How the hell did Christianity spread so much?

[Anushka]

I find it hard that a God would create a man and woman and create all necessary food for them on earth and then give them 500 rules to follow. 

I doubt the existence of Jesus. Not of God. No one can convince me there is no God. I will never believe in evolution.

My mum and right now Google told me the disciple of Jesus - Thomas came to India and spread Christianity.

BUT, if Jesus never came and died and said all those things, how can a follower of Jesus come to India and spread Christianity?

If there is no Jesus, how do you explain pastors healing people with physical problems?

I met a lady whose sister poked her eye with a key when they were kids and years later a pastor prayed for her and she got a new eyeball and her damaged eye was healed.

I met a lady whose daughter had boils all over her body and she got healed after a pastor prayed for her.

I am confused and scared. If Jesus does exist, will he hate me that I stopped believing in him?

[florduh]

Welcome to Ex-C.

 

Keep in mind that believing in a god because you want to is one thing but asserting that a god actually exists is another thing and requires proof.

 

You don't have to be any kind of a scientist to see the overwhelming evidence for evolution, so we won't even go there.

 

Magic healing? Well, no religion or fakir has a corner on that belief, but I have yet to find any proof. Obviously there are psychosomatic illnesses, conditions that eventually resolve themselves, spontaneous remissions and the power of the placebo effect is well documented. If supernatural healing actually existed we should at least once in awhile see a restored severed limb or two, but no.

[MOHO]

58 minutes ago, Anushka said:

I met a lady whose sister poked her eye with a key when they were kids and years later a pastor prayed for her and she got a new eyeball and her damaged eye was healed.

 

@Anushka,

 

Welcome aboard!

 

How did said individual come about a new eyeball? Was it from a donor? If so, then you can only attribute the "healing" to the donor and the doctor/surgeon.

 

" I met a lady whose daughter had boils all over her body and she got healed after a pastor prayed for her. "

What else, besides the praying, was employed to heal the boils?

 

Interesting how few of us, if any, have actually witnessed any spontaneous healing or other "miracles" first hand. It's always someone's uncle's boss's neighbor's daughter-in-law who had the experience. Those who I personally have heard tell tales of this type, who were there, were victims of a hoax or or other manipulation ie a televangelist with helpers interviewing the audience before the show or the transient who had a "demon" (she was having a seizure) driven out of her by prayer. It's a documented fact that speaking in a calm, soothing voice has a positive impact on those having seizures.

 

As for convincing you (proving?) there is no god? Well of course not. But evidence, or in this case a lack thereof, should result in 5 nines of possibility that a god does not exist. 

 

But this site really is not about atheism (some would argue and many of us arrive there) but about discussing the unlikelihood that Christianity is anything other than a myth.

 

 

 

 

 

[MOHO]

@Anushka,

 

To answer your original question - Christianity spread fairly quickly, compared to other religions, because Constantine https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor

decided that he needed a Trump card to ward off the powers that be so he decreed xanity to be the only lawful religion.

 

In addition to that, and this is MY opinion, xanity was one of, if not the first, "main stream" religion to be written down with a modicum of purposefulness and humans tend to take more seriously that which is written down. Then the printing press came along and ...well... you get the idea. 

 

OK?

Fine?

 

[Tsathoggua9]

4 minutes ago, MOHO said:

@Anushka,

 

To answer your original question - Christianity spread fairly quickly, compared to other religions, because Constantine https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor

decided that he needed a Trump card to ward off the powers that be so he decreed xanity to be the only lawful religion.

 

In addition to that, and this is MY opinion, xanity was one of, if not the first, "main stream" religion to be written down with a modicum of purposefulness and humans tend to take more seriously that which is written down. Then the printing press came along and ...well... you get the idea. 

 

OK?

Fine?

 

 

Good point!

[Anushka]

48 minutes ago, MOHO said:

 

@Anushka,

 

Welcome aboard!

 

How did said individual come about a new eyeball? Was it from a donor? If so, then you can only attribute the "healing" to the donor and the doctor/surgeon.

 

" I met a lady whose daughter had boils all over her body and she got healed after a pastor prayed for her. "

What else, besides the praying, was employed to heal the boils?

 

Interesting how few of us, if any, have actually witnessed any spontaneous healing or other "miracles" first hand. It's always someone's uncle's boss's neighbor's daughter-in-law who had the experience. Those who I personally have heard tell tales of this type, who were there, were victims of a hoax or or other manipulation ie a televangelist with helpers interviewing the audience before the show or the transient who had a "demon" (she was having a seizure) driven out of her by prayer. It's a documented fact that speaking in a calm, soothing voice has a positive impact on those having seizures.

