Rise of the Madmen (2/3) By Lee Cassanell

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

God wanted them to be with him. Well I'm bloody sorry but what kind of a deity does that make God? Why not give the poor unfortunate victims of these disasters a choice in the matter? " So, my child, would you rather come hang with me in heaven or watch your kid's face melt away as you both die screaming in a boiling pool of molten lava?" "Mmm...let me think about that for a minute and I'll get back to you."

He might have created the moon, sun and stars which are all very nice indeed and much appreciated, but you would think someone with such knowledge and power would have least built an environment for the creature he created in his own image that doesn't randomly destroy them every once in a while.

An estimated 2.1 billion people practice or claim to practice a version of Christianity in 2005. To break down into basic terms what the percentage of those 2.1 billion believes is a tricky process indeed because they all seem to have a different version of events but the main story goes something like this: A virgin was told by an angel that she was to give birth to God's son, the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy. Nine Months later the virgin gave birth to God's son, who grew up to be Jesus Christ. Jesus preached love and understanding, annoyed the Jews, was arrested by the Romans, was tried and then crucified on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

Jesus died for three days, came back to life, told a bunch of people he came back to life and then descended to heaven. That's around about it. Somewhere in there is the idea that Jesus sacrificed his life for the sins of mankind but what his sacrifice actually achieved is pretty unclear and by all accounts he would have done more good sticking around and preaching his word then being nailed to a piece of chunky wood. It was God's will however, that Jesus would go out like this and God works in mysterious ways doesn't he, so maybe there was a point and it's just been corrupted and distorted somewhere along the line.

Now I am willing to suspend my disbelief and accept that everything above happened and the whole story is fact. The same way I'm willing to accept that aliens may exist on other planets, fortune tellers can predict the future and pixies live at the bottom of my garden. Maybe it's me but I can't understand why a virgin giving birth to almighty Gods son is any more plausible or based on truth then the idea that the world is run by giant lizards that live underground and mutilate livestock. Let say Constantine and the bishops had decided that day to add a few pages that gave an accurate description of Jesus: Mark chapter 3 verse 9: Jesus was 5ft 1inches with crooked teeth, bad acne, balding hair and a hunchback. Do you think Christianity would have spread so easily if the Son of God had looked like a Jewish Quasimodo?

See, I can understand why people in centuries gone by practiced Christianity. The vast majority were poor, uneducated, death was everywhere and life was a hard and almost intolerable struggle so the promise of heaven, a place were nobody grows old and nobody dies was wonderfully appealing. It gave people a meaning to their lives and the hope of a better tomorrow so they could deal with the day to day misery, the working from sunrise to sunset to earn a few crumbs for their table while the rich landowners and aristocracy reaped the rewards of their labour.

Continued... Next page (3/3).

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