princess Alcmene.

But “son of God” was also a royal title. Although some instances of this seem to occur in Phoenicia, e.g., Abibaal (“My Father is (God) Baal”) and Aram-Damascus, e.g., Ben Hadad (“Son of (God) Hadad”), this was not established practice anywhere (not even Assyria or Babylon) in the region except in Egypt where kings routinely bore the title “Son of (God) Ra” in official inscriptions.

So, referring to a king as “son of God” was definitely a very Egyptian practice that was later adopted by the Greeks and associated with the cult of Amun that was itself borrowed from Egypt.

The whole issue then revolves on where the new religion originated. And the evidence overwhelmingly points to Egypt.

The OT itself says that it was founded in Egypt by “Moses” who had been born in Egypt and brought up as an Egyptian, who did not speak Hebrew, and who, moreover, was unfamiliar with Hebrew religion. Moses’ religion, therefore, must have been Egyptian. However, as he had been raised at the palace, his religion was not the popular religion of the Egyptian masses, but a royal cult.

As rabbinical tradition dates Moses to about 1391–1271 BC, this is consistent with the time of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BC) and his son Amenhotep IV a.k.a. Akhenaten (1352–1336 BC), when the Aten/Adon religion was officially introduced.

Though later OT accounts claim that the Ark was used only to house the Law tablets (1 Kings 8:9; 2 Chronicles 5:10), we are earlier told that when it was first built it was intended as the seat or throne of God (“mercy seat”) (Exodus 37:9), which is reminiscent of a portable shrine carrying the image of the deity in Egyptian tradition.

Moreover, we know that Egyptian kings used law books with instructions that they were obliged to follow, and that they had to listen to recitations from holy books in order to practice the fear of God:

In the first place, then, the life which the kings of the Egyptians lived was not like that of other men who enjoy autocratic power and do in all matters exactly as they please without being held to account, but all their acts were regulated by prescriptions set forth in laws, not only their administrative acts, but also those that had to do with the way in which they spent their time from day to day, and with the food which they ate.
In the matter of their servants, for instance, not one was a slave, such as had been acquired by purchase or born in the home, but all were sons of the most distinguished priests, over twenty years old and the best educated of their fellow-countrymen, in order that the king, by virtue of his having the noblest men to care for his person and to attend him throughout both day and night, might follow no low practices.
And the hours of both the day and night were laid out according to a plan, and at the specified hours it was absolutely required of the king that he should do what the laws stipulated and not what he thought best.
After he had bathed and bedecked his body with rich garments and the insignia of his office, he had to sacrifice to the Gods. When the victims had been brought to the altar it was the custom for the high priest to stand near the king, with the common people of Egypt gathered around, and pray in a loud voice that health and all the other good things of life be given the king if he maintained justice towards his subjects … And after reciting much more in a similar vein he concluded his prayer with a curse concerning things done in error …
After this, the sacred scribe read before the assemblage from out of the sacred books some of the edifying councils and deeds of their most distinguished men, in order that he who held the supreme leadership should first contemplate in his mind the most excellent general principles and then turn to the prescribed administration of the several functions. For there was a set time not only for his holding audiences or rendering judgements, but even for his taking a walk, bathing, and sleeping with his wife, and, in a word, for every act of his life …
And, speaking generally, their whole diet was ordered with such continence that it had the appearance of having been drawn up, not by a lawgiver, but by the most skilled of their physicians ….
Strange as it may appear that the king did not have the entire control of his daily fare, far more remarkable still was the fact that kings were not allowed to render any legal decision or transact any business at random or to punish anyone through malice or in anger or for any other unjust reason, but only in accordance with the established laws relative to each offence … (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, I.70-71)

The same idea is found in the OT where it is said:

When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees … (Deuteronomy 17:18-19).

Obviously, as a nomadic group of different and often rival tribes, the Hebrews had no comparable legal code and it makes sense for them to have adopted the legal system of their Egyptian overlords. Thus, Egyptian royal tradition was used as a model for the entire religion of Israel. Indeed, if “Moses” was an Egyptian (or adopted Hebrew) raised at the royal palace as claimed in the OT narrative, then he would have been familiar with the rules of ethical conduct as well as the religious ideas of the Egyptian royal house, which involved serving the main deity and adhering to strict ethical precepts.

To be sure, all established city-states, let alone empires, had similar laws. Suzerainty treaties and covenantal oaths were also common practice associated with the foundation of new cities or states throughout the region.

Among the Greeks, who had a long tradition of founding colonies, established practice involved the announcement of the will of God by a prophet or oracle, performing ceremonies accompanied by blessings and curses, erecting a stone inscribed with a covenantal oath before the deity, building an altar outside the city perimeter, etc. As related by Homer in the Odyssey (4.2 ff.), when King Nausithous settled on the island of Scheria, he surrounded the city with a wall, built temples to the Gods, and divided the land among the settlers, just as the Israelites are said to have done in the OT (Joshua 18:1 ff.).

Similarly, Plato writes:

The lawgiver must first plant his city as nearly as possible in the center of the country, choosing a spot which has all the other conveniences also which a city requires, and which it is easy enough to perceive and specify. After this, he must divide off twelve portions of land,—when he has first set apart a sacred glebe for Hestia, Zeus and Athena, to which he shall give the name “acropolis” and circle it round with a ring-wall; [745c] starting from this he must divide up both the city itself and all the country into the twelve portions. The twelve portions must be equalized by making those consisting of good land small, and those of inferior land larger. He must mark off 5,040 allotments, and each of these he must cut in two and join two pieces to form each several allotment, so that each contains a near piece and a distant piece,—joining the piece next the city with the piece furthest off, the second nearest with the second furthest, and so on with all the rest. [745d] And in dealing with these separate portions, they must employ the device we mentioned a moment ago, about poor land and good, and secure equality by making the assigned portions of larger or smaller size. And he must divide the citizens also into twelve parts, making all the twelve parts as equal as possible in respect of the value of the rest of their property, after a census has been made of all. After this they must also appoint twelve allotments for the twelve gods, and name and consecrate the portion allotted to each god, [745e] giving it the name of “phyle.” And they must also divide the twelve sections of the city in the same manner as they divided the rest of the country; and each citizen must take as his share two dwellings, one near the center of the country the other near the outskirts. Thus the settlement shall be completed (Laws).

The legend of Mose’s birth and adoption finds close parallels in the mythologies of other nations. A seventh-century text from Assyria relates how King Sargon of Akkad was conceived by a woman and an unknown father, placed in a basket of rushes made water-resistant with bitumen, set adrift on the river, after which he was found, adopted, and ruled as king.

However, though the story of “Moses” was embellished with elements from other traditions, it is clear that the core element is Egyptian.

