Without much doubt, the conversion of Paul was one of the most important events in Western Civilization. For better or for worse, he saved Christianity from being just another obscure sub-set of messianic Judaism, destined to disappear in the misty corners of history.

Aside from the question of the Resurrection, I ask myself this: Why would this highly educated, privileged man give up his entire career to become a pariah? Why would he risk torture and death, as was his eventual fate, for the sake of preaching to others? Why would he give all he had to follow someone who he had never met, an uneducated vagabond eschewed by high society? What was it about Jesus’s simple philosophy that supplanted what Saul must have known about Socrates, Plato, Aristotle among other philosophers and Jewish scholars that he must have studied? If he wasn’t in it for power and glory, what was he in it for?

I don’t need the bodily Resurrection wonder at all my questions. I’m a recovering Roman Catholic, and I don’t need religion in my life either. As far as Jesus is concerned, all I need are the Beatitudes. That to me is the very essence of Jesus’s teachings, the Christ or not. I try to live my life by those simple dictums of love and respect for others.

Love is all you need.