The teachings of Jesus are simple, and true

"The problem with the Christians is that they don't think for themselves and can't answer a thing without just saying, "read this", 'this says that". God gave you a heart and a brain. Any other resource on God is SECONDARY, including a stupid BOOK someone wrote long after Christ died, designed to brainwash and control and instill fear. And looks like it worked. Lord help us all."

By the time the "BOOK" was codified by Constantine (more than 300 years after Jesus proclaimed The Gospel), the Gnostics had been eliminated from the Church of Rome.  Gnostics in their various sects outnumbered all other Christians.  The sword is a powerful theology in converting "non-believers" and that's how the Romans took care of Gnostics.  Yet in spite of all the writings that Constantine eliminated from the New Testament, if you read the teachings of Jesus as written in Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, you still get a beautiful path to follow.  Even though Jesus taught in Aramaic, none of which has survived, and even though The Gospels have been butchered, there is still enough there to use as a basis for a simple and fulfilling theology.

Jesus eliminated the "god" of the old testament.  (In the OT it is very difficult to distinguish between what is called god, and the devil.)  But Paul, being both a Pharisee and a Roman, convoluted Jesus' message enough to make it eventually palatable to Rome and Constantine.  Evangelical theology has reverted to the OT god and the hundreds of rules and regulations of the Pharisees.  It has flipped the message of Jesus' upside down and become an antichrist theology, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

However, many of the core teachings of Jesus are still there.  Non-violence (turn the other cheek).  The kingdom of god is within you.  God is not judgmental.  He wasn't judgmental.  (Only humans are judgmental.)  Blessed are the peace makers (which eliminates our current government and its evangelical support).  Cast the first stone.  The Good Samaritan.  And just on and on bearing little resemblance to the theology of the evangelicals today.

I try to follow the teachings of Jesus.  I love to quote his words to the those that teach hell and damnation because I know they don't believe them and I'm pretty sure they've never even read them.

The Gospels and the teachings of Jesus are pretty good stuff.

By the way, Edgar Cayce (a Pentecostal Sunday School teacher until the day he died) said the Gnosticism is the true teaching of Jesus, and I agree.