A brief history of Christianity

 

Jesus (who really did exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus) started preaching inclusivity, peace, love and understanding in Palestine, and picked up a few followers. His teachings upset the religious authorities because it undermined their power, so they conspired to have him killed.

About 50 years later Saul ("Paul") picked up the stories of Jesus and adapted it into a religion, largely by putting all the threats and punishments back in, borrowed from traditional Judaism.  He called it "Christianity".

Missionaries spread this "Christianity" thing far and wide, but each telling a slightly different, and in many cases contradictory version of the story, so in AD340 the Council of Nicea got together and “standardised” it, cutting out the bits they did not like.

The Council of Nicea produced a Bible, but they wrote it in Latin so that ordinary people could not read it, thus enshrining the power of the Church to “interpret” it.  

Seeking to strengthen its power base and finances the Church invented lots of new twiddles not mentioned in the Bible (but as only they could read it, it didn’t matter) – e.g. “Purgatory”, where you go after death until a relative still alive pays the church to release you, and “Papal indulgences”, where you pay in advance before committing a sin – which succeeded in making it one of the largest and richest non-governmental organisations the world has ever known.

Martin Luther came along and actually read The Bible, as created by the aforementioned Council of Nicea.  He realised that the Church was not sticking to it and proposed a new “back to the Bible” version of Christianity, Protestantism (because they were protesting against the Church).

In England, King Henry VIII had fallen out with the Pope, who wouldn’t allow him to divorce his older wife for the younger, sexier Anne Boelyn.  He sided with Luther and created the Anglican Church.  There were now two versions of Christianity: the “Catholic” variant and the “Protestant” variant.

This “rejecting the established church” idea caught on and soon Protestant Christianity was split into many sects, divided over trivial matters of doctrine, each of which claimed all the others was “not really Christian”. 

This is pretty much where we are today.

A poser for any Christians reading this

Imagine there’s a man travelling in the depths of the Amazon jungle, who comes across an isolated village with a tribe of people living happy, mutually supportive and caring lives.  Unbeknown to him, the tribe had never previously encountered anybody from outside their village, and they do not welcome him.  He is armed with an assault rifle and in a fit of rage he slaughters all of them; men, women and children.

When the killing is complete he is overcome by an overwhelming fit of remorse.  There are none left that he can save, so in his anguish he falls to his knees and earnestly prays to God for forgiveness.  He prays for some time, going back over his entire life asking for forgiveness for everything.  Exhausted and overwhelmed he dies as soon as he has said Amen.

Now, according to the Bible as I understand it, two things then happen.

1) The man, who has asked God for forgiveness for all his sins, and who has died before he can commit any more, will be immediately welcomed into Heaven.

2) The people in the village, who have never heard of Jesus Christ, and hence have not accepted him as their saviour, go to Hell.

Is this correct?

2024 has begun well

First we're kept awake until 02:40am by the disco on the Bridge, which we measured at 84dB on our balcony, making sleep impossible.  In the immortal words of Lt. Roger Murtaugh in the film Lethal Weapon: "I'm too old for this kinda shit".

Then we discover that a hit-and-run driver has damaged our car while attempting to drive home past our house.  One can only assume they were drunk, which is why they carried on and did not stop to report the incident and apologise.  And as the incident occurred some time after 2am, we did not hear the crash because of the loud music.

2024?  Things can only get better.

Facebook Friends

I guess if we're all completely honest, we do not actually know all that well many - possibly, most - of the people we are "friends" with on Facebook. I certainly have "friends" who I've never met. Some are friends-of-friends; some are even people who asked to be my friend and I thought "why the hell not" and accepted their friend request. I presume I'm not unusual in this.

Perhaps, therefore, I should have predicted that it would happen, but I saw a post today from a "friend" openly supporting the atrocities being committed in Palestine by the Israeli army. I was shocked to discover that someone with whom I had occasionally exchanged greetings could hold views so completely opposed to mine, and so abhorrent to me.

[For the record, I do not support Hamas, or approve of its use of violence against anybody.]

So when people tell you that Facebook is self-supporting because you only see opinions that you already agree with, it isn't true.

And, incidentally, did you know that you can't block a Group on Facebook? So if one of your "friends" shares posts from the Group with which you disagree, you can't block the Group to avoid being annoyed by the posts - all you can do is block the friend.

What a strange thing Social Media is (surely an oxymoron).

Happy New Year

 According to the BBC World Service news at 10am this morning, there's been a major earthquake in Japan and five nuclear power plants are at risk; the Israelis and Palestinians have this morning continued trading death and destruction; The Ukrainians have continued trading death and destruction this morning with the Russian invaders; and Britain may be about to go to war with Iran in Yemen.

Happy 2024!