Strange, I don’t recall that being in the gospels and as the gospels are the only source I use, I find this puzzling. As said earlier, we can never control or account for interpretations people choose to place on things, whether Christian, Voodoo or whatever it happens to be.

Even in our AA meeting just now, we discovered that someone who had supported leaving the EU now sees that as meaning talking about it in 5 years. Strange interpretation and not a construction we would have put on it but there you go.

It was not my intention to upset you, Andrew and sorry if I have but I equally have an emotional reaction to others’ [not your] misinterpretation of the message. As you know, I’m no evangelist but I do like the facts to be straight.

As you say, this is probably talked out now, this topic.

There is no interpretation. Just read the words, free of any interpretation. They are remarkably clearcut, giving rise to no ambiguities.

This is a constant attempt by non-Christians without ever reading the words themselves.

I’ll give you an example, the execution of Charles I was authorised because of Numbers 35.33, according to Moses God said to him

So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

That was used as a justification to kill the Irish in 1649 as well.

I’m not saying that those people were right about the meaning of that text or the meaning of what God said to Moses, but what I am saying is that their interpretation is a possible one. Ultimately I think that Christian as a word means someone who accepts the resurrection and the core creeds of the faith, if it means those people who agree with James Higham about what Christianity is- then you are right no Christian would endorse any racism or sexism etc, but that’s not a useful definition because there aren’t many people who agree with every word you say- if it means something wider ie those people who accept and believe in a living God whose son died for humanity’s salvation, then it includes people like those who read Numbers 35.33 as a justification for murdering the IRish and executing Charles.

(Incidentally there are plenty of Muslims who argue that the Muslims you are talking about aren’t Muslims and that they, the peaceful tolerant sort, are the only Muslims- I would say the same thing to them).

Show me where it is condoned, Tiberius, in the gospels. You used the word “interpreted”. I could interpret the Egyptian Imam’s exhortation to love his fellow Muslims as just that or I could interpret it as killing all Jews.

We can’t control people’s interpretations, especially when the State condones and promotes false interpretations.

“They may not have agreed with your conception of Christianity, but that does not mean that they were not Christians and did not take the Bible seriously”

Actually it very much means they are not Christians. No one, not even Constantine, can ignore key passages in favour of those “capable of interpretation” of the way he/she wants it to be.

Blake said that your god has a nose like yours and mine has a nose like mine and that is yet another inaccuracy. The gospels, which everyone talks of and quotes from but few have actually read in their entirety and understood in their historical context, abhor violence of the kinds that Suras and Hadiths specifically condone.

People trying to sheet home violence to Christianity and there are many groups who do, invariably resort to the Old Testament and then to Paul in his missals. Paul was an interpreter himself.

The gospels themselves, whether they prove the divinity of Christ or not, were designed to convey two messages – love the Lord your G-d and love your neighbour as yourself. All else was subordinate to that.

Not love fellow Christians but kill Muslims. Not “enslave the black man.” Nowhere are they mentioned.

Just read the things and you’ll see what I mean.

Andrew – this is the standard error – it was not Christian in the least. It was the official “Church” linked with the State and it was for secular goals that the thing was funded. The religious aspect was always a blind.

One only needs read the gospels to see that there is zero justification there for any of it – the Crusades, the Catholic kiddy-fiddling etc. I’m no Catholic so it was certainly no conspiratorial silence on my part – just that I was addressing a specific comment by a specific Egyptian – something Uber doesn’t seem to have taken on board.

Not a problem.

As for the things done in Christianity’s name – they’re like the things done in Islam’s name. The difference is that the Qu’ran condones it and the Gospels condemn it.