> And it also changed my outlook towards 'Christianity', which I dismissed before as just a religion. Tolstoy carefully builds the idea of Christianity as a philosophy of non-violence, anarchy and peaceful disobedience, claiming that that was the true teaching of Jesus Christ and the reason why Christians have been persecuted and killed everywhere - before the whole thing was transformed into a dogmatic religion.
I'd argue that it's still a bit dismissive to state that the whole thing ended up a dogmatic religion, but perhaps that's splitting hairs at this point.
Having grown up on the Evangelical/pentecostal fringes, I saw much of Christianity as 'dogmatic religion' (not seeing that much of this was present in my denomination too), but now that I'm not a Christian any longer, I've come to realize pretty much all denominations of Christianity contain both significant figures and movements that tend toward the 'non-violence, anarchy and peaceful disobedience' side of things, as well as a lot of dogma.
I've recently found a lot in Zen buddhism that reminds me of Jesus' teaching, except somehow more practical. I can strongly recommend doing some research in that.
Thich Nhat Hanh (the Vietnamese Zen monk whom MLK nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize) wrote "Living Buddha, Living Christ" drawing more extensive parallels.
I'd argue that it's still a bit dismissive to state that the whole thing ended up a dogmatic religion, but perhaps that's splitting hairs at this point.
Having grown up on the Evangelical/pentecostal fringes, I saw much of Christianity as 'dogmatic religion' (not seeing that much of this was present in my denomination too), but now that I'm not a Christian any longer, I've come to realize pretty much all denominations of Christianity contain both significant figures and movements that tend toward the 'non-violence, anarchy and peaceful disobedience' side of things, as well as a lot of dogma.
I've recently found a lot in Zen buddhism that reminds me of Jesus' teaching, except somehow more practical. I can strongly recommend doing some research in that.