2,000 years ago the cross had no religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry. When Jesus said, “Pick up your cross and follow me,”

Everyone understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.

Jesus was never a Christian, that term was even coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus walked the earth a man. Jesus was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were:

Sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.

What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces of his time, by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant.

Some strains/cults of western Christianity have made JC over into a militant fundamentalist, and some Christians go to church to socialize and not for the social gospel,

The Forgotten Faithful/Palestinian Christians, the decedents of first century Christians, actually follow the Prince of Peace/Emmanuel/God is with us.

In the afternoon of the eighth day of my second Reality Tour through the West Bank, sixty international ecumenical Christians were introduced to Sabeel’s [Arabic for THE WAY] Contemporary Way of Cross.

The Sabeel way, transforms the traditional Christian tradition of meditating upon the journey that Christ took after his condemnation as he carried his cross to where he was crucified with an updated meditation on empire and occupation.

In Jerusalem there are fourteen plaques along The Via Delarosa hanging on the walls of buildings depicting where Christ may have fallen three times, meets his mother, is stripped, nailed and dies.

The Contemporary Way suggests fourteen reflections beginning with 1948, The Nabka: The Catastrophe which followed the failure of the UN partition plan of ‘47 when the Irgun and Stern Gang [Zionist terrorist groups] depopulated 400 villages and forced 726,000 Palestinians to flee to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

Station Two reflects on those refugees and the 460,000 more that fled during the War of 1967. Currently there are 675,670 registered refugees in the West Bank, 938,531 in Gaza and over two million in Arab countries who have never received compensation and have been denied the right to return as guaranteed in Articles 13 and 15 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in UN Resolution 194.

I was astounded to learn that in Anata, Jerusalem’s refugee camp The Wall is butted up to the boy’s high school. The ‘playground’ where 780 adolescents gather is in reality a slab of cement ground about the square footage of a basket ball court. There is no view as it is walled in on all four sides by the high school, The Concrete Wall and two smaller cement walls.

A refugee informed our group that on a daily basis, “The Israeli Occupation Forces show up when the children gather in the morning or after classes. They throw percussion bombs or gas bombs into the school nearly every day! The world is sleeping; the world is hibernating and is allowing this misery to continue.”

I wandered around taking photos and was warmly greeted by a teenage boy who asked my name and where I was from. I cringed when I said America, for I am ashamed that over one hundred billion USA dollars since 1948 has supported the occupation, promoted violence and helped build the friggin’ wall.

“Financed with U.S. aid at a cost of $1.5 million per mile, the Israeli wall prevents residents from receiving health care and emergency medical services. In other areas, the barrier separates farmers from their olive groves which have been their families’ sole livelihood for generations.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Page 43, Jan/Feb. 2007]

A few miles from the refugee camp, one enters into an Orwellian Disney Land of lush green grounds in the illegal colony of the Pizgatzeev settlement. I was sick at heart and in my gut when we drove less than a mile into the illegal colony for I counted three playgrounds and a swimming pool. I still wonder how many USA tax dollars helped to build them, and why the same was not done for the refugees.

As our group was praying a gunshot issued from the Anata refugee camp, then another and another in rapid succession. I was told that the IDF was showering the refugees with gun fire and terror, and that it was just a normal daily occurrence. I lost it completely then, and sobbed uncontrollably. I felt like the Magdalena when she could not find her Lord, but then I thought of Jesus, and how he cried buckets of tears over Jerusalem.

2,000 years ago roving bands of politically radical and religious Jews rose up and openly resisted Roman rule in Palestine. They were called Zealots, and I imagine if I had lived back then, I might have been tempted to join them.

But, I am a 21st century Christian of the Beatitudes and abhor and denounce ALL violence.

So, instead, I ardently, fervently, zealously curse + PRAY the empire WAKE UP and see that the violent terrorizing of innocent people- just because they are Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghani,

Suffer as do the occupiers; victims of the occupation.

Godspeed; it be this Easter Week.

The unquestioning acceptance of simple contradiction is the beginning of ruin. Anytime men add to or take away from {ie: the law has been nailed to the cross} the scripture they create imperfection. Most people are following a religion instead of a person. It think it is important to keep religion {man-made belief systems} separate from what God has told us. It is when the one is taken in place of the other that the problems begin. You cannot improve upon perfection and it is man’s innovations that constantly attempt to do this. It is unfortunate that most are satisfied with an excuse to ignore spiritual matters.

umm, Paul, James, Peter, and then 3 gospels are all first century. Furthermore, Josephus is first century.

Do you really think all 7 of these authors are not credible? There is not one “credible” biblical scholar–or “credible” historian–that would agree with your statement above.

Paul is arguably the most credible and he is the earliest author!

Critical thinking is wonderful, but your skepticism of your former religion has not led to clear, thoughtful, critical thinking in this comment.

And what is left is not positive.

Schopenhauer, I believe (perhaps Pascal, I cannot really recall correctly) presented the argument that God, even if he did exist, is limited in his powers. For a mere mortal can end his own existence, kill himself.

God cannot.

Therefore we can conclude that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing.

For a group who supposedly elevate reason to preeminence, these comments here are biased, illogical, emotional, and vapid. Try reading a book before you again express your ignorance.

