modvayne

I do not have issue with Christian faith, nor do I have issue with other religions. What I have issue with is the Church and it's power to encapsulate ulterior motives through "acts of good". It's purely political, and there's just as much immorality in their practice as what they generally claim to be externally "evil".

However, your biblical facts are not quite right. Catholicism is a part of Christianity, and it was through Theodosius I I believe to bring Christianity to the Roman Empire. Keep in mind, this is long after the death of Christ. Yet very much before the birth of the Catholic Church. The Romans were very much pagan and so long as it didn't interfere with their power, they were very tolerant of other exercised religions (though inferior to their own).

Jesus challenged the Jewish Temple because there was corruption in it, just as many of us see corruption in the Christian Church today. Because the Romans occupied the land, they were like the police, however the law was still kept within the Jewish system. It was the Jews who used the Romans to enforce their interpretation of the law and do the dirty work. Jesus was feared because he had a growing following and he had a very clear political point which he conveyed in humanistic terms and that would have a big impact on the Temple's economy, as their religion was the source of their law (though it was heavily, heavily manipulated).

The Bible also should not be viewed as a book, but as a collection of accounts by multiple authors, though not historians. You can only take the accounts with giant grains of salt that these people write in terms of their observations, and not their imaginations. This is where the modern day church fails to discern faith from fact. If fact dispels faith and can be proven, then it was faith in the wrong thing. If faith dispels fact, it was because the facts were not accurate. But I am speaking in terms of proof, not theory.

I think the Bible does give a very poignant look into civilization and cruelty among mankind. If not for so much change, all of the women on SG might be stoned to death, and the men might have their eyes removed. Personally, I would never want to belong to that world.