People are slow to change their minds. But change does some as evidenced by all of us who left TWI and now believe differently than we did before. I'll post a little follow up to your post that most won't appreciate but if they will at least READ it.. then maybe the same thought patterns that made them leave TWI will still prevail:
-- The First Crusade was launched in 1095 with the battle cry "Deus Vult" (God wills it), a mandate to destroy infidels in the Holy Land. Gathering crusaders in Germany first fell upon "the infidel among us," Jews in the Rhine valley, thousands of whom were dragged from their homes or hiding places and hacked to death or burned alive. Then the religious legions plundered their way 2,000 miles to Jerusalem, where they killed virtually every inhabitant, "purifying" the symbolic city. Cleric Raymond of Aguilers wrote: "In the temple of Solomon, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses' bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God."
-- In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives -- many of them women and children -- taken outside the city and slaughtered. Some were disemboweled in a search for swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Infidel lives were of no consequence. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."
-- The Assassins were a sect of Ismaili Shi'ite Muslims whose faith required the stealthy murder of religious opponents. From the 11th to 13th centuries, they killed numerous leaders in modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria. They finally were wiped out by conquering Mongols -- but their vile name survives.
-- Throughout Europe, beginning in the 1100s, tales spread that Jews were abducting Christian children, sacrificing them, and using their blood in rituals. Hundreds of massacres stemmed from this "blood libel." Some of the supposed sacrifice victims -- Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, the holy child of LaGuardia, Simon of Trent -- were beatified or commemorated with shrines that became sites of pilgrimages and miracles.
-- In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched an armed crusade against Albigenses Christians in southern France. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers reportedly asked their papal adviser how to distinguish the faithful from the infidel among the captives. He commanded: "Kill them all. God will know his own." Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered -- many first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, or used for target practice.
-- The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 proclaimed the doctrine of transubstantiation: that the host wafer miraculously turns into the body of Jesus during the mass. Soon rumors spread that Jews were stealing the sacred wafers and stabbing or driving nails through them to crucify Jesus again. Reports said that the pierced host bled, cried out, or emitted spirits. On this charge, Jews were burned at the stake in 1243 in Belitz, Germany -- the first of many killings that continued into the 1800s. To avenge the tortured host, the German knight Rindfliesch led a brigade in 1298 that exterminated 146 defenseless Jewish communities in six months.
-- Also during the 1200s, the hunt for Albigensian heretics led to establishment of the Inquisition, which spread over Europe. Pope Innocent IV authorized torture. Under interrogation by Dominican priests, screaming victims were stretched, burned, pierced and broken on fiendish pain machines to make them confess to disbelief and to identify fellow transgressors. Inquisitor Robert le Bourge sent 183 people to the stake in a single week.
-- In Spain, where many Jews and Moors had converted to escape persecution, inquisitors sought those harboring their old faith. At least 2,000 Spanish backsliders were burned. Executions in other countries included the burning of scientists such as mathematician-philosopher Giordano Bruno, who espoused Copernicus's theory that the planets orbit the sun.
-- When the Black Death swept Europe in 1348-1349, rumors alleged that it was caused by Jews poisoning wells. Hysterical mobs slaughtered thousands of Jews in several countries. In Speyer, Germany, the burned bodies were piled into giant wine casks and sent floating down the Rhine. In northern Germany Jews were walled up alive in their homes to suffocate or starve. The Flagellants, an army of penitents who whipped themselves bloody, stormed the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt in a gruesome massacre. The prince of Thuringia announced that he had burned his Jews for the honor of God.
-- The Aztecs began their elaborate theocracy in the 1300s and brought human sacrifice to a golden era. About 20,000 people were killed yearly to appease gods -- especially the sun god, who needed daily "nourishment" of blood. Hearts of sacrifice victims were cut out, and some bodies were eaten ceremoniously. Other victims were drowned, beheaded, burned or dropped from heights. In a rite to the rain god, shrieking children were killed at several sites so that their tears might induce rain. In a rite to the maize goddess, a virgin danced for 24 hours, then was killed and skinned; her skin was worn by a priest in further dancing. One account says that at King Ahuitzotl's coronation, 80,000 prisoners were butchered to please the gods.
-- In the 1400s, the Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Priests tortured untold thousands of women into confessing that they were witches who flew through the sky and engaged in sex with the devil -- then they were burned or hanged for their confessions. Witch hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations. Estimates of the number executed vary from 100,000 to 2 million. Whole villages were exterminated. In the first half of the 17th century, about 5,000 "witches" were put to death in the French province of Alsace, and 900 were burned in the Bavarian city of Bamberg. The witch craze was religious madness at its worst.
-- The "Protestant Inquisition" is a term applied to the severities of John Calvin in Geneva and Queen Elizabeth I in England during the 1500s. Calvin's followers burned 58 "heretics," including theologian Michael Servetus, who doubted the Trinity. Elizabeth I outlawed Catholicism and executed about 200 Catholics.
-- Protestant Huguenots grew into an aggressive minority in France in the 15OOs -- until repeated Catholic reprisals smashed them. On Saint Bartholomew's Day in 1572, Catherine de Medicis secretly authorized Catholic dukes to send their soldiers into Huguenot neighborhoods and slaughter families. This massacre touched off a six-week bloodbath in which Catholics murdered about 10,000 Huguenots. Other persecutions continued for two centuries, until the French Revolution. One group of Huguenots escaped to Florida; in 1565 a Spanish brigade discovered their colony, denounced their heresy, and killed them all.
-- Members of lndia's Thuggee sect strangled people as sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty goddess Kali, a practice beginning in the 1500s. The number of victims has been estimated to be as high as 2 million. Thugs were claiming about 20,000 lives a year in the 1800s until British rulers stamped them out. At a trial in 1840, one Thug was accused of killing 931 people. Today, some Hindu priests still sacrifice goats to Kali.
