(This is in response to a friend’s comment on my blog about pride)

( http://thedoogieman.com/2011/11/08/pride.aspx )

(To my friend that commented - I respect you and your words. You said them in a way as to be kind and not try and do any harm. I appreciate that)

 

I am by no means an expert on the atrocities of the forced spread of Christianity. I don’t claim to be, but even a layman that has studied the basics of history knows that Christianity was spread by force. Thousands of people were killed during the crusades.

 

During the Inquisition there were many torture devices used to convert the reluctant non-Christians. These devices included things that were inserted in the anus, the vagina or the mouth and they were expanded until the people converted or their orifices ripped. Some non-believers were stretched on a rack. Non-believers were mutilated and killed if they didn’t convert.  

The events that took place at the council of Nicaea are well documented. Constantine made the decision to celebrate Christian holidays on pagan festivals to draw attention away from the pagan holidays. This is well documented.  

 

I haven’t posted any links to support these claims because I really doubt that you want to know what happened. If you wanted to know you would have already done the research. I have invested hundreds of hours on this subject.

If you want to research it than there are many sources that you can look up. The problem that most people run in to when they debate about Christianity is that most Christians only use one book for their source and disregard the rest.

 

Not wanting to learn history is a conscious decision. Denial of past events that shaped modern Christianity doesn’t change those facts. It just keeps modern Christians from knowing about the skeletons their religious closet.

When I talk about these events it isn’t to take anything away from Christianity. I talk about it to point out this history to the modern Christians that have no idea about the history of their religion.

The main reason that I point it out is to humble people.

 

There are a lot of people that talk about Christmas and truly believe it when they say that Jesus is the reason for the season or they believe that Easter was about Jesus.

 

The pagan festivals went on long before Constantine decided that the Christian holidays would be celebrated on them. The solstice and the Equinox were the reason for the season.

 

 

When someone doesn’t know the history of their religion it can lead to arrogance and arrogance can lead to conflict. It is truly foolish to fight about something that you really don’t know the facts about. There are people willing to ruin lives over a belief, and a misinformed belief at that.

 

I don’t have a problem with Christianity, Jesus or the Bible as long as the people that are pushing it on others understand its history. It’s fine to love God and Jesus but do it without persecuting the people whose holidays your borrowing.

 

As most of us know history is written by the victor. It is my belief that the reason Christians are unaware of their own history is because of that. Fortunately there were enough witnesses to the atrocities that we didn’t lose the record of the events that took place.


As for modern Christianity.

 

It is my belief that modern Christians for the most part believe in peace and kindness.

 

I really like the New Testament. It shows the works of a peaceful man from several perspectives. Mathew, Mark, Luke and John ( The only English guys in the Middle East at the time) tell his story from each of their own eyes. It is a very good book. It teaches peace and compassion. I read it often.

 

I wish with all of my heart that Christians would do some research on the origin of their religion. I don’t think that it would cause anyone to stop believing in Jesus. I just think that it would stop conflict between the Muslims, Christians, and Jewish people. For anybody that has studied the basic origins of these religions it is obvious that they originate from the same place. (Disagree if you want but before Constantine changed things Jesus wasn’t accepted as the one and only son of God)

All three religions talk about Adam and Eve. They also have many other similarities. This in itself should throw up a red flag and yet there have been so many people killed over the differences. It is a shame and it is totally unnecessary.

 

If the majority of the people would open their minds to the possibilities that each of us is a little bit misinformed then we could all come to an understanding that nobody has all of the answers and it is virtually impossible for one group to have the one true religion.

 

Christians have evolved. They went from having it be a sin to eat pork and for it being not only accepted but expected for a parent to stone his daughter if she isn’t a virgin at her wedding, to accepting pork as a common food source and having laws that would punish a parent for following the Bible and killing his daughter for not being a virgin at her wedding.

 

Most Christians not only don’t follow the Bible they would be appalled at its content if they knew what it said, but since most Christians don’t really know what’s in their bible they don’t know what it says. ( I didn’t put the words here because there are so many bibles and they are all a bit different so if you want to spend the time you can look them up, that way you can’t say they are taken out of context because you can read what leads up to it and what’s after it.)

 

These are a few of the Bible quotes that I found to be appalling

 

Leviticus 15:19

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Deuteronomy 23:1

Genesis 19: 30-36

Leviticus 20:18

Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Psalm 137:9

1 Timothy 2:12

Exodus 21:7

Exodus 35:2

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

 

 

 

What I usually hear in defense of these quotes is that “Our church doesn’t teach that”

 

But keep this in mind

 

Your preacher is carrying the book that contains these passages when he stands in front of you. He calls that book God’s Word. It either is God’s word or it isn’t.

 

You can sort through the Bible and pick and choose what you want to believe. That is how Christianity got to where it is today. Preachers preached what they wanted you to know and left the rest behind. They taught what they told you as the one true way. That is why we have so many different churches today. People want the good and fun parts of the Bible but they want to disregard the stuff that they don’t like. I’ve had several people tell me that   Deuteronomy and Leviticus are old archaic Hebrew books that no longer apply but they jump right on the band wagon and quote those very same books when they want to bash gay people. So pick and choose because very little of what you follow today has anything to do with the book that your preacher carries.