Reading a blog regarding "Jesus for President," I was reminded of several thoughts I've had over the years about "things and concepts religious."

During my graduate school years at the University of Missouri, I recall writing a paper entitled "Jesus Christ as a Community Organizer." Much more recently, I've been known to write that if Jesus Christ was alive in these times, acting and speaking as he allegedly did in his young adulthood, he would be labeled by many in the United States of America as a left wing zealot, a communist. He would have been condemned for those socialist beliefs by the very church and its various conservative denominations and sects which tout their christianity (small "c" intentional) in strident, intrusive and blatantly biased terms.

Having been raised as a Methodist, I am very much aware as to why I attended any event in that church during my adolescance: The MYF group was where most of the girls I liked attended, and our basketball team (YMCA league) was excellent.
I was a boy scout in two troops - one sponsored by a Baptist Church and the other by the Unitarian Church. My grandfather was a Unitarian and my grandmother (guardian) was a Methodist-neither was particularly active in churches, and religion was only one aspect of the scouting movement back in the 1950s.

I minored in history in undergraduate school, and took several courses in religion for the minor. My view of contemporary, conservative Christianity is that the religion denies its roots which did not originate with the Old Testament but predate those stories. More, today's conservative Christianity ignores the origin(s) of the fundamental beliefs which emerged from several different cultures and societies long before Christ was born and lived.

Finally, I am appalled about the warring by humans in the name of religions, which leads me to believe merely that God was a great idea, but we humans have so bastardized the beliefs as to render the idea unrealistic and hypicritical. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated, it is the fundamentalists in the world who pose the greatest threat to humankind. Today's expressions of fundamentalism both in the United States and in the Middle East are testament to Kennedy's comment, in my opinion.

I write this not knowing if anyone will read it, and whoever reads this is invited to visit my blog and share thoughts there.
Respectfully,Samcvt