In Defence of Christianity...

The problem is that the most laudable qualities demanded by Jesus are the ones generally ignored by so-called christians under the pretext that "it's in the old testament." . Take a look at Jasmine for example. So like all good intentions, the Christian dogma usually paves the road to hell.

But, but what you are describing is not "religious dogma," or, to be more precise, "Christian dogma."

All right, mister nitpicking.😁

The Christian dogma demands that Christians behave a certain way but it's only partly successful, not the best part though.

Apologist for Christianity, tied to a biased over-importance of the Christian religion being exclusively capable of conferring morality, is how I read this.

I liked when the author commented about the possibility of Jesus actually existing as a regular person, and saying that at a minimum, his message was, 'In common with other rabbis, he expounded Scripture, enjoined his hearers to observe the central elements of Jewish law, and emphasised God’s love for the outcast.' And yet Christians do NOT follow Jewish law. His most basic ask, is not followed. Worse, given the translations of the Testament, which result in misinterpretations of the original text (which Jews still train our children to be able to read), they are not even aware of what those laws actually are.

And to see Christianity alone, instead of religion in general, as the sole conferrer of morality through the ages, is a bias and conceit that devout Christians are known for (and identical to the same conceit in Islam, and many other self-important religions).

But I do appreciate the author's message that religion is not, and should not be, used to understand the physical universe. It is a misuse of religion. Religion is for our relationship with G-d, and that is all. And what the author does not acknowledge, is that only someone of the author's education, and philosophical open-mindedness (and therefore, not 99.9% of his fellow Christians), do NOT use religion appropriately. They DO use it to understand the physical world. I see you doing so regularly.

If the author's message was that RELIGION, and not necessarily Christianity, was a positive, I would agree completely. But you self-proclaimed devout Christians cannot get past the idea that Christianity is somehow beneficially special and unique among religions. It's not. The ONLY part of Christianity that IS special and unique, is the degree of atrocities in history, the amount of suffering it caused, as compared to other religions. That's how it dominated. That is the price you Christians were willing, and are still willing, to pay to be number one.

If you cannot own that most basic aspect of your Religion, then you are hypocrites who do not seek the salvation of your fellow person, but instead seek the proliferation of your Religion as a business.

Freon

Do you believe that jasmine is a true Christian?

What is that dogma again? Specifically?

I know there are perspectives on history…there isn’t just “one authoritative timeline”…but not every perspective is true. Napoleon was not born in New Zealand and Einstein was not Nigerian. Even given infinite historical figures perspectives (and there are), both of those particular perspectives are wrong.

Claiming that Christianity is unparalleled as a religious belief in its atrocities is straight up wrong, but you're welcome to try to support the claim...you know, with facts and data.

“The more you live in the minds of the Romans, and I think even more the Greeks, the more alien they come to seem, the more frightening they come to seem. And what becomes most frightening really is a kind of quality of callousness that I think is terrifying because it is completely taken for granted. There’s a kind of innocent quality about it, nobody really questions it…Caesar is by some accounts slaughtering a million Gaul’s and enslaving another million in the cause of boosting his political career and far from feeling in anyway embarrassed about this, he’s promoting it, and when he holds his triumph, people are going through the streets of Rome carrying billboards boasting about how many people he’s killed. This is a really terrifying alien world and the more you look at it, the more you realize that it is built on systematic exploitation… In almost every way, this is a world that is unspeakably cruel to our way of thinking and this worried me more and more.” - Historian Tom Holland

Everybody does that. So that means that we're all christians? Sarcasm included are... I think it's a rather weak definition of Christianity. It's as if he wanted to make absolutely sure he wasn't leaving anybody behind. Like those politicians who want to appeal to as many people as possible and end up mildly displeasing everyone.