 

As for convincing you (proving?) there is no god? Well of course not. But evidence, or in this case a lack thereof, should result in 5 nines of possibility that a god does not exist. 

 

But this site really is not about atheism (some would argue and many of us arrive there) but about discussing the unlikelihood that Christianity is anything other than a myth.

 

 

 

 

 

No. The lady whose daughter got healed spoke to me and my mum in July this year..2017..that is not even 3 months ago....she herself told me her daughter got healed when a pastor prayed for her...the daughter got healed as soon as the pastor prayed for her...the daughtet is married now and is working in Ireland..

[Anushka]

43 minutes ago, MOHO said:

@Anushka,

 

To answer your original question - Christianity spread fairly quickly, compared to other religions, because Constantine https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor

decided that he needed a Trump card to ward off the powers that be so he decreed xanity to be the only lawful religion.

 

In addition to that, and this is MY opinion, xanity was one of, if not the first, "main stream" religion to be written down with a modicum of purposefulness and humans tend to take more seriously that which is written down. Then the printing press came along and ...well... you get the idea. 

 

OK?

Fine?

 

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

[MOHO]

1 hour ago, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

 

What is to gain, @Anushka, is control. Control over the masses. Why else would a group of old farts get together and decide which letters/books should go into another book that, collectively, they will use to teach and preach. They knew damn well that these writings were not of god or from god. How could they be? Thy were written by Man. And we really have no idea who those authors were.

 

BTW: the Bible is not "A" book but several.

Please read Bart Erman - Jesus Before The Gospels.

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

1 hour ago, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

 

The bible is made up of several different documents that were all written by different authors. One especially good reason why someone would make up a bunch of lies and declare it as truth that other people must believe/follow is if they are looking to control other people. If you are able to convince a lot of people that you speak for a god and that those who disagree with you or do not obey you are going to burn, you would find yourself with a lot of power. People would listen to you while you got rich off of their gullibility. Religious leaders and politicians can make quite a profit off of lying to people.

[florduh]

3 hours ago, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK.........

Why apply that "logic" to only the Bible? There are many other "holy" texts. Start with the Koran and go on from there.

[sdelsolray]

4 hours ago, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on?

...

Before you go any further, or ask any other questions, I strongly suggest you do some reliable factual research.  Indoctrination is not education.

[mwc]

10 hours ago, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

     Well, Constantine is credited with making Christianity legal but that leaves out the part where another hundred years (give or take) went by where the various factions of xianity battled for dominance and it was ultimately ordered that the variant we have today was the de facto correct version and the others done away with.  It was not a monolith from the start nor was it a simple matter to arrive at the "final" form (and that largely ignores the continued evolution from Constantine which include major events such as the Protestant Reformation for example).

 

     The bible itself is made up of many, largely anonymous, authors and editors from various regions over an unknown time span.  Some authors make various claims as to why they wrote.  The prophets generally give reasons that include god telling them to do say this or that or warn people of this or that.  But is that their true motive?  It's impossible to know.  We just have to take things at face value in these cases.  That these people believed that their god told them do to things and so they did.  That doesn't mean that their god exists.

 

     So if you truly believe that a god speaks to you, that god is telling you something and you write that something down, is that something a lie?  No.  It doesn't follow that it is true in the sense of being factual or real though.  It just means that you believe it to be honest and true.  So imagine that you heard a voice that you believe is from a god, that god tells you that its name is "Jeff" and you need to tell the world that is on a path to self-destruction if they don't change their ways.  If you start telling the world that "Jeff says you need to change your ways" are you lying?  No.  Are you maybe delusional?  Yes.  Is there some small chance there really is a god named Jeff?  Sure, but that's going to require some amount of proof beyond your word.  Independent evidence.  Not evidence that comes from those who have come from a "Jeff" based society (or if so something quite extraordinary not just someone else claiming Jeff is real and speaks to them, one way, as well).

 

     What this means is the people who wrote all that stuff came up in a society who already believed in gods.  They believed in multiple gods.  This is evidenced in the texts and in archaeology.  They also came to believe in YHWH as their primary deity.  As they did so they wrote with him giving directives to give weight to those directives and (some) people would believe that he was a, if not the, prime mover so if something occurred he was the reason.  So if prayers were answered he was the reason.  If you won a battle it was him.  If natural events occurred, like rain or good crops, it was him.  If there were voices in your head guess who was talking?  It wouldn't be a lie to attribute any/all of these things to him.  It would almost be a lie not to.  And once people start writing, not fiction but a version of reality which includes myths like the poets of Greece, they're going to naturally write in a way that reflects all this.

