Bredren, why is the only question worth asking. If you don't ask the question how can you expect the answer? Now if you don't want to know, don't need to know, then that is your choice, but for those of us seeking the divine knowledge that is our birthright someone must ask the question.
As for the violence...
Men have always fought wars. Over women, territory, food, honor and principle. The problem is that far too often men fight wars because they believe that there is only one way and that those who do not follow that one way are evil, wicked, uncivilized, etc. Testosterone is an agressive chemical. Estrogen is an emotional chemical. When testoterone rules the world there will be violence, there really isn't any way around that. The cruelty of the Bible reflects a masculine concept of power, a concept that believes a blind man has sinned against God simply because he cannot see. Ignorance and machismo is what causes people to believe that those who disagree should die a painful death. Ignorance and machismo is what causes people to believe that a loving God would allow "sinners" to burn for eternity in a pit of brimstone and magma. You see a God who is merciful and full of grace is a god who is in fact a goddess. The Bible promotes testosterone and denounces estrogen, at evey turn. Promotes chastity, obedience and bondage. The Bible was written by men who did not value a womb and who had little more than tolerance for the woman who carries it. A man who does not value his wife or his daughters is a man who does not cry, is not gentle, has no love of feminity and in fact removes all traces of it from his image of God. Takes the womb out of the ankh and makes it a cross that his savior must bear. His savior who is born of a virgin, never takes a wife and never makes love to a woman. Check how the deciples critize Jesus for concerning himself with the plight of women. Check how the lineage of kings never mentions a mother unless the father had more than one wife. Check how daughters are not listed at all. Check how prophets and holy men are born somehow outside of the normal interaction between a man and woman.
Rastafari is not Christianity. Too often Rastas forget that.
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