2008年10月23日木曜日

The Way I See It

It probably happened something like this...as far I as I can tell right now.

1. There was one, several, or no real Jesus figures at that time.

2. Real or not, many or one, this person became some sort of religious figure.

3. Early Christianity had no set canon as far as I can tell. All of the Bible, Apocrypha, and Lost Books were read and used ...probably depending on the tribe.

4. The religion gained some sort of popularity but really picked up steam when it was basically picked reluctantly by Constantine to be the official state religion of Rome. The Council of Nicaea picked the books they deemed fit and so formed what we now call Helios Biblia...I mean Sun Book...I mean Holy Bible.

5. After that, it became basically the religion of the West. Before that, white people were basically these pagans. I feel that since it's a part of history...deeply rooted...some people might think that's reason enough for its validity.

The questions that come to mind are:

A.) Is Christianity in America and in the West in general the same as it was during its formative years?

B.) Isn't it dangerous that today's "Christian soldiers" don't even think about this kind of history?

C.) Shouldn't people be questioning their own community's version of Christianity? How do Christians in the Middle East view their religion?

D.) Don't you know that if you're a Christian, you basically entrust your whole life to this set of books that were picked by old white guy at a council a long time ago. Of course, this question never goes anywhere because people always say the council was "divinely led." In the words of Sam Harris, that's a conversation-ender.

Anyway, since I'm posting about this stuff, I thought I'd include a video of the Lord's Prayer...being sung in Aramaic, the language Jesus (if he existed, and if that actually matters) spoke. The first version I saw but cannot find now sounded much more "Middle Eastern" but this is not bad. It's just interesting to hear it in that language.

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