Thanks Lydart, I felt totally outnumbered so kept quiet--not like me at all.
Surely the history of the Colosseum bears witness to the fact that there were Christians and the Roman Emperors were very worried about the new sect.
However it was mainly the Jewish priests who wanted rid of Jesus,he was not what they thought of as the promised Messiah, indeed he never claimed to be that.
They had been promised a new king like David who would free them from Roman oppression.
Well Jesus was a peacemaker.He also saw the corruption in what was going on in the temple in Jerusalem. Awkward to have around.
The Dead Sea Scrolls also have content which upholds the gospel stories to some degree,
these have very relatively recently been found many centuries after after the "additions"previously mentioned.
The gospels were written some years after Jesus was crucified and his age was about thirty at death. Several languages and their many translations will inevitably l have lost meaning.
Greek, Coptic Aramaic Latin and English.
It is the essential message which is important and that boils down to "Love thy neighbour as thyself" and who is your neighbour? well everyone.It is as simple as that.
If you choose not to attend church it does not mean you are wicked ,as we know very many people do acts of great kindness and unselfishness who don`t attend church and don`t believe in any religion.They live good lives ,are honest and moral.
If you do go to church but are unkind and wicked you can`t consider yourself a Christian.
People always say " there is much evil done in the name of religion.."yes but that is because the essential message has been forgotten, it is the misinterpretation of religion that causes wars and hatred and cruelty.
I speak of Christianity because that was one of the points mentioned,of course I do not preclude other religions .Kindness and honesty are not only found in Christianity.
Enough from me .
If you walk around the Welsh borders ,namely Shropshire where many little settlements and hamlets and isolated cottages have been abandoned and are in ruins you will almost always see a Rowan tree at the gate .Superstition had it that they kept away evil spirits.You can also make a nice jelly from the berries .
Viktoria