Xian intolerance and self-righteousness were traits noted with distaste by Romans, two thousand years ago. (See R. Wilken. The christians as the romans saw them. Yale Pr. 1984)

The new religion appealed to poor, uneducated, displaced people pushed into slums of great cities in the eastern Roman Empire. With Jerusalem destroyed and the province of Palestine subjugated in 70 CE, thousands of anti-Roman Jews escaped into Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria, and Rome where there were already Jewish enclaves.

Cults of Jesus appealed to marginalized Jews and pagan malcontents who wanted a world cleansed of Roman occupation, who hoped for a religious military leader, who wanted revenge. (And impotent desires for revenge, as Nietzsche said, give rise to xian “morality” and hopes for the “end of days.”)

The xian is concerned only about his own skin [soul] — what would you do to save yourself — would you steal? Of course, for the world is about to be destroyed.

The text of Mat13:40-50 provides contrasting parables — get faith before the end times
For readers who find early 17th century English unintelligible, here are Mat13:44, 49-50 NIV (New International Version):

44The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

[Verses 45-48 present two more parables: the pearl of great value, the net of good and bad fish. Verses 49-50 gives the apocalyptic vision that puts zest into the parable of the net.]

49This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Don’t you just burn with true xian ardor? — the fiery furnace / weeping and gnashing of teeth. The ‘New Testament’ should come stamped with a skull-and-crossbones.

anti-supernaturalist