When the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria in 732 BC, some Israelites fled to Egypt (Isaiah 11:11). So, though attempts were made to dissociate Judaism from its Egyptian roots, close links to Egypt were nevertheless preserved. Indeed, it is possible that the story of David and Solomon was brought back to Israel on the exiles’ return from Egypt when the OT was being written down or edited, and it was incorporated into the general narrative by the authors along with other new elements.

In any case, by that time, Egyptian religion had also found followers among the Greeks where elements of it fused with philosophy, and were adopted by Alexander and his Hellenistic successors.

This explains why the teachings of Jesus, from “Light of the world” and “Son of God” to moral perfection, resurrection, and eternal life in paradise, contain elements found in Greek and Egyptian traditions.

It also shows why the claim that Jesus is the “Son of God”, though allegedly contradicting Jewish religion, is perfectly consistent with the Hellenistic tradition of the time. As shown by Christian leaders like Justin Martyr, Christians were fully aware of this and made no attempt to hide it. On the contrary, they used it to show the similarity between Christian teachings and the teachings of Hellenistic religion:

When we say Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propose nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you consider sons of Zeus (1 Apology 21).

Though consistent with Hellenistic tradition, Jesus was nevertheless a special case, as he was not only conceived by the power of God as clearly stated in the NT, but also inherited the royal title “Son of God”, and was the embodiment of the Word of God (Logos) by following which man can have a direct vision of Truth or Ultimate reality which is identical with the philosophers’ Ineffable One.

Of course, self-realized philosophers already had a direct experience and knowledge of the One, but the teachings of Jesus were intended to bring about the moral elevation and spiritual liberation of the whole population of the Roman Empire, indeed, of the whole world, the majority of which, like most Jews, were preoccupied with animal sacrifices, rituals, and all kinds of erroneous beliefs, superstitions, and fairy tales.

This is precisely why many, Jews and non-Jews, were naturally reluctant to give up their old ways and found it easier to oppose the new faith. Thus a conflict arose between those who believed and those who didn’t.

For example, we know from Suetonius, who as secretary to Emperor Hadrian had access to the imperial archives, that there were riots in Rome in 49 AD in connection with one called Chrestus:

Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from the city (Life of Claudius, 25).

In reality, the riots were not “instigated by Chrestus (Christus or Christ)” but were caused by the conflict among the Jews in Rome between those who accepted Jesus’ teachings and those who opposed them. This in itself suggests that there were substantial numbers of Jews in the diaspora who actually believed in Jesus already at that time.

Indeed, it is obvious from the NT text itself that most of Jesus' followers were Jews, despite attempts by anti-Christian activists and trolls to deny this.

However, as history shows, in addition to open-minded Hellenistic Jews like Paul, there were rising numbers of non-Jews who accepted the new faith, and Christianity eventually became the world religion that Jesus had wanted it to be. This is the truth that anti-Christians can't handle. They imagine that Jesus was a criminal who was rightly executed for his "unorthodox" or "infidel" beliefs, known as "shirk" (شرك ) or "riddah" (ردة,) among the Taliban and that Christianity is a criminal religion that should not have been allowed to exist.

In sum, I think it is clear that the “official” reading or interpretation of the Bible is based on the counterfactual hypothesis that Egypt and Greece never existed and never had any influence on anything. In contrast, authentic Christianity and fact-based biblical scholarship readily acknowledge the true roots of both Judaism and the Christian faith.

The way I see it, philosophy and rational thinking in general, should be based on facts. Unfortunately, people tend to be averse to anything that contradicts their preferred perception of reality. This is why they dismiss history, archaeology, and other disciplines that might bring to light inconvenient facts.

This is particularly the case when it comes to religion. If people have been brought up to believe certain things, they will tend to reject anything that challenges those beliefs.

For example, some believe that a great Hebrew king named “David” existed, who ruled over a vast empire stretching from Egypt to northern Syria in the eleventh-tenth century BC. As Finkelstein & Silberman have demonstrated, some among those who subscribe to this belief not only are unconcerned with the total lack of supporting evidence, but are attempting to use any archaeological finds as “evidence” for their belief.

It will be recalled that the Philistines or Peleset (originally from Crete in the Aegean Sea), having invaded Canaan in the 1100’s BC, settled in the southwestern part of the country (known as “Philistia” from which the name “Palestine”) after which they gradually spread east- and northward, conquering Canaanite cities on the way. These Philistine conquests were apparently reinterpreted by the OT authors, and some modern archaeologists blindly following them, as the conquests of “David”:

The gradual spread of the Philistines’ distinctive Aegean-inspired decorated pottery into the foothills and as far north as the Jezreel valley provides evidence for the progressive expansion of the Philistines’ influence throughout the country. And when evidence of destruction – around 1000 BCE – of lowland cities was found, it seemed to confirm the extent of David’s conquests.
One of the best examples of this line of reasoning is the case of Tel Qasile, a small site on the northern outskirts of modern Tel Aviv, first excavated by the Israeli biblical archaeologist and historian Benjamin Mazar in 1948-50. Mazar uncovered a prosperous Philistine town, otherwise unknown in the biblical accounts. The last layer there that contained characteristic Philistine pottery and bore the hallmarks of Philistine culture was destroyed by fire. And even though there was no specific reference in the Bible to David’s conquest of this area, Mazar did not hesitate to conclude that David leveled the settlement in his wars against the Philistines.
And so it went throughout the country, with David’s destructive handiwork seen in ash layers and tumbled stones at sites from Philistia to the Jezreel valley and beyond. In almost every case where a city with late Philistine or Canaanite culture was attacked, destroyed, or even remodeled, King David’s sweeping conquests were seen as the cause …. (pp. 134-5)

Similarly, when disciples of “Emperor Solomon” found no trace of his supposed empire at Jerusalem, they dug up northern cities like Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer described in the OT as having been “rebuilt by Solomon” (1 Kings 9:15). There they found indeed large public buildings with massive gates and stables, as well as large palaces apparently fitting the OT description of Solomon’s Jerusalem palace.

As the structures discovered showed clear influence of north Syrian architectural style, it was conjectured that this confirmed the OT account of “King Hiram of Tyre’s” involvement in Solomon’s construction projects.

Unfortunately, as Finkelstein & Silberman explain, closer analysis of the architectural styles and pottery forms from the sites in question indicates that they actually date to the early ninth century, i.e., long after the suggested date of Solomon, and this is supported by carbon 14 dating.

Moreover, the appearance in northern Israel of monumental structures in northern Syrian style, coincides with the development of that style in the rest of the Levant when the northern kingdom of Israel established by King Omri in the 800’s BC was under Syrian influence and soon became a vassal of Assyria. Additionally, Omri’s capital was at Samaria and it had nothing to do with Judah and its capital Jerusalem which was still in an undeveloped stage at the time.

