I have to agree with you that the 39 books of the old testament are snippets of historical stuff bound up with lots of crazy superstition. (I think there are 39 -- I just used a regular expression to pull out the titles and count them.) They have very little relevance to today -- they had little enough relevance back then, even.
That leaves us with the 27 books of the new testament. Of those, about half (14) were written by hateful Paul. Drop those. That leaves us with 13. I think we can dismiss Revelations, where John talks about his nervous breakdown. That leaves 12 second-hand accounts of Jesus' life, because although he was a well-educated guy (a carpenter back then was like computer programmer nowadays) he never actually wrote his words down. Of those 12 some are suspect, but I can't remember offhand which, so we'll leave it at 12.
Jesus was an innovator in the mould of Ghandi and Buddha. When everybody around him was shouting for blood he said how nice it would be if we were good to each other. He was really cool. But he had his failings, and his violent streaks, and he never understood what an obscenity slavery is. Certainly he was no son of god. And if my memory serves me right, even he didn't claim to be until he went and starved himself in the desert for a while. And that sad, sad question when he was dying is most telling of all. Baffled, he couldn't see why his god didn't save him.
The greatest obscenity to come out of this is that the superstitious, religious bigots who murdered that nice guy then completely subverted his teachings and used them to promote hatred, intolerance, and ignorance. What makes me almost cry is that they use the cross as a symbol, undercutting the disgusting cruelty and falsely dignifying it with a phrase so bizarrely meaningless it boggles the mind: "He died for our sins."
They should be saying: "religion murdered a nice guy who worked for hope and clear thinking."
Of course christians will say he was resurrected, but I really don't think so. Have you read the bit in the bible where he supposedly walks up to Thomas after the murder, and says "Hi Thomas." Thomas replies "Hi. Who are you?" The guy says, "I'm Jesus, back from the dead." Thomas skeptically looks at him and says, "Ummm I don't think so, fella. Deluded much?" The guy shows Thomas the holes in his hands and Thomas says "Oh wow! You must be him."
Am I the only one who sees the problem here? Thomas, who has been a best friend of Jesus for years doesn't recognise him? Yeah, right. Some nut job has driven nails through his hands (like lots of people do every year now) and Thomas, being superstitious, believes it.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-12-08 10:22 pm (UTC)That leaves us with the 27 books of the new testament. Of those, about half (14) were written by hateful Paul. Drop those. That leaves us with 13. I think we can dismiss Revelations, where John talks about his nervous breakdown. That leaves 12 second-hand accounts of Jesus' life, because although he was a well-educated guy (a carpenter back then was like computer programmer nowadays) he never actually wrote his words down. Of those 12 some are suspect, but I can't remember offhand which, so we'll leave it at 12.
Jesus was an innovator in the mould of Ghandi and Buddha. When everybody around him was shouting for blood he said how nice it would be if we were good to each other. He was really cool. But he had his failings, and his violent streaks, and he never understood what an obscenity slavery is. Certainly he was no son of god. And if my memory serves me right, even he didn't claim to be until he went and starved himself in the desert for a while. And that sad, sad question when he was dying is most telling of all. Baffled, he couldn't see why his god didn't save him.
The greatest obscenity to come out of this is that the superstitious, religious bigots who murdered that nice guy then completely subverted his teachings and used them to promote hatred, intolerance, and ignorance. What makes me almost cry is that they use the cross as a symbol, undercutting the disgusting cruelty and falsely dignifying it with a phrase so bizarrely meaningless it boggles the mind: "He died for our sins."
They should be saying: "religion murdered a nice guy who worked for hope and clear thinking."
Of course christians will say he was resurrected, but I really don't think so. Have you read the bit in the bible where he supposedly walks up to Thomas after the murder, and says "Hi Thomas."
Thomas replies "Hi. Who are you?"
The guy says, "I'm Jesus, back from the dead."
Thomas skeptically looks at him and says, "Ummm I don't think so, fella. Deluded much?"
The guy shows Thomas the holes in his hands and Thomas says "Oh wow! You must be him."
Am I the only one who sees the problem here? Thomas, who has been a best friend of Jesus for years doesn't recognise him? Yeah, right. Some nut job has driven nails through his hands (like lots of people do every year now) and Thomas, being superstitious, believes it.