-- The Anabaptists, communal "rebaptizers," were slaughtered by both Catholic and Protestant authorities. In Munster, Germany, Anabaptists took control of the city, drove out the clergymen, and proclaimed a New Zion. The bishop of Munster began an armed siege. While the townspeople starved, the Anabaptist leader proclaimed himself king and executed dissenters. When Munster finally fell, the chief Anabaptists were tortured to death with red-hot pincers and their bodies hung in iron cages from a church steeple.
-- Oliver Cromwell was deemed a moderate because he massacred only Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants. This Puritan general commanded Bible-carrying soldiers, whom he roused to religious fervor. After decimating an Anglican army, Cromwell said, "God made them as stubble to our swords." He demanded the beheading of the defeated King Charles I, and made himself the holy dictator of England during the 1650s. When his army crushed the hated Irish Catholics, he ordered the execution of the surrendered defenders of Drogheda and their priests, calling it "a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches."
-- The Thirty Years' War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. War flared between Catholic and Protestant princedoms, drawing in supportive religious armies from Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France and Italy. Sweden's Protestant soldiers sang Martin Luther's "Ein 'Feste Burg" in battle. Three decades of combat turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery. One estimate states that Germany's population dropped from 18 million to 4 million. In the end nothing was settled, and too few people remained to rebuild cities, plant fields, or conduct education.
-- When Puritans settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s, they created a religious police state where doctrinal deviation could lead to flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting off ears, or boring through the tongue with a hot iron. Preaching Quaker beliefs was a capital offense. Four stubborn Quakers defied this law and were hanged. In the 1690s fear of witches seized the colony. Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 others imprisoned.
-- In 1723 the bishop of Gdansk, Poland, demanded that all Jews be expelled from the city. The town council declined, but the bishop's exhortations roused a mob that invaded the ghetto and beat the residents to death.
-- Islamic jihads (holy wars), mandated by the Koran, killed millions over 12 centuries. In early years, Muslim armies spread the faith rapidly: east to India and west to Morocco. Then splintering sects branded other Muslims as infidels and declared jihads against them. The Kharijis battled Sunni rulers. The Azariqis decreed death to all "sinners" and their families. In 1804 a Sudanese holy man, Usman dan Fodio, waged a bloody jihad that broke the religious sway of the Sultan of Gobir. In the 1850s another Sudanese mystic, 'Umar al-Hajj, led a barbaric jihad to convert pagan African tribes -- with massacres, beheadings and a mass execution of 300 hostages. In the 1880s a third Sudanese holy man, Muhammad Ahmed, commanded a jihad that destroyed a 10,000-man Egyptian army and wiped out defenders of Khartoum led by British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon.
-- In 1801 Orthodox priests in Bucharest, Romania, revived the story that Jews sacrificed Christians and drank their blood. Enraged parishioners stormed the ghetto and cut the throats of 128 Jews.
-- When the Baha'i faith began in Persia in 1844, the Islamic regime sought to exterminate it. The Baha'i founder was imprisoned and executed in 1850. Two years later, the religious government massacred 20,000 Baha'is. Streets of Tehran were soaked with blood. The new Baha'i leader, Baha'ullah, was tortured and exiled in foreign Muslim prisons for the rest of his life.
-- Late in the 19th century, with rebellion stirring in Russia, the czars attempted to divert public attention by helping anti-Semitic groups rouse Orthodox Christian hatred for Jews. Three waves of pogroms ensued -- in the 1880s, from 1903 to 1906, and during the Russian Revolution. Each wave was increasingly murderous. During the final period, 530 communities were attacked and 60,000 Jews were killed.
-- In the early 1900s, Muslim Turks waged genocide against Christian Armenians, and Christian Greeks and Balkans warred against the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
-- Islamic religious law decrees that thieves shall have their hands or feet chopped off, and unmarried lovers shall be killed. In the Sudan in 1983 and 1984, 66 thieves were axed in public. A moderate Muslim leader, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was hanged for heresy in 1985 because he opposed these amputations. In Saudi Arabia a teen-age princess and her lover were executed in public in 1977. In Pakistan in 1987, a 25-year-old carpenter's daughter was sentenced to be stoned to death for engaging in unmarried sex. In the United Arab Emirates in 1984, a cook and a maid were sentenced to stoning for adultery -- but, as a show of mercy, the execution was postponed until after the maid's baby was born.
-- In 1983 in Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons burst into a Protestant church on a Sunday morning and opened fire, killing three worshipers and wounding seven. It was just one of hundreds of Catholic-Protestant ambushes that have taken 2,600 lives in Ulster since age-old religious hostility turned violent again in 1969.
-- In Nigeria in 1982, religious fanatic followers of Mallam Marwa killed and mutilated several hundred people as heretics and infidels. They drank the blood of some of the victims. When the militia arrived to quell the violence, the cultists sprinkled themselves with blessed powder that they thought would make them impervious to police bullets. It didn't.
-- Today's Shi'ite theocracy in Iran -- "the government of God on earth" -- decreed that Baha'i believers who won't convert shall be killed. About 200 stubborn Baha'is were executed in the early 1980s, including women and teenagers. Up to 40,000 Baha'is fled the country. Sex taboos in Iran are so severe that: (1) any woman who shows a lock of hair is jailed; (2) Western magazines being shipped into the country first go to censors who laboriously black out all women's photos except for faces; (3) women aren't allowed to ski with men, but have a separate slope where they may ski in shrouds.
-- The lovely island nation of Sri Lanka has been turned hellish by ambushes and massacres between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils.
-- Sikhs want to create a separate theocracy, Khalistan (Land of the Pure), in the Punjab region of India. Many heed the late extremist preacher Jarnail Bhindranwale, who taught his followers that they have a "religious duty to send opponents to hell." Throughout the 1980s they sporadically murdered Hindus to accomplish this goal. In 1984, after Sikh guards riddled prime minister Indira Gandhi with 50 bullets, Hindus went on a rampage that killed 5,000 Sikhs in three days. Mobs dragged Sikhs from homes, stores, buses and trains, chopping and pounding them to death. Some were burned alive; boys were castrated.
-- In 1984 Shi'ite fanatics who killed and tortured Americans on a hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at Tehran Airport said they did it "for the pleasure of God."