Omri seems to have been a significant military campaigner who built Samaria as his capital and expanded the kingdom of Israel. However, there is hardly any information on him in the OT.

Finkelstein & Silberman explain:

Out of a total of approximately forty-five thousand people living in the hill country [consisting of the tiny kingdoms of Israel and Judah], a full 90 percent would have inhabited the villages of the north. That would have left about five thousand people scattered among Jerusalem, Hebron, and about twenty small villages in Judah, with additional groups probably continuing as pastoralists. Such a small and isolated society like this would have been likely to cherish the memory of an extraordinary leader like David as his descendants continued to rule in Jerusalem over the next four hundred years.
At first, in the tenth century, their rule extended over no empire, no palatial cities, no spectacular capital. Archaeologically we can say no more about David and Solomon except that they existed – and that their legend endured.
Yet the fascination of the Deuteronomistic historian of the seventh century BCE with the memories of David and Solomon – and indeed the Judahites’ apparent continuing veneration of these characters – may be the best if not the only evidence for the existence of some sort of an early Israelite unified state.
The fact that the Deuteronomist employs the united monarchy as a powerful tool of political propaganda suggests that in his time the episode of David and Solomon as rulers over a relatively large territory in the central highlands was still vivid and widely believed (p. 143).

A united “kingdom of Israel” may or may not have existed. However, there is no extrabiblical evidence for its existence and archaeological and historical data suggest that it didn’t exist. Another important fact to understand is that the central highland area where the Israelites were based is about 80km (49mi) in length and 20km (12mi) across, the remainder of the lowlands and the coast in the west being controlled by Philistines and other nationalities. By comparison, the Babylonian Empire was six to seven times larger and the Egyptian Empire many times larger than both.

Royal chroniclers are notorious for the exaggerated image of their masters that they are trying to portray. But the notion of a local king who ruled over an extensive empire and was married to pharaoh’s daughter is risible. It follows that the “memory of an extraordinary leader” promoted by the OT authors is either (a) completely made up or (b) the memory of a different leader. If (b), then the most likely model for the OT narrative is a king that actually ruled over such a large area, and such a king could only have been an Egyptian pharaoh.

We know that the OT authors suppressed information about the Omride dynasty. And we also know why. The OT was composed by priests associated with the smaller Israelite kingdom of Judah centered on Jerusalem, to which the larger kingdom of Israel was a long-time rival. In addition, all the kings of Israel from Jeroboam to Hoshea had been following the traditional polytheistic religion, which is why the OT authors saw them as “wicked”. As a result, the OT seeks to play down the importance of the northern kingdom and its rulers, and to exaggerate the importance of Judah and its rulers.

To be sure, as stated in the OT, most of the kings of Judah had also been “wicked”. In fact, the very first “King of Israel and Judah”, Saul himself, had been “wicked”, and even Samuel, who appointed Saul king, had been “wicked”:

So Saul and his servant went up toward the city, and as they were entering it, there was Samuel coming toward them on his way up to the high place (1 Samuel 9:14).

“High place” (Hebrew bamah) is the OT term used for places of worship located in open areas or natural hilltops, where traditional religious rites were observed by Canaanites including Hebrews. In this particular case, the high place to which prophet Samuel is heading to attend the sacrificial feast, is inside the city. Interestingly, just the day before, Yahweh himself instructed Samuel, Israel’s “wicked” spiritual leader, to anoint Saul as king. This is duly done on the following morning, after Samuel blessed the sacrifice and participated in the meal with his guest Saul.

On his part, King Saul named his youngest son Eshbaal (“Fire of (God) Baal”) and is said to have turned against “the religion of the Lord”, for which he was slain by God (1 Chronicles 8:33, 10:13-14).

Significantly, he is also said to have killed the priests of Yahweh and to have fought David. Obviously, there was division and conflict among the Israelites – which is precisely why they split into two kingdoms – and the Judahites got to write the history of both kingdoms only because Israel was destroyed by Assyria, whereas Judah was saved from Babylon by Persia.

In any case, Jeroboam, Saul’s successor as King of Israel after David and Solomon, likewise “rejected the religion of the Lord” and as advised by his religious leaders, he “made golden calves” and “built shrines in high places”:

After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”
One calf he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin; the people walked as far as Dan to worship before one of the calves.
Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites. And Jeroboam ordained a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up, and he installed priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up. So he ordained a feast for the Israelites, offered sacrifices on the altar, and burned incense (1 Kings 12:28-33).

Scholars have long recognized a connection between Jeroboam’s construction of shrines to traditional deities and making of golden calves, and Aaron’s making a gold calf to celebrate the God that brought the Israelites out of Egypt. This and many other references to traditional religion, mean that the objective OT reader cannot but conclude that the original religion of the Hebrews was a form of Canaanite polytheism which had many elements in common with other religions in the region from Egypt to Greece.

What becomes clear is that “righteous” kings “David” and “Solomon” were inserted into the Israelites’ long series of “wicked” kings in order to justify Jerusalem’s claim to religious and political authority. And because most of Judah’s kings from Solomon’s son Rehoboam to Zedekiah had been “wicked”, this was used to explain the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon and the deportation of its population, as well as to justify the centralization of spiritual power in the hands of the Second Temple priests after the return from Babylon and the reconstruction of the Temple.

However, strict monotheism seems to have been enforced centuries later and, even though the use of cult statues was eventually discontinued, the OT God remained an anthropomorphic deity associated with the Sun as can be seen from later Hellenistic synagogues.

Outside Israel, a similar tension existed between traditional, popular religion and the religion of the elites. Yet, unlike in Israel, this tension did not lead to open conflict. The masses kept their traditional religion, which continued to be promoted by the state, whilst spiritually evolved men and women turned their minds to the divine in its highest form of Truth or Ultimate Reality itself.

This, too, is consistent with Egyptian tradition. As explained earlier, the Egyptians already worshiped their supreme deity under two aspects, a visible one represented by the rising and midday Sun (Ra), and an invisible one represented by the setting and midnight Sun (Amun), hence the dual deity Amun-Ra. The monotheistic religion introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten was merely a development of established religion, in which the invisible deity, iconographically symbolized by the Sun Disk or Orb (Aten), was worshiped as the sole God.

This uniquely evolved or refined form of religion was, of course, a royal cult. It never became the religion of the masses. Moreover, Akhenaten was succeeded by his son Tutankhaten (“Living Image of Aten”) who initially upheld the official monotheistic cult introduced by his father. However, Atenism did not prove popular with either his subjects or the priestly class. In the fourth year of his reign, Tutankhaten reinstated the old polytheistic religion, and changed his name to Tutankhamun (“Living Image of Amun”). Yet while he publicly promoted the old Amun-Ra tradition, privately he seems to have remained loyal to the Aten cult. This is supported by artistic representations of the deity in the form of the Sun Disk Aten, as can be seen from the back panel of Tutankhamun’s golden throne.

