Reply #55: I guess I disagree with your conclusion that Jesus' message is one of peace and love.

[stopbush]

Jesus' peace is the peace of the tomb. His love is that of a master towards his slaves.

Christianity is a death cult, plain and simple.

Why people living in a democracy/republic would long to spend an eternity in a dictatorship (kingdom) - no matter how benign - is beyond me. There are no votes in heaven, just eternal worship of Jesus and the attendant servitude that comes with the king-subject model of government. Sounds a lot like present-day N Korea to me...except NK has the occasional show election.

BTW - republics existed long before Jesus supposedly came around. It says mountains about Jesus that he spoke of heaven in terms of a kingdom, rather than a republic.

As others have pointed out, cherry-picking Jesus allows one to imagine the best about his message. Reading the fine print tells a much different story.