Comment on Christianity = Love

Submitted by Tony Iveson (United Kingdom), Oct 9, 2013 at 08:35

I doubt the existence of any form of God - it is likely that it is all made up by human beings. But it may still be argued that although Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all fiction, the fact that they have all exercised major influence on the world,and still do, makes them relevant and important. They have all affected our laws and our cultures in the past and they are doing so still.

To rubbish the view that Christianity does not = love is to misunderstand what I said. I don't doubt that many Christians through the ages have behaved badly, there is far too much historical evidence of that to doubt it. Yes, Christians do behave in a non-Christian way. But, and this is the important point, when they have done so it has been against the requirements of their God's instructions as laid down in the 4 gospels. In fact, when they behave in a violent way, Christians are more in tune with the instructions given by the Jewish concept of God or the Islamic version of God. A great historical example of this is the crusades. The muslims were making war against Christians because ther holy book lets them. According to the life code given by their conecpt of God, they were doing nothing wrong at all. The Christian crusaders, far from "turning the other cheek", were making war against the muslims and killing them. They were therefore behaving directly against the instructions given by Jesus in the 4 gospels.

I made it clear in a previous post that none peaceful behaviour by people who call themselves Christian is not acceptable to the Christian version of God as presented in the 4 gospels. When Christians behave cruelly and oppressively to others they are committing an offence against their God's requirements as reported in the 4 gospels.

Christianity - the 4 gospels - not the rest of the New Testament or the Old Testament or the Jewish stuff or the Islamic stuff - only Christ's reported words and life story - are peaceful. There is nothing about killing people or punishing them for various "crimes". Islam's and Judaism's books on behaviour and crime and punishment both contain bloodthirsty instructions to kill and maim in prescribed circumstances. The personality/character of the Jewish God and the Islamic God are similar - both seem to require blood sacrifice, punishment and death. The Christian version - as written about in the 4 gospels - does not expect death and maiming - in fact it is always forbidden.

There is no getting away from this. It is factual. Look at the books themselves, I have. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be saying this.

It seems to me that religious people feel fear when their religion is challenged. Perhaps it would take an atheist scientist to appreciate that what I have presented here are facts. Infact, I have done that with atheists in the past. Because they have no religion, they simply read the texts looking for evidence like they would in a laboratory and find that Judaic and Islamic holy books do contain instructions to act violently but that the 4 gospels don't. It doesn't mean that they suddenly convert to Christianity or believe in God - this is not a question of proving that a religion is true and others are false. But it does mean that a scientist accepts the evidence that the Christian code for living as laid down by the supposed words of Jesus, is a non-violent code for living.

Setting God aside (because for the purposes of this argument he doesnt exist or need to exist), I assert once again that the Christian code for living is vastly superior to that given byJudaism or Islam because they both allow violence and the Christian code does not. The only way you can rationally disagree with this point of view is if you believe that violence is acceptable in some circumstances. Neither Judaism or Islam deny this. Their codes for living say violence is accpeptable sometimes. Again - read the books - they're not secret - all are publicly available in any library or book shop throughout the world.

I have banged on and tried to drum home what to me is self-evident. Perhaps, some will see it now who did not see it before. But I doubt it.

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