Tutankhamun’s Throne – Ancient Egypt

This also appears to be reflected in the Jewish tradition of vocalizing the written divine name YHWH as “Adonai” (i.e., Adon or Aten), though it seems that the true meaning and reason for this has been forgotten.

As the OT itself admits, the true religion originated in Egypt where it was revealed to Moses who had been brought up in the Egyptian tradition. Jesus himself is associated with Egypt both in the NT and in the Talmud where he is said to have practiced magic (or worked miracles) in Egypt. Moreover, if God is Truth, then the authentic revelation of Truth is nothing but a manifestation, embodiment, or creation of Truth. Therefore, Jesus, who represents the Truth of God is the “Truth become flesh” or “Son of God”.

It follows that the true meaning of “son of David (Dwd)”, “son of Thot, the God of Wisdom”, or “son of Ra” (ben Pa-Ntr-Ra), is that Jesus is a teacher in the authentic spiritual tradition initiated by Egypt’s divine kings and continued by a long line of kings, prophets, and philosophers especially (among the Greeks) Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato who are said to have studied the sacred mysteries of Egypt:

[Pythagoras] was also initiated into all the mysteries of Byblos and Tyre, and in the sacred function performed in many parts of Syria […] After gaining all he could from the Phoenician mysteries, he found that they had originated from the sacred rites of Egypt […] This led him to hope that in Egypt itself he might find monuments of erudition still more genuine, beautiful and divine. Therefore following the advice of his teacher Thales, he left, as soon as possible, through the agency of some Egyptian sailors […] and at length happily landed on the Egyptian coast […] Here in Egypt he frequented all the temples with the greatest diligence, and most studious research […] After twelve years, about the fifty-sixth year of his age, he returned to Samos …

Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras

As is well-known, Pythagoras was referred to as “son of God” in the Greek tradition, and according to Speusippus and others, so was Plato. As Strabo tells, Plato traveled to Heliopolis in Egypt where he spent thirteen years in the company of priests (Geography 17.1.29). Plato himself certainly refers to Egypt in his dialogues. Significantly, he demonstrates accurate knowledge of Egyptian sacred rites such as embalming and, in particular, of the special role of kings in Egyptian religion (Phaedo 80c; Stateman 290d-e).

Indeed, historical and archaeological evidence shows that the “Hidden God” Amun a.k.a. Ammon or Amen was not only known but actually worshiped among the Greeks (at Thebes, Sparta, and Aphytis) since at least the fifth century BC. The cult of Amun which is mentioned by Plato, was adopted by Alexander (who had been tutored by Plato’s pupil Aristotle) and other Greek kings in the Hellenistic period during which an influential and inspiring fusion of Egyptian and Greek spirituality emerged. Thus, while Jewish fundamentalists became increasingly embroiled in fruitless religious and political squabbles, this time it was the Greeks (and the more open-minded among Hellenistic Jews) who gave the timeless wisdom of Egypt to the world, not as a national cult but as a universal religion for the whole of humanity.

In this sense, Jesus a.k.a. “Emmanuel” (Amun-El) (or his teachings with which he is identical and from which he is forever inseparable) is the embodiment of Truth (Aletheia), Righteousness (Dikaiosyne), and Goodness or the Good (Agathon), which are attributes of the Ineffable One (to Hen), the Sun of the noetic realm, and therefore, the Light of the World (to Phos tou Kosmou) that enables those “who have eyes to see and ears to hear” to elevate themselves above the darkness of superstition and error, and perceive Ultimate Reality face to face in a life-transforming and ignorance-dispelling experience of eternal truth from which there is no return to untruth.

The EU is a project. It's not finished yet. — Olivier5

Well, finished or unfinished, all projects need money, n'est-ce pas?

Incidentally, the EU’s desperate attempts to break free from London isn’t quite going according to plan:

Brussels' plot to raid London’s €660 trillion (£563 trillion) clearing market has been dealt a major blow after Europe’s most powerful banking association issued a blistering attack against the bloc’s proposals.
The European Banking Federation (EBF) said the Commission’s plan to punish banks for failing to shift lucrative clearing business out of the City of London would cause “serious market disruption” and “significantly weaken the attractiveness and competitiveness” of EU clearing houses.

Brussels’ plot to raid City clearing dealt a major blow – Telegraph

As is well-known, EBF which represents nearly 6000 banks, has powerful members like UK Finance which is chaired by former chairman of Morgan Grenfell and Merrill Lynch, Bob Wigley, who is also cofounder of TheCityUk. TheCityUk’s board of directors and leadership council include officers of Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, BlackRock, Citi, American International, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

So, I think you can draw your own conclusions as to who dominates Europe's finances ....

In the ancient world, words and narratives had several levels of meaning. “Son of God”, for example, could be understood literally or metaphorically. The belief that a God could have children, including with humans, was widespread in ancient religions.

But “son of God” was also a title associated with royalty, especially in Egypt. As a tribal, nomadic or seminomadic society, the Hebrews originally had no kings. This is why, as the OT states, they asked for a king “like all other nations”:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, now make us a king to judge us like all the nations (1 Samuel 8:4-5).

Samuel, a prophet of the Hebrews, anointed Saul as king (1 Samuel 10:1) but there is no record of his coronation and under him the different tribes continued to rule themselves as before, Saul being their leader during military campaigns, only.

In contrast, David and Solomon were appointed kings by God himself (Psalm 2:6-7):

I have set my king upon my holy mountain of Zion. I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me [King David], ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten [i.e., created or appointed] You” (Psalm 2:6-7).

And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I [God] will raise up your descendant [Solomon] after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for My Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he will be My son (2 Samuel 7:12-14).

As the Hebrews admittedly had no kings, they also had no tradition of divine kings. They must have borrowed it from one of their neighboring nations, most likely from Egypt where the institution of divine kings had been established for many centuries and whose kings or pharaohs actually ruled Canaan.

But what about the kings themselves? Who were they and what was their religion?

Though the general consensus is that there is no extrabiblical evidence for David and Solomon, or for their kingdoms, this doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist at all. It only means that they didn’t exist as, when, and where, described in the OT.

There are many anomalies in the OT narrative. For example, why were David and Solomon the only Israelite kings referred to as “sons of God”? If the Israelites were nomadic people, why would their king build a palace? If Egyptian pharaohs never gave their daughters in marriage to foreign kings, not even to the kings of powerful states like Babylon, why would they make an exception for a Hebrew king? Why did Solomon have many wives from different nationalities, but not a Hebrew one to bear him a Hebrew heir? Similarly, Moses married Zipporah, a Midianite (Exodus 2:21), and apparently also a Cushite or Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1).

