When I was around 20 and looking for purpose in life, I actually really tried to get into Christianity.
I mean, they seemed to have a light guiding them through life, something that takes away the feeling of senselessness and chaos in the world. I especially loved the idea that “you can never fall deeper than into god’s hand”.
So I prayed to god to show me the way to him, went to the local church every Sunday, and started reading the bible.
All of it. Cause I obviously wanted to know what I was supposed to believe in. And it completely killed my desire to become a Christian.
The only way to make sense of it, for me, was to interprete the old testament as a collection of the stories that goat herders told each other to make sense of world history, followed by a heavily propagandized history of the Israelite people, legitimizing their claim to Israel after displacing and genociding the people who had lived there before.
The new testament is the story of a wandering preacher who tried to establish an early version of peaceful communism.
But when that became too popular, the Roman state embraced and co-opted the message and turned it into the basis of a hierarchical state church, which later turned into Christianity as we know it today.
Since I read God’s book while praying to God and that was the interpretation I was left with, I have to assume, it’s the one God agrees with ;)
When I was around 20 and looking for purpose in life, I actually really tried to get into Christianity.
I mean, they seemed to have a light guiding them through life, something that takes away the feeling of senselessness and chaos in the world. I especially loved the idea that “you can never fall deeper than into god’s hand”.
So I prayed to god to show me the way to him, went to the local church every Sunday, and started reading the bible.
All of it. Cause I obviously wanted to know what I was supposed to believe in. And it completely killed my desire to become a Christian.
The only way to make sense of it, for me, was to interprete the old testament as a collection of the stories that goat herders told each other to make sense of world history, followed by a heavily propagandized history of the Israelite people, legitimizing their claim to Israel after displacing and genociding the people who had lived there before.
The new testament is the story of a wandering preacher who tried to establish an early version of peaceful communism.
But when that became too popular, the Roman state embraced and co-opted the message and turned it into the basis of a hierarchical state church, which later turned into Christianity as we know it today.
Since I read God’s book while praying to God and that was the interpretation I was left with, I have to assume, it’s the one God agrees with ;)