By - Maria Wirth
If you have not been born into a Christian family, there is absolutely no good reason to accept Christianity.
And if you have been born a Christian, you should reflect, on what is helpful in your belief and what is harmful to you and humanity as a whole.
Let me explain: I was born in a Christian family and the belief in God, the Creator, who knows us and loves us, was helpful as a child. My mother taught me a brief prayer that rhymed in German:
„Lieber Gott, ich bin klein,
mein Herz ist rein,
lass mich ganz Dein eigen sein.“
(Dear God, I am small, my heart is pure, let me be fully your own.)
It was helpful as it created an intimacy with God and I felt protected by his greatness.
Soon I was also taught about Jesus Christ is the only son of God, who died for our sins, and rose from the dead, etc… and I was taught about hell, for example: if I don’t go to Mass on Sunday, and I don’t confess to the priest and repent, I will be thrown into eternal hellfire. (For Catholics in the 1950s, and 60s, not attending Mass on Sundays was a “cardinal sin”, which means a very bad sin with eternal hell as punishment)
Harmful to the individual and humanity
This teaching was harmful to me, as I became very timid and believed something, which was not true, but which I believed to be true at that time.
Later in school, another aspect was taught. Christianity alone has the full truth. All those heathens who don’t accept Christ as their savior will burn eternally in hell.
This is harmful to humanity as a whole. It makes Christians arrogant and they look down on those heathens who are “damned”. And how easily they even killed them. Christianity has left a very bloody trail on earth, and all this in the name of a “loving God”.
Something seems very wrong here. Every human with average intelligence can see that this claim that non-Christians will burn eternally in hell, is not true but is a strategy to divide and rule. Unfortunately, many of those who were brainwashed into this belief as children, can’t see it even as adults.
Now regarding the beneficial aspect of Christianity.
Beneficial is the belief in a great God, a supreme power, to which we owe our existence.
Yet there is no need to accept Christianity where one needs to blindly believe also the harmful aspects because Christianity comes as a full parcel where one cannot pick and choose. The belief in a higher power is natural and makes sense. And this belief is ancient. It was there much before Christianity appeared.
In the most ancient texts of humanity, the Vedas, Brahman is the one invisible, eternal, infinite Consciousness that is the Essence of all. This Essence is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Truth-Consciousness-Bliss) and the same in all. Only names and forms are different and temporary.
