Well its not that hard. Charity would be following the the teaching of Jesus. The Crusades violate the teachings of Jesus. What people do in the name of something is not necessarily a reflection of what they are claiming to represent. Of course if you believe Jesus represented Yawheh, anything can be justified.
I don't consider myself a Christian- rather, I worship nature, the universe, and life itself- but I fucking love Jesus. xD He was the original hippie. Peace, love, and nice long hair.
From what I can gather, Jesus and his followers for around 30 years after his death were very much Jews. Jesus himself did not want to create a new religion, as he always saw himself as preaching a version of Judaism. When he spoke about god he was almost definitely referring to Yahweh. Until Paul had his 'revelation' and started to preach Christianity as a separate religion to Judaism, the 'Nazarenes' as his followers were called were regarded by themselves and others to be only a small, but definitively Jewish cult. At the time though, messianic Jewish leaders were in abundance. Many Jews, both before and after Jesus proclaimed themselves messiahs and led different movements with varied success. Some being violent and very anti Roman. This coupled with the fact that the province of Judea was only newly under direct Roman control meant that the authorities were on the look out for any Jewish leader that attracted a large following, regardless of their message. Jesus's message spread so fast and gathered such a large following comparatively though, because he preached about the coming rapture, and of the imminent apocalypse, and this draws peoples attention much more than other so called messianic revelations After his death, and as Christianity spread, Christians obviously weren't fans of the Romans. But due to the preachings of Paul, who defined Christianity as a separate religion, eventually most Christians directed their hate towards the Jews who betrayed Jesus rather than the Romans who crucified him. Then, as time went on and the empire grew, the anti Roman and anti authority sentiments within Christianity reversed. Due to the fact the Christians believed that to be saved from the rapture, you must be Christian, they started to believe that the best way to achieve this and convert as many as possible before it happened, was through empire. This was magnified when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. People believed that mankind, through uniting under one righteous empire, could convert all the peoples of the earth in time for the apocalypse. On top of that, they could see that what is the very idea of a king and his court of advisers if not a reflection of God and his holy angels, guiding mankind into greatness? This idea is what lead the nations of Europe into adopting Christianity. It's a lot easier to accept the rule of kings when your religion and political system have a similar structure. Even more so when you can also convince the people that you're saving mankind by spreading the faith.
Interesting. A few points jump out to me as highly suspect. I may have to dig into the historical data because I find it hard to swallow that Jesus represented Yahweh as portrayed in the Bible. I believe the early gnostic christians viewed Yahweh as the bad guy and the 'the serpant' the good guy. In the Bible, Jesus aligns himself as God, not equal to but apart of God. Jesus never preached violence, quite the opposite, but Yahweh was all for it. That is just one example. I also think christianity was likely deliberately hijacked, i dont view it as a naturally progressing spiritual movement. And the teachings of the rapture were far different than they are today, in fact i dont think they even had a rapture doctrine until much later. And the fact that Christianity was adopted as the state religion is very telling. Its hard to grow an empire if the peoples beliefs taught loving pacifism. Something happened there. Clearly Christianity was already veering from its roots in Jesus (and has continued ever since). They may have justified their newfound entrenched system as reflecting heaven, but it is contrary to its roots again. Its been highly compromised. I am not claiming im right, just my observations. At some point ill dive in but its a complex subject and difficult to sort through. What do you think of this book and my comments?
Personally I disagree with the first paragraph, from what I've read it seems that the original followers of Jesus still considered themselves Jewish for a few decades, which involves as a core principle, a belief in the the Jewish god. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Christian Also, the bible doesn't say specifically how Jesus related himself to god, this debate raged for centuries until the Council of Nicea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea In regards to the idea of the rapture, it seems it was only written about in the New Testament after Jesus' death, but that does not mean he did not preach it. Almost everything we know about what Jesus preached was also written after his death. As to the message of Jesus being in contrast to the actions of states, all I can say is that the meanings and messages of the bible are very subjective. Using a passage of the bible you can justify almost anything if you try hard enough and spin it right. For example public support for bloody crusades was almost total, apart from those who objected for non-religious reasons, most saw them as a holy act that cleanses a man of sin. A majority of Christians being pacifistic is a reasonably modern thing, even if it's true at all. War, death and fighting were so common throughout history that people saw the world, and religions' role in it much more differently than we do today. Oh and for the record I'm not religious, just a fan of history
Awesome! Me too! Do you know of any history books written by historians contemporary to Jesus Christ? Seems to me there should be libraries full of them. But I can't seem to find any...
The only two Contemporary sources mentioning Jesus are 'Antiquities of the Jews' by Josephus and Tacitus in his 'Annals'. The only two things in them we know for sure are true are the facts that Jesus was baptized by Paul, and was crucified by Pontius Pilate While contemporary sources on Jesus himself are rare, contemporary sources on the period, Jerusalem, and the early Christians around the time are not as rare.
Jesus said that if you do not believe in him, you will burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity. Doesn't sound very friendly to me.
I have no evidence for this, but i wouldnt be surprised if the crusades were a systematic accumulation and subsequent destruction of any writings about Jesus.
I was mistaken about him saying those exact words. But there are quite a few Bible passages that infer condemnation to the disbelievers. And he definitely said that the way to his father was through him.
I dont blame you for thinking that, i thought that too until i looked and challenged popular notions. The Bible has a big disconnect between Jesus and Yahweh that i dont think is reconcilable. I dont think Jesus wanted people to 'follow him' but follow his example. People have a tendancy to deify big personalities though. I think the idea of condemnation was bullshit added later on. All my opinion, i am not an expert on the Bible or Jesus.
I've always wondered about the wealth of information concerning these things that's locked away from public scrutiny within the Vatican library...