Why is it I’ve never read an atheist with something positive to say?

In the US Catholic Church, an ignorant, loud-mouthed, oafish element, totally out of sync with the Church worldwide, presented themselves as “typical” Catholics and reduced the Church in the US to the “sex church”, frothing about abortion, gay marriage and the status of women, while throwing the other 95% of Catholic morality out the window. I’m talking, for example, about the things that make up the right to life: the right to a job, a fair wage, a decent place to live, education, financial help if you are unable to work etc.. That alienated some American Catholics to the point of leaving the Church. The mentality of the immigrants, not just Latinos but Africans as well, is very different from the old Irish/Italian/Polish “mafia” that dominated the Catholic Church in America until quite recently. So I would expect things to change there as well.

All religions start out as cults which become the foundations of new ‘cult’-ures. Culture is the glue that holds a society together and creates larger and larger ‘us’ versus ‘them’ type mentalities. Sooner or later we all will be in a one world government (one ‘us’) exploring the stars not unlike many science fiction movies.

People who don’t believe in the literal interpretation of religious texts DO NOT HAVE TO, but can still derive value from them. How? Think about religious texts and stories as being “symbolic” and not literal. Not to mention there is new evidence to suggest that Moses and Jesus unsuspectingly ingested hallucinogenic plant matter.

The government will always lead the flock and sometimes lead them astray. After all, the government can always say ‘black’ is ‘white’ and eventually people will believe it. Are you following me here? The government, given enough time, can rewrite history and school books (a Fahrenheit 451 done in slow motion) to change the attitudes of the present and thus attempt to change future circumstances. Thus, the texts with the widest circulations (most set of eyes) would be the most difficult for the government to change. Which texts have the widest circulation, the most readers?

1) destroy an entire town,
2) kill all the men,
3) kill all the women,
4) kill all the boys, but
5) “save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.”

Okay, so it’s the Old Testament and Jesus was different. Unfortunately, Jesus didn’t speak out against any of this but in fact said quite the opposite: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)

Amen. [passes around collection plate]

This only makes sense if you ignore a couple thousand years of history. Ya know, Crusades, witch burning, genocide, pogroms, etc, etc…
Christianity’s been shitty since its inception. It’s based on a religion that proclaims racial superiority and misogyny are God’s will. It’s all trash and it was fucked long before Rush Limbaugh oozed forth unto the world..

I agree in principle with your thoughts on religion’s appalling record (what right-minded person wouldn’t - the record is there for all to see).

However, as “hp” alluded to above, let’s not lose faith in the document called the Bible just because Big Religion has claimed to represent this book. We don’t throw away the hammer just because a bad tradesman couldn’t use it properly.

Jesus said “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” There are thousands of religions in the world. Now, by definition of the word “truth”, a lot of these religions cannot have the truth. You cannot have partial truth. For example, if my religion teaches (as the Bible does) that the earth is older than 7000 years, then that is truth (backed up by human fields of geology etc). However, if my same religion also allows pedophilia to run rampant in the clergy, then that is not truth. And vice versa. So a 50% pass mark is not enough when discussing the word “truth”. Either is 80%……… or 99%. Either you go to heaven with 70 virgins or you don’t. Either reincarnation is true or it isn’t. Either standing by and condoning genocide is acceptable or it isn’t. There is no middle ground with some of the fundamental teachings of the world’s religions.

I agree, Lee, that religion has a long and bloody history. But let’s not focus so much on the hypocrites who have misrepresented the book. Let’s focus more on the book itself - a book that was translated into Latin so that none of the real people could read it, a book that people painstakingly and clandestinely translated into the people’s tongues by candle light, a book that some people deemed important enough to be martyred if found in possession, a book that has survived to our day and still features in the bestseller lists.

For the leaders who have hidden the Bible from us all these years (directly or by their bad example) I ask “Why don’t you want us to read it?”. To the brave people who have ensured it’s preservation I say “We won’t disappoint you by leaving it on our bookshelf to collect dust”

The entire sham of American Christianity is this: As a group, these Christians don’t practice what they preach.

Question: What day is the most segregated day of the week?
Answer: Sunday, because so called Christians seem to only like to worship their loving God with people who look just like them. Judging by this you’d think heaven was segregated.

Funny, I thought Jesus taught tolerance and love of fellow man. Judging by how his “followers” act, you’d think Jesus was a gun toting,
minority and fag hating bigot who can’t get enough war and spits on the poor.

These people have allowed their wonderful religion to be sullied by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Fox Noise and the republican party.

When did Jesus ever say the poor deserve what they got?

Can you imagine if Jesus took one look at the lepers and said, “they are just welfare cheats” instead of healing them?

The so called Christians in this country need to read the bible again until they get it. It is not their job to look down their noses at everyone not just like them while sneering these people they see as different as automatically going to hell…

Which reminds me: Who WOULD Jesus bomb?

Well sure, but let’s not forget: the destruction of the Cathars, pagan purges, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, witch hunts, “missionary” work amongst Indigenous peoples, etc, etc, in a long history of imperious intolerance, culture destruction and wanton slaughter.

From a happy pagan who’s goddess has suited him just fine.

Peace.