or have no idea what any of this is all about, here is a nutshell version of the history of Judeo-Christian religion.

Most of the shit we deal with today starts with Abraham. Christian, muslim, and Jew all have Abraham in common.

It is, remarkably enough, rare to find anyone who knows this.

Anyway: Abraham’s wife Sarah can’t conceive. Sarah has a slave girl named Hagar who is Egyptian. She gives Hagar to Abraham, and he has a kid by Hagar, and calls him Ishmael.

In his hundredth year, or therabouts, God speaks to Abraham, and says “Look, forget about Hagar and Ishmael, you’re gonna have a kid with Sarah”. Abraham, a little freaked about the idea of having a kid when he’s 100, (Sarah herself is 90) says “but how can this be?” God says “Duh! I”m GOD!”
So Sarah has a kid. Sarah’s kid is named Isaac. You might remember Isaac as the kid who God asks Abraham to offer as sacrifice as a test of his faith. Sarah sees Ishmael playing wiht Isaac and thinks “Hey, that kid is gonna get all of Abraham’s stuff when he croaks” and throws Hagar and Ishmael out. Hagar and Ishamel and crew get treated like redheaded stepchildren for generations.

Christ comes along. If you read the bible, it’s pretty clear Christ didn’t want everyone to be “Christians” he wanted them to be good Jews. For good or ill, Christ’s followers took it upon themself to be “Christians” instead of “Jews who follow Christ” and here we are today.

Anyway, a couple hundred years after Christ dies, some offhand distant offspring of the clan of Ishmael, calling himself Mahomet, gets sick to death of being treated like a redheaded stepchild. He could go to Jesus’s followers and be whole and move on to bigger and better things, but he’s reeeeeeally pissed at having been left off the guest list at the Table of Abraham so long, so he decides to make up his own religion. He makes up a bunch of new laws, too, that cater to his specific whims and perversions, and writes an unparalleled document of hatred of everyone. He aso rewrites a lot of the Torah (to Christians, the five books of the OT called “the Pentateuch”) to agree with his peculiar notions. Lots of people too stupid to understand the concept of “cult” start following him around. This grows like a cancer around the world.

The main body of Christianity after Jesus dies gradually divides itself into Roman Catholics and Eastern rite. With that much power comes politics, and there are a lot of bad people Claiming to be Christians doing bad shit all around. At several times over the years, different people, fed up with the political way the churches are being run, split off from the various Christian churches to form their own Christian churches, which immeditately fall prey to the kind of political bullshit that they attempted to escape. At each schism, some part or parts of the Christian Bible are removed because they don’t agree with what was said in them. Some, like the Calvinists, intent on being holier than everyone else, convince themselves that the really only need to read and understand John 3:16 and everything will be OK, which was yet another leaders way to get followers- “Hey, to hell with that being good all the time, just do this and you can get out of jail free!” as you might imagine, people beat down their doors to get in.

Any time any human tries to tell you that the creator wants you to do X, punch that human in the mouth. Humans are not capable of understanding the Creator or his desires. Any human who claims he does is not only mistaken they’re trying to divert you from the truth and into their own twisted bullshit. Say no. Make your relationship with the Creator personal and don’t share it with anyone. Let your informed conscience be your guide.