 

     The thing is the writings have been edited.  So in parts of Deuteronomy we see that El, the supreme Canaanite deity, was once head over YHWH and it was changed to make YHWH head over the tribes of Israel.  We know that YHWH had the consort Asherah but it was edited so Asherah became taboo.  The Northern Kingdom of Israel was actually the better kingdom but that got reversed so that Judeah in the South got the upper hand.  The list goes on.

 

     Later authors, and apologists, built on not only the books we include in our canon but a great number of apocryphal texts (many people haven't even heard of these and not all have survived).  Using these texts people came up with a great many ideas.  Like the early xians the Judaism of the time was not a monolith either.  This is probably why xianity could come to exist.  It allowed people to read in ideas that simple did not exist.  There's nothing in any of these ancient works, that we know of, that states that god has a son and will come to earth to do anything.  So someone, or group of someones, had to go through the texts and extract that idea then build on it.  Reading early xian church fathers and their apologetics we can get an idea of what material they used to form these ideas.  They always use old testament texts since they were ignorant of the new testament writings until late in the second century (they know of jesus but nothing he said instead choosing to go to the OT well instead almost like there are proto-NT ideas forming but nothing concrete yet).

 

     Anyhow, this post is way, way, longer than I had intended so I'm just going to leave it at that.

 

          mwc

 

[LogicalFallacy]

12 hours ago, Anushka said:

No. The lady whose daughter got healed spoke to me and my mum in July this year..2017..that is not even 3 months ago....she herself told me her daughter got healed when a pastor prayed for her...the daughter got healed as soon as the pastor prayed for her...the daughtet is married now and is working in Ireland..

 

The people who wrote the bible claim many things, Jesus walked on water, Jesus feed 5000+ people with 2 loaves and 5 fishes, turned water into wine, died and rose again, ascended into heaven. Is there any reason to actually believe any of this?

 

In the same way, people claim to be healed all the time. From all different religions. The only correlation with divine healing we can find is that religious people believes their particular deity heals them. However there is no a shred of evidence to suggest that any deity actually breaks physical laws and magically heals people. Certainly people say it happens, but people say many things.... which is why extraordinary reports of events that defy reality should be properly verified before giving credence to them.

 

As to your title question, MWC answered it in depth, but basically like all successful religions, it was spread at the point of a sword and threat of hell. And no doubt some people actually believed it and felt it worthy to spread, but they were greatly helped by having state blessing since AD 325 ish

[Rounin]

On 9/29/2017 at 9:25 PM, Anushka said:

BUT, if Jesus never came and died and said all those things, how can a follower of Jesus come to India and spread Christianity?

He probably walked and rode on animals such as horses, camels and donkeys.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 9:25 PM, Anushka said:

If there is no Jesus, how do you explain pastors healing people with physical problems?

They don't. Sometimes people get better by themselves or due to the placebo effect.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 9:25 PM, Anushka said:

I met a lady whose sister poked her eye with a key when they were kids and years later a pastor prayed for her and she got a new eyeball and her damaged eye was healed.

No, she didn't.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 9:25 PM, Anushka said:

I met a lady whose daughter had boils all over her body and she got healed after a pastor prayed for her.

Boils can come and go.

 

On 9/29/2017 at 9:25 PM, Anushka said:

I am confused and scared. If Jesus does exist, will he hate me that I stopped believing in him?

Different versions of Christianity say different things. Different religions also say different things. The problem is that there's no definitive evidence for any of them. Perhaps the true god is the mighty Atheos who wants us to be atheists.

 

[LimitedGrip]

On 9/29/2017 at 12:25 PM, Anushka said:

I will never believe in evolution.

 

 

Please  understand that the version of evolution you are probably familiar with is a caricature created by uneducated apologists, and does not represent what scientists have actually discovered. Before you write it off, it would behoove you to understand what it is scientists are really claiming. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

On 10/15/2017 at 1:03 PM, Rounin said:

Perhaps the true god is the mighty Atheos who wants us to be atheists.

Love it! That's a very tight paradox.

[★ Citsonga ★]

17 hours ago, LimitedGrip said:

 

Please  understand that the version of evolution you are probably familiar with is a caricature created by uneducated apologists, and does not represent what scientists have actually discovered. Before you write it off, it would behoove you to understand what it is scientists are really claiming. 