These are just a few of the many inconsistencies and odd claims made in the OT. Regarding Moses, various versions of the narrative were in circulation at the time of Jesus. For example, the Greek philosopher and historian Strabo (64 BC – 24 AD) wrote:

An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called the Lower [Egypt], being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judæa with a large body of people who worshiped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were in error in making images of their gods after the human form. For God [said he] may be this one thing which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things. Who then of any understanding would venture to form an image of this Deity, resembling anything with which we are conversant? on the contrary, we ought not to carve any images, but to set apart some sacred ground and a shrine worthy of the Deity, and to worship Him without any similitude. He taught that those who made fortunate dreams were to be permitted to sleep in the temple, where they might dream both for themselves and others; that those who practised temperance and justice, and none else, might expect good, or some gift or sign from the God, from time to time. By such doctrine Moses persuaded a large body of right-minded persons to accompany him to the place where Jerusalem now stands … (Geography 16.2.35-36).

We don’t know what Strabo’s exact sources were, but he does not seem to have been familiar with the OT narrative and it is clear that many extrabiblical oral accounts existed, such as those recorded by Hecataeus, Manetho, Strabo, and others, going as far back as the fourth century BC, that agreed on Moses being an Egyptian, rather than a Hebrew.

Of particular interest are those versions of the narrative as recorded, for example, by Pompeius Trogus (Historiae Philippicae) and Apion (Aegyptiaca) that specifically refer to the cult instituted by Moses as “Egyptian”.

Apion’s (now lost) work is quoted by Josephus as stating:

I have heard of the ancient men of Egypt, that Moses was of Heliopolis, and that he thought himself obliged to follow the customs of his forefathers, and offered his prayers in the open air, towards the city walls; but that he reduced them all to be directed towards sun-rising, which was agreeable to the situation of Heliopolis; that he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, under which was represented a cavity like that of a boat, and the shadow that fell from their tops fell down upon that cavity, that it might go round about the like course as the sun itself goes round in the other (Contra Apionem II 2-3).

Not unnaturally, Josephus and other Jewish writers disagree with Apion’s account. But an earlier Jewish historian, Artapanos of Alexandria, in his lost work On the Jews, describes Moses as a follower of Egyptian religion and he himself is regarded by some scholars as a polytheistic Jew.

Artapanus of Alexandria – Wikipedia

As stated earlier, the scholarly consensus is that the Old Testament scripture was “extremely fluid” until its canonization around AD 100. Given that many oral traditions existed that were at variance with the “official” OT text, their existence cannot be simply dismissed. On the contrary, it seems proper for truth-loving persons to see which of those traditions are the most plausible ones.

In any case, in view of the fact that it is generally accepted that the OT text underwent heavy editing centuries after Moses, we cannot exclude the possibility that the movement introduced by a religious leader called Moses (or some other name) was, in fact, a form of Egyptian religion.

Indeed, as according to the OT, Moses was born and raised in Egypt, particularly at the royal palace, it would have been entirely natural for him to have been initiated into the cult of the royal household.

Assuming that the religion he introduced was (a) new and (b) monotheistic, the closest Egyptian cult would have been that of Aten, introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten in the second half of the fourteenth century BC (c. 1340 BC).

According to the Wikipedia article on Moses,

Generally, Moses is seen as a legendary figure, whilst retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE.

The rabbinical date would place Moses approximately within the lifetime of Akhenaten and raises the possibility that the historical Moses was Egyptian, which is consistent with the extrabiblical accounts mentioned above.

Interestingly, the order to construct a tomb for Akhenaten is inscribed on the cliffs demarcating the boundaries of Akhenaten’s capital Akhetaten, and reads:

Let a tomb be made for me in the eastern mountain [of Akhetaten]. Let my burial be made in it, in the millions of jubilees which the Aten, my father, decreed for me.

It can be seen that this is consistent with the OT statement to the effect that Moses was buried by God:

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day (Deuteronomy 34:4-6).

Though the biblical Moses is said to have died “in Moab”, the statement “no one knows the place of his burial” may be interpreted as an attempt to cover up the true location. At the same time, however, Moab lies to the east of Judah, which is reminiscent of “the eastern mountain (of Akhetaten)”, and in both cases the burial place is outside the land of Israel.

Historians, Bible scholars, Egyptologists, mythologists, and psychologists, have long tried to solve this puzzle. Why was Moses, who had introduced the new religion and had led the new community for many years, not allowed to set foot in the promised land? And how is it possible that the Israelites, who remembered details of Moses’ birth and adult life, had no recollection of his place of burial? If “Moses” was an Egyptian who died and was buried in Egypt, this would solve the puzzle. As noted earlier, psychologists like Freud have suggested that he was murdered. In contrast, Egyptologists like Assmann believe that what the Israelites, who later composed the OT, buried was not Moses, but the memory of his true identity.

The case of King David seems a bit more complicated. The OT describes him as a shepherd who was appointed king. Therefore, he could have been the chieftain of a nomadic group. Yet he is described as “the son of God” which is an Egyptian royal title, and he is said to have built a large palace for himself. Certainly, as leader of a group of nomadic pastoralists, he would have been unlikely (a) to bear a traditional Egyptian royal title, and (b) to have built a palace when, as shown by the archaeological evidence, there was no Hebrew kingdom and therefore no need for such a building.

While it is possible that the story of an actual Hebrew chief was later embellished by the OT editors or redactors, it is equally possible to detect an Egyptian connection. Having seen that “Moses” was most likely an Egyptian, it isn’t out of place to see if any of the Egyptian kings would have been a more likely candidate for the role of “David”.

According to one OT account (Book of Joshua), the Israelites conquered Canaan in the thirteenth century BC in a swift military campaign led by Moses’ successor Joshua. According to another account (Judges), the conquest was gradual and involved many separate conflicts. After becoming “king of all Israel” in the eleventh century BC, David supposedly conquered the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem and defeated the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites and king Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah (a kingdom in southern Syria), establishing an unprecedented empire stretching from the Red Sea in the south to Syria in the north, so that his son Solomon came to rule “over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River from Tiphsah to Gaza" (I Kings 4:24).

This is contradicted by archaeological evidence which shows that in the twelfth century BC, the Hebrews were still a nomadic population living among the ruins of ancient cities (many of which had been destroyed by the Philistines) and other Canaanite nations, with the highlands of Judah at the supposed time of David consisting of only “about twenty small villages and a few thousand inhabitants, many of them wandering pastoralists” (Finkelstein & Silberman, pp. 135-6).

