I Like the Red Letters
I like the red letters of the bible. It’s the tiny part Christ taught. The problem is all Christian religion exists ONLY because of doctrines formulated from outside the red letters of the bible. The bible is a collection of writings by men. The bible was assembled by councils of men in partnership with the 4th-century Roman political System. Then they gave us the interpretation, which became the official state-sanctioned story of Christ. In 380 CE, the Roman Emperor Theodosius signed the Edict of Thessalonica, mandating all Citizens of the “Holy” Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity. Anyone rejecting the mandate by standing for their own sovereign rights to believe as they choose: “SHALL BE BRANDED WITH THE IGNOMINIOUS NAME OF HERETIC. THEY WILL SUFFER IN THE FIRST PLACE THE CHASTIZEMENT OF THE DIVINE CONDEMNATION AND IN THE SECOND THE PUNISHMENT OF OUR AUTHORITY THAT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WILL OF HEAVEN WE SHALL DECIDE TO INFLICT”. (Edict of Thessalonica Feb 27, 380)
This evolved into “heretics” being blacklisted, tortured or burned at the stake during a long reign or terror for anyone who didn’t accept the doctrines of the Church-State mandate till the final victim, a Spanish schoolmaster, was executed for heresy on July 26, 1826. In addition, the Christian Belief System has been responsible for holy wars, Inquisitions, the Crusades, Witch trials, and numerous other atrocities all done in the name of Jesus.
I do not fault the people who have chosen any of the Christian religions as their truth and reality. I did for decades. The people are not bad, just inevitable products of the System that has been used by emperors and Monarchs to control the minds of the masses. It is the System itself that is corrupt and will continue till we see how the System was formulated to give us a false perception of reality, which disempowers us by giving our power, allegiance, and 10% of our lifelong income to empower the System.
This is why I say that Christ and Christianity are two vastly different things, and nothing has slandered and misrepresented Jesus more than the Christian religions have. People tell me that I can’t follow Christ without accepting all the doctrines. They say we have to join an organized Belief System to be “saved”. But how can anyone be a disciple of Christ while accepting the doctrines of the faith formulated by church councils from things that Jesus not only never said but that are actually opposite to what he taught in the red letters?