 

Good point. Creationists are notorious for presenting a strawman version of evolution. They misrepresent it every chance they get, which is part of the reason for how they had me suckered when I was a Christian. 

[Guest]

On 9/29/2017 at 12:25 PM, Anushka said:

I find it hard that a God would create a man and woman and create all necessary food for them on earth and then give them 500 rules to follow. 

I doubt the existence of Jesus. Not of God. No one can convince me there is no God. I will never believe in evolution.

My mum and right now Google told me the disciple of Jesus - Thomas came to India and spread Christianity.

BUT, if Jesus never came and died and said all those things, how can a follower of Jesus come to India and spread Christianity?

If there is no Jesus, how do you explain pastors healing people with physical problems?

I met a lady whose sister poked her eye with a key when they were kids and years later a pastor prayed for her and she got a new eyeball and her damaged eye was healed.

I met a lady whose daughter had boils all over her body and she got healed after a pastor prayed for her.

I am confused and scared. If Jesus does exist, will he hate me that I stopped believing in him?

You need to better contextualize the actual human narrative, and in doing so dissolve these illusions which we invented long ago.  First of all, we are primates who evolved in Africa from around 1.8 million years ago until about 200,000 thousand years ago.  This led to the cognitive revolution in homo sapiens, who over the course of 70,000 years ago to 30,000 years ago set about colonizing the world and by 30,000 years ago no other hominids would be left except this thinking man.  Mankind's hunting practices became increasingly efficient as he colonized the world and began to run out of large fauna, while simultaneously beginning animal domestication and crop domestication in the geographical regions that supplied regular water supplies.  Those communities that flourished the most, were those along the ancient rivers, such as the Nile, but success meant considerable collaboration as it took tremendous amounts of people to manage the annual flooding of the river.  This necessity drove the population up, while simultaneously empowering the religious and secular elements existing from the tribal entities of which it consisted of from that initial transition from hunter gatherer to farmers.  Primates who used to organize into bands, could now formalize a centralized state such as in the case of Egypt because it had a unified monolithic culture and religion.  The Israelites would not come onto the scene for sometime, and the "ancient religion" which heralds the creation tales were likely written after the Babylonian captivity.  This however served as a means by the literate elite to organize and sustain justification for the power held within that tribe, of which the ancient Israelite kingdom is a representation of a tribe which turns into a Kingdom in the wake of falling Empires, which uses a tribal monotheistic god to justify the divine right of the King to rule over his subjects.  This was consistent in antiquity, and after a period of great Hellenization of the region various messianic cults arose and fell without great prominence, but the story of Jesus spread throughout the region and churches were planted all throughout the Roman Empire.  The existing religious establishment being rooted in that Grecco-Roman mythology of paganism was much more aggressive to Christianity, which from the texts that spread had the theme of the martyr and this was natural as Christians did not respect the communal bond that was essential to Romanization; sacrifice to the gods.  Most religions previous to Christianity involved sacrifices of livestock and in more ancient cases, humans, Christianity's departure here in the context of the Roman community is I think noteworthy as this bond was a bit more tenuous than the Romans would have liked to suggest.  Urbanization and centralization of government power had meant devastation for much of the world as the Romans conquered foreign peoples and held them subjugated by provincial authorities and Roman spears.  There were large urban areas with many poor, and these people were not prominent in pagan culture and thus were the first conversions to the Christian faith after its initial spread in the Roman occupied Palestine.  This would spread gradually, and at no point seemed to be on the verge of taking over the Roman world until Constantine, whose deeds have been surely hyperbolesly presented in the textual evidence we have to present the event.  However he came to be a Christian, he led a series of gradual reforms of the Empire which set in motion the Christianization of the Roman world, which would be solidified by both the early death of Julian the Apostate and thus his efforts to undo the previous Christianization, and also the decrees of Theodosius I making Catholic Christianity the official religion of the Roman world.  The Germanic tribal people having no great culture, used the culture and religion of the Roman world to justify their early Kingdoms which eventually grew into the Medieval world.  

