If you believe in Jesus, do you think you live like him and his teachings? If not, why do you make that choice?

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I consider myself as a Christian by heritage, not by belief. I do not believe in Jesus or really find meaning in going hardcore on the Christian way of looking at things.

However, I’m probably more Christian than most actual Christians.

Most people don’t really appreciate the role of history in their religious belief. But it’s ever-present. People also over-value others’ stated beliefs. Who really cares if someone else believes the minutiae of your conception of the Trinity as you do?

These two aspects of modern-day belief make it virtually impossible to really compare religion. Not because it’s not possible to compare the strength of belief itself. But because different people have different ideas of what that belief should be. Belief in what should be often trumps what the beliefs actually are all the damned time. It’s one of the weaknesses of belief.

I believe in universal love. I believe in loving your neighbor. Any abstract principles the Romans came up with in the service of making their bastardization of Christian religion palatable, I agree with and accept. Despite its provenance.

Turn the other cheek, it’s good for you. Most people won’t.

I probably live more like Jesus than most of his followers, even today. I just refuse to be a party to his bastardization.

Or to any kind of Jesus belief whatsoever. I look at the narrative, the passion, the story of Jesus and I can only roll my eyes. The Romans made all that shit up. The real Jesus must have been political. There’s really no way around it, history demanded it.

And you ask me if I believe in bastardized historical narratives over actual history? Hahahahaha, of course not.

If you can’t accept me as Christian, I accept your characterization. Maybe I even share it.

Will I ever actually believe in it? Not for dozens of years.