Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus
- Thread starter wellhungone
- Start date
it's an oxymoron religion created the doctrine of Jesus, original sin, repentance and threat of eternal torture if your reject Jesus
a similar thing is popular in the evangelical community "it's not religion it is a personal relationship with Jesus"
I'm not sure every major religion preaches internal damnation. I certainly don't remember that in the past when I attended church, but then the UCC was alway a bunch of rebels, the glass is half full kind of people.
The story of Adam and Eve is in the Old Testament of Genesis which is where the doctrine of original sin originated according to Christianity. There is no doctrine of original sin or repentance or rejection of Jesus in the Jewish faith. Those doctrines of original sin, repentance and acceptance of Jesus are only in the non Hebrew/Jewish New Testament.
Acceptance of Jesus as the path to salvation was preached by Paul who apparently
did not read the four gospels. Or more precisely Paul was not aware of the events
recorded in the gospels as they were written at a later time. Paul's Jesus was probably
not the historical Jesus but a mythical figure.
True since the Epistles General predate the Gospels.
How do you figure that? St. Paul may indeed not been as knowledgeable about the Historical Jesus as those who were "students" of those who had been his Apostles. That doesn't mean that he was unfamiliar with the oral tradition.
May I again recomend the excellent series From Jesus to Christ: the first Christians http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/
If you said organized religion you'd be more correct, but the concept of an afterlife and the ceremony and it's paraphinalia goes back further, almost 150,000 years way beyond the politics and societal guidelines originating in Assyria, Babylonian and early Egypt, approximately 2500/3000 BC. From that point, organized religion becomes integrated into daily life. One of the oldest Buddhism, 2500 years and counting is probably the least political.
Again, some may have, but not all. How exactly did the USSR use religion to control the population.
I'm also not sure how much time you've spent in Polynesia the outback or in the far north, where politics takes a back seat to religion something fierce. The government is an irritant that has to dealt with every so often to keep the peace. Their religion plays apart of their life almost every day.
