[the truth]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

The fact that it was hijacked to that end rather than created for that reason isn't really all that important, though... not to an "unbeliever", anyway. The reason it took hold so quickly, and so massively (there was mention of "2 billion Christians" before - an exaggerated figure of course but still, illustrative) is because it was used by Empires (Roman, British, Spanish). Often through threat of violence. Whether you see that as a corruption of an original religious Truth, or simply as a convenient tool used to control primitive minds, is largely irrelevant. The motivations of those spreading the faith en masse was what it was and to deny that is to twist the facts.

I 100% disagree entirely. The word of Christ is all that matters. The fact a bunch of empire building mass murdering monarchies who carried out mass murder, torture, starvation, death camps, rapists and psychos use and pervert and corrupted everything, including their version fo patriotism, they perverted versions of religion, just as they corrupt the concept of democracy , science , sociology and many other facets of society ...doesn't make these subjects any less valid. Should we scrap science because of the atomic bomb? should we scrap democracy because democratic nations allowed evil scum like stalin, hitler , Mussolini to rise to power? no. we work with what weve got.....we learn from the mistakes, we try to capture the evil doers and punish them and we attempt to rewards the just, the smart and the hard working....does life always work out perfectly ? no. but that doesn't mean you throw out the baby with the bathwater and certainly not throw out the timeless lessons of Christ