Christianity is not a unified movement, it is splintered into thousands of different sects. Each with their own set of rules and interpretations of the Bible, bigotries and biases. It is not uncommon for one sect to throw insults or even be at war with another.

Of course, the history of Christianity is one of violence and a quest for power, and I believe this has not stopped. This does not mean the heart of the teachings of Jesus are violent in nature. It does mean that the movement has been populated with people making things up and piling on to a very simple message of love and its related virtues. What St. Peters Basilica has to do with with compassion is beyond me, let alone the mega-churches built in America in modern times that have cost millions upon millions of dollars. It's all crap and has nothing to do with the basic message of Jesus.

Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, the pastor at St. Fill-In-The-Blanks shaking you down for a funeral when you can barely afford it, etc. etc. are all just men making us believe they're somehow closer to God than the rest of us, and asking a pretty penny for us to get a piece of them. The Bible was written by men, put together by men, edited and changed by men---powerful men. The only thing that makes any sense in the whole thing is the Golden Rule. That one message, which Jesus says is the most important, is what makes me a Christian, nothing else. Not the name "Christian", not a set of rules about what I can eat and drink or who I can have sex with or what sex I can marry or a building or a congregation or a uniform or a collar.

All of the "God's will" beliefs and how they're tied to prayer are completely contradictory and illogical and made up. Sects are split on how it works. The Adam and Eve story makes absolutely no logical sense as a literal story, and many believe it's literal. Noah's Ark is a wonderful and kooky symbolic story, but illogical and not real. Yet many Christians think a man actually built a boat and got pairs of all the animal on there and saved all the species on the planet.

Christians are split on who created death. Some say man because of original sin, some say God. God is a punishing God. God is a gentle God. God makes people sick. God heals people. God wants no one to die, but kills off entire populations in the Bible. Love thy neighbor, unless he is gay, a different color, or a Catholic or a protestant, or god-forbid a Muslim or a Jew.

With a single utterance of a passage or two from the Bible or a wave of a hand, poopoo hundreds of years of hard work by scientists who followed rigorous rules of research and submitted work to intense scrutiny, as if it is all lies and imagination. A blonde Christian dismisses evolution (and all the hard work figuring it out), yet she is blonde and white because of evolution. It's craziness and has nothing to do with the basic message of Jesus.

If you don't have love, kindness, caring, forgiveness and compassion for everyone in your heart, and the courage and patience to keep these virtues in your heart no matter the circumstances, then you haven't a clue of what Jesus was trying to get across. Everything but those virtues is nonsense and crap, false, complete piling on, and a whole lot of craziness and superstition.

I challenge all Christians to give it all up. All these things of the world. The buildings. The gobs of money your organizations take in. The power. The names. The separation between you and the rest of humanity because of your labels and rules. Looking at all "non-Christians" as outsiders who need to be saved. The costumes. The popes. The bishops. The priests. The pastors. The televangelists. Using the Bible to persecute others. And even Jesus in the end, because you don't own him. You aren't his protector. And it's only the message that is important. Because your life is here and now, and if you don't live a life of love for all beings here and now, then all you've done is worship an image of Jesus in your mind, and have used the concept of Jesus to separate and elevate yourself from and above those who would dare to not worship him or follow your rules.

Live the virtues. Live them. And you will be Christ-like, and no one in the world will be separate from you.