Thanks, and re religion I'm interested in its historical importance and the revolutionary social impact of Christianity on western development and progress, which in my opinion was an extremely positive one and a much preferred one to where paganism was leading, which was to stagnation and de-evolution, kind of like the so-called 'progressive' times we live in now; I'm an atheist as far as the theological side of it goes, but I have no problems with those who are believers. I'm certain the Gospels and the NT were were true to their time and place, not faked, or forgeries, and the people real as well, I just don't follow the supernatural aspects. I admire many of the Christian writers and intellectuals, especially Thomas of Aquina and Augustine, each for different reasons, for example, and I think it obvious that a lot of later so-called 'Enlightenment' philosophers merely stole from the earlier writers, re such fare as 'natural law' and the like.
Re the OT, I see a definite break in the 'old school' Judaism versus the 'new school' Judaism, i.e. the post-exilic versions, and generally see the 'palestinian' Judaism as the more legitimate over the path Judaism took under Cyrus and the post-exilic versions, which embraced a particularly racist and oppressive bent against those Jews who had remained and weren't exiled. I find it small wonder that several movements had developed by the times of Jesus and the Essenes and Pharisees that would finally collapse that particular path in favor of setting the Christian sect on its way to greatness while the racist dead end continued its decline into unimportant isolationism, despite all its vanity and egotistical posturing. It is the Christian sect that went on to fulfill the prophecies of Moses and Isaiah, and became the 'light unto the world' Judaism was supposed to be but failed to become.
