Then there were decades and centuries of copying by hand, translations, numerous deviations based upon religious orthodoxy - Roman Catholic, King James, etc.
Now, here we are in the 21st Century and Jesus Christ has been injected, painfully and wrongly so, into the decision-making process of the United States Government.
Or so some in power have hoodwinked many into believing.
From all we know about Jesus of Nazareth, He was a Man of Peace. He never exactly said He was the "Son of God" - man laid that title upon Him. When queried on the subject, I believe His answer was, "My Kingdom is not of the Earth."
"Turn the other cheek." Who are the biggest warmongers in our Government? The guys who get the most political mileage, and voter support, out of spewing chunks about what great Christians they are: George W. Bush; Wayne Allard; Kit Bond; Tom Coburn; Thad Cochran; John Cornyn; James Inhofe; Pat Roberts; Jeff Sessions; et al. These are also the dudes who think torture is a good thing.
Jesus personally ran the moneychangers out of His Father's Temple. (He said on numerous occasions that God was Father to us all.) Has anyone seen one of these multi-thousand seat mega-churches? Have you been inside one? Some of them are like malls, complete with shops, snack bars, you name it.
Then guys like Smilin' Tom DeLay repeatedly uses the altar and bogus self-serving Christian-based charities to prop himself up as the "Holier-than-any-of-the-other-Guys" Congressman. For the uninitiated, Smiler DeLay was one of the first to hop full-force on the "Impeach Clinton" bandwagon; ran with Jack Abramoff and created the "K Street Project" which made him a multi-millionaire while receiving a paltry U.S. Congressional paycheck; is currently under several indictments, with more possibly to come, making him number one contender for "Most Crooked Politician of the Millennium."
These schmucks, and others in the cabal, just keep getting richer and fatter off the backs, blood, sweat, fears and anxieties of average, everyday Americans. They are directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands - I'd venture a guess at somewhere around 99% or more innocent noncombatants, aka collateral damage. With every death, their personal Earthly fortunes increase. Somewhere King George XLIII and the rest missed the passage about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a man of wealth to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
These Republicans who keep telling us what good Christians they are do nothing to show us that we should believe them. First, Christ was emphatic about how much more it meant to pray alone than in large groups - yet the really, really good Christians who hate Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, immigrants, anyone else who isn't one of them, keep building bigger and bigger churches to show everyone precisely how faithful they are.
Christ was instructive about keeping one's faith to one's self, as well as caring for the Earth. Yet, wherever I go there is no shortage of overpriced gas-guzzling, road-hogging SUVs and luxury sedans with some sort of Christian sticker or, what really irritates me, license plate. Jesus has absolutely no business on a license plate! Then there are those idiots who wear bloodied Christ t-shirts to places where folks go to have fun, like baseball games and theme parks! (The last time we went to a Six Flags it was noted that these types of clothing had been included in the "inappropriate attire" rules.)
When reading or listening to news sources outside of the U.S., they can't understand the level of fanaticism that has sprung up here. It's like a virus, and I myself can, but at the same time don't, comprehend why so many people allow themselves to be so easily swayed by preachers. Our friends and allies, the average citizens of England, Germany, South Korea, for example, are frightened, as am I, at the effect of evangelicals over Government in the U.S.A.
Do you think for one minute Jerry Falwell or Oral Roberts or many of the others would be so "fervent" if there weren't huge bucks to be made, not to mention White House and other red carpet invitations? These guys, virtually all preachers who take to the airwaves, have egos and appetites of Godlike proportions in need of constant feeding and sating.
The same is true, possibly more so, with the little guys who run these off-the-wall churches with maybe 100 parishioners, give or take, one finds all over - mostly in small rural communities. These churches generally broke away from already hardcore religious groups because the folks who comprise them didn't think there was enough harshness in the regular church's interpretation of The Bible.
I cannot understand how they derive harshness and intolerance from belief in a Man whose message was gentility and understanding. Many religions disallow drink, yet Jesus' first recorded "miracle" was turning water into wine. The fanatics insist it was without alcohol content, but the Catholic version described it as better than the store bought wine the hosts served.
The funny thing, when one of these extreme Christians tosses out a passage to make his or her point, more often than not it's from the Old Testament! Say "God," they reply "Christian."