It's fashionable among some people to say that religion isn't the real cause of today's strife in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India and Iran and of course Iraq-- that sects merely provide labels for combatants. Not so. Religion keeps the groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would blur with passing generations; children would adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them alien to one another. Religion serves that ugly purpose.
Consider the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg: "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion."
Well if I still had the clothes I could show you a lot of drool stains on it. Well perhaps the people next to me got it worse. I never even knew I snored till I took PFAL. Geez. How embarrassing!
Actually, I found the history lesson fascinating, compelling and repulsive. It makes me question, as so many things do, the wisdom of the creation of man.
Yup, very interesting read. Just proves once again, people who are accountable to no one will do whatever they please.
They may have done all those attrocities in the name of God, but it's no different than the murderers in prison who think they are God, except for the fact that these try and make it look like a 'righteous' act, only the ones who started it knew it wasn't.
What is righteousness anyways to those who don't believe in God? And what is right or wrong?! Only an opinion that many will disagree and probably fight over also. Heck, murdering isn't wrong, if we are just made from some natural formation, than anything we do is just plain natural! Killing, stealing. I mean, what's the purpose of life? To enjoy it to the most while your're alive right?! And maybe that enjoyment is to kill, steal, and destroy. Sure.. Let's get busy doing that, cause there sure isn't any reason to do otherwise.
To those who started the crusades, that was their way of enjoying life. Go conquer, destroy, and abolish nations.. What's wrong with that? Just cause you don't agree with their way of life, just cause maybe even a majority don't agree, who cares! The only thing one can be accountable to is a higher power, so unless some higher force, nation, country, or bomb comes along, it will never stop! And the terrorists keep on terrorizing, because as they have said themselves, it's FUN!
But how do you determine what are true doctrines? The middle ages had the Pope and *we* all had "Dr" Victor Paul Wierwille to teach us how to tell what was truth. So who determines for you what is spiritually true? Yourself? But you aren't fluent in Koine Greek or Estrangelo Aramaic are you? You are using SOME other sources to determine your beliefs, aren't you? Or are you just guessing or wishing what you would LIKE to be true, maybe?
Then how do you know that what you are currently guessing or professing isn't "The doctrines of men and devils."??
But how do you determine what are true doctrines? The middle ages had the Pope and <B>*we*</B> all had "Dr" Victor Paul Wierwille to teach us how to tell what was truth. So who determines for you what is spiritually true? Yourself? But you aren't fluent in Koine Greek or Estrangelo Aramaic are you? You are using SOME other sources to determine your beliefs, aren't you? Or are you just guessing or wishing what you would LIKE to be true, maybe?
Then how do you know that what you are currently guessing or professing isn't "The doctrines of men and devils."??
<center>sudo</center>
Good questions Sudo! They are also ''loaded'' questions . But, you know this.
So, I will humor you. For me, it starts with belief.
I believe in GOD. Not ''a god'' , but GOD ALMIGHTY.
Why? Because He manifests HIMSELF in everything ........................so..I just do. Call it gut, faith, intuition, whatever.....I believe ( it's written in my heart.)
........"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, evern his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21....because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22....professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."
No man can take that away from me. Not because this passage tells me so, it only proves my belief. I don't need to know Greek or Hebrew to believe either.
So, since I believe there is GOD, I then know that HE CAN DO ANYTHING HE WANTS, and therefore, would NOT leave us without witness.
Therefore, I DO believe HIS Word. Is it literal/figurative? I believe in both. That holy men spoke, moved by the Holy Spirit.
That is why 2 Peter 1:20 (so nicely misinterpreted by the Way, thankyou), is key to this understanding........but you know that. (it is the prophets that didn't use ''their own'' interpretation. Not us trying to figure out the meaning)
I believe this also.
So, therefore, my comments will always reflect this tone, that I , believe.
Do I realize and believe that men have messed up / contaminated/ interpreted/ sinned/ dishonoured/ His Word to the utmost?
Carried out disgusting things all in the name of God?
Certainly.
That doesn't deter me from believing He is.
I've studied all the ways/methods/arguments over ''how we got the bible''. So? Like I said, God is in charge, nor is He stupid.
We have what we have.
Use a multitued of resources. Who cares? I could study for 200 years and not know it all. I rest in the fact that He just wants me to believe in Him, and have a relationship with Him, with or without His Word.
Noah didn't have a written law or doctrine. Yet, he had a relationship with the Lord.
To me that is the key. All else is dessert. Actually having a written standard so that we may know our God more intimately and our enemy to me is a good thing. Does it in its final form have errors? YUP! Is it perfect this way? NOPE.
But, again, I rest in what my Lord said in John 14:26 "But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, HE shall teach you all things................"
No man/religion/creed/doctrine can fill this position. All my OPINION of course.........
Good questions Sudo! They are also ''loaded'' questions . But, you know this.
So, I will humor you. For me, it starts with belief.
I believe in the goddess. Not ''a god'' , but GODDESS ALMIGHTY.
Why? Because she manifests HERSELF in everything ........................so..I just do. Call it gut, faith, intuition, whatever.....I believe ( it's written in my heart.)
No man can take that away from me.
So, since I believe there is GODDESS, I then know that SHE CAN DO ANYTHING SHE WANTS, and therefore, would NOT leave us without witness.
Therefore, I DO believe HER Witness. Is it literal/figurative? I believe in both. That holy men & women spoke, moved by the Spirit.
So, therefore, my comments will always reflect this tone, that I , believe.
Do I realize and believe that people have messed up / contaminated/ interpreted/ sinned/ dishonoured/ HER creation to the utmost?
Carried out disgusting things all in the name of Goddess?
Certainly.
That doesn't deter me from believing She is.
I've studied all the ways/methods/arguments over ''how we got here''. So? Like I said, Goddess is in charge, nor is She stupid.
We have what we have.
Use a multitued of resources. Who cares? I could study for 200 years and not know it all. I rest in the fact that She just wants me to believe in Her, and have a relationship with Her.
Gerald gardner didn't have a written law or doctrine. Yet, he had a relationship with the Lady.
