Anti-Christian Christianity

Slowly I'm coming to realize that my problem with Christianity is not the religion.  It's not the story of Jesus himself.  It's not the fact that the matter of biblical canonization was... questionable.  It has little to do with the fact that there are so many different versions of the bible, that you really need a BA in history to fully understand what the reasons are behind each.  Nor is it the fact that there are so many different denominations of the Christian religion across the world that practice in such different ways that it's hard to say, in today's world, what Christianity truly is.  The real reason I have a problem with Christianity is... Christians.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” - Ghandi. 

Don't get me wrong, I have known some fantastic folks who follow Jesus.  In fact some of my best friends are very devout Christians.  However, the majority of Christians in America, in this day and age, certainly appear to miss some of the things that I consider explicitly defined in the text of the bible we have.

I firmly believe that the Jesus in the bible, living today, would support social programs and universal healthcare.  He would not deny happiness of anyone. While he would know if it were a choice for them, in absence of that knowledge he'd still give the benefit of a doubt - instead of assuming they were "choosing" to be ridiculed and different.  He would not fill his closet with furs and hang gold and diamonds from his ears and neck.  He would not drive a car that costs more than a minimum wage worker's annual salary.

Unfortunately, I feel that many of today's Christians would disagree with me on all of the points above.  Regardless of the fact their most important book, the Holy Bible, the supposedly infallible word of God, would tell them to take their riches and give them away to receive their reward in heaven.  It saddens me that we live in a world filled with the self-righteous and pious who would besmirch and bastardize something as good and pure as the teachings of Christ.  However, I guess that is the way it has always been, and will continue to be.

Heads I win, tails you lose

In general I believe that we humans have a desire to do what is right, or at least what seems right to us.  The notion that there is an explicit good and an explicit evil is in my mind a fallacy.  To deny the knowledge of evil would would render the good imperfect.  To admit the knowledge of evil, means the good truly knows the evil.  Either way, the good is imperfect and thus impure.  The inverse could be said of evil, a knowledge of good is required to be evil.  This is essentially the Taoist concept of yin and yang.

There is an old saying, that every coin has two sides.  Or as another states it, there are two sides to every story.  While we echo these expressions like parrots we seldom stop to consider their implied meanings.  They simply indicate that looking only at the surface reveals an act of pure good, or a heinous act of evil.  However, somewhere deeper you see that it's not so cut and dry.

Consider a man (lets call him Dave) who kills his brother (Mike), who came to confront him over an issue they'd been having.  Things escalated and Dave, the younger of the two, pulls out a gun and leaves a slug lodged inside the cranium of his closest kin.  A life is taken, and a young man spends his life behind bars.  Deservedly so, he is insane to resort to such an act of violence so quickly.  

Dave has committed an unspeakably evil act.  He was unreasonable and reacted so unexpectedly and with such furor that elder brother - who'd only come to talk - now lays prone on the dirt ground with a fairly large entry wound on his forehead.  Dave deserves severe punishment for such an act.

Except...  Mike had been making threats against his wife and children, and both men knew he was planning to carry them out.  That was the reason for the altercation, and the resulting action.  However the only two who know this are the deceased, and the one who was absolutely guilty of the murder.  He is imprisoned, but his family is now safe.

Who is the bad guy and who is the good.  Would you believe his defense?  Would you have leniency if you did?  Even in this very simple example, the lines are now blurry once you know the rest of the story.  This applies to many things in life - except we never get to know the rest of the story.   Humans for all of our values, have a tendency to make harsh and rather rash judgement against our fellow humans.  We are all-too-often ready to condemn, in spite of the fact that only a part of the story is known.  I know that if we could somehow drop the shoot (off at the mouth) first ask questions later mindset, we could find the deeper answers in so many things.