Well to be fair from what I can understand of Jesus the man from my own research into the texts is that all the Christianity religion doctrine haws very little to nothing to do with what he was trying to do. I think he was trying to say we all just need to love each other and we can have heaven on Earth if we treat each other as family, and that we don't need a church to connect to our spirituality. He was murdered for fomenting civil unrest and challenging the Roman status quo. Then, over the next couple of hundred years, people wrote things based on their interpretation of what he was saying long before they ever lived. And then the Roman empire took control of the emerging faith and used it to inspire fear and guilt in the people so they would remain under their control. Jesus wasn't trying to say "I'm lord over you, you're all shit, you better thank me for dying for you". I'm quite sure he didn't actually want to be brutally murdered, what he wanted was to help people live better lives and disrupt the corrupt establishment.
I'm not Christian either, by the way. I was raised Christian (not Catholic though), but never really bought into it. I just think Jesus himself was a good and wise man and I like to defend him and try to let people know that what the religion has become today is so incredibly opposed to what he seems to have wanted. I doubt he even had any intention of creating an organized religion... since his whole point was to reconnect people to their own spirituality. Even just reading the few books the Catholic church allowed into the Bible, his words seem opposed to what the church teaches. But then if you look into the books that they DIDN'T let into the Bible, it makes it even clearer that what Christianity the religion teaches is NOT what Jesus taught.
I agree with A lot of what you said.
I really feel bad for people, who have such vile and crude vitriol for him because they have obviously been hurt by the Christian churches' misunderstanding of Jesus' message. I really believe that he has just been misunderstood but he even predicted that there would be many that wouldn't understand because they are blinded by their own piety and self righteousness that they neither truly know God or carry his message. They twists his words to exalt themselves.
Jesus' didn't want to be worshiped. He came to let everyone know that we are all son's and daughters of God that divinity is inside each and everyone one of us and when we awake to the message of love, compassion, service to others and forgiveness then our eyes are opened and we become born again in the spirit.
He knew he was going to be a sacrifice because people had the same misunderstanding and blindness back then that they have today but his sacrifice was out of love. His sacrifice on the cross was a broader message of sacrificing oneself as the path to defeat sin and the death of the spirit or separation from God and others. Baptism carries the same symbolic message. When one is dipped into the water they are in essence dying. They are no longer to serve themselves but
are to be born again to serve God and the spirit.
My grandmother was the most sincere christian I have ever seen and the happiest woman as well. She lived in a little trailer in a rough part of town and even though she didn't have any money she would spend her days riding around feeding and clothing homeless people. She really had a beautiful heart and understood that dying to oneself defeats sin and suffering.
Buddhism has basically the same concept but they go about it differently.
The basis of
Buddhism is a doctrine known as the Four Noble Truths. The First Truth is that
suffering, pain, and misery exist in life. The Second Truth is that this
suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal
desire. ... The Fourth Truth is that the way to overcome this misery is through the Eightfold Path.
Pain, suffering and sin exists because we follow our baser cravings and desires. When we serve ourselves we will always exist in this state and will constantly feel empty and unfulfilled, while spreading more of the same. The way to transcend this is by service to God and the word. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
He is the way and the path. He simply asks you to follow him so that you might be saved from the wages of sin, which is death of the spirit and separation from God.