Religion

Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #5 Prayer #3 Callers upon God

Posted on June 18, 2013. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Christadelphian, Jehovah יהוה YHWH JHVH God Elohim Yahweh Jahweh, Jesus Christ Jeshua the Messiah Jahushua, Religion | Tags: Christadelphians, Chosen people, Jews, Confidence, Prayer, Pray, Jerusalem, Body of Christ, Guidance, People of God, Worship, One God, Calling unto God, Most High, Brotherhood, Support, Roots, Truthfulness |

Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah

Callers upon יהוה {Jehovah}

We have the certainty that Jehovah is all around us and that we do not have to stand on our own in this world. Though we may stay an individual in this world, that is not exactly what Jehovah expect of us. Also his son let his apostles know that they should come together, as often as they could, to worship his Father. They had to unite with each other and be a limb of his body, did Jesus tell them. Like Jesus called on his Father, the only One God, we also had to pray to the Most High.

Christ praying to his Father, in Gethsemane (Christus in Gethsemane), oil painting by Heinrich Ferdinand Hofmann (Heinrich Hofmann). The original is at the Riverside Church (Riverside Church, New York City). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus was a Jew who did not want to be the cause of a schism or to create a different or other religion than the one of his family. Although home rituals are central to Judaism and other religions, much of Judaism may also happens when we come together as a community. Jesus and his disciples went regularly to the temple to exchange ideas and to pray to God. In the night Jesus was going to betrayed he ordained the service, which he wanted his followers to do in remembrance of him, as often as they could.

In the footsteps of his disciples Christadelphians also come together to remember Christ his offering, to celebrate Jesus his resurrection, to celebrate all the Good Works of God the Father, and to pray. We also come together regularly to support each other in good times and bad.

Calling upon Jehovah we do hope we shall be able to grow under His guidance and to be able to welcome our newest members with family and friends at a baptism, as sign for the community of brotherhood under Christ.

Calling upon Jehovah we think of all the people of our community, but also of the other people in the world who can use our support. We support those who are ill or have experienced a death in the family. Though we do know our shortcomings and cannot help everywhere we should always try to do our utter best.

By calling upon God we are not afraid to be humble enough to show our weaknesses to others and communally give voice to our shortcomings and our wishes for peace and good health in the coming year during the High Holidays.

As brothers and sisters we connect with those we care about when we share a Passover Seder with family and friends and we strengthen each other as members of a vibrant Christian community.

We do not forget the roots of our faith and recognize the Chosen People of God. With them we want to look forward to the time that Jerusalem shall become the capital of the Great Israel. We know the importance of the stories of long ago and want to bear them in our heart and bring them over to our children. To be good teachers to our children we call upon Jehovah so that He may guide us in bringing over His Infallible Word.

“Jehovah” William Blake Works (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like Jews who live all over the world are part of one big family, we also are part of the body of Christ. We are all a part of the Christadelphian family, the town of Christ, even if we do not know them, and they do not know us. We are connected to other Christadelphians all over the world even if we have not met them. With them we are united in the calling upon Jehovah.

Wherever we are in the world, we can feel united in prayer, coming to God in brotherly union. Jesus cleared the way to go straight to his father, who is also our heavenly Father. Jehovah wants us to come as a child who is loved, who is accepted, who is cared for, and who is secure. He wants you to come in openness, in confidence, in truthfulness. He waits to hear your heart, and to share His heart with you.

Through prayer you can gather the riches of heaven and bring them down to earth…you can delight in the beauty of heaven and carry it in your heart…you can enjoy the fellowship of heaven and walk in it throughout the day.

