Hmmm, I don't recall ever reading or hearing that Jesus ever built a church. Can you provide some support? But, it seems to me if Church were important, than we would have some words of Jesus telling us to go, repeatedly. In fact, he said things I interpret to mean Church is completely unnecessary, that worshiping can take place anywhere and that everywhere is "God's house."

__________________
Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

"And I say to thee. thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18
(A special Thanks to BillyBob)

Such as?

Yes, I am familiar with this verse and saw it in the thread, but thats not Jesus building a church as you said. Jesus never did build a church, correct?

I believe, as I and Jesus said, that he spoke in koans/riddles/paradoxes. So, its not like I am saying that Jesus ever said directly that one didn't need to go to Church. On the other hand, I don't think he ever said we need to.

I interpret the "Nature Sermon", which is almost identical to the Zen Sermon of the Flower, to indicate this, partly. I won't type the whole thing in but especially, "Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day."

I also think the story of Martha and Mary makes the point again, especially, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her."

Espoecially given that Martha was complaining about Mary not following all the rules and instead just sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening, I find this to again support Jesus' primary purpose, to free our minds from dogma, rules for the sake of rules, etc and to again make the point, like Zen does, that it is vital to live "in the moment" to reach enlightenment/heaven.

I can list other examples, but I would have to look them up and I'm out of time at the moment.

__________________
Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

Sure he did. But the word church needs to be defined, not as you define it but as Jesus defined it.

How did Jesus define it? I don't recall him doing so.

__________________
Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

Members of the Body of Christ are the church. It has nothing to do with a 'building'.

There is a lot on the internet concerning this topic. Paul wrote of the church extensively in his Epistles.

No offense intended of course, but I don't much care what Paul said. Personally, I'm only interested in the words of Jesus Christ when talking about Christianity. It seems you are agreeing with me though, that Christ never said "going to Church" was important and in fact implied/said the opposite. But, what do you or what did Jesus mean by "members of the body of Christ." I don't recall Jesus saying such a thing....

__________________
Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

I suggest you make it a topic of study.

It is. Thats why I asked. Although I do not believe Christ was the literal Son of God in a way we are not (we are all literal sons of God), I respect Christ as one of the greatest, if not the greatest (probably) man in world history.

I've been studying him my whole life, though I certainly concede I am not an expert.

__________________
Qur'an:8:39 Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.
Qur'an:8:67 It is not fitting for any prophet to have prisoners until he has made a great slaughter in the land.
Qur'an 8:12 I will terrorize the unbelievers...Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.
Qur'an 9:5 Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, torture them, and lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

I think what BillyBob is saying that Jesus built the church so we could recieve him and be members of the body of christ.

I still don't see any passage that implies Jesus didn't care about us going to church or not.

And again, Jesus wasn't against the law, he fulfilled the laws. He did ask us to forgive eachother for breaking laws against eachother, but he never implied we didn't have to try and follow them.