--- Antonio Menezes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > According to the Aquarian Gospel, Jesus' formative > years were spent in > India ( Jagannath in Orissa, Benares, ets ) Tibet, > Persia, Assirya, > Greece and Egypt.
RESPONSE: There is absolutely no historical evidence to support the hypothesis that Jesus spent his early life in India. This hypothesis has been put forward by enthusiastic writers, but Jesus has also been spotted in Greece, Egypt and even America by other equally enthusiastic writers and sects of Christianity. > Antonio Menezes wrote: > However, Jesus Christ's disapproval of of casteist > classification of > human beings could be of some interest to '' bamon > '' lordships and > reverends in Goa and elsewhere > > Antonio RESPONSE: The Jews had their own system of discriminatory classification of society. Whatever family Jesus might have been born into, it became important for (supposed) chroniclers of his life to insist he was born into the House of David. This proved his royal lineage and fulfilled the prophecy. Early Christianity was very discriminatory and had no intention of including "non-circumcised gentiles" into this religion. It was St Paul who won this argument and thus began the spread of Christianity to non-Jews. The spread of early Christianity was westwards into feudal Europe, a system parallel to casteism in India, including the bondage of humans to the land, the barriers in inter-marriage and the stratification of labour. Collectively Christianity did little to alleviate the inhumane status of serfs, vassals and other bonded labour, perhaps even colluding in maintaining this system that supported their endless wars in the Holy Land. Christianity at various times have been complicit in regimes that support discrimination of human beings including a soft-approach to casteism in Goa, Apartheid in South Africa and slavery in the US. It is not organised religion or the collective thought of religion that advances humanity. It is always seminal thinkers born into these religions that advance the cause of humanity and then we move forward as a society. Great thinkers have been born into Christianity, as have great thinkers been born into Islam and Hinduism, who have advanced science, mathematics, rationality and humanism. As Bertrand Russel once said, "religions mature like a fine wine", seeing that Bertrand was an agnostic, I interpret this to mean humanity matures like a fine-wine, and then religion follows suite. selma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