> They just bask in their pride and antiquity (btw, I know someone older).
HaShem revealed Himself at Mount Sinai before three million people in 1312 B.C.E. The Torah is about 1300 years older than christianity.
> Another point: one could spend a lifetime performing all the rituals of these ancient churches and actually be an atheist or agnostic and no one would know the difference. After all, it’s a good living and an important part of ethnic identity.
This is true in Croatia. Many Croats go to church because of their ethnic identity. They know very little about the “Old Testament” or even the new testament.
> Chrstianity doesn’t deserve the loyalty our Fundamentalist people have always given it.
christianity is a heretical innovation. It has a new name, a new holy book written in a new language and a new theology. I always thought that christ is the continuation of the pagan Greek god dionysus. I was a christian and a pagan, so I remember they have many similarities.
> But apparently they will remain loyal forever to a religion that has no use for them whatsoever.
Surely there is a special place in hell for false prophets who created new religions.
Chrstianity is an ethnic identitarian religion masquerading as universal truth. Not only Croats, but practically all chrstians everywhere are chrstian as a statement of ethnic identity. To Armenians, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Greeks, Slavs, Poles, Irish, etc., "the church is the nation; the nation is the church."
This applies to Protestant America as well. In the traditional American Protestant worldview, the corruption of chrstianity into its liturgical form was predicted by J*sus. "True chrstianity" was fated to be "restored" by the Radical Reformation and America was discovered at the same time so it could be the "new Israel" where the "restored" true religion could flourish in its own "holy land."
This is also why chrstians hate each other. Theological differences are actually camouflage for ethnic tensions (theology is often ethnically determined). No example is more pertinent than American Black and white Protestants, who theoretically are co-religionists but who have always hated each other. Each thinks it is the new "chosen people" (in fact, some in each group claim to be the "true Israelites!"). There is not the slightest bit of brotherhood between the two. This is also why the two are at opposite sides of the political spectrum, and why the partisans of each ridicule the other for traits both have in common. And the most heartbreaking thing about all this is that they refuse to even consider the possibility that no new religion was necessary two thousand years ago. The very claims of chrstianity allegedly prove themselves!
christianity is a heretical innovation. It has a new name, a new holy book written in a new language and a new theology.
I could not possibly agree with you more. Yet chrstianity is treated as ancient and conservative and Jews are accused to being "secretly behind Communism." I was watching a documentary on YouTube about Charedim yesterday that explained how conservative they are, how they insulate themselves from the modern world, etc.; and some Nazi commented that this was the "Jewish revolutionary spirit!" Can you imagine that??? Chrstian monks who shut themselves off from the world are heroes but Torah Jews who do so are "revolutionaries!!!"
Surely there is a special place in hell for false prophets who created new religions.
And it's mighty crowded.