religion

I love discussing religion with people that accept their religion on blind faith, with little regard for reality or of what and how their religion came into existence.  And of course when I tell them that I believe in a polytheistic religion, they think of me as a pagan and ever so lord it over me.  Sigh, I do give them points for going out into the world and knocking on doors and going into strangers homes.  But my beliefs have very little to do with paganism.  And if I am willing to listen to them, shouldn't they also listen to me?  Sadly, not one has ever taken the time to listen to me tell them the fallacies of their beliefs in their bible.  I have an older brother that is a born again holy roller and he will NOT accept any unkindness toward what he tells me is unquestionably the WORD OF GOD.  His bible, that he quotes from and demonizes science with contains the end all be all answer to any challenge brought to him by cognizant thought provoking people, well, me anyway.

One of two questions to him, and to those who have suffered the uncomfortable interrogation by me as part of their penance and attempt to garner the good faith of Jehovah, is simple; how can the bible be the word of god when it has been changed and rewritten so many times throughout history?  I don't accept the answer that is always given and is given with the UNCONDITIONAL belief in the sanctity of the book itself as the word of god.  I don't buy it.  It is a book that began a sort of formal existence at the Council of Nicaea in 325 from over 1000 different written accounts of the life of Jesus and his teachings.  Some of those there at the Council have written that there were over 20 thousand, but this is generally the accepted number of actual written documents brought before the Council for consideration of the main question.  And in there somewhere Emperor Constantine and a majority of those attending agreed upon the deification of Jesus.  This is a fact, as having been written into the notes and then the writings of several bishops in attendance.  Yes it was true that many of the writings brought to the Council, and the predominate teachings at the time were that Jesus was the son of god; however there were still many that believed Jesus to have been a prophet.  Constantine convened the Council with the express mission to unify christianity even though he himself was pagan and had little knowledge of the belief system itself.  His desire to unify the predominate faith of the time was purely political, and so those first bibles were written to influence the most people most of the time.  And no, the Council of Nicaea did not at anytime write the definitive bible.  Constantine ordered some bibles written for him to use, and in fact many others did as well, using as a basis, some of those 1000 different and VASTLY conflicting canonical writings.  Each of the bishops that ordered bibles written for their use, in fact chose what they wanted in them, and then created their own version.  And none were written in English, with most in Aramaic and Greek.

Skip ahead 1200 years and thus came that all powerful and unquestionable, King James Bible.  Written, or rather translated from over twenty different versions.  That survived the dark ages and inquisition.  And held to be the absolute word of god on earth.  Or in actuality, the word of god's prophet here on earth.  Jesus was after all, a prophet.  But my other question is why does your prophet supersede the teachings of other prophets?  Why does your bible, written by men, and based on the teachings of a prophet who by political need was affirmed as being a deity completely discount the Vedas, of which were written some two thousand years before the prophet of the bible, and were written as sung to men, by the gods themselves.  And haven't changed at all.  And for that matter, why don't the teachings of later prophets have any place in the world of the followers of that bible?  The teachings of the Bab, the Koran, all give importance to the work, but further the word of god with their teachings.  Yet, they are not given any credence at all, and I am not sure why.  In my estimation, it would seem that anyone wanting to know about, and to follow the teachings of god, would try to understand the teachings of ANY prophet of god.

I guess I am wrong.

A couple of years ago I was the fortunate recipient of the favors of a very attractive young woman of the 4 foot 6 inch stature.  The obvious difficulties aside,(I'm 6 foot 2) as we lay in each other's arms, she asked me a question that was somewhat unusual, she asked me if I prayed every night.  After I told her no, she asked me if I was a Christian.  When I said no, she then ordered me out of her domicile.  She said she could never be with a non christian.  A bit late, considering that the activities we had participated in the last 3 or so hours were probably not in compliance with her religion.  I mean we were not married, and yet she was, to a man in prison and of whom she never bothered to divorce in the previous 5 years.  But we did talk a few days later and I attempted to convey my beliefs to her.  She was intrigued, and listened.   She, like so many people, had no concept of how the book she worships as the true word of god came into being.  I explained the Vedas, and she guffawed and believed me to be a pagan.  I think that this story typifies how people, AmeriKans, feel about non Indian people believing in the Hindu religion. And even believing that their god wrote the bible in English for them to sit in church and have it read to them every Sunday so they could be bored out of their minds with crap that has little relevance to their world and which they usually ignore anyway.  

Is it so hard to conceive.  All religions preach the same thing, Be good.  Don't lie, cheat, steal, murder or do bad things.  Why do all the Christian people in the world seem to not follow those edicts as told to them in the book that they worship, however it came into being?

UPDATE Friday at 3:00pm

I have been writing here about six months now, and written about 120 posts, mostly to do with how the FDA, Monsanto, and the big agribusinesses have been doing a pathetic job of protecting your health as a consumer.  I have gotten a few emails, a few comments on the blog.  But today, after this innocent entry about religion and I had 27 emails in my folder when I came home from the farmers market up in Carefree today.  27 emails.  I'm sorry, I am not a terrorist, I am not a disciple of satan, I am not uneducated, and most of all, I am VERY religious.  More so than most people.  I practice the basic tenets of my beliefs, again, I do not steal, cheat my fellow man, lie to them, hurt them, kill them.  I am a half Jew by birth, raised a Southern Baptist, lived with Mormons and loved that philosophy, and understand religion probably better than most; and I certainly am tolerant of the beliefs and aspirations of my fellow man, or woman, just so long as they live their lives the same way.  Am I a Hindu?  Does it matter?  I wrote that bit because once again my life has been turned upside down by someone that claims to be Christian, doing VERY UNChristian like actions.  If it makes you feel better to chastise me about what I have written about your bible, then please at least look up this stuff on Wikipedia at the very least and find out what you are condemning me for first, maybe it will open your eyes a little when your find out that I'M RIGHT about all that stuff.