Preceding article: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #5 Prayer #2 Witnessing

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #5 Gebed #3 Aanroepers van God

Please do fins also to read:

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God is God (gaillijauco.com)
As the song “Our God” was played during worship, a voice inside me says, “Who is God in your life?” For many years I have prayed the same prayer… I invite you to be God over my life but suddenly this voice made me contemplate, is God really God over my life?
Happy Father’s Day My Eternal Father (christinebrooksmartin.wordpress.com)
When you enter into God’s presence through prayer, you are establishing an eternal covenant with Him. You can enter into a dwelling place where you find His virtue, the Lord your provider. In addition to your natural needs, He will provide you with spiritual food–your daily bread. He will provide His sincere milk and He will provide the strong meat. Your eternal, necessary food is all in the form of the Word and for your spiritual age (level of spiritual maturity). He daily loads you down with benefits.
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God’s presence brings natural and spiritual healing and deliverance. There is a balm in Gilead and the oil of joy that is better than a band-aid, better than antiseptic, better than ointments, and better than pills. When we pursue God through prayer we can access His dwelling place where He reveals Himself as Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord my Healer.
Pioneering Strengthens Our Relationship With God (illustrationstoencourage.wordpress.com)
As we share in the ministry, we think and talk about Jehovah. That in itself has positive effects.
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Thinking and speaking about a loved one can strengthen our bond with that person. The same is true regarding our relationship with Jehovah God.
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Discussing future Kingdom blessings with others draws us closer to Jehovah.
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Seeing the spiritually destitute condition of those to whom we preach deepens our appreciation for the truth.
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When we have an increased share in the ministry, we see more clearly the contrast between the spiritual condition of those to whom we preach and that of Jehovah’s people. (Isa. 65:13) We are reminded of Jehovah’s goodness in that he does more than provide for our spiritual needs; he invites all to receive spiritual refreshment and a real hope.—Rev. 22:17.
Prayer – What About? (illustrationstoencourage.wordpress.com)
It has been called the most widely repeated of all Christian prayers. Whether that is true or not, Jesus’ model prayer—sometimes called the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father—is certainly among the most misunderstood. Millions of people utter its words by rote every day, perhaps often during the day. But Jesus never intended for the prayer to be used in that way.
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Jesus’ words suggest that God’s will is just as certain to take place on earth as it is in heaven, where God dwells.
Creator and Blogger God 4 Expounding voice (bijbelvorser.wordpress.com)
Jeremiah presented a contrast between those who had “not obeyed the voice of Jehovah” and those who wanted to obey Him. (Jeremiah 3:25; 7:28; 26:13; 38:20; 43:4, 7) We individually should analyse where we stand in this regard.
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Jeremiah reveals that we should recognise Jehovah as the Maker of the earth by His power. The One Elohim is the Universal Ruler, the Sustainer of life — our life and the Holy One who firmly establishes the productive land by his wisdom.
Jesus Lifts us UP! (yeatoemcintosh.wordpress.com)
The Strength within will pull you through any obstacles. That inner strength comes from Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Nissi, I AM, Jehovah Jired, Jehovah Rophe, Jehovah Rohi, Elohim, El Shaddai, Adonai, El Elyon, the one and only God.
Creator and Blogger God 5 Things to tell (bijbelvorser.wordpress.com)
God blessed those who came after them, Seth, Noah and his sons, and he said to them, to be fruitful and to multiply, and fill the earth. (Genesis 9:1) They had to remember the Creator as the Great One on whose Name they had to call. And it was that Majestic God who was always going to give the right answer.
Consider What Kind of Person You Ought to Be (illustrationstoencourage.wordpress.com)
Emphasizing the ‘sort of persons we ought to be’ from Jehovah’s viewpoint, the apostle Peter urges us to engage in “holy acts of conduct and deeds of godly devotion.” (Read 2 Peter 3:11.) For us to gain God’s approval, our “acts of conduct” must be holy, that is, clean—morally, mentally, and spiritually. Moreover, we need to perform “deeds of godly devotion” with reverence for God and loyal attachment to him.

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Science and God’s existence

Posted on November 26, 2012. Filed under: Religion, World | Tags: Alvin Plantinga, Atheism, Atheists, Biology, Book review, DNA, Existence of God, Genetic Code, John C. Lennox, Knowledge, Origin of the Universe, Philosophy of science, Richard Dawkins, Science, Universe |

A taster article from the October 2012 edition of the Christadelphian magazine

Book review: Science and God’s existence

This brilliantly argued, and authoritative book uses powerful new evidence from the cutting edge of science to challenge aggressive atheism head on.