To me that is the key. All else is dessert. Actually having a written standard so that we may know our God more intimately and our enemy to me is a good thing. Does it in its final form have errors? YUP! Is it perfect this way? NOPE.
No man/religion/creed/doctrine can fill this position. All my OPINION of course......... [/font][/color][/size]
How many people out there are convinced that what they believe is right, and everything else is either man-made or the doctrines of devils? Quite a few, I'd guess.
Bliss' post illustrates for me a point that I have made at various times on these types of threads:
Why? Because He manifests HIMSELF in everything ........................so..I just do. Call it gut, faith, intuition, whatever.....I believe ( it's written in my heart.)...No man can take that away from me. Not because this passage tells me so, it only proves my belief
People believe something because that's what they decide to believe, and interpret everything else in light of those beliefs, not becasue the bible or some other "holy" book says so. Because when pressed, most bible believers will resort to personal experience to back up whatever their holy book says.
The question is then raised: why is one person's experience more valid than the next person's? If one person ascribes certain life events to the God of the bible, and I ascribe those same events to the Goddess; or Manannan, the celtic Sea God; or fairies; or extraterestrials or Allah...why are those beliefs less valid? Less divine and more "doctrines of men and devils"?
Oaks, all I can tell you, is that I know, that I know that I know, there is only one true God. And He is the father of our Lord Jesus. I don't know that the holy Quaran (or whatever) says "God is love" The bible says that though. I don't know that the Quaran (or whatever) says that salvations is by His grace, not our works. Lest any man should boast.
It truly is not hard to figure out, what man has come up with, and what is true and real, and not of man.
I won't compromise on that one bit. I need a savior to save my butt, and I don't care if saying so makes me unpopular in this life. I'm not budging one inch on that. I can't. My a** is at stake here.
I've been to the unknown...................it is not a good place for me to be.
I showed you mine, now you show me yours..................
side note.............all the apostles were freaked out after the cruxifiction.
Historically speaking now.
but, They didn't stay that way. Why?
(On pain of death, if something was a LIE, or you made it up, would you die for it. Would you? NO of course not........neither would any man! )
His resurrection, changed them. These men, saw Jesus. They saw with their own eyes his resurrected body. That is why they were so bold, so different than just 3 days prior.
Nobody would die for a lie.
Yes, so we have many people dying for their causes all the time. But, it's all about faith in something. I don't invalidate any of their experiences or perspectives. But somebody's got to be wrong.
Nobody (Muslims, Hindu, Goddesses, Satanist, Buddha, whatever) had a savior raised from the dead. That is really the only way to prove the validity of Christianity itself. (the difference). Everthing else, well, is debatable.
If they(the apostles) honestly ''made up the story of Jesus resurrecting from the dead'' and been arrested and tortured they would've caved in.
The apostles, all martyred:beheaded, disembowled, exiled, hung, cruxified upsidedown..........died for what they
SAWfirst and Believed.
I never saw, I just have faith. You are right, I believe the bible, therefore, have incidents to back it up. Can I prove it to your satisfaction? NO.
blessed are they that believe.....................then see.
Great post bliss. Your post made me think of something too. People die for causes yes, even the bible says "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" but some people die for totally selfish causes. Like a certain fanatical sect that bombs up market places or flys into buildings because they are under the belief that they will get 17 virgins in Paradise. Or whatever.
Historically speaking? The narrative from Acts may be true, or it may be false, but it's hardly indisputable.
Nobody would die for a lie? Muslims die every day for the Koran...is that the truth?
Nobody had a savior raised from the dead? There are numerous religions pre-Christian era who claim just that: a savior raised from the dead. Osiris and Mithra are two that spring immediately to mind.
And why does somebody have to be wrong?
What do I believe? Maybe when I don't have to run off to work in 10 minutes. Suffice it to say for right now that what I believe doesn't relegate what you believe to "doctrines of devils".
I don't believe any one can prove that their religion/faith is fact, the TRUTH etc. They can believe it with in themselves, they can persuade others who may or may not have the same type of religious experience, that's all.
Some will miss out on the religious experience or what ever, some will find something out there that speaks to them but is different than another's.
And yet, many people are more than willing to demonize beliefs not their own-- sometimes it is even their doctrine and dogma as we saw in TWI--, which IMO is a great human error that leads to nothing good, no matter which religion is slamming another. Demonizatrion, oppression, forced conformity, violence--they all seem to be on the same downward path to me.
As far as having a savior, so I know mine is true...I don't believe in the concept of fallen man or a fallen world, so I see no need for a savior. Nor have I seen people who have a savior as being better people with better lives than those who don't have a savior. To some it seems very obviously true that there is a savior, and that the world is now a much better place because of the savior and the truth...shrug, I don't see that.
Personally, I think it is a bizarre thing to say, "My unproven truth is the real truth, all others unproven truths are false and evil."
Why does someone have to be wrong? Well, they don't have to be Oak.. No, that's fine. Enjoy your life where everyone is right.. Including the guy who breaks into your house and steals your goods. He's right you know.. He needs to make a living.
So, sure.. Believe as you want. Everyone in the world is right. Everyone has a right to do as they please. Murder, kill, steal, or be nice and friendly and not have what you want. Who cares. Everyone's right in their own eyes! Sure. So stop complaining next time the governemt wants to raise taxes, take away your property, and everything else you do. They have that right, and you shouldn't be complaining because no one has to be wrong, nay they are all within their rights as humans tht live according to themselves!
Recommended Posts
Top Posters In This Topic
32
13
21
14
Popular Days
Mar 28
15
Mar 26
13
Mar 19
12
Mar 29
12
Top Posters In This Topic
Oakspear 32 posts
Bramble 13 posts
TrustAndObey 21 posts
cman 14 posts
Popular Days
Mar 28 2007
15 posts
Mar 26 2007
13 posts
Mar 19 2007
12 posts
Mar 29 2007
12 posts
RottieGrrrl
Well geez Greasy that made like no sense. And before I rip you a new one maybe someone can explain the bad humor here.
Yeah, that's why they call me brat.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
GT
It's funny!
