> Mary Jo wrote: > I also don't find John's gospel at all what you describe of as "fire and > brimstone".
John's gospelic facts DRASTICALLY disagree with the facts in the other gospels by years in many cases. So, factually, John is totally misaligned from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Further John and Thomas disagreed so much there were more like enemies. One of their core disagreements surrounded "the light". John said that in order to reach heaven you had to follow an Earthly protocol of rituals or you'd go to hell. This is the core reason the canonizers selected John's interpretation of Jesus: they wanted to scare people into being good Christians. This, of course, led to the murder of those of who didn't follow John's rules. In other words, live by John's law or die and go to hell. Thomas, on the other hand, believed that to attain "the light" one had to continually search for truth. Thomas died in India. Why? Searching for the light. That's why he was called doubting Thomas and why he and John were basically enemies: John was essentially the Dick Cheney of apostles. In other words Thomas believed that "the light" is within all of us and to attain it each person needed to search for it. John believed "the light" existed externally to each individual and to attain it each person had to live a life of rules and then go to heaven when the die. Obviously I'm Thomasian. The thought that God would require me to follow some arbitrary set of rules is ridiculous to me. I believe the light is internal to me and my job is to reveal it. I don't think God requires me to perform rituals to love me. As to "religion" - that's why I think someone can be a Christian and NOT religious. John is religious. Thomas is not. Both are Christians. In other words, "religion" is John's set of rules and rituals; a follower of John religiously follows his set of rituals. A follower of Thomas, while Christian, has no set of rules to follow except a personal search for their own truth. So the question for each Christian is, do you think "the light" is inside of you right now or do you think you have to follow a set of rules for life in order to attain the light? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:306258 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