The author is Professor in Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College. He employs his superb reasoning and mathematical skills and his expert and wide ranging understanding of current scientific research to demonstrate that science far from ‘burying God’, points increasingly towards an intelligent designer.

Creative intelligence

The book begins with a consideration of the philosophical basis of science and knowledge. It explores and effectively counters the views of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, that science can explain everything and that what is not science cannot therefore be truth.

Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his book, The God Delusion, in Reykjavik (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The book then moves on to analyse the latest discoveries about the origins and nature of the universe. The author examines the findings of astrophysicists and cosmologists who are using increasingly complex equipment to explore the very edges of the universe. He adds his own mathematical reasoning to that of experts working in these fields and leads us to the conclusion that the universe is so remarkably finely-tuned and the mathematical probabilities of this happening by chance are so impossibly small that a creative intelligence must have been involved in their creation.

In the second half of the book, the author tackles evolutionary biology. He considers Dawkins’ view that natural selection accounts not just for the diversity but also the very existence of life on earth. Lennox highlights the lack of evidence that natural selection has ever created new characteristics, let alone life. The author then turns to molecular biology and research into DNA and the genetic code. In these fascinating chapters Lennox explains how scientists working at the forefront of this field have been staggered to discover that genetic codes are both highly specific and phenomenally complex. Lennox does the maths for us and demonstrates that there simply has not been enough time since the Big Bang for these complex codes to have come about by chance. The more that experts working in the field learn, the more they are led to the conclusion that there must have been a super intelligence behind them.

Valuable information

Lennox’s book is necessarily technical to a degree; presenting as it does mathematical and scientific data and employing complex and abstract reasoning in order to weigh the evidence and draw conclusions. He has, however, managed to make much of this accessible and understandable to the lay person and produce a readable and at times very amusing book.

Here is a valuable source of information for countering the views of people who believe that science has disproved the existence of God. Recent scientific discoveries are doing quite the reverse and this book provides facts and figures and very strong arguments which can be used as evidence for this.

This book would be particularly useful for brethren and sisters and young people who are at college or university and who find themselves face to face with knowledgeable and clever atheists. It will also be valuable for parents and brethren and sisters who work with our young people, many of whom may be wondering deep down whether science really has taken away the need for faith. This book shows us that it most certainly has not.

Rachel Green

God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? by John C. Lennox is published by Lion Hudson; 220 pages, £8.99 ISBN 978-07459-5371-7.

The Christadelphian magazine reflects the teachings, beliefs and activities of the Christadelphians – groups of believers living in most countries in the world.

> home of The Christadelphian

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Science and the belief in God – A video short for a Sunday afternoon (rodiagnusdei.wordpress.com)
“Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.” Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Physician and Mathematician, Father of Calculus
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“I do not share the foolish incoherence of the scientist who would contest the existence of God, who would close his ears to what the heavens declare, and refuse to see what shines before his eyes. To know God, to love Him, to render to him a pure homage, that is true knowledge and the study of the wise.” Andre Marie Ampere (1775-1836) Author: ‘The True Scientist’, Father of Electrodynamics
Atheists’ Reviews Of Dawkins’ The God Delusion (withalliamgod.wordpress.com)
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, a book that attempted to expose logical faultiness of religion and its’ cause of much suffering in the world, is the most read atheistic literature in our times. In this series of articles, I explored different prominent atheists and agnostics reviews of The God Delusion.
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Spinning towards the evils of religion, Orr correctly appreciated Dawkins for reminding us the “horrors committed in the name of God”. “No decent person can fail to be repulsed by the sins committed in the name of religion” wrote Orr.
Alvin Plantinga on the New Atheists (keithburgess-jackson.typepad.com)
Apparently some of the dreaded “New Atheists” do think serious discussion is out of place in this area. Here is Richard Dawkins’s suggestion for dealing with those religious people he disagrees with: “We need to go further: go beyond humorous ridicule, sharpen our barbs to a point where they really hurt.” . . . Fence sitters, he says, “are likely to be swayed by a display of naked contempt. Nobody likes to be laughed at. Nobody wants to be the butt of contempt.”
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One gets the impression that Dawkins has an irrational hatred of religion (perhaps brought on by events in his childhood). Hatred makes people do pointless and destructive things.
Ravi Zacharias Answers Stephen Hawking – Part 3 – 20 Min. (christcenteredteaching.wordpress.com)
Stephen Hawking declared that God was not needed for the universe to be created.

