Here it is Sunday and I am so sick and tired of “Christians” and their so called ‘beliefs’ taken right from the teachings of their ‘Christ,’ or Jesus? Almost always, it turns out that they are giving us something from the OLD Testament, or the Jewish bible. There is nothing there about a Jesus... that is all in the NEW Testament, which they will also drag out and quote from, but normally their quotes are from the OLD.
To my way of thinking, the Old Testament is actually the telling and retelling and retelling, and retelling, and retelling, ad infinitum, of stories made up by a bunch of old men to keep their flocks in order and doing what those old bosses wanted done. (Haven’t we all had a boss who told us “because we’ve always done it that way?”) The stories that have come down to us that were put into a ‘bible’ are the ones that benefitted the ‘bosses’ the best, and the ones that were the most interesting to majority of people. That ‘book’ has been ripped apart and retold by a lot of generations, and I think most people now have gotten the idea, finally, that no old man with a long white beard patted together a lot of dust and threw in a couple of oceans to make a place for his original pair of ‘humans’ to live some 60,000 (oh yeah?) years ago. What language did they speak? (I’ll bet most of the holier than thou in the U.S. will say ‘English.’) "Great glory, I been SAVED!!"
As to the “Christians” in the supposedly devout fundamentalist groups in our country, most do not know much about the bible, as they do not read, but simply take the word of some usually just as ignorant ‘pastor’ who tells them how to think and believe. If they had read the New Testament, they would find that Jesus was simply a minor prophet who headed a quite small group of people of the Jewish faith, who, like most Jews, were looking for ‘the Redeemer’ (or whatever your group called him in those days), to take them out of the slavery they were in, to establish them where everyone wants to be... as the bosses again. A lot of this was of course, cloaked in the pretty voices of ‘the humble,’ ‘the kind,’ etc., etc. After all WE wouldn’t treat our fellow humans badly, would we? Noooo. We are nicer, aren’t we? And all the ‘holidays were cribbed from the Pagans... Jesus was NOT born in December, the ‘elders’ needed to snatch that pagan celebration, along with all the rest.
Now if you look at the New Testament, you will find very few real “quotes” from this minor prophet, Jesus, as almost all of what is written (or made up) about him was written long after his death. Matter of fact, he probably wouldn’t even have become known if it hadn’t been for a man we call St.Paul, who came long, long after Jesus, picked up stories and beliefs about this good and kind man and spread his name and stories about him all across the somewhat civilized world of that time. Had it not been for St.Paul and his wanderings and teachings, we might have wound up with Thor or some vague Viking god as our main venue of worship. But, because of St.Paul, who most assuredly was not one of Jesus’ “disciples,” we got Jesus, the man he referred to as “the Son of God.” He did a great job, My mother, a devout Anglican Catholic (Episcopalian) always referred to St.Paul as the first great salesman.
Then there is the New Testament itself. I get very tired of the people who say it is the ‘word of god’... one would really not like to imagine that old man with the white beard lounging around on the clouds with so much time on his hands when he could be helping out some of the poor refugees down here, writing some of the fanciful stories in that book. Now you find me a quote from Jesus that says gay people can’t get married, or that a woman who has been raped can’t get an abortion.
First of all, those stories were gathered, again by the tribal bosses, to keep people in line and doing whatever work had to be done to keep the community together. Further, that whole book was torn apart by Constantine when he was converted to this new faith, who destroyed the parts he did not agree with, and put in a few little extras to keep his bunch in line. It was ever thus, no matter what all those fundamentalist preachers in their fancy, expensive suits ('God WANTS me to look good!') tell you.
There is so much information today because of computers, and the work of archeologists, and the whole EDUCATED community, that it disturbs me to see the rise in uneducated people who go to these huge fundamentalist churches and believe what is screamed at them by guys collecting enormous amounts of money from the masses. It also saddens me. I do wish that instead of all these churches and Mosques and other places full of people who are simply taught to hand their money to guys who are preaching at them, we could have small groups of people who believe like the Buddhists, not in a god, but in the quiet, good and kind teachings of a man who did not (nor did his followers attempt to) make himself a ‘god.’
Next I suppose I will do my little preaching on the division of salaries in my country... another crime against humanity. No person should make more than 250% (or I guess it is more now) than the average person who works for him/her. But that’s for next time...
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