But I don’t want you to do anything against your will. Now I don’t want even to help you towards your enlightenment against your will. You are absolutely free and responsible for yourself.

Osho,
What is the difference between a Christian, a communist and a commune member?

Judaism has given birth to very strange children. The first is Christianity. Jesus was a Jew – born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died as a Jew. He never knew that he was a Christian. In fact, Christians should take note of it, that Jesus was not a Christian. They are following a Jew. Even the word Christian was unheard of by Jesus because it is Greek, and he knew only Aramaic, his mother tongue.

In Aramaic, which is a popular version of Hebrew, he was calling himself “the messiah,” not “Christ.” It was three hundred years afterwards, when the New Testament was translated into Greek, that “messiah” became “Christ” and the followers of the messiah became “Christians.”

It is one of the most primitive religions. It has not the heights of Buddhism, Taoism, Hassidism, Zen – nothing of that sort, it is very primitive. And that is the reason why Christianity has become the biggest religion in the world – because it appeals to the retarded mind.

No intelligence is needed to understand Christianity. There is nothing to understand; you have simply to believe. You have to have faith, and the faith in Jesus Christ will save you – so simple, any idiot can do it. It is not a transformation. Those who do not believe will fall into the darkness of hell.

I am reminded of one English philosopher, Edmund Burke. He used to go to listen to one of his friends who was a bishop, every Sunday, because the bishop was very articulate and a great orator.

Edmund Burke asked him, “I have only one question. If faith is the only thing that saves, then what happens to all those people who do not have faith but are good, virtuous, moral? For example, what happens to Socrates? What happens to Gautam Buddha? What happens to Confucius? They all fall into hell? And connected with the same question is the second question: that there have been people – murderers, rapists – who have done all kinds of crimes; but they believed, they had faith, and they will be saved? You have to answer me.”