I'm prepared for a new ripping.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RottieGrrrl
Well, you made me laugh with your answer, so I shall forgivest thou.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
DooWap
Greasy,
People are slow to change their minds. But change does some as evidenced by all of us who left TWI and now believe differently than we did before. I'll post a little follow up to your post that most won't appreciate but if they will at least READ it.. then maybe the same thought patterns that made them leave TWI will still prevail:
-- The First Crusade was launched in 1095 with the battle cry "Deus Vult" (God wills it), a mandate to destroy infidels in the Holy Land. Gathering crusaders in Germany first fell upon "the infidel among us," Jews in the Rhine valley, thousands of whom were dragged from their homes or hiding places and hacked to death or burned alive. Then the religious legions plundered their way 2,000 miles to Jerusalem, where they killed virtually every inhabitant, "purifying" the symbolic city. Cleric Raymond of Aguilers wrote: "In the temple of Solomon, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses' bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God."
-- In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives -- many of them women and children -- taken outside the city and slaughtered. Some were disemboweled in a search for swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Infidel lives were of no consequence. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."
-- The Assassins were a sect of Ismaili Shi'ite Muslims whose faith required the stealthy murder of religious opponents. From the 11th to 13th centuries, they killed numerous leaders in modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria. They finally were wiped out by conquering Mongols -- but their vile name survives.
-- Throughout Europe, beginning in the 1100s, tales spread that Jews were abducting Christian children, sacrificing them, and using their blood in rituals. Hundreds of massacres stemmed from this "blood libel." Some of the supposed sacrifice victims -- Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, the holy child of LaGuardia, Simon of Trent -- were beatified or commemorated with shrines that became sites of pilgrimages and miracles.
-- In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched an armed crusade against Albigenses Christians in southern France. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers reportedly asked their papal adviser how to distinguish the faithful from the infidel among the captives. He commanded: "Kill them all. God will know his own." Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered -- many first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, or used for target practice.
-- The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 proclaimed the doctrine of transubstantiation: that the host wafer miraculously turns into the body of Jesus during the mass. Soon rumors spread that Jews were stealing the sacred wafers and stabbing or driving nails through them to crucify Jesus again. Reports said that the pierced host bled, cried out, or emitted spirits. On this charge, Jews were burned at the stake in 1243 in Belitz, Germany -- the first of many killings that continued into the 1800s. To avenge the tortured host, the German knight Rindfliesch led a brigade in 1298 that exterminated 146 defenseless Jewish communities in six months.
-- Also during the 1200s, the hunt for Albigensian heretics led to establishment of the Inquisition, which spread over Europe. Pope Innocent IV authorized torture. Under interrogation by Dominican priests, screaming victims were stretched, burned, pierced and broken on fiendish pain machines to make them confess to disbelief and to identify fellow transgressors. Inquisitor Robert le Bourge sent 183 people to the stake in a single week.
-- In Spain, where many Jews and Moors had converted to escape persecution, inquisitors sought those harboring their old faith. At least 2,000 Spanish backsliders were burned. Executions in other countries included the burning of scientists such as mathematician-philosopher Giordano Bruno, who espoused Copernicus's theory that the planets orbit the sun.
-- When the Black Death swept Europe in 1348-1349, rumors alleged that it was caused by Jews poisoning wells. Hysterical mobs slaughtered thousands of Jews in several countries. In Speyer, Germany, the burned bodies were piled into giant wine casks and sent floating down the Rhine. In northern Germany Jews were walled up alive in their homes to suffocate or starve. The Flagellants, an army of penitents who whipped themselves bloody, stormed the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt in a gruesome massacre. The prince of Thuringia announced that he had burned his Jews for the honor of God.
-- The Aztecs began their elaborate theocracy in the 1300s and brought human sacrifice to a golden era. About 20,000 people were killed yearly to appease gods -- especially the sun god, who needed daily "nourishment" of blood. Hearts of sacrifice victims were cut out, and some bodies were eaten ceremoniously. Other victims were drowned, beheaded, burned or dropped from heights. In a rite to the rain god, shrieking children were killed at several sites so that their tears might induce rain. In a rite to the maize goddess, a virgin danced for 24 hours, then was killed and skinned; her skin was worn by a priest in further dancing. One account says that at King Ahuitzotl's coronation, 80,000 prisoners were butchered to please the gods.
-- In the 1400s, the Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Priests tortured untold thousands of women into confessing that they were witches who flew through the sky and engaged in sex with the devil -- then they were burned or hanged for their confessions. Witch hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations. Estimates of the number executed vary from 100,000 to 2 million. Whole villages were exterminated. In the first half of the 17th century, about 5,000 "witches" were put to death in the French province of Alsace, and 900 were burned in the Bavarian city of Bamberg. The witch craze was religious madness at its worst.
-- The "Protestant Inquisition" is a term applied to the severities of John Calvin in Geneva and Queen Elizabeth I in England during the 1500s. Calvin's followers burned 58 "heretics," including theologian Michael Servetus, who doubted the Trinity. Elizabeth I outlawed Catholicism and executed about 200 Catholics.
-- Protestant Huguenots grew into an aggressive minority in France in the 15OOs -- until repeated Catholic reprisals smashed them. On Saint Bartholomew's Day in 1572, Catherine de Medicis secretly authorized Catholic dukes to send their soldiers into Huguenot neighborhoods and slaughter families. This massacre touched off a six-week bloodbath in which Catholics murdered about 10,000 Huguenots. Other persecutions continued for two centuries, until the French Revolution. One group of Huguenots escaped to Florida; in 1565 a Spanish brigade discovered their colony, denounced their heresy, and killed them all.
-- Members of lndia's Thuggee sect strangled people as sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty goddess Kali, a practice beginning in the 1500s. The number of victims has been estimated to be as high as 2 million. Thugs were claiming about 20,000 lives a year in the 1800s until British rulers stamped them out. At a trial in 1840, one Thug was accused of killing 931 people. Today, some Hindu priests still sacrifice goats to Kali.
