This is actually the thing that most bothers me about Jesus. So much of Christianity -- especially early Christianity -- is about the Word "vs." the Flesh. It's like a meme that wants so badly to colonize you that it will torpedo your biological interests to do it.

But Christianity was also very syncretic in the way it spread, and it took on pagan influences, and my feeling is that those practices helped reconcile the meme a little more to biological reality. Maypoles and marriages worked their way back in...

It seems to me that the Word (or the meme) and the Flesh have to be in harmony, each serving the other. Left unchecked, the Word always seems to want to mutilate the flesh. (Maybe because irreversibility is good for anything that's desperate for an absorbing state.) And I have a real problem with that.

Yeah, it's esoteric because if you think it is just about words and flesh, you aren't getting the meaning.

Did you know that "Dao" or "Tao" is translated as "Logos?" What's interesting in Lao Tzu is that he claims the Dao comes before the One, whereas in Christianity they occur at the same time, whereas in the Arian Heresy, the One came before the Logos.

not OP - agree it's not actually esoteric - but it is esoteric to people who have only been presented with pop christianity or pop strawman revisionist christianity, like the article here...