>>I guess that Mother Teresa comes closest, at least in modern times, to being a well known example of practising Christianity as it is intended.
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>And what were the intentions of Christianity, in your own words?
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>It seems simple enough to me, an excersize in game theory. If you can get your environment to favour your strategy, you will prosper. Jesus (or so the story goes) was peaceful. He figured that if he could find away to make everyone else peaceful, he'd be in a pretty cozy spot. That I believe was the intention of xiantiy.
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>Unforuntately, problems arose as the strategy "Be good" is not a stable one (this is often demonstrated with the Hawks and Doves example). So more and more rules and complexity had to be added to the "be good", stories about enforcers in the sky who watch you and know what you're thinking; houses of worship; strange rituals like prayer and fasting to occupy your mind, ect. If Jesus was a real person (I'm not convinced he was or really interested in knowing for that matter), I'm guessing that this foolishness took place after his time.
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>I realize this doesn't make sense in the accepted timelines of the old and new testament, but consider what Thomas Whitely said about life changing very little for the common man, and the population coudl manipulate and patch together current stories and mythology to make things fit.

Mike;

An interesting point is that the mythology of a number of nations possesses the same theme such as “The Great Flood”. Some conclusions are:

1. Specific things happened to the entire world and were written about by a variety of sources. No interaction between writers may have occured.

2. One story became popular and was copied by other nations or a set of morals was defined for society that follows a common theme. The latter may have been done to keep members of society in line.

3. It may also be that humanity has certain basic principals which are repeated regardless of time or space.

What is acceptable behavior and what is not?

Tom