-- The Anabaptists, communal "rebaptizers," were slaughtered by both Catholic and Protestant authorities. In Munster, Germany, Anabaptists took control of the city, drove out the clergymen, and proclaimed a New Zion. The bishop of Munster began an armed siege. While the townspeople starved, the Anabaptist leader proclaimed himself king and executed dissenters. When Munster finally fell, the chief Anabaptists were tortured to death with red-hot pincers and their bodies hung in iron cages from a church steeple.
-- Oliver Cromwell was deemed a moderate because he massacred only Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants. This Puritan general commanded Bible-carrying soldiers, whom he roused to religious fervor. After decimating an Anglican army, Cromwell said, "God made them as stubble to our swords." He demanded the beheading of the defeated King Charles I, and made himself the holy dictator of England during the 1650s. When his army crushed the hated Irish Catholics, he ordered the execution of the surrendered defenders of Drogheda and their priests, calling it "a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches."
-- The Thirty Years' War produced the largest religious death toll of all time. It began in 1618 when Protestant leaders threw two Catholic emissaries out of a Prague window into a dung heap. War flared between Catholic and Protestant princedoms, drawing in supportive religious armies from Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France and Italy. Sweden's Protestant soldiers sang Martin Luther's "Ein 'Feste Burg" in battle. Three decades of combat turned central Europe into a wasteland of misery. One estimate states that Germany's population dropped from 18 million to 4 million. In the end nothing was settled, and too few people remained to rebuild cities, plant fields, or conduct education.
-- When Puritans settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s, they created a religious police state where doctrinal deviation could lead to flogging, pillorying, hanging, cutting off ears, or boring through the tongue with a hot iron. Preaching Quaker beliefs was a capital offense. Four stubborn Quakers defied this law and were hanged. In the 1690s fear of witches seized the colony. Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 others imprisoned.
-- In 1723 the bishop of Gdansk, Poland, demanded that all Jews be expelled from the city. The town council declined, but the bishop's exhortations roused a mob that invaded the ghetto and beat the residents to death.
-- Islamic jihads (holy wars), mandated by the Koran, killed millions over 12 centuries. In early years, Muslim armies spread the faith rapidly: east to India and west to Morocco. Then splintering sects branded other Muslims as infidels and declared jihads against them. The Kharijis battled Sunni rulers. The Azariqis decreed death to all "sinners" and their families. In 1804 a Sudanese holy man, Usman dan Fodio, waged a bloody jihad that broke the religious sway of the Sultan of Gobir. In the 1850s another Sudanese mystic, 'Umar al-Hajj, led a barbaric jihad to convert pagan African tribes -- with massacres, beheadings and a mass execution of 300 hostages. In the 1880s a third Sudanese holy man, Muhammad Ahmed, commanded a jihad that destroyed a 10,000-man Egyptian army and wiped out defenders of Khartoum led by British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon.
-- In 1801 Orthodox priests in Bucharest, Romania, revived the story that Jews sacrificed Christians and drank their blood. Enraged parishioners stormed the ghetto and cut the throats of 128 Jews.
-- When the Baha'i faith began in Persia in 1844, the Islamic regime sought to exterminate it. The Baha'i founder was imprisoned and executed in 1850. Two years later, the religious government massacred 20,000 Baha'is. Streets of Tehran were soaked with blood. The new Baha'i leader, Baha'ullah, was tortured and exiled in foreign Muslim prisons for the rest of his life.
-- Late in the 19th century, with rebellion stirring in Russia, the czars attempted to divert public attention by helping anti-Semitic groups rouse Orthodox Christian hatred for Jews. Three waves of pogroms ensued -- in the 1880s, from 1903 to 1906, and during the Russian Revolution. Each wave was increasingly murderous. During the final period, 530 communities were attacked and 60,000 Jews were killed.
-- In the early 1900s, Muslim Turks waged genocide against Christian Armenians, and Christian Greeks and Balkans warred against the Islamic Ottoman Empire.
-- Islamic religious law decrees that thieves shall have their hands or feet chopped off, and unmarried lovers shall be killed. In the Sudan in 1983 and 1984, 66 thieves were axed in public. A moderate Muslim leader, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was hanged for heresy in 1985 because he opposed these amputations. In Saudi Arabia a teen-age princess and her lover were executed in public in 1977. In Pakistan in 1987, a 25-year-old carpenter's daughter was sentenced to be stoned to death for engaging in unmarried sex. In the United Arab Emirates in 1984, a cook and a maid were sentenced to stoning for adultery -- but, as a show of mercy, the execution was postponed until after the maid's baby was born.
-- In 1983 in Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons burst into a Protestant church on a Sunday morning and opened fire, killing three worshipers and wounding seven. It was just one of hundreds of Catholic-Protestant ambushes that have taken 2,600 lives in Ulster since age-old religious hostility turned violent again in 1969.
-- In Nigeria in 1982, religious fanatic followers of Mallam Marwa killed and mutilated several hundred people as heretics and infidels. They drank the blood of some of the victims. When the militia arrived to quell the violence, the cultists sprinkled themselves with blessed powder that they thought would make them impervious to police bullets. It didn't.
-- Today's Shi'ite theocracy in Iran -- "the government of God on earth" -- decreed that Baha'i believers who won't convert shall be killed. About 200 stubborn Baha'is were executed in the early 1980s, including women and teenagers. Up to 40,000 Baha'is fled the country. Sex taboos in Iran are so severe that: (1) any woman who shows a lock of hair is jailed; (2) Western magazines being shipped into the country first go to censors who laboriously black out all women's photos except for faces; (3) women aren't allowed to ski with men, but have a separate slope where they may ski in shrouds.
-- The lovely island nation of Sri Lanka has been turned hellish by ambushes and massacres between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils.
-- Sikhs want to create a separate theocracy, Khalistan (Land of the Pure), in the Punjab region of India. Many heed the late extremist preacher Jarnail Bhindranwale, who taught his followers that they have a "religious duty to send opponents to hell." Throughout the 1980s they sporadically murdered Hindus to accomplish this goal. In 1984, after Sikh guards riddled prime minister Indira Gandhi with 50 bullets, Hindus went on a rampage that killed 5,000 Sikhs in three days. Mobs dragged Sikhs from homes, stores, buses and trains, chopping and pounding them to death. Some were burned alive; boys were castrated.
