Your response has confirmed my beliefs. I too have thought long and hard on this topic and it is the process of thought that causes the experience.
As far as the Christian religion goes, it has corrupted the message of Christ and robbed hundreds of generations of the true meaning of His words. This was done deliberately, reading Eusebius it doesn’t take long to see the Roman Empire was facing a very difficult time in the couple of centuries after Christ’s death - disappearance. The true Christian religion was spreading among the population of the Eastern Mediterranean and it was affecting the ranks of the Roman army. Eusebius states that members of the army were threatened with expulsion and loss of rank, pay and pension if they did not renounce Christ and return to the state sanctioned religion and its rituals. Not all did, many stuck by their convictions and faced the consequences – it cost some of them their lives.
Constantine I realised that to quell the problem the state needed to adopt the religion and set in place the transfer of Christianity into the Roman Empire. First, Constantine adopted a policy of tolerance to all religions and presided over the First Ecumenical Council, it seems ironic that a pagan would preside over a monotheistic religion – even though it is claimed Constantine converted to Christ on his death bed, it does smack of political opportunism.
So, the changes made from Christ’s true message to the chimera of state and religion, known as the Roman Catholic religion, was the adoption of Yahweh as God and the Torah as the precursor to the New Testament. Jesus was relegated to a Son of the higher authority God. As God was back in charge, authority was passed to the Monarchies by being anointed by the clergy – God’s reps. The Monarchy, which included the Pope, could command others to go and declare war and kill in God’s name – a very corrupt interpretation of love thy enemies. But, it was ok because God gave His Son’s life to wash away your sins.
And this, my friends is why the world is in the state it is. We need to return to the true meaning of Christ’s words.
