Most Christians you know are technically “Pauline Christians with Theistic Evolutionary tendencies.”
In case you didn’t know, Paul the Apostle is the entire reason Christianity spread from Jewish people to Gentiles. Technically, Paul had visions of Jesus Christ, wherein the information was relayed from Jesus to Paul that it was perfectly fine to start recruiting Gentiles, and, to start being liberated from the 613 Old Testament laws. Which was a new position 180 degrees from where Jesus was earlier. Jesus originally said the old laws were not to be changed at all, and it was therefore strongly implied that this new religion was exclusively for Jewish people. Early Jewish Christians, Ebionites, viewed Paul as a false apostle if not the antichrist.
Nowadays, Pauline Christians are also taking the position of theistic evolution instead of creationism.
Now as you have probably witnessed, Christianity has the worst time trying to unite Christians under a single Christian belief system and moral code. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally. Maybe every religion has unity problems. Of course, Christianity even had trouble in its early history. The Roman emperor and murderous psychopath Constantine the Great forced Christians to get their system together with the council of Nicaea in AD 325. Sometimes it takes a murderous psychopath to bring the masses together. In retrospect it kind of worked but it also kind of didn’t. Probably the main concept Constantine gave Christianity is the avant garde mathematical equation of 1+1+1 = 1. The “monotheism” of the triune God.
Theistic evolution didn’t come along until the 17th century. It’s really a “go along to get along” position. And technically, the Catholic church has no official position on creationism or evolution.
Maybe you consider yourself Christian? This is a snapshot of the overwhelming majority of Christians and the Christians you know. Gentiles, because of Paul. Triune monotheism, because of Constantine. And theistic evolution, because of the persistence of science. In this post I mention that it’s not “the strong survive,” but it’s “the adaptive survive.” From Paul, to Constantine, to Theistic Evolution – Christianity certainly seems to have adapted.
Historical records show there were many guys named “Jesus” in the first century. More than 20? More than 100? Who is to say? Between the 4 gospels and 52 gnostic texts, and seeing how they are all a bit different from each other, it seems maybe ancient Jewish writers were playing a practical joke. The Christians you know didn’t bother to select just 1 gospel. For some reason they selected and canonized 4. Further, with the help of Paul and Constantine they invented a special fantasy Jesus that doesn’t have a 1 to 1 perfect overlap with any of the 4 gospels they picked. And with all of the denominations, there are even more fantasy Jesuses to go along with each denomination. Perhaps there are as many Jesuses as there are Christians. And yet, probably zero of them line up with a single gospel or gnostic text.
Christianity appears to be a test of how many splinters in the mind your mind will be able to take. How does anyone conclude that this is not 100% political bullshit?