-- In 1984 Shi'ite fanatics who killed and tortured Americans on a hijacked Kuwaiti airliner at Tehran Airport said they did it "for the pleasure of God."
It's fashionable among some people to say that religion isn't the real cause of today's strife in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India and Iran and of course Iraq-- that sects merely provide labels for combatants. Not so. Religion keeps the groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would blur with passing generations; children would adapt to new times, mingle, intermarry, forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them alien to one another. Religion serves that ugly purpose.
Consider the famous remark of the physicist Stephen Weinberg: "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion."
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RottieGrrrl
I think I snored during PFAL too.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
GarthP2000
Really? How many people did that kill?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RottieGrrrl
Well if I still had the clothes I could show you a lot of drool stains on it. Well perhaps the people next to me got it worse. I never even knew I snored till I took PFAL. Geez. How embarrassing!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Free Soul
Actually, I found the history lesson fascinating, compelling and repulsive. It makes me question, as so many things do, the wisdom of the creation of man.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
George Aar
It makes me question the wisdom of the creation of God...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheInvisibleDan
Makes me question the creation.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TrustAndObey
Yup, very interesting read. Just proves once again, people who are accountable to no one will do whatever they please.
They may have done all those attrocities in the name of God, but it's no different than the murderers in prison who think they are God, except for the fact that these try and make it look like a 'righteous' act, only the ones who started it knew it wasn't.
What is righteousness anyways to those who don't believe in God? And what is right or wrong?! Only an opinion that many will disagree and probably fight over also. Heck, murdering isn't wrong, if we are just made from some natural formation, than anything we do is just plain natural! Killing, stealing. I mean, what's the purpose of life? To enjoy it to the most while your're alive right?! And maybe that enjoyment is to kill, steal, and destroy. Sure.. Let's get busy doing that, cause there sure isn't any reason to do otherwise.
To those who started the crusades, that was their way of enjoying life. Go conquer, destroy, and abolish nations.. What's wrong with that? Just cause you don't agree with their way of life, just cause maybe even a majority don't agree, who cares! The only thing one can be accountable to is a higher power, so unless some higher force, nation, country, or bomb comes along, it will never stop! And the terrorists keep on terrorizing, because as they have said themselves, it's FUN!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
bliss
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the beauty of man's RELIGION!
Thank GOD I just believe in HIM and NOT the doctrines of men and devils.
whew..........
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Sudo
Bliss,
But how do you determine what are true doctrines? The middle ages had the Pope and *we* all had "Dr" Victor Paul Wierwille to teach us how to tell what was truth. So who determines for you what is spiritually true? Yourself? But you aren't fluent in Koine Greek or Estrangelo Aramaic are you? You are using SOME other sources to determine your beliefs, aren't you? Or are you just guessing or wishing what you would LIKE to be true, maybe?
Then how do you know that what you are currently guessing or professing isn't "The doctrines of men and devils."??
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Eyesopen
That's the rub isn't it?
Perhaps that is why so many people followed ole VP, or the Pope. Looking for someone to answer that question.
And then many come here...still looking.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
cman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egstHWxTYBI...ted&search=
Link to comment
Share on other sites
bliss
Good questions Sudo! They are also ''loaded'' questions . But, you know this.
So, I will humor you. For me, it starts with belief.
I believe in GOD. Not ''a god'' , but GOD ALMIGHTY.
Why? Because He manifests HIMSELF in everything ........................so..I just do. Call it gut, faith, intuition, whatever.....I believe ( it's written in my heart.)
........"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, evern his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21....because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22....professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."
No man can take that away from me. Not because this passage tells me so, it only proves my belief. I don't need to know Greek or Hebrew to believe either.
So, since I believe there is GOD, I then know that HE CAN DO ANYTHING HE WANTS, and therefore, would NOT leave us without witness.
Therefore, I DO believe HIS Word. Is it literal/figurative? I believe in both. That holy men spoke, moved by the Holy Spirit.
That is why 2 Peter 1:20 (so nicely misinterpreted by the Way, thankyou), is key to this understanding........but you know that. (it is the prophets that didn't use ''their own'' interpretation. Not us trying to figure out the meaning)
I believe this also.
So, therefore, my comments will always reflect this tone, that I , believe.
Do I realize and believe that men have messed up / contaminated/ interpreted/ sinned/ dishonoured/ His Word to the utmost?
Carried out disgusting things all in the name of God?
Certainly.
That doesn't deter me from believing He is.
I've studied all the ways/methods/arguments over ''how we got the bible''. So? Like I said, God is in charge, nor is He stupid.
We have what we have.
Use a multitued of resources. Who cares? I could study for 200 years and not know it all. I rest in the fact that He just wants me to believe in Him, and have a relationship with Him, with or without His Word.
Noah didn't have a written law or doctrine. Yet, he had a relationship with the Lord.
To me that is the key. All else is dessert. Actually having a written standard so that we may know our God more intimately and our enemy to me is a good thing. Does it in its final form have errors? YUP! Is it perfect this way? NOPE.
But, again, I rest in what my Lord said in John 14:26 "But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, HE shall teach you all things................"
No man/religion/creed/doctrine can fill this position. All my OPINION of course.........
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Good questions Sudo! They are also ''loaded'' questions . But, you know this.
So, I will humor you. For me, it starts with belief.
I believe in the goddess. Not ''a god'' , but GODDESS ALMIGHTY.
Why? Because she manifests HERSELF in everything ........................so..I just do. Call it gut, faith, intuition, whatever.....I believe ( it's written in my heart.)
No man can take that away from me.
So, since I believe there is GODDESS, I then know that SHE CAN DO ANYTHING SHE WANTS, and therefore, would NOT leave us without witness.
Therefore, I DO believe HER Witness. Is it literal/figurative? I believe in both. That holy men & women spoke, moved by the Spirit.
So, therefore, my comments will always reflect this tone, that I , believe.
Do I realize and believe that people have messed up / contaminated/ interpreted/ sinned/ dishonoured/ HER creation to the utmost?