It was only in the mid-tenth and early ninth centuries BC that monumental structures, fortifications, and other signs of full statehood appear in the area under Assyrian influence, especially during the time of King Omri and his successors (c. 886-760 BC) who established a kingdom in the northern highland with the capital at Samaria. Having initially been no more than a typical highland hill village, Judah’s capital Jerusalem itself only began to expand in the eighth century and became a relatively large city in the seventh century BC.

To repeat, there is no extrabiblical evidence for David and even less for Solomon. There is a ninth-century BC stone slab (or stela) from Tel Dan in northern Israel with an inscription containing the word bytdwd that some have interpreted as “House of David” (Beit David) but as scholars have pointed out, could refer to a place, (-dwd as in Ashdod, for example) not necessarily to a person. In contrast, there is evidence for a “House of Omri”, for example, in the Obelisk of Shalmaneser III showing King Jehu of Israel bowing down to his Assyrian overlord in 841 BC.

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III – Wikipedia

It follows that kings David and Solomon couldn’t have been the powerful monarchs reigning over a vast empire as claimed in the OT. In addition to the obviously wrong chronology, there is also the glaring anomaly of David and Solomon as “sons of God”. Neither their predecessor Saul, nor their successors Rehoboam and others, are referred to as “sons of God”. Therefore, we must look for two divine kings with a vast empire and sumptuous palaces and temples elsewhere. Following the clue of Solomon’s marriage to pharaoh’s daughter, we must look to Egypt for a possible solution.

Having seen that Akhenaten is largely consistent with “Moses”, we may note that Thutmose (Thutmosis) III is a good candidate for the role of King David. Though he lived before the time of David, Thutmose was known for conquering the northern city of Megiddo, for collecting tribute from vassal Canaanite kings, for his conquest of Syria, and for his monumental buildings. Thutmose also carried the image of God Amun-Ra as a battle standard at the head of his forces (in the same way the Israelites carried the Ark) and may have resided at Jerusalem where there was an Egyptian garrison, during his siege of Megiddo. All these were things attributed to “David” in the Bible.

How did Egyptian “Thutmose” become Hebrew “David”? Thut or twt referred to Thot, the Egyptian God of Wisdom, and ms simply meant “son of”. So, the pharaoh’s full name meant “Son of God Thot”. “David” (Hebrew dwd) may be a transliteration of Egyptian twt. But it also means “beloved”, an epithet commonly used in Egyptian royal titles: “Beloved of (God) Ra”, “Beloved of (God) Amun”, etc.

Similarly, in Arabic, David (Dawud) means “beloved” and in the Muslim tradition David/Dawud is associated not only with “beloved” or “favorite” (of God) but also with birds:

And indeed We gave knowledge to Dawud (David) and Sulaiman (Solomon), and they both said: "All the praises and thanks be to Allah, Who has preferred us above many of His believing slaves!" (27:15).
And Sulaiman (Solomon) inherited (the knowledge of) Dawud (David). He said: "O mankind! We have been taught the language of birds, and on us have been bestowed all things. This, verily, is an evident grace (from Allah)" (27:16).
Verily, We made the mountains to glorify Our Praises with him [Dawud (David)] in the 'Ashi (i.e. after the mid-day till sunset) and Ishraq (i.e. after the sunrise till mid-day) (38:18).
And (so did) the birds assembled: all with him [Dawud (David)] did turn (to Allah i.e. glorified His Praises) (38:19).

The Egyptian God Thot was not only the God of Wisdom, but he was also symbolized by the ibis bird. So, three key elements associated with Thutmose, namely “wisdom”, “beloved”, “bird”, are also associated with David in the Koran which, as we know, is a development of earlier Jewish traditions.

Additionally, Jewish tradition states that David’s original name, before he ascended to the throne, was Elhanan (“God gave”). For example, when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Aramaic, “Elhanan” was given as slayer of Goliath (2 Samuel 21:19). This is consistent with “David” being not a birthname but a royal title, comparable to “Thut(mose)”, which suggests that, as in the case of “Moses”, an effort was made by OT editors to conceal David’s true identity. This is why no trace of “David”, the Israelites’ most important king and hero, has ever been found in Israel but there is plenty of evidence for an identical figure in next-door Egypt, just as there is plenty of evidence for a religious founder there in the form of Akhenaten.

Similarly, while there is zero evidence for a Hebrew king and son-in-law of the pharaoh ruling over an empire stretching from Egypt to the Euphrates, there are such kings in next-door Egypt who were the overlords of Canaanite kingdoms and were naturally known to the population of Canaan, including the Hebrews. As pointed out by Egyptologists and other scholars (Assmann, Moses the Egyptian) if the histories of two nations overlap to some extent, it is entirely natural for their national memories to have elements in common. In fact, it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.

As mentioned earlier, an Egyptian king that would fit the picture of “Solomon” particularly well, is Amenhotep III whose name or, rather, royal title means “Amun is at Peace” which is consistent with “Solomon” being traditionally derived from the Hebrew word for peace, shalom (shlm), or Semitic salam (slm).

As with “David”, the OT states that Solomon’s name was “Jedidiah” (Yedid-Yah, “beloved of God”) given to him as instructed by God (2 Samuel 12:25). Again, this is consistent with Egyptian royal practice.

Moreover, not only did Amenhotep rule over a vast empire that included Canaan, but he was married to pharaoh Thutmose IV’s daughter Sitamun, and built monumental palaces and temples, including a shrine at Jerusalem.

And, while there is no evidence of letter exchanges between a “King Hiram of Tyre” (the Phoenician city-state) and Solomon whom the former supposedly supplied with building materials for the Jerusalem Temple, there is extensive correspondence between King Abimilki of Tyre and the Egyptian king. In fact, Egypt had strong relations with Tyre, which for centuries had been supplying Egypt with cedar wood for the construction of royal boats, tombs, and temples.

The fact is that Solomon either existed or he didn’t. If he did exist and, as the OT claims, he was married to the pharaoh’s daughter and to many “foreign women”, then (a) he must have been Egyptian and (b) he had a number of sons who could have qualified as rulers of a small Canaanite kingdom.

Indeed, in addition to being married to the pharaoh’s daughter Sitamun, Amenhotep was also married to Tiye and several other foreign princesses, and produced at least two sons and four daughters.

Of particular interest is Amenhotep’s religious orientation. As his royal title indicates, he was initially a worshiper of Amun. However, one of his sons was Amenhotep IV who, on becoming king, introduced the monotheistic cult of Aten and renamed himself Akhenaten. Amenhotep himself seems to have adopted the new cult later in life, as he named his youngest daughter Beketaten (“Handmaid of Aten”), and had himself, his wife, and his youngest daughter depicted as worshiping Aten.

