"The Church ought to be the incarnation of Christ and to the extent that it preserves the Christ story it actually is one with the Christ." Exactly and the church is not perfect because Christ is not perfect and Christ is not perfect because god is not perfect.

The point is not so much that god does not exist , the point is god , christianity (or Islam) or the values claimed by those cults are what the followers claim it to be , including its symbolism. For me and other that I know and probably a great many of Christianities victims the cult Christ is more of a symbol of repression and moral corruption. Christians will deny it but it is reality, no wonder Christianity as a whole has never been able to learn from history. Not so ironic since Christianity denies even its own true history.

The kingdom of god is a claim by Jihadists and Crusaders. The Kingdom of God was achieved by Mussolini and the Taliban. The kingdom of god has no currency in my world and the world of many. What is it then ? a threat to impose dictates.

Evidently the world is expected to give the Christian the right to believe in his god but nobody has the right not to believe. So the world is doomed to suffer the anti morals that religion forces upon it both legally and illegally.

Its easy to be smug about the immortality of cults such as Christianity given the polital pandering that gives the feeling to Christians this is their reign. A Hindu friend is absolutely beside himself that Christians worship a false god to him it is deplorable.
Growing is Christian converts to Hinduism.

Waterboy I have no doubt in 10 - 15 years we will still be debating this except you and Philo will be arguing for the virtues of following Vishnu and Siva. This isnt only about Jesus fiction, all religion follows the same pattern of superciliousness.

waterboy,

I would posit that if the Western Da Li Lama entered Tibet, and, a High Priest and the Chinese Da Li Lama, took the Western Da Li Lama to Guo Jinlong [Governor of the Tibet, Special Administrative Region of China], and, further, the Da Li Lama was crucified along with two video-CD pirates, midst the Chinese New Year celebrations, there would be a secular historical record maintained

Philo,

"I prefer Abelard and Luther, to Origen and Augustine." - O.

Would you group these persons as progressives or institutions,as I have? That is, relative to their time?

West,

I waterboy appreciates the point of the Tibetan Tidbit.

Philo,

Institutionalists... that is :-) o.

West,

I think waterboy is all leaked out. I expected a comment or two on the Dai Li Lama remark.

Your clarity of mind is appreciated.

Waterboy,

No more fertile scriptures to hydrate? An eye dropper of fact does not go far in a Simpson Desert of theocrasaic frabrication. I wish your religious compatriates would read real history.

Cheers,

O.

Christianity holds itself hostage through its regulated spiritualism that holds morals and spirituality and self worth including the worth of others to a rigid fiction. It holds itself hostage to, absolutist assertions which it can not be defended and the very same assertions are untruths which then the Christian is abandoned by the nature of its god leaving the believer tangled in a web of absurdity.

Christianity is based on a system well tested since long before Minotaur at Knossos. The believer is ordered to listen to the master. A system of hierarchy and power, where the most powerful speaks for god and the subordinates listen and take each word as absolute. The preacher is a far cry from Lucy’s hunting and gathering great grandchildren where the spirits of trees and antelope were read not by the powerful but by those with the talent. The world back then spoke to us apes, it still does but now its called science. The spirits looked for by Lucy’s great grand children are sought by departments of agriculture, fisheries and bureaus of meteorology’s world wide. Long has religious man gone deaf and blind to the world? Now it is not what the external patterns which are important it is what is in the believer’s head that counts.

Ego ? Yes a symptom is my words upset the believer but god does not knock on my door to contradict me. Religion is Machiavellian, proof is religion is defended with claims of critical mass, can’t prove god does not exist, trust us we are moral, the non believer is immoral. Christians follow Paul and even then are not Christians but Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans ect ect …Loyalty to the club is the most important than truth.

Siddhartha Gautama warned that religion destroys meaning of spirit that religion creates a false perspective pandering to the desires of the believer. We hear Jesus is good but when we actually read Jesus without built up expectations of him he is not good. We hear that Christian values should be taught in schools but Christian values only serve Christian hierarchies.