Jesus

The Bible is a wonderful piece of literature, when viewed as such, as are many religious writings that can and do bring meaning into the lives of people. I do believe that Jesus was a real man and that some of the events recorded about his life have some basis in actual events. But,  his followers didn't understand their own religious writings that well and misinterpreted many points to try to prove that he was the messiah and wrote a lot of funny things in the New Testament in that pursuit. 

Careful scrutiny of scripture will usually tell us quite a bit about the authors and these were clearly men who didn't understand Hebrew scripture or prophecy -- of course... if they did they would have been as skeptical of Jesus as the Sadducees and Pharisees -- all in all -- I would have preferred hanging out with those early Christians to the stuck up and pious temple crowd.

Jesus hung out with blue collar workers, prostitutes, alcoholics and party mongers. Average people. It's no wonder they didn't know scripture or how to interpret it. They were fishermen. Roughly the equivalent of modern day truck drivers if you think about it. I think I like this Jesus.

And, I believe in Christ power.. that is the power that is within us to start over... forgive ourselves... and aspire to something greater.

Sin and Christ Power

In Hebrew sin was considered a state of being rather than an act of doing. It is the state of being that as humans we are the unique animal that can comprehend the ideal and look at ourselves and realize we are nowhere close to potential. Christ power gives people the ability to realize that in spite of our shortcomings we are ok and that no matter what kind of effort we were to put forth we would always come up short of our own expectations for ourselves and others -- this is no excuse to give up or stop improving -- but it is rather the freedom to know that when we fuck up we are not fuck-ups.

As Christianity became institutionalized it lost sight of this original innocence. Sin became specific acts which could be confessed and forgiven. The power of forgiveness was transferred to 'holy' men instead of a Gnostic experience within a person. In short -- Christianity became just like the pious temple power Jesus defied. 

Religion

Does that mean the Pope is bad? Not at all. Organized religion can do many wonderful things and there are billions of well meaning decent people who are members of those churches, synagogues, mosques... etc. etc.

In years past I too spent much time involved in a congregation of a Christian sect and there were a lot of good things to be done and many people enriched their lives there...

I think though it becomes limiting at some point and I tire of people arguing over theology and people claiming to know 'the truth'. It grates on me (since obviously 'The Truth' is my domain). 

Most 'religious' people are just afraid of what they don't know -- of the world -- of failure -- of success --  and they mask it by acting high and mighty and trying to impose a lot of restrictions on everybody else. I don't feel the need to overthrow and eliminate organized religion -- or to even evangelize my viewpoint. I'm content right here in my own psychotic oikos...