I found Jesus. Well, he actually found me. Just kidding, it's booze. Don't take this world too seriously. It's an actual joke. Focus on doing the right thing, everything gets much clearer.
Finding Jesus is unironically great. His golden rule was "Love your neighbor as yourself" with a side of "hate the sin, not the sinner", he called out hypocrites and corrupt religious patriarchs, comforted the sick. Jesus was based af.
No disrespect, but an awful lot of people figured out "don't be a bigot" and "take responsibility for yourself" without all of the religion. I think you're smart enough to just be a decent human without all of the dogma. If you need "Jesus", ok. I think you can do well without it.
They specifically call out that Christianity isn't what they're talking about, but finding Jesus. No different than taking inspiration for being a better person from any other character from a story, be they Captain America or Captain Picard. I think we can all take inspiration from the Jesus who upon finding a capitalism happening in what's supposed to be a place of respite flipped the tables and whipped them the hell out of there.
We finally agree that Jesus was a capitalist. Rush Limbaugh once quoted the scripture, "Jesus trickles down to the needy." Let's take a moment the consider how powerful that is.
Sure. I did just fine on my own without. I only came around to Jesus after I started reading what he said outside the context of religious dogma. Lots of people figured out lots of things, some people compiled a great number of those things into a poignant and easily digestible package. I think Jesus was one of those people.
Another thing he figured out was "Your relationship with the divine is between you and the divine, you don't need priests to tell you how to pray, and doing it out in public so people see how pious you are is cringe". Jesus was about being a good person without the dogma. I doubt he'd be thrilled at the dogmatic institution erected around him.
Yeah, but they're the same old teachings of every other religion before Christianity. You gotta remember it's super-duper young compared to most others. Every modern religion just gets the same old human morals we had before religions and bundles up a bunch of really bad shit with them so they seem good.
If any of its true, the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing people he was God.
Sure it's the same as it ever was, but the Christian nationalist perspective can only be excised in favor of this more reasonable, accurate interpretation of religious material by overpowering it. Christianity (or any religion) isn't going anywhere, so in my mind it's easier to push for positive change in a religion's prevailing interpretation, instead of hoping people lose their religion and maybe learn the right lessons in the aftermath.
I guess my point is I'm less concerned with whether any religion is true (simply unverifiable) and more with socializing people to interpret their beliefs in the best way possible. That's doable: far right conservatives did the reverse to American Christianity, so it must be possible to repair.
Sure, doesn't mean he wasn't based, and for most in the West it's the most convenient package. My personal theory is that Jesus went east, learned Buddhism, and brought it back in a Jewish accent.