Eh, I'd go easy on ole Saul/Paul. I mean there's like a 30 or 40 year gap between jesus dying and Paul's teachings. And Paul was in a really weird position. When you read his stuff you have to remember that he was Jewish. But his audience, for the most part wasn't. At least not after the majority of the Jewish communities told him to get lost. His audience was Greek/Roman. And he had to tailor his message to fit this religiously "pagan" (I don't really like this term. It really just means not christian but whatever). Anyway, after Paul there were the 21 ecumenical councils, where the heads of the Christian communities came together to figure out which teachings and/ or books to include and which to discard. The first seven councils(held between the 4th and 9th century) are accepted by both the Catholic and eastern orthodox churches. After that though the eastern orthodox and catholic church split as the Catholic church could just not let go of their precious little (really really really fucking dumb) concept of the Holy Trinity/ Jesus's divinity. Which has finally caught up with them as nobody these days can reconcile the holy trinity with religious pluralism and modernity. The eastern orthodox church held onto the belief that Jesus was just human and only god was god. Anyway at each of these councils the bible was edited. Then came the protestant reformation, which, if anything, was a social rebellion, not a religious one. But it would still have a heavy religious influence in the creation of the protestant denomination as well as leading to good ole King James who had his scribes edit the fuck out of the bible to ground the political and social structure of the time and to affirm the credibility of the English church. But really the king james version is completely useless and should only be read in a historical context. Not a religious one. Then, between 1611 (when the king james version was finished) and the present day the Christian religion was edited/rewritten hundreds of times, creating the hundreds of different Christian denominations you see today. So yea. So don't blame Paul/Saul. The Christian religion would not match up with the early Christian church with or without him. And , in my opinion, it shouldn't. Religion is not a stagnant concept. It is influenced by culture, geographical location, social structure, and political structure as to remain applicable and relevant. Oh and op. Mandate of heaven is not a religious term. Its political. If you're going to rip stuff off from eastern philosophies just stick with Buddhism, Hinduism, and daoism. And with mind control stuff you should use neurolinguistic programming instead of ' implants" or whatever. Hehe. Sorry for the rant.