Dear Scott,
As you are among survivors and friends I will not disrespect your beliefs and thoughts as to origins of this Jesus and our Universe.
Three very good examples of famous people who's lives were forever changed and magnified (among whose followers are in the millions as well), as a result of clerical errors, misgiving of a church believing in lies and selling deceit are as follows:
1. Disedirius Erasmus
2. Martin Luther
3. Karl Marx
4. Charles Darwin
And even though our German Martin Luther lead the Enlightenment Reformation toward Lutheranism, you cannot discount that one of his biggest complaints about the bigotry of the church was its selling of pardons which actually accidentally ignited that revolution.
In that vein, Erasmus spent his whole younger life and into adulthood around the monks and priests as a kind of secretary. He was later famed as an atheist for his writings about the hypcrocies and deceits of the church.
Karl Marx, atheist.
Charles Darwin. What.
Scott, consider that the first printing press was not created (FACT) until after 1500, after the start of what we call the Rennaissance. So many great artists were influenced, not by their love for god but by their love of the sciences and mathematics of the great and classic Greeks, and only then were many of these artists factually paid to paint murals and friezes like the Cistine Chapel or build new structures like many of the domes in Rome we see today.
Humanists were introduced in the Rennaissance period. These guys were hired by the local heads of state, not by the papacy, to begin to translate the old teachings of the Greeks, since those like the meDici family, government, believed that the old Greek writings held much good education and information.
And until the humanists came along, churches were built in the shape of a cross, not a circle where Greeks believed that circles more closely resembled purity for god - not the cross.
But to move this letter forward for you, the humanists got out of control. They started translating every god damn thing in sight. And then they got into the church. Holy shit the monks and popes were pissed when these many humanists discovered that so much of the written texts in the church were in error from monks being too illiterate to translate correctly.
Consider that King James, you probably have a king james bible like most do, at least somewhere nearby you might. King James altered the bible, and so did many other kings before and after him. Popes altered the bible to fit the needs of their holy wars.
In case you don't already get my point: Basically the people at large, up until around the 1600s generally believed that those With the Money, were needing of education and books. Hell, it wasn't really until the 1600s when schools for commoners was more widely accepted. Books were very sacred up until many years after the invention of that first press on steel wheels. Kings, popes, and those with the money and books and knowledge held the sway on everything and everyone below them.
So whether there were a Jesus or no, I have to go with the sciences and maths on this one. And your opinion is equally valid. I am not atheist or agnostic. I mean to say, however, that inasmuch as I believe in a Jesus and the holy trinity, I also believe that the ability to alter or retranslate stories in this realm are too possible to deny just the same as I am certain I get hungry throughout my day.
I will agree with you that this quote:
"Love not only the loveable, but the unlovable as well."
rings very true in my heart too. We are so fortunate that the humans who have come before us, Erasmus, Luther, Darwin, advocated equality for all with or without money.
Yours truly,
Survivor.
