re: Good news for some. Pat Robertson says homosexuals will soon "die out"....

I don't doubt that a man named Yeshua existed around that time period in that same geographical location. I'm also aware that the Bible you guys cite was written by man and revised at Council upon Council back in the day. I'm also aware of the role religion played in the power structure back then. It makes no difference to me that those same men revising the text at those Councils decided to bolster their legitimacy by claiming that God spoke through them and what came from the Council was actually what God intended. Call me a cynic, but I think that's a bunch of self-serving bullshite.

Simply put, I don't much know or care if Jesus himself procliamed himself to be the Son of God or whether that was added later in order to confer legitimacy and power to those who claimed to speak for him and the Church.

Many of the things He said regarding how to treat one another and how to carry yourself on earth resonate with me and I think they're good principles to live by. However, I am also aware of the historical context of how and why the religion(s) that grew up around Jesus did, and I'm not going to discount what He said simply because a bunch of Dark Age aristocrats wanted to keep a stranglehold on power and wealth.

I like picking things from various religions around the world. There are a lot of wise men throughout history who claimed to be some sort of deity. I don't know if those men themselves actually said that or their followers added that later to bolster the legitimacy of their belief system. I don't think any religion has the one true claim to legitimacy and truly speaks for whomever or whatever (possibly) created us.