Hello Michael,
You are correct; I am basing my arguments of the fact that Jesus was not the “Son of God”. Nothing in his life ever proves he is so! His supposed resurrection can not even be verified out side of the Bible, which is of course not a reliable text in the first places. Seeing as it is a religious text full of legends mixed with bits of history. So again, yes, he had no authority in the Temple of Ha-Shem (The Hebrews tribal deity) that (The Authority) belonged to the Chief priest and the civil magistrates. If they allowed these changers to be there then so be it. Is it morally wrong? Yes, I would agree with you that it was wrong for them to basically rob the poor. Yet as the saying goes, two wrongs do not make a right. The Charter of Jesus was just as wrong as the money changers. So when you claim that Jesus never hurt anyone, you are (respectfully) wrong. He accosted the people with a whip. He physically attacked them! When you do this, it causes pain, thus it is hurting someone. As far as it being interesting that the crowd demanded Barabbas be released instead of Jesus. Jesus was by far the worse criminal and trouble maker. He assaults people, kill’s other people’s animals, he went around causing trouble with the occupying Roman forces, risking the lives of millions of hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives, all the while inciting religious divide in a much fractured and religiously tense nation. The Jewish kingdom had no hope of over throwing their Roman conquers and their God did not seem very interested in freeing them himself. This of course was proven by the Jewish revolt that cased the Romans to burn the second temple. Thus Jesus was much more dangerous to the Nation then Barabbas was. So, they put to death a violent and rebellious criminal. As to my own standard of conduct and how well I hold up to my ethics, well over all very well thank you. Yet I too make mistakes. However, when I do make such mistakes, I do not fall back on the much used and lame excuse that “The devil made me do it”. I take account of my errors and mistakes. I alone am to blame when I mess up. I alone make amends for said mistakes. That is what makes me a responsible adult and human being. As far as the Christian God’s standards, well to be honest, they don’t apply to me. I am after all, not Christian. Besides this, the Bible is a book which on the surface appears to be about love and kindness, when in reality it is a book of atrocities and vile evilness. A book that allows its readers to go after “unbelievers”, a book of madness written by the hands of men filled with madness. The Apostle Paul would be a good example. The only true differences between radical Islam and the Radical Christianity that many practices is the body count is far in favor of the later. As for the Commandments, there are 613 mitzvot (commandments) not just the 10 that Christians pick and chose from. Now while I know some of what I have said sounds harsh, it is not said in anger. It’s just that the facts can be harsh in and of themselves at times. I am a big one for truth and personal integrity. Over all, I think that this is and will be a very productive exercise. With much regards and well wishes,
Adam