And, despite their incessant referrals to the Old Testament, many of them equate Jews with Satanists. As for Muslims, they're just downright evil beings whom, as Ann Coulter put it, those who won't convert to Christianity should just be wiped out.
Now, here we are in the 21st Century and Jesus Christ has been injected, painfully and wrongly so, into the decision-making process of the United States Government.
Or so some in power have hoodwinked many into believing.
From all we know about Jesus of Nazareth, He was a Man of Peace. He never exactly said He was the "Son of God" - man laid that title upon Him. When queried on the subject, I believe His answer was, "My Kingdom is not of the Earth."
Jesus personally ran the moneychangers out of His Father's Temple. (He said on numerous occasions that God was Father to us all.) Has anyone seen one of these multi-thousand seat mega-churches? Have you been inside one? Some of them are like malls, complete with shops, snack bars, you name it.
Then guys like Smilin' Tom DeLay repeatedly uses the altar and bogus self-serving Christian-based charities to prop himself up as the "Holier-than-any-of-the-other-Guys" Congressman. For the uninitiated, Smiler DeLay was one of the first to hop full-force on the "Impeach Clinton" bandwagon; ran with Jack Abramoff and created the "K Street Project" which made him a multi-millionaire while receiving a paltry U.S. Congressional paycheck; is currently under several indictments, with more possibly to come, making him number one contender for "Most Crooked Politician of the Millennium."
These schmucks, and others in the cabal, just keep getting richer and fatter off the backs, blood, sweat, fears and anxieties of average, everyday Americans. They are directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands - I'd venture a guess at somewhere around 99% or more innocent noncombatants, aka collateral damage. With every death, their personal Earthly fortunes increase. Somewhere King George XLIII and the rest missed the passage about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a man of wealth to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
These Republicans who keep telling us what good Christians they are do nothing to show us that we should believe them. First, Christ was emphatic about how much more it meant to pray alone than in large groups - yet the really, really good Christians who hate Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, immigrants, anyone else who isn't one of them, keep building bigger and bigger churches to show everyone precisely how faithful they are.
Christ was instructive about keeping one's faith to one's self, as well as caring for the Earth. Yet, wherever I go there is no shortage of overpriced gas-guzzling, road-hogging SUVs and luxury sedans with some sort of Christian sticker or, what really irritates me, license plate. Jesus has absolutely no business on a license plate! Then there are those idiots who wear bloodied Christ t-shirts to places where folks go to have fun, like baseball games and theme parks! (The last time we went to a Six Flags it was noted that these types of clothing had been included in the "inappropriate attire" rules.)
When reading or listening to news sources outside of the U.S., they can't understand the level of fanaticism that has sprung up here. It's like a virus, and I myself can, but at the same time don't, comprehend why so many people allow themselves to be so easily swayed by preachers. Our friends and allies, the average citizens of England, Germany, South Korea, for example, are frightened, as am I, at the effect of evangelicals over Government in the U.S.A.
Do you think for one minute Jerry Falwell or Oral Roberts or many of the others would be so "fervent" if there weren't huge bucks to be made, not to mention White House and other red carpet invitations? These guys, virtually all preachers who take to the airwaves, have egos and appetites of Godlike proportions in need of constant feeding and sating.
The same is true, possibly more so, with the little guys who run these off-the-wall churches with maybe 100 parishioners, give or take, one finds all over - mostly in small rural communities. These churches generally broke away from already hardcore religious groups because the folks who comprise them didn't think there was enough harshness in the regular church's interpretation of The Bible.
I cannot understand how they derive harshness and intolerance from belief in a Man whose message was gentility and understanding. Many religions disallow drink, yet Jesus' first recorded "miracle" was turning water into wine. The fanatics insist it was without alcohol content, but the Catholic version described it as better than the store bought wine the hosts served.
The funny thing, when one of these extreme Christians tosses out a passage to make his or her point, more often than not it's from the Old Testament! Say "God," they reply "Christian."
And, despite their incessant referrals to the Old Testament, many of them equate Jews with Satanists. As for Muslims, they're just downright evil beings whom, as Ann Coulter put it, those who won't convert to Christianity should just be wiped out.
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