Carried out disgusting things all in the name of Goddess?
Certainly.
That doesn't deter me from believing She is.
I've studied all the ways/methods/arguments over ''how we got here''. So? Like I said, Goddess is in charge, nor is She stupid.
We have what we have.
Use a multitued of resources. Who cares? I could study for 200 years and not know it all. I rest in the fact that She just wants me to believe in Her, and have a relationship with Her.
Gerald gardner didn't have a written law or doctrine. Yet, he had a relationship with the Lady.
To me that is the key. All else is dessert. Actually having a written standard so that we may know our God more intimately and our enemy to me is a good thing. Does it in its final form have errors? YUP! Is it perfect this way? NOPE.
No man/religion/creed/doctrine can fill this position. All my OPINION of course.........
[/font][/color][/size]
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
But seriously folks... :B)
How many people out there are convinced that what they believe is right, and everything else is either man-made or the doctrines of devils? Quite a few, I'd guess.
Bliss' post illustrates for me a point that I have made at various times on these types of threads:
People believe something because that's what they decide to believe, and interpret everything else in light of those beliefs, not becasue the bible or some other "holy" book says so. Because when pressed, most bible believers will resort to personal experience to back up whatever their holy book says.The question is then raised: why is one person's experience more valid than the next person's? If one person ascribes certain life events to the God of the bible, and I ascribe those same events to the Goddess; or Manannan, the celtic Sea God; or fairies; or extraterestrials or Allah...why are those beliefs less valid? Less divine and more "doctrines of men and devils"?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RottieGrrrl
Oaks, all I can tell you, is that I know, that I know that I know, there is only one true God. And He is the father of our Lord Jesus. I don't know that the holy Quaran (or whatever) says "God is love" The bible says that though. I don't know that the Quaran (or whatever) says that salvations is by His grace, not our works. Lest any man should boast.
It truly is not hard to figure out, what man has come up with, and what is true and real, and not of man.
I won't compromise on that one bit. I need a savior to save my butt, and I don't care if saying so makes me unpopular in this life. I'm not budging one inch on that. I can't. My a** is at stake here.
Edited by RottieGrrrlLink to comment
Share on other sites
bliss
ahhh Dearest Oakspeak,
What do you believe in Oak?
What info does your goddess have for us today?
I've been to the unknown...................it is not a good place for me to be.
I showed you mine, now
you show me yours..................
side note.............all the apostles were freaked out after the cruxifiction.
Historically speaking now.
but, They didn't stay that way. Why?
(On pain of death, if something was a LIE, or you made it up, would you die for it. Would you? NO of course not........neither would any man! )
His resurrection, changed them. These men, saw Jesus. They saw with their own eyes his resurrected body. That is why they were so bold, so different than just 3 days prior.
Nobody would die for a lie.
Yes, so we have many people dying for their causes all the time. But, it's all about faith in something. I don't invalidate any of their experiences or perspectives. But somebody's got to be wrong.
Nobody (Muslims, Hindu, Goddesses, Satanist, Buddha, whatever) had a savior raised from the dead. That is really the only way to prove the validity of Christianity itself. (the difference). Everthing else, well, is debatable.
If they(the apostles) honestly ''made up the story of Jesus resurrecting from the dead'' and been arrested and tortured they would've caved in.
The apostles, all martyred:beheaded, disembowled, exiled, hung, cruxified upsidedown..........died for what they
SAWfirst and Believed.
I never saw, I just have faith. You are right, I believe the bible, therefore, have incidents to back it up. Can I prove it to your satisfaction? NO.
blessed are they that believe.....................then see.
So, I believe.
and one day,
I (we) will see.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RottieGrrrl
Great post bliss. Your post made me think of something too. People die for causes yes, even the bible says "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" but some people die for totally selfish causes. Like a certain fanatical sect that bombs up market places or flys into buildings because they are under the belief that they will get 17 virgins in Paradise. Or whatever.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Historically speaking? The narrative from Acts may be true, or it may be false, but it's hardly indisputable.
Nobody would die for a lie? Muslims die every day for the Koran...is that the truth?
Nobody had a savior raised from the dead? There are numerous religions pre-Christian era who claim just that: a savior raised from the dead. Osiris and Mithra are two that spring immediately to mind.
And why does somebody have to be wrong?
What do I believe? Maybe when I don't have to run off to work in 10 minutes. Suffice it to say for right now that what I believe doesn't relegate what you believe to "doctrines of devils".
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bramble
I don't believe any one can prove that their religion/faith is fact, the TRUTH etc. They can believe it with in themselves, they can persuade others who may or may not have the same type of religious experience, that's all.
Some will miss out on the religious experience or what ever, some will find something out there that speaks to them but is different than another's.
And yet, many people are more than willing to demonize beliefs not their own-- sometimes it is even their doctrine and dogma as we saw in TWI--, which IMO is a great human error that leads to nothing good, no matter which religion is slamming another. Demonizatrion, oppression, forced conformity, violence--they all seem to be on the same downward path to me.
As far as having a savior, so I know mine is true...I don't believe in the concept of fallen man or a fallen world, so I see no need for a savior. Nor have I seen people who have a savior as being better people with better lives than those who don't have a savior. To some it seems very obviously true that there is a savior, and that the world is now a much better place because of the savior and the truth...shrug, I don't see that.
Personally, I think it is a bizarre thing to say, "My unproven truth is the real truth, all others unproven truths are false and evil."
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TrustAndObey
Why does someone have to be wrong? Well, they don't have to be Oak.. No, that's fine. Enjoy your life where everyone is right.. Including the guy who breaks into your house and steals your goods. He's right you know.. He needs to make a living.
So, sure.. Believe as you want. Everyone in the world is right. Everyone has a right to do as they please. Murder, kill, steal, or be nice and friendly and not have what you want. Who cares. Everyone's right in their own eyes! Sure. So stop complaining next time the governemt wants to raise taxes, take away your property, and everything else you do. They have that right, and you shouldn't be complaining because no one has to be wrong, nay they are all within their rights as humans tht live according to themselves!
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.