Matter of fact, I did study philosophy. Very interesting. But I got the impression after awhile that it was people just talking themselves in circles until they painted themselves into a mental corner, so to speak.

Life is simpler than philosophy courses make it out to be. Way simpler. Philosophy profs tend to be enamoured with their own cleverness, I find, and they end up becoming very clever...very wordy...and very empty inside. (but there are exceptions to that, I'm sure)

Politicians did not invent religion. The kind of people who are utterly, completely uninterested in politics became spiritual teachers...and the politicians glommed onto the whole thing once it was an established power structure with a large following. Then they could use it.

I bet you have never talked to or witnessed a real spiritual teacher in your life, or read any good books by any either, or you would not dream for a moment that politicians invented religion.

You want Jesus' original teachings? Okay...

He taught nonviolence, forgiveness (of both self and others), truthfullness, honesty, responsibility, love of all people (even those you don't like or have some problem with), respect for the civil laws of your society, respect for other people (specially your parents), to honor and respect and love God, equality of the sexes (to the point he could express it in that time, which was no joke), to harm no one, to help other people who are in need, the golden rule, and all the usual moral stuff. He taught that people aren't made for the law....the law is made for the people. In other words, the law is intended to serve the people, not the other way around.

The things he taught are found at the heart of virtually every great religion (although discrimination against women is common in most of them...and certainly has been in the Christian churches. That again is NOT Jesus' fault. I'd say that Paul had quite a bit to do with it though. Paul was a weird character in a lot of ways. I don't much like what I feel coming from Paul.)

That's some of it.

You could put it all in these few words: Love others, love God, love yourself, love life, fear nothing, and hate no one.

That's not easy. For most people it seems to be impossible. That's why they don't really want to hear about it, and they don't really want to try it either. There's only one person in 1,000 who wants to try it, from what I've seen, and one in 10,000 who achieves it.

I certainly haven't achieved it, but I know it's real. It's the one thing that can heal an insane human mind, but the insane mind does NOT want to hear about it. No sir. That would mean surrendering, not to Christianity, not to a religion, but to love. And that would be hard, hard work. It would demand sacrifice.