F...ing Christians, part 2

When you take the time to understand the writings that underlie the basis for the Christian faith, you will see that God is more unfathomable than you could ever imagine while at the same time in us and all around us. The Bible and the traditions set down by the early fathers of the Church are what illustrate that. Knowing how to read it, however, is the trick. Trying to read them without understanding that there are some Aramaic words and idioms that don't even have an equivalent translation into English and there are some modern concepts that would have been totally foreign to Aramaic speakers of the time the Old Testament was written is futile. Also, quoting the Old Testament, other than to support the teachings of Christ is just plain stupid. You could take many verses from the Old Testament and turn them around to support just about anything you wanted to. That's why when Christ was challenged to pick the greatest commandment, he responded with the simplest, yet most profound descripton of what the Christian faith is really about. He said there are two great commandments - Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. To me (and most theologians and Biblical scholars), this means that the two new commandments supercede the 10 from the Old Testaments along with all the Jewish laws of the time.

The New Testament was written primarily in Greek, which was the de-facto language of the Mid East at the time of Jesus. Translations from Greek were purposely altered to reinforce certain concepts. For instance, there is no word equivalent to the word repent in ancient Greek. What was originally written was meta- noya, which means to change your mind. Just take every instance of repent in the New Testament and change it to change your mind and you will see that the writers of the New Testament were trying to win over people's minds to the idea of Christianity, not appeal to them at some basic emotional level by assuming their guilt. Regarding the formation of the New Testament, you have to take into consideration that prior to about 300 AD or so, there was no New Testament as we know it and people were basing their faith on the traditions set down by the fathers of the church along with some writings by Paul, John, Peter, etc. Around 300 AD, the leaders of the Church decided to take the writings available at that time relating to Christ and put together the New Testament. Some writings were excluded for political reasons, legitimate religious reasons and because parts of them were not consistent with most of the other writings of the times. This shaped the future of the Church and the world as we know it.

People that claim to be Christian and justify capital punishment or retribution of any kind by quoting the verse "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" are taking it out of context. The rest of the verse says "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord". This means we are not to pass judgment on anyone here on earth. Jesus illustrated this when he told the crowd about to stone the adulteress - "Those among you with no sin may cast the first stone". Christianity has been polluted by people who are quick to tell everyone what they are doing wrong and not looking for the underlying causes of the behavior. True, there are some people who can't be rehabilitated. My question in that situation is what happened to this person to make them this way. If they were mistreated as a young person, we have to be compassionate to that. We don't have to give them more opportunities to hurt others but we are required to care. If they have some short circuit in their brain that is telling them to do these things, they can't be held responsible for that. Again, we should remove them from society but we need to understand these people and care for them accordingly. No one that commits a violent crime is in their right mind. This doesn't excuse it but it might make a difference in our reviticism rate if we were to look at crimes as mental aberrations.

Bombing abortion clinics because the Bible told you to isn't going to stop abortions. The real problem needs to be addressed at the base level. Parents need to provide their daughters with the self-confidence and self-worth that will allow them to say no to situations in which they could become pregnant. Parents also need to cultivate some sense of responsibility in their sons. Too many young men are not at all concerned about life's consequences. They just roll on and let the chips fall where they may.

The bottom line is that proper reading of and reflection on the New Testament shows us that Christianity is not about pointing fingers or blaming people's misfortunes on some sin they're supposed to have committed. It’s more like Buddhism or Zen than what most people think Christianity is. Saying that you and only you know when the Judgement is going to be is exactly what Christ spoke against. Telling people that they are going to face eternal damnation for telling one lie is just that – a lie. God is, among other superlatives, infinitely merciful. Do you think a being who is perfect is going to condemn imperfect beings just because they didn’t tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God? I don’t purport to know the mind of God but logic tells us that an all knowing, all powerful, all merciful, all loving being (spirit, person?) that has the wherewithal to influence the emptiness of space to create the universe is going to be completely understanding of the human condition and accepts us just as we are, warts and all.