Buffalo Roam,
There is a cult of personality around the Pope. The cults of personality around Peter and Paul shaped the church.
What Is Christianity without the cult of personality around Jesus?
Emperor Constantine changed the Roman world and changed Christianity.
The Crusaders were supposed to conquer the Holy Land but their Venetian sailors took them to Venice's rival Christian Constantinople which they sacked and looted in the name of Jesus and thereby weakened Constantinople's ability to defend itself from the Muslim Ottomans.
All the Catholic Saints have cults of personality.
What about Martin Luther and Calvin? Why did Catholics and Protestants fight the 30 years war in Germany.
Who are the whack Jobs giving that cult of personality leader Pat Robertson money? Pat Robertson is evil as far as I am concerned.
All sorts of Evangelists have been the centers of cults of personality and they reinterpret scripture in any way that feels right to them.
Every Minister or Pastor decides which parts of the Bible to Read from and which parts to ignore. They also combine the Bible text with ideas and stories that are not in the Bible thereby making many individual versions of Christianity.
What about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians?
Jim Jones, Peoples Temple was a Christian Cult of Personality.
What about the Mormons and Brigham Young?
What about Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Scientists?
One of my ancestors Edward Wightman was burned at the stake for Heresy.
Witches were hung.
Many Christian people are making Ronald Reagan into some kind of saint and practically worshiping him.
Any time I want I can turn on the radio and find some pastor "revealing" "hidden truths" that he or his fellow pastors have found in scripture. Who is the Anti-Christ this week Mahmoud Abbas or Barak Obama.
And the Christian Crackpots on the radio tell me that the USA and Israel will fight a war against Russia, the Arabs and the United Nations after which Jesus will come again and defeat the Anti-Christ. The world will be destroyed and god will save only those who accept Jesus as their lord and savior. The others will be doomed to eternal suffering for not accepting Jesus as their savior.
Even if the religious Muslims are insane what is the point? For Christians or Jews to criticize the Muslims is the pot calling the kettle black. It is Hypocrisy. It is ugly, mean and pointless.
We don't need protection from the Muslims, the Muslims need protection from us.
Your bad guys and heroes are just comic book nonsense. Reality is far more complex.
Mathew 7:3
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Mathew 22:37
34 But the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together. 35 And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
The fact that the Church was recovered to the original message of Christ, non-violence, as a Protestant, I am from those who took on the Crusading, Inquisitional Church, and moved it back to non-violence.
Now lets look around the world today, show me where Christians are on Crusade to convert the world to Christendom?, were are Christians killing hundreds of thousands in suicide bombing that target their own?
Were is there today any compunction to convert to Christendom on the pain of Death or Second Class subservience to Christians?
Now just read the papers, look at the Evening New, surf the web, and day after day, Islam is murdering, it's own, and any others who do not adhere to the Tenet of Islam.
Even being a Moslem doesn't protect you from being targeted by Moslems for murder, rape, torture, sodomy, slavery, and second class status in you rown country.
Now as to:
Mathew 7:3
"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
I have on many occasions pointed out that I have no problem with the prosecution and conviction of those who commit crime, wether in the Military, or anywhere else.
Mathew 22:37
34 But the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together. 35 And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Are you a Pharisee?
