Gregory Wells Jr.

6-4-15
Earn and learn essay

A large part of the world that we live in today practices the religion of
Christianity. Christianity

has been the worlds leading religion since the

early centuries A.D. The customs, practices, and

traditions of Christianity

revolve around the idea of Jesus Christ dying for our sins. Many others
practice Islam where they believe that Jesus was nothing more than a
prophet turned martyr, and that Muhammad was the last great prophet.
People also practice Judaism, a religion that regards the bible as ancient
religious text much like Christianity. I always wondered however, how people
could all look at the same thing and both draw totally different conclusions
even the bible says that the scripture is of no private interpretation of man (2
Peter 1:20).
People will often follow things blindly without question; we just go along with
certain stuff because we see everyone else doing. We find value in traditions
that have been instilled in us over the course of a few centuries, why? We do
this because people tell us to, and we ourselves never take the time to
question and search things out. There are customs and practices in religion
that people hold on to fervently, but yet they arent really biblical. In
Judaism, most Jewish people add their own rituals and ceremonies passed
down from the fathers to the words of the bible, while Christians take away
from the words of the bible by disregarding commandment.
Christianity wasnt actually started by Jesus Christ; it was in fact started by
the Old Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. As the emperor of Rome,

Gregory Wells Jr.

6-4-15
Earn and learn essay

Constantine had to find a way to stay in power, so he used religion to fuel his
ambitious goals. He took the practices from his own religion of Sun worship
and branded it with Christianity because it was a growing religion. He took
advantage of the Nicene Council and their disagreements to come up with
the name of the new god of Constantines Christianity. They came up with
the name Jesus Christ by taking two gods from other religions, Zeus from
the Greeks, and Krishna from the Hindus. Constantines religion was driven
on doing away with the laws of the bible and taking on the sun worship
practices, he forced the people to follow by prosecuting, and murdering any
who didnt follow his guide lines. After long his form of worship became
normal, and even after his death the origins were overshadowed and it
became historical tradition. His practices consisted of many things like Sunday worship, and Christmas, the bible say not to learns the ways of heathens
(Jeremiah 10:2-4) or worship our God the way that they worship theirs
( Deuteronomy 12:4), but now today we do what they did to honor what we
believe in but we dont really know what that is. The western world of today
is greatly shaped by Constantine and the Roman Empire of the first
millennium A.D... Everything that we know and love comes from Rome, our
language, a lot of our names, the way we shape our buildings, our
government, our religious practices everything. Even the names of our days
of the week, our names of the months, all the way even to the counting of
the years, our culture comes from Rome.

Gregory Wells Jr.

6-4-15
Earn and learn essay

Judaism, on the other hand was actually started in the late centuries before
Christ came into the picture. The religion was based on the biblical law, but
after so many years of strife and disobedience some Jewish leaders or the
Fathers felt that the laws had to be stricter to keep the people in line. They
opened schools on Jewish thought and after so long they began to hold the
traditions and values that they made up for themselves over the biblical
teachings. The bible says not to add to or take away from the words therein
(Deuteronomy 4:2), but many Jewish people have become so arrogant over
time that they believe their practices are greater than that of others, and
that those who arent Jewish should be subservient to them.
We as people say that we know God of the bible all the time but we never
really read it. Others look to the bible only to tell them what they want to
hear, and then they tell that to other people. No one looks to the bible for
true understanding anymore, they just use it to convict and take advantage
of others. Religion and the bible have been intertwined throughout history
but yet couldnt be more different. The word is a shield but today we use that
and religion as swords to cut each other down. The commandment of the
bible is a lifestyle that builds people up together instead of destroying them
individually but it is long forgotten.