Amenhotep III with Queen Tiye and Princess Beketaten. Amarna tomb of Huya - Wikipedia

As the OT relates, Solomon in his later years took to worshiping the Sun which apparently scandalized later generations of Temple priests. Similarly, Amehotep III seems to have taken to worshiping a monotheistic God (symbolized by the Sun Disk or Orb) which equally scandalized the priests of Egypt.

Moreover, while divine kings were unknown to the Ancient Hebrews, divine kingship was a centuries-old institution in Egypt. The Egyptian king was physically the son of his father and spiritually the son of God, which is why on ascending to the throne he acquired the title “son of God”. This tradition was carried on into Hellenistic times and was adopted by Alexander the Great and his successors.

If Alexander could call himself “son of Amun-Zeus”, then so could Jesus, especially if he was a descendant of Egyptian and Hebrew royalty as suggested by the Talmud where he is referred to as “son of Joseph Pandira”, i.e., as having a physical father or ancestor (Joseph) and a spiritual one (Pa-Ntr-Ra, “The-God-Ra”). Likewise, the NT references to Emmanuel (Amun-El), Truth, Light of the World, etc., in connection with Jesus, suggest a new revelation of age-old teachings.

So, there is no contradiction there. Jesus’ teachings are a fusion of the highest elements of Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish religion conveyed in the universal language of the time, which was Greek.

It is generally acknowledged that while the OT seems to have some historical facts right, others are clearly distorted, made up, or borrowed from other traditions and adapted to suit the editors’ agenda. In any case, the “official” OT narrative doesn’t have to be the only correct one. But if we choose to believe that Egypt and Greece never existed and never had any influence on anything, then it’s a different story ….

But your personal bias against the democratically elected leader of a nation invaded by a criminal and militaristic autocracy is sadly noted. — Olivier5

But what if the "democratically elected leader" is a clown and a crook? His approval ratings were down to 30% before the invasion. So, something wasn't right somewhere. Now he has seized control of the media, has banned opposition parties, and has placed the country under martial law.

Plus, some may argue that the US government was autocratic and militaristic. Would you advocate for the land to be returned to the natives?

Well, of course economies are interdependent. But I don’t think derivatives are that negligible at all:

The full interest rate derivatives market in the euro area is very large in terms of both volume and the number of instruments it contains. As of June 2019 the total outstanding notional amount in interest rate derivatives was around €200 trillion, which accounted for two-thirds of the total euro area derivatives market.

Derivatives transactions data and their use in central bank analysis – European Central Bank

Plus, I only gave that as an example. On top of that comes investment, credit, other financial services, etc.

In 2020:
US investments in Europe amounted to about 3.66 trillion USD.
EU service imports from US: 246.7bn EUR
EU service exports to US: 171.4bn EUR (EU Balance: -75.3bn EUR)

The US dominates the global stock market
The US dominates capital markets and financial services
The US dominates international financial institutions like the World Bank

The top ten investment banks globally are: 5 US, 2 UK, 2 France, 1 Switzerland

The US dollar is the dominant global currency

The international gold price is set by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) which is dominated by US and UK banks like Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Standard Chartered, HSBC, etc.

The Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI) 2022 has the following ranking:

1. New York
2. London
11. Paris
16. Frankfurt
19. Amsterdam
27. Luxembourg
36. Brussels
43. Dublin
49. Helsinki

GFCI 31 Rank - Long Finance

On the whole, I for one don’t see the EU as the dominant partner. But others are free to see it differently if they so choose ….

"Antiquity historians" had to do with folks who keep talking of the Roman empire again and again. — Olivier5

They aren't historians though. They're politicians and technocrats that use history to justify their political programs. I for one doubt that genuine historians would advocate the reconstruction of the Roman Empire. Though, of course, one can never know ....

Good thing it's not — Olivier5

Bad thing it is. America is the EU's second-largest trading partner and global investment banking in the EU is dominated by US banks, as are the international financial institutions like IMF that are involved in financial assistance and economic adjustment programs in the EU, etc., not to mention the EU's dependence on the financial markets like the City of London that are dominated by US banks.

You must be aware that the EU is trying to break free from London-based clearing houses?

The European Union must cut its heavy reliance on derivatives clearing in London in the same way as the bloc is ending its dependency on Russian energy due to the war in Ukraine, EU financial services chief Mairead McGuinness said on Wednesday.
The EU has agreed to allow clearing houses in Britain, such as the London Stock Exchange's LCH arm, to continue serving banks and asset managers in the bloc until June 2025 to give time to build up clearing capacity inside the EU.

Cutting EU reliance on UK clearers like ending use of Russian energy, says commissioner - Reuters

London, which is no longer in the EU, continues to be Europe's main financial center. The EU has been trying hard to move it to Frankfurt, but there is little chance that's going to happen anytime soon.

The irony is that to break free from London, the EU will have to allow US banks to operate more freely within the EU, there being no other alternative:

LONDON, April 4 2022 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Monday it has widened access for U.S. exchanges and clearing houses to investors in the bloc, a move which contrasts with Brussels' intention to shut off clearing houses in London in 2025.

EU widens market access for U.S. derivatives clearers and exchanges - Reuters

Maybe Paris or Marseilles should stand in for London and New York .... :wink:

it so far seems to express no interest in that and seems completely content to be subservient to US foreign policy, with rare exceptions, even suffering great harms to itself in promotion of the harms US imposes on others — boethius

The EU could have been a good idea if had been based (a) on equality between its members and (b) on independence from the US.

Unfortunately, after WW2, and to some extent after WW1 and even before, everyone ganged up on Germany, which had been Europe's natural dominant power, geographically, economically, and militarily.

The elimination of Germany as a European power created a vacuum that was filled by America in the west of the continent and by Russia in the east.

The logical thing to do now would be to restore Germany as a military and political power that would keep Russia in its place and America out of Europe. This seems to be the only way to make Europe a real power to balance US hegemony and make the whole world order more equitable and more democratic.

A strong EU provides an alternative to a unipolar world. — Olivier5

Not if the EU is dominated economically, financially, politically, and militarily by America. Don't forget that the EU doesn't even have its own armed forces and is totally dependent on America.

Today, of the great powers, EU is the most peaceful and democratic, and I rather see the expansion of such a system than the Chinese total totalitarian system. — boethius

I agree that the EU system is preferable to that of China, but I think "peaceful and democratic" is relative.
Certainly, in demographic, cultural, and other respects, the EU is far from all positive.

Some may argue that many EU countries have a falling population coupled with rising numbers of non-European migrants, English is replacing other languages, US-manufactured guns-and-drugs "culture" is replacing traditional European culture, etc., etc.

Plus, the EU and its agenda are becoming more and more identical with NATO, a military organization (the world's largest, actually) that is known to have engaged in aggressive behavior.

So, I for one still think that a multipolar world order based on free and independent countries and continents would be the ideal to aim for.

