Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> So it influenced human history. So what. So did a lot of things. That
> doesn't mean it didn't influence it *wrongly*, or that its prevalence,
> mostly via violence, war, subversion, threats, torture and assassination
> (directly or via its acceptance by those that both believed it and used
> such tactics), makes it somehow better than other alternatives that
> *could* have happened.

war, assassination, threats and torture are not the teachings of Jesus or any
other religious leaders AFAIK.  They have nothing to do with religion except
some men in power will make other men (not them!) die in the name of God to
justify their needs.

> By your logic, had a
> few key moments in history been different, you would now be sitting here
> arguing that our Emperor really is a God, and that he is a direct
> descendant of dragons, because it can't be otherwise and there still be
> a Chinese empire.

Except it wasn't different.  There must be a good reason for that.

> Its even worse, given the fact that you can trace virtually **every**
> story in the Bible back to some prior religion, and that not one of
> those religions believed in the same God that the Jews eventually
> insisted was the real one, and many of them believed in ***multiple***
> gods.

I believe Adam and Eve and even Noah's times were much farther off than in the
Biblical accounts.  Oral tradition existed for far longer than recorded History
counts.  Many people through the ages were aware of these histories passed
along, it's not really surprising that many cultures recorded their versions of
the distant events.

now why did God made a covenant with the Hebrews and not with other people, say,
the Greeks, the Chinese, the Africans?  It could be said Moses and his people
are direct descendants of Abraham and Noah and they were the righteous men that
God spared from the Flood, but I really don't know God's intentions.  I know
eventually the covenant was far broadened via Jesus salvation and thus
available to all people in the world.  It's a mere question of faith.

other than that, the divine is felt differently by people of different cultures.
 You don't see, nor hear God with your physical senses and thus it's all left to
personal interpretation...

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