Friday, November 26, 2004

Sweet Christmas

With the Holidays approaching, and Christo- phobia running wild I thing I want to take some time and establish why I am not a Jesus person, and my problem with a number of Christians I have actually talked to about this. I am going to be dismissive about the Christian coalition and their ilk as a matter of political reality, and I will be attacking folks who are paranoid about them.

Most of these folks who are paranoid about it, have some deep seated issue with the church, or their parents. My mom and her mothers restrictive following of the church of Christ ( people who kicked pat boone out for gawd sakes). And anyone who has been in neopagan/ wiccan circles know these people all to well… but for me to say “these people hate republicans, because they have parent issues” my credibility is suspect unless I lay out my full Monty on Christianity myself.

The problems I have are theological, and not problems I intend to bore you with nitpicks from the bible. If I see people replying then I will toss out the verses at you but I am arguing here more on the presentation here. The problem is an issue of salvation really for me.

The problem I have with the theology is a logical conflict. Jesus is the son of ( and Is) the Abrahamic deity. If Jesus and his theology conflict with that earlier theology, then Either the Jewish story is untrue ( and by extension Jesus is untrue because the Jewish story is required for Jesus to work) or Jesus himself is untrue.

Under the Hebrew’s system Non Jews were as beloved as Jews to their creator, but the Jews were assigned a special task in his grand design. Hashem laid out 7 rules for the gentile and 650+ for the Jew that was to last for an eternity. But if faith in Christ (the John Gospel doctrine) is the key to salvation then we gots our self a problem that needs to get fixed.

Now, modern Christianity could be playing a fast one here but if that’s a case then modern Christianity is basing its faith on a shakedown. But my own studies have shown me little down that Christianity sells a “sole salvation” theology. But, the problems are more then just how one gets to the best afterlife possible. Cause when god made the rules for the Gentiles (the lines of NOAH) and the Jews (Abraham, and later all the multitudes at Sinai) he laid those out to everyone. With Jesus… Jesus didn’t make it clear to everyone (as with the prior to examples) “I am the lord thy god”. So in addition to the inconsistent performance from the man who is deity to the Christians, we have god changing the rules ( but only telling a small group) that he said were eternal. (yes I know Jesus said I came not to end the law but to fulfill it, so let me ask you a question. If you were to fulfill the law of speed limits, would that mean no one has to worry about the speeding tickets? The laws are ya know, the rules. One person can’t just come down and say “screw it I’m changing the rules). So if he could change the rules as Christians are want to proclaim, and if he is without time ( as the Christians also teach) then god lied about his laws being eternal.

But I know what your thinking “mistranslation” but by that same token we then have to say “So, your telling me the Hebrews were right until they disagree with you…. That’s a little bit convenient don’t you think?” We then get into the fact of how Jewish prophecy works. If under Jewish prophecy a person was supposed to do X, if they fail to do 100% of X then the prophecy was not met in any way shape or form. There is no do over (i.e. the second coming). Jesus not only failed to do the job of the Messiah (I don’t see any world peace and utopia do you?) he also was not of a messianic lineage.

So, the founding salvation theology was unnecessary, Jesus wasn’t the heroic role he was and is claimed by his backers (if you go with the Jewish side of the story) so what does that leave us with? A guy whom wasn’t the messiah preaching a lot of stuff some of which is good and some of which is bad.

I find moral guidance from things like Yoda but I don’t prostrate myself to him… for worship Jesus needed to work a bit harder to get it done, and he just didn’t.

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