I went to church today

Here's the church we go to...

 

I don't see his post as an attack on Christianity. It's a question about insitutionalized religion.

I mean, he doesn't believe that Jesus was an immaculate conception, Muslims believe that Jesus was.

All religions are essentially the same, it strange to see all of the similarities between them. I mean in the Ramayana, literature - I know, but still, we see that Rama is human incarnation of the God Vishnu. He is infallible. Muhammed, though not a God but a prophet, was infallible. Jesus was perfect.

I agree with DaDa, in that much of organized religion is contrived. I am a Christian, but I don't consider myself a Baptist or Methodist or any other thing. I just believe that Jesus is God. What makes a Baptist a Baptist, or a Protestant a Protestant, or a Catholic a Catholic. They are sects that have been divided down overtime by someone who had a different interpretation or because of some other motivation.

There are alot of texts left out of the Bible. Why? Probably because they were either fake, or a detriment to their beliefs. The people who decided which books would appear in the New Testament were being selective. Just as the previous leaders before them who wrote the Old Testaments from even older texts. Many of those texts were based off of even older Zoastrian documents.

The message was there from the beginning of human existence (if you ascribe to Adam and Eve and all that). It evolved, from Moses to Jesus to Muhammed. After God, after the message, it's all contrived. It's the establishment telling which message was right, and how to interpret it. Who gave you the message? Jesus? Muhammed? Joseph Smith?

 

did anyone else hear all other religions are inferior to Christianity?

seriously, take a look around, what is the religion of Team America?

1) Christianity.

2) What is the greatest country in the world and if anyone argues, their opinion doesn't count? That's right, America.

Therefore, the law of averages states that Christianity is the religion of Team America and therefore all other religions do not count.

thus saith Tracy McGrady (superstar for the Houston Rockets)

 

SOOOO freaking true.

 

My family and I recently started attending a new church. The website is in my sig.

 

Quite the travel from your Episcopalian roots. More recently Methodist, right? Here, for you:

"With Christ, Christianity is the individual, here the single individual. With the Apostles it immediattely becomes the congregation. But here Christianity has been transposed into another conceptual sphere. And it is this concept [i.e., the concept of the congregation] that has become the ruination of Christianity."

 

this might be your best post ever, TMac640.

 

God is a person, a living spirit and He can speak to your heart (Impress thoughts to your mind from the Bible). That makes it different than what man contrive's, and Roman and Greek gods.

If God speaks a truth to your heart it will not be a Mythos to you. You will know that.

Knowing a living God that can speak to you and religion are two different things. I am grateful you had a positive experience.

I went to church Sunday, the sermon was so-so and the guy wasn't that good. I had a bad day, got mixed up in the sermon and mis read my notes.

At least someone told me they liked how short the sermon was.

 

God will zap your brain and tell you secrets if you go to church and read the bible. Then you will go to heaven when you die and be nothing but happy for ever and ever. The billions in the world who doesn't believe in this are screwed and/or damned. If they only knew what the special people knew...

 

Da - Just remember when you have a hard time believing something to be true (raising from the dead, virgin birth, water in wine, giving sight to the blind, etc), this is God we're talking about. The Creater of the universe and all life - every detail - from nothing. He can do anything. What we may call miracles, to Him it's just intervention on His creation.

Glad you were there.

 

wow, you're right in line with the New Testament, then. God doesn't put on any qualifiers. All can know Him through Christ.

 

Or other ways.

 

This is very important, even to remember with holy leaders. You have to remember that they are people, and that they are going to make mistakes, just like the rest of us. I have seen pastors tear apart a church before, and whether they meant to do what they did or not, I still hold that in the end they were and are instruments of God and that it was His will.

 

rim --

it is. my experience with God has been very ecumenical. I still love worshipping Him in those very traditional settings. But I find myself drawn to places where He's sought in a very authentic way...where His message is communicated to people in real-world language...and the church itself is committed to serving those who are outside of its own walls. Had my "first dates" with God at the old chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church...came to understand Him better in ministries like Young Life...had leadership roles in the Presbyterian Church and grew closer to Him there, too. I've known Him in all of those settings...traditional and contemporary and otherwise.

 

I went to church yesterday...30 minutes of Islam bashing! He basically said that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and that the Islamists would one day take over the country...

 

John 10:1-39

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.
Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.

At these words the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, "He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?"

But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."
Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. "




Would a peaceful preacher claim to be equal with God?

 

time to find a new church!

 

Well, it is Southern Baptist, so I should be thankful that his sermons are less than an hour long...