Well Sophia, that’s fine. However, what is hell? Are you sure it exists? And what is the criteria for judging who will be going or not? Are you saying I don’t get to go to “heaven” simply by virtue of being a good person? What about the Jehova’s Witnesses who believe they are the only ones who will get to the Promised Land, and then only 144,000 of them (more or less)?
Whatever you want to believe is fine for you. I personally don’t believe in heaven or hell. I have faced my mortality already, having “died” when I was 5. I understand what exists over there, and I firmly believe that all will find what they expect in the afterlife (for lack of a better word).
Anyway, I am referring to that special breed of Christian who simply refuse to accept that I have chosen my path and it is mine to follow. I am talking about those Christians who feel they have the right to dictate how every single person can behave. Who feel they have the right to legislate morality. And honestly, that isn’t limited to just Christians, but to any religious zealot.
I think it’s great you have a belief system and that it serves you. That’s wonderful. And if I ask you about it, feel free to tell me about it. But don’t assume that my spirituality is less than yours because it is different. I don’t judge. I don’t care if someone is gay. I don’t care if two men or two women want to marry. I do care that people are murdered daily in the name of some god or another.
When I was a little girl and I first heard about Jesus, I heard about a loving, kind, compassionate, tolerant, peaceful, altogether beautiful man. And I fell in love with him. And then I went to church and heard the priest read from Revelations “and woe to mothers nursing their children” and I thought, my Jesus wouldn’t do that would he?
Well, technically, no, he wouldn’t. Besides the fact that the Old Testament is a bastardization of the Torah and Jewish historical and religious parables, the god of that testament is a totally different god. And, by the way, Jesus never ever said he was “god”. His followers did.
Do your homework Sophia. ALL of the new testament was written by men who never knew “Jesus”. Even the name Jesus is inaccurate. It is the hellenization of a title.
The Christian religion was sanctioned at The Council of Nicea in Rome by the Emperor Constantine, a life long pagan. There they decided which books would and would not make up the new bible. It was a huge fist fight of different factions all trying to marry themselves into one religion. Constantine, the first pope, was hardly “St. Peter”. Most christian ritual, icons and factotems are based on a pagan counterpart. And, one cannot discount the contribution of venus and sun worship. And no, I didn’t get that from the da Vinci Code.
Finally, Sophia, I am neither a better nor a worse human than you or anyone. And I am certainly not a man.