 

The power of monotheism over polytheism can be observed in the geographical region of the early competing civilizations, Christianity serves as a solid justification for a state which has the power over the people, a justification for institutions such as slavery and money and a strong ethical moral mode.  It is also built on an emotional ethic of love which was more inspiring in a personal religious way for the kinds of people who increasingly became to populate Europe, namely the urban poor, whose promises of a better life tomorrow than the one today while also keeping you subservient to your feudal duties and servitude was essential for the justifying myths which created our world.  Could you imagine modern people slaughtering animals in ritual sacrifices en masse, it just wasn't a very economic system of worship when it came down to it and once the upper echelon of Roman society became converted, people were happy to give up the practice for the most part and by content with the propitiation their weekly mass provided instead.  You could think of it as a theological innovation, that you could magically sacrifice a perfect lamb every Sunday, and do all the other sacraments that the church provides and you can attain a heavenly world that the Greeks and Romans could scarce have conceived.  

 

To summarize, Christianity grew out of cultures and then mixed with other cultures in order to justify established elite classes, as was the basis for every religious organization which came to prominence in the ancient world after mankind transitioned from hunter gathering to farming, which gave birth to the first civilizations.  It was in a sense essential then, religion, as a mythological foundation for social interaction and justification of landed warrior elite classes which dominated this period.    I realize that you don't want to give up on god and believe in evolution, but you are an organism like all other creatures on this planet, you just happen to be half symbolic in a sense.  No reason to give up on spirituality when you give up on the metaphysical, reality is way more interesting.

[ToddJ]

On 9/29/2017 at 4:35 PM, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

When you look at as a collection of stories, myth, and the way the people saw God instead of being infallible as though one author wrote it in one sitting it is just a book they used for spiritual guidance it is a collection of 66 different books and the opinions of Paul are his opinion etc. The church makes it seem like its inerrant and every word was dictated by God Himself so while I don't believe there was a Bible conspiracy in that the book itself was one, the Christian church turned it into one.  We're free to doubt it or examine it skeptically without being thrown into a burning lake for disbelieving in something.

[Geezer]

On September 29, 2017 at 4:35 PM, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

 

It appears you are not familiar with the multitude of other similar ancient religions that existed long before Judaism & Christianity. The Samarias are the oldest known civilization. They worshipped many Gods & produced the original version of the 10 commandments. Then there were the Egyptians, Persians,  Babylonians, Assyrians & many more cultures that created many Gods & religions. Then, of course, we had the Greek & Roman dynasties.  

 

Cultures copied elements of other cultures religions and Gods. This process went on for thousands of years. If you worship the God of Abraham then you are worshipping a mythical Canaanite war God named EL son Yahweh, who is a mythical Canannite Storm God that Isreal adapted and proclaimed to be the one true God. Baal is also a mythical son of EL & a God Israel also worshipped. 

 

I would recommend you read the book A History of God by Dr. Karen Armstrong a former Nun. She notes in her book that God didn't create man, but man did create God. 

 

You might also want to look into Astrology & see how Sun Worship has influenced all of the ancient religions. As far as validating the Bible goes Dr. Bart Ehrman is a good historian to read. He notes that the Bible has been edited, redacted, changed & parts totally rewritten more times than their is even words in it. Present day Bibles are forgeries. 

 

And no Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John did not write one word of the Bible. There is no Historical Jesus & Paul was likely only a literary figure too. Simon Magus & Marcion are the most likely authors of Paul's epistles & Paul's missionary journeys are fictional stories.The stories & people you read about in the Bible are myths. 

[Geezer]

On September 29, 2017 at 4:35 PM, Anushka said:

But why would someone write AN ENTIRE BOOK (IN THIS CASE THE BIBLE) and make up stories about God, his rules, the coming of his son and so on? What could someone possibly gain by writing a book of lies? I stopped believing in the Bible a few months ago, but I keep wondering who the heck went to wtite all that stuff in the Bible if it weren't true. How on earth did they come up with all the names in the Old Testament? If you think that the Bible is a fabrication, do you think one person wrote the whole thing or different people? 

 

If you are looking for a God to worship I would suggest you consider either panendeism or Panentheism. Basically that option centers on the idea that all of creation & the universe is God. In other words God is everywhere & exists in everything. 

[Joshpantera]

@Anushka

What a load of information to suddenly take it. I was reading through this imagining how it must feel to just recently have entertained real doubt. And the years, and years, and years of reading and sifting through information that it requires to really understand the answers to the questions you're asking.

 

Bart Ehrman really seems like the go to in this instance, as suggested. Just dive in backwards tracing the question "who wrote the Bible" until you have a strong understanding of both the religious and secular biased sides. You know the joe average citizen version of blindly accepting what you've been told by religious authorities, now delve into their opposition. Your doubting things is the dinner bell ringing signaling that you're ready to go there. And you'll likely feel emotional at times about what you uncover. Good luck with it! Hopefully you stay the course without getting sucked back into religious based deception.