Expert: Richard Aberdeen - 4/22/2004

Question
what do you mean the differance between christianity and the historical Jesus?  

Answer
    There is no historical evidence that Jesus ever intended to found Christianity or any other religion.  There is considerable evidence to the contrary, including in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  A main recurring theme of the Old Testament is that the true God does not like religions, has nothing in common with them  and does not want religions to claim to represent God; i.e., among a great many other things, the early Jews were forbidden to make any image either representing God or in relation to the worship of God (similar to crosses around necks, stain-glass, rosaries, plastic statues of Jesus and 'saints', etc. and etc.)  Punishment for doing this included being stoned to death, indicating the supreme severity of the offense against God.  This is a unique concept not found anywhere else in the history of civilization that I am aware of.
    I have written extensively about the New Testament prohibitions against making a religion out of God and the reason why Jesus is the founder of Human Rights and not Christianity, including the three chapters linked below.  Rather than explan further here, my position is explained better in these three online chapters:

Revolution
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommonsense/revolution.html

Revolution -- Notes on the Historical Record
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommonsense/revolutionb.html

The Way: A Theory of Root Cause
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommonsense/theway.html

Other related chapters:

Key of History
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommonsense/keyofhistory.html

Notes on the Great War
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommonsense/greatwar.html