There are a lot of analysts and commentators who conclude that Putin is a dictator. Certainly the failings of the military is not evidence to the contrary. — Punshhh

I'm sure there are, but many analysts and commentators have their own agendas and biases. Plus, Russia has never had any other kind of leader, so though Putin may be described as a "dictator" in a West European context (depending on the definition), he is pretty standard in a Russian context. Don't forget that Russia has a parliament and people are allowed to vote, and Putin and his party still have the backing of many Russians.

As for military failings, IMO if a leader invests billions in his country's armed forces, and his kleptocratic subordinates use the money to buy themselves superyachts and villas, then clearly he can't have "absolute control".

But I agree with you that the fate of the Kurds and others is shocking and totally unacceptable. And it's happening with NATO's approval.

When Turkey invaded Kurdish territory in Syria in 2019, NATO secretary general Stoltenberg said:

Minister Cavusoglu and I also discussed Turkey´s ongoing operation in Northern Syria … Turkey has legitimate security concerns … Turkey is a great power in this great region and with great power comes great responsibility… - NATO Joint press conference, 11 Oct. 2019

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_169576.htm?selectedLocale=en

So, according to NATO's jihadi narrative, it’s OK for Turkey to invade and occupy Kurdish lands, but not for Russia to invade Ukraine, or even to take back Crimea which has always been Russian ....

We will rebuild the Roman Empire and this time through the power of ideas, not by force of arms. — boethius

Sure, why use force of arms when it's much easier to use economic, financial, and legislative means?

But, however implemented, the concept remains the same, i.e., one power dominating others for its own purposes.

And, as I said already, Germany rebuilding its empire, or even the Western Roman Empire to which it is arguably the legitimate heir, is out of the question because it would offend @Olivier5, Macron, and many others whose noses, God forbid, might start peeling or even falling off altogether .... :wink:

By the way, I hear that some of the 4 million refugees are returning to Ukraine. — jorndoe

Well, good on them. IMO they shouldn't have left in the first place and that Zelensky comedian should've listened to more pragmatic and experienced people instead of blindly listening to his US-UK advisers.

Obviously, he didn't know what he was doing as he and his media crew had zero knowledge of politics and even less of international relations. Don't forget that his approval ratings were down to about 30% just before the invasion. And that was because he had proved to be totally incompetent ....

It's not off topic because the US are heavily involved in Ukraine, so their reputation is very relevant. — Isaac

Apparently, it is "off topic" because @ssu says so ... :grin:

where does the EU self declare its aim as rebuilding the Roman Empire? — boethius

When (“Mr. Europe”) Paul-Henri Spaak signed the Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, the precursor to the EU, he said:

We will rebuild the Roman Empire and this time through the power of ideas, not by force of arms.

In 2020, Carl Baudenbacher, former president of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), openly admitted that the EU is trying to rebuild the Roman Empire:

Under Trajan the Roman Empire, at its greatest extent, encompassed the entire Mediterranean region, but also parts of present-day Germany, Britain, Romania, Turkey, Syria and Armenia. The European Union is preparing to build a similar empire.

The choice Britain faces if it wants an EU trade deal: either EFTA, or the Ukraine model – LSE Blogtest

Obviously, they aren't going to put that in official documents, but the idea is being discussed unofficially, and has been from inception.

Even without mentioning it, it is clear that the EU project aims to include not only Europe but also the Mid East, North Africa, and all the way to Turkey, Armenia, and beyond. In other words, an enlarged Roman Empire.

It just so happens that Ukrainians are the victims of geopolitical circumstance and great power competition (regardless of which great power you "blame most"), which could actually be resolved by diplomacy based on a realistic understanding of the geopolitical situation. — boethius

Absolutely correct. If the EU and NATO hadn't insisted on unlimited expansion, Russia wouldn't have needed to take back Crimea and occupy Russian-speaking areas in Ukraine.

If Ukraine had any sense it would simply accept Russia's requests and put an end to the conflict. Unfortunately, it can't do that if it gets pushed by America and England to antagonize Russia ....

I am not sure what law is broken when countries sign trade deals with the EU, or what harm is done to anyone. To the extent that the EU tries and contribute to stabilizing and repairing the world around it through trade and cooperation, it is doing good work.

Whose skin would be peeled off whose nose if Ukraine joined the EU, pray tell? Antiquity historians? — Olivier5

I'm not sure what "Antiquity historians" has got to do with this, unless you are referring to those in the EU junta whose noses would fall off if Russia, the Mid East, and Africa didn't join their empire-building project. :smile:

Plus, the EU project isn't quite as simple as "stabilizing and repairing the world around it through trade and cooperation".

1. The Roman Empire was a predatory entity whose main purpose was to serve the interests of Rome. Rome enslaved and destroyed many nations along with their language and culture, and left millions dead in its wars of conquest. So, I for one wouldn't look at Rome as a model for 21st century international relations.

2. Trade and cooperation can be, and often is, used to make economically weaker countries dependent on stronger ones.

3. Countries can perfectly well cooperate with one another without joining a superstate controlled by big bankers, industrialists, and their political stooges.

4. EU membership hasn't benefited all member states equally. The main beneficiaries have been larger countries like England (until 2020), Germany, and France that already had strong economies. Weaker economies like Spain, Italy, Greece, have benefited less and have much higher unemployment rates, for example.

5. There is growing resistance to EU domination of member states' national policies. England has already left for that very reason, and there is strong opposition in other countries, including France. So, we shouldn't pretend that there are no problems with the EU.

Anyway, my point was that the EU's self-declared aim of rebuilding the Roman Empire tends to be seen as commendable but Russia's alleged intention to "rebuild the Russian Empire" is indicted as some kind of crime.

At the end of the day, if the EU has a "right" to build an empire for itself at the expense of others, so have Russia, Germany, Greece, etc. But it looks like the skin on some people's nose would peel off if the Germans decided to rebuild their empire .... :wink:

Moreover, from a broader perspective, the real dominant power is not the EU but America who, as we have seen, controls most of the world's finances, economies, and media. EU and NATO are products of Atlanticism (a.k.a. Transatlanticism) a US project that obviously serves US interests.

As with the EU, there is no logical reason why America should be allowed to push its interests and build a worldwide economic, financial, and military empire for itself, at the expense of other countries.

IMO the interests of true freedom and democracy would be served much better by a multipolar world order based on free and independent countries and continents instead of a worldwide American empire. This seems to be the view of non-Western powers like Russia, China, India, and many African and Latin American countries, i.e., the majority of the world population ....

How about asking the Ukrainians? — jorndoe

I never said Ukrainians shouldn't be asked, did I? But when it comes to something that affects Russia, or any other country, then I think it is proper to ask the people of that country as well.

I don't see why Ukraine should matter more than Russia who has a much larger population.