Ruminations on Christianity

Old Testament says God is the author of Good and Evil.

New Testament believers claim God is good and sent Jesus to redeem us. They go on to claim that only Satan is evil. NT doctrine now denies God is author of Good and Evil as dogma.

Instead dogma rejects Old Testament, except for brief verses taken out of context to prove Jesus is God, despite OT in 10 Commandments stating not to take any other god before Him.

Yet Jesus is recorded in NT as denying he is Son of God, referring to himself as son of man. Likewise, Jesus through Paul praises everyone who is self sacrificing and glorifies God through their actions to be "sons of God".

Thus Jesus suggests that any person who follows him also becomes God's chosen.

However, Jesus' example leads many Christians to willingly subject themselves to martyrdom since Jesus' time, not unlike martyrs of Islam.

Indeed, both Islam and Christianity have their martyrs. Whereas all of Christendom's martyrs eventually become saints (angels), all of Islam's are promised a place in Paradise.

I posit that Christianity does not give very clear instructions on how to be good.

By leaving it up to each person to either choose doctrine or one's own conscience to follow the 10 Commandments, or worse to ignore them, Christianity condones asceticism. Indeed, Christianity also finds psychological rationalization to not be useful, rejecting science and embracing rationalizations for evil based on superstition to explain why most people succumb to temptation.

Even though prayer is good for resisting evil, the prudent find the best solution to be not thinking about evil or even taking action based on evil after talking it over with friends and family who give good advice.

Indeed, a loner who is a Christian, who only relies on God's word, may soon become deluded without wise counsel.

IMHO this is why most Christians would suggest such a person to seek help from a doctor. His lifestyle and reaction to such a suggestion would determine if he is possessed by the Devil (mentally unbalanced) or by God.

IMHO the Protestant religious fanatics only rely on the NT, whilst the Catholic fanatics rely on both OT and NT.

However, in most cases, it is when the fanatic rejects the body of Christ (other Christians) that s/he becomes open to "demon possession" a.k.a paranoia based on religion.

In most forms of Christianity without a ritual to rid a person afflicted of such possession, they ask such a person to seek medical help.

In Pentacostal and in Catholic congregation, an exorcism is sought, usually when the afflicted individual is viewed as a vital part of that congregation. Most of the time, this is done for group harmony, which is why sometimes exorcisms may worsen the afflicted individual.

The more prudent congregation, on encountering a religious fanatic who they suspect of being possessed by the Devil, should also have as backup a medical doctor and the willingness for their leadership to cosign for this poor unfortunate person, so that s/he also gets psychiatric care, should the exorcism not work.

I have found that in the case of outsiders, usually church politics will force the leadership to reject anyone whose presence is not vital to the continued existence of that congregation.

This too is group dynamics in action: an outsider would threaten group harmony within the congregation. Jesus called such a person "a wolf in sheep's clothing" if s/he leads a few members of the congregation astray. Thus, the onus on the outsider is to act and behave in a manner appropriate to the ethics and morals consistent with the congregation's doctrines.

IMHO this is why outsiders of a different religious background will still be treated differently from an outsider of the same faith. For their actions and motivations will be influenced their religious upbringing.

As well, the leadership of a religious congregation will rarely admonish its flock about the folly of gossip and its effect on treating outsiders differently from one of their flock.

To absolve themselves of God's supposed sacrifice of innocents, Israel's enemies were presented as idolators. Furthermore, to make Christians and their loving God distinct, they raised up Jesus to God's level, and may have turned to anti-Semitism out of ignorance about Jesus' origins.

This is despite the historical record which shows that Christian fanatics murdered a woman for being a pagan, who did not perform any ritual sacrifices, but was killed because of early Christian antipathy towards science, which is considered to be pagan because Christians assume it rejects God just because no sacrifices were made to God in a mathematician's home or in one of their schools.

Actually, Greek philosophy was considered pagan because of ignorance by early Christians, which was perpetuated by idle talk based on hearsay.

Indeed, gossip and rumors have led many innocent people to death since time immemorial. When they are validated by philosophers and politicians, then they evnetually become a matter of public opinion and law.

IMHO religion has a lot to do with politics since England's King James authorized his Bible writers with these words:

"In the Beginning..."