In the Art of War, Sun Tzu counseled that we must "be like water," and course down a mountain side not by fighting agaisnt the rocks and obstacles we encounter, but by fluidly finding the path of least resistance. This idea was embodied in the old religions of paganism and Zoroastrianism, for example, and was the general essence of polytheistic beliefs that simply incorporated new gods and ideas into their theologies.
But then came Christianity, which was not the first monotheistic religion to grow out of the stories of a man who had become a god thru his death and resurrection, but it was the first one designed to exert a spiritual elitism through the branding of exclusivity and infallibility.
Those who sought to join the gold standard of religions, which Christianity had become when the Emperor Constantine established it as the official religion of Rome (which he did after he had a dream that by the cross he would win his great military victory - proving once again that the Cross is a symbol of death triumphant to those who worship it's murderous augury), were required to forego the old gods in favor of the new.
Along with this rejection of all other gods - which is a curious thing when you consider that even the first commandment of "thou shall have no other gods before me" was never interpreted by Jews to suggest there was only ever one god - came a requirement that Christians exercise zero tolerance toward all other religions, beliefs, and gods, lest they anger the "one true god," as they called it.
The kinder, gentler God preached by Jesus, in other words, quickly reverted back to the angry god of the Old Testament, once it had become popularized by an Emperor who declared that the Christian God had proven his supremacy through trial by combat, and those who dared to say otherwise were enemies of the state.
This extreme sense of intolerance, born out of a supreme sense of superiority by those convinced they had been given an "infallible truth" that they should be willing to die a gruesome death to defend if need be, smacked more of the philosophy of an Attila the Hun than of a poor shepherd boy. While Jesus described "god" as a father and his flock as a family, the new Christianity became a pride of hungry lions,which were more brutal and intolerant of all other "beliefs" than a Joseph Stalin or a Pol Pot.
Even as early as the emperor Trajan, for example, who ruled Rome from 98 to 117 AD, persecution of Christians was due not to their beliefs,but for their devotion to being just as stubborn in their refusal to accept the authority of Rome as they would later claim that Lucifer had been in refusing to accept the authority of God.
"I have no doubt that whatever it is they believe," Trajan would explain,"their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy should certainly be punished."
Of course, today, Christian churches the world over convince their "flock" that it was certainly not for exercising an obstinacy that surpassed even that of their devil that they were so often persecuted, and as much by the populace as by the decrees of any prefects, but because their "truth" made them as holy as Christ himself (even though Christ himself died NOT for "truth" but for "the least of my brothers").
But rather than admit that their religion does not have definite answers about everything from sexuality to life after death, and from the nature of gender to the nature of God, too many Christians insist instead that they posses a god-like knowledge of everything they simply choose to "believe" - and for no other reason than that they simply choose to "believe" it - that is only as "infallible" as the Christian is obstinate in how right they are in everything they simply choose to believe.
In short, while the old religions had worked more like water, assimilating new wisdom and understanding as any fallible human being does over the course of their life by updating old ideas with new information, the new Christianity decided it knew everything there was to know of any moral importance already, with all the obstinacy of a teenager, and all the receptivity and pliability of ice.
But then came Christianity, which was not the first monotheistic religion to grow out of the stories of a man who had become a god thru his death and resurrection, but it was the first one designed to exert a spiritual elitism through the branding of exclusivity and infallibility.
Those who sought to join the gold standard of religions, which Christianity had become when the Emperor Constantine established it as the official religion of Rome (which he did after he had a dream that by the cross he would win his great military victory - proving once again that the Cross is a symbol of death triumphant to those who worship it's murderous augury), were required to forego the old gods in favor of the new.
Along with this rejection of all other gods - which is a curious thing when you consider that even the first commandment of "thou shall have no other gods before me" was never interpreted by Jews to suggest there was only ever one god - came a requirement that Christians exercise zero tolerance toward all other religions, beliefs, and gods, lest they anger the "one true god," as they called it.
The kinder, gentler God preached by Jesus, in other words, quickly reverted back to the angry god of the Old Testament, once it had become popularized by an Emperor who declared that the Christian God had proven his supremacy through trial by combat, and those who dared to say otherwise were enemies of the state.
This extreme sense of intolerance, born out of a supreme sense of superiority by those convinced they had been given an "infallible truth" that they should be willing to die a gruesome death to defend if need be, smacked more of the philosophy of an Attila the Hun than of a poor shepherd boy. While Jesus described "god" as a father and his flock as a family, the new Christianity became a pride of hungry lions,which were more brutal and intolerant of all other "beliefs" than a Joseph Stalin or a Pol Pot.
Even as early as the emperor Trajan, for example, who ruled Rome from 98 to 117 AD, persecution of Christians was due not to their beliefs,but for their devotion to being just as stubborn in their refusal to accept the authority of Rome as they would later claim that Lucifer had been in refusing to accept the authority of God.
"I have no doubt that whatever it is they believe," Trajan would explain,"their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy should certainly be punished."
Of course, today, Christian churches the world over convince their "flock" that it was certainly not for exercising an obstinacy that surpassed even that of their devil that they were so often persecuted, and as much by the populace as by the decrees of any prefects, but because their "truth" made them as holy as Christ himself (even though Christ himself died NOT for "truth" but for "the least of my brothers").
But rather than admit that their religion does not have definite answers about everything from sexuality to life after death, and from the nature of gender to the nature of God, too many Christians insist instead that they posses a god-like knowledge of everything they simply choose to "believe" - and for no other reason than that they simply choose to "believe" it - that is only as "infallible" as the Christian is obstinate in how right they are in everything they simply choose to believe.
In short, while the old religions had worked more like water, assimilating new wisdom and understanding as any fallible human being does over the course of their life by updating old ideas with new information, the new Christianity decided it knew everything there was to know of any moral importance already, with all the obstinacy of a teenager, and all the receptivity and pliability of ice.
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