Warning, die-hard religious types, please refrain from reading this. You will probably not like it.


In my opinion, faith and religion are like a screwdriver and an aeroplane, completely different things. The first is a pure thing, comes from inside everyone and differs from person to person, and the second is a well prepared, organized, time tested and proven method of making people obey the will, motives or faith of some OTHER persons.

If i fell down some stairs, a christian may feel his duty to lift me up and care if I am alright, a muslim may do the exact same thing. But their God is quite different, because someone thought so. I respect God's creations, and maybe deep down i think he exists. It's his so called "representatives" that I don't like.

For me, faithful people are caring equally for themselves and others, pray to whatever higher entity they like, and seek no harm. Abortion clinic bombers (so called christians) think they have more faith than the people they accuse as murderers of the unborn. Same for the guys who throw rocks to a poor woman who is pregnant after being raped against her will. If I could, I would happily push the button to eradicate both categories, no remorse.

The Bible is actually a compilation of older stories, "modernized" and adapted to fit the trends of the era it was written. How the world came to exist, resurrection matters, battles between good and evil and many other things documented in the Bible, were elements of other religions well before Jesus came to earth and Christianity was born. Maybe in 3000 years from now, some other religion will have its place, and people will laugh about then "ancient" beliefs about someone who was reportedly born by a virgin, as people today don't really think Osiris or Poseidon existed.

If there is a God, we must be prepared to call him with many names, and NOT attach adjectives like "real", "good", "right", "true" and so on. God, Allah, Zeus etc are all the same thing, they are just names, describing, each culture's and era's version of a higher entity. Scots have whiskey, Americans have bourbon. They both can get you drunk easily, they look very similar, and can make an ugly woman prettier than the best plactic surgeon can. Yet they have different names and flavors.

I always wondered why is the church here in Greece called an "orthodox christian church" (orthodox in old Greek means something along the lines of "the right belief"). Other christian religions feel the same, so why are we the right one? Who decides it? Answer is nobody, we just happened to have a quarrel with the western side of our church some centuries ago, probably for financial or power control matters, so we decided to detach and call ourselves "right". The same people fought each other to decide if we should have icons in churches or not...look around you if you happen to visit a Greek church and guess who won that battle.

Last, for sure Jesus did not have an angelic WHITE face, sporting well groomed and somewhat curly shoulder length hair, as depicted in Western icons. He probably looked more like the Byzantine icons depict him, dark skin, dark long hair.

Lukitoh, I think you are a very good person and I sincerely respect your faith, and your commitment to it, but not your religion, or anyone's in particular. And no matter whatever fanciful shapes the oil takes, I would better like a cure for cancer happening, or wars stopping, in any shape. Or a Tyros on my doorstep

Sorry for the rant,
Theodore

PS, Sheriff, you English is definitely getting better and better. In the beginning, months ago, it felt a little like you were writing in German and then using a translator like Babelfish, I don't have that feeling now. Keep up the good work!

[This message has been edited by trident (edited 07-26-2005).]