Writing last week’s blog, I was confronted again with my criticism of church. For the ones of you who don’t know: I believe in God. Being maybe not what church tells us, but “some higher entity”.

Researching on “heresy”, I sure stumbled over Galileo Galilei. Church-accused of heresy and put under house arrest for the remainder of his life, we nevertheless all know today that church was wrong and our world is not the center of the universe.
Galileo’s approach taking Augustine’s position on Scripture, can be interpreted today as the reminder that the bible was written by people who never heard of contraception, Internet or space flight … Trying to interpret things they could not understand they used metaphors.
So I believe the Bible and especially the life of some Jesus of Nazareth to have a good ethic and moral message, but written and rewritten in centuries after Christ lived, from hearsay, tales and songs, church only declared Christ to be son of god a good 435 years later.

I also deny to condemn people with other believes to hell, as it was Christ who died on the cross to take the sins of humanity until the final day of judgement at the end of the world. Being a Jew himself, I doubt that he made or wanted any differentiation between confessions: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing”.

And he might have known of some religions, but I am sure the people later interpreting his life never imagined Australia or the Americas. Though isn’t it important to believe in God? Looking at the different churches and religions that raised from the Old Testimony and believing in the same God, they are their worst enemies. Thinking about Manitou as the god of the Indians, his “ghosts” as the angels, I don’t see, why it should not simply be a different understanding of God and his angels, stemming “naturally” from a different history. And in fact, they understood their position as a caretaker of nature, not rulers and destroyers (what blasphemy).

It’s not about church, or the Bible, it is about being a good man. If you interpret the Bible (or the Koran or any other religious foundation) to justify murder, war or theft, you are evil and have a sick understanding of what Christ, Mohammed, Buddha or whoever you believe in wanted.

Is it heresy to question interpretations of church? Is it heresy after millenia of proven mistakes they made? Didn’t church fall in with the Third Reich and condemn Jews happily to death? Did they not enrich themselves by stealing their money? Did they not commit murder and sanction war – in history to date? Are they not accused through time and again to abuse children? No, I do not believe in church. I believe there are many decent people in the churches. About the system I agree with Lazarus Long:

“The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.”

And yes, by the way: “The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.”

Food for Thought
comments welcome