Quote:
Originally Posted by sleepy jack
One of the reasons I've had more of a problem with Christianity then any other religion is, I remember this from when I was younger, there was a Priest who was talking about how great Catholicism is because it doesn't make you shoulder everything and save yourself. That's because Jesus saves you and you can lean on him, he then made a smug remark about how other religions you have to work towards Heaven (I'm using this term broadly to refer to whatever any particular religion's ideal end result is) all on your own and rely on yourself. I've always had a problem with externalizing the blame and placing it on some metaphysical/fictitious being and just asking for forgiveness. I guess that's why if I had to believe in some sort of universal justice it would be karmic law as opposed to some sort of divine Abrahamic arbiter. Basically what I'm getting at with all this is I don't feel the modern Christian god (the American one that protects soccer moms and suburban housing) is very helpful, realistically or idealistically.
|
This is the great lie of both protestant and catholic Christianity. "sit back, relax, Jesus has gotcha' covered" (pun intended). The whole idea of substitutionary atonement (that Jesus died to provide a sacrifice for our sins) is something that was made up after his death, along with the immaculate conception, in order to deify him and make a religion surrounding his life that would actually work, as Karl Marx stated, as "The opiate of the masses". Because in all reality the Christianity that was being practiced before it was capitalized upon by the Roman empire was very dangerous and subversive. It was much better to have a peasant class that endured their own suffering for the sake of having some hope of a comforting afterlife than to have a guerrilla uprising that demanded equality and justice for all regardless of class, gender, or ethnicity, which was much closer to what the original christians were.
Jesus had a fine understanding of spiritual dynamics and the essence of "what" god is, and our right relationship with "him" (or her, or it). History has simply contorted that message to fit its own purpose and agenda.