Execution of Jesus brought on the icon cross from the crossbar in which Jesus died. Now gold crosses are frequently seen on Paul's faithful devotees It was Paul the Pharisee, with Peter, who started the first Church in Antioch, Asia Minor, now Turkey. This is where Paul's headquarters were when starting his missionary campaign to fulfill his concept of the great commission to proselytize and convert people to his new religion. At Antioch his followers were first called Christians in derision. Paul was hanged for starting a new religion in the vast Roman Empisre.
Dear Ones,
Jesus of Nazareth never wrote down one word that has been documented. It was Paul who mostly influenced the writing of the small New Testament tacked on to the Jewish Bible against the will of the Hebrew people.
The early fathers or founders of the United States, after Christopher Columbus miscalculated where he had landed, insisted on the separation of church and state since their ancestors had recently, during the Christian Inquisition still going on, escaped from the clutches of the Church of England. In America Puritan decrees and dogmatic man-made laws then took over the New World.
Although Constantine the Great of the entire Roman Empire made Christianity legal, Justinian a later emperor, demanded that this new religion be compulsory over all nations, what caused an intense outcry. The aggressive church has regained its stranglehold in a multicultural society of thousands of religions that disagree among themselves. Even the US Capitol and the military hold biased prayer meetings. However, with a new fresh thrust of religion going South more northerners are not tolerating absolute religions that cause absolute corruption of endless war.
In China in 2014 secularism is cracking down on church steeples in a fast-growing government demolition campaign targeting the Pauline persuasion. With cranes, blowtorches and electric buzz saws crews are protected by helmeted, shield-carrying police as these huge overs-sized crosses crash to the ground. Soon biased members were weeping uncontrollably and holding prayer vigils in America as well, land of the free. Somethings never change.
Today Muslims as well as non-Christians are offended by churches getting away without contributing property taxes that the rest of the world must pay. The delinquents feel they are above the law by defying human inherent rights and shirk the duties of citizenship. Many institutions are atruistic and give freely of their time and money while at the same time paying government taxes. Yet the Pauline religion has no qualms about taxing their members with annual tithes.
In the United States a Pagan High Priest heard a fundamentalist wing-nut protesting, "We don't need pagan churches. We're a very religious community"–meaning only our religion is welcome. This arrogant self-absorbed bigotry discriminates against a Pagan neighbor with the church's over-sized 35-foot lighthouse having a bright rotating red cross shining into his window at night. This opened an ongoing dispute against church and state. It involved the Pagan Temple built next door in the Bible Belt at Beebe, Arkansas–a mixing of oil and "holy'" water.
The Pentecostal tower proved to be in violation against building zone codes, as the Mayor of the town announced to the Pagan priest, "You're not going to open a Pagan anything in my town." Not only the mayor claiming the village as his, joined with members and the bishop harassing the new neighbor as they tried to get him to convert to Christianity. Other people played hymns on his phone.
Taking it no longer, the Pagan burst into the church as the Beebe police accused him of harassing his neighbors! He was told he had to go before a zoning board meeting with a grandfathered-in chairman the pastor of the opposing church. One Christian citizen accused the Pagan Temple builder of being a "devil worshiper."
Mame
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