Theologian Ravi Zacharias and Dr. John Lennox,( a triple doctorate in science and philosophy from Cambridge university where Hawkings also studied, and has studied and is Professor of Mathematics at Oxford), respond to Hawking’s claim.
If materialism is wrong, what can replace it? (geneveith.com)
Nagel, an eminent philosopher, is an atheist, but he recognizes the force of the intelligent design arguments and in this book (published by Oxford University Press), he dismantles the materialists’ assumptions. What is especially interesting, though, is how Plantinga interacts with Nagel and challenges his atheism
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According to Nagel, materialist naturalism has great difficulty with consciousness, but it has even greater difficulty with cognition. He thinks it monumentally unlikely that unguided natural selection should have “generated creatures with the capacity to discover by reason the truth about a reality that extends vastly beyond the initial appearances.” He is thinking in particular of science itself.
Science & Theism in Concord? (ubcgcu.org)
God created both us and our world in such a way that there is a certain fit or match between the world and our cognitive faculties: adequatio intellectus ad rem (the adequation of the intellect to reality). For science to be successful, there must be a match between our cognitive faculties and the world.
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Creation is a free act of God. The contingency of divine creation both underlies and underwrites the empirical character of modern Western science. This is the domain of a posteriori knowledge, which requires experience, knowledge produced by perception, memory, exactly the sort of knowledge produced by empirical science—through observation and experience.
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Theistic religion gives us reason to expect our cognitive capacities (part of the imago dei) to match the world in such a way as to make modern science possible. Naturalism gives us no such reason to expect this sort of match. In his final chapter, he goes further to demonstrate provocatively the incompatibility of science and naturalism.
Big Bang: Is there room for God? (bbc.co.uk)
Now that the Higgs has finally been spotted – a scientific discovery that takes us closer than ever to the first moments after the Big Bang – Cern has opened its doors to scholars that take a very different approach to the question of how the Universe came to exist.
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“There’s a need for us, as naive scientists, to discuss with philosophers and theologians the time before or around the Big Bang.”
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“You can’t disprove the theory of God.”

“The power of science is uncertainty. Everything is uncertain, but science can define that uncertainty.”
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John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, is also a self-declared Christian. He thinks the very fact that human beings can do science is evidence for God.

“If the atheists are right the mind that does science… is the end product of a mindless unguided process.

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Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality

Posted on November 26, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Faith, Manners and Association, Meditation, Religion | Tags: God, Religion and Spirituality, Freedom, Deity, God's character, Prayer, Faith, Thought, Theology, Christmas, Fulfilment, Existence, Soul, Image of God, Mind, Moral Values, Atheism, Spirituality, Christians, Behaviour, Meditation, Focus, Thanksgiving, Awareness, Conduct, Virtues, Human Character, Inner path, Explanation, 1960 s, Philosophy, Secularization, Theism, Naturalists, Apologetics, Biblical Teaching, Sceptics, Christian character, Fruits of the Spirit, Theist, Holiday, Creativity, Practice, Spiritual, Lifestyle, Vision, Approach, Philip Sheldrake, Yoga, Chanting, Abstinence, Pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela, Character formation, Virtue, Spiritual Life, Buddhism, Biblical guidance, Zen, T'ai-chi, Theravadan vipassana, Rest, Human spirit, Self-development, Thinking process, Analytic philosophy, William Alston, William Lane Craig, Peter Van Inwagen, Quentin Smith, Materialist naturalism, j p moreland, Alvin Plantinga |

Do you have a concept of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a you to discover the essence of your being? Are you looking into yourself to find the deepest values and meanings by which you or other people live? Do you want to get in touch with your spiritual side through private meditation, quiet reflection, prayer, yoga, repetitive movements, t’ai-chi, sitting quiet on a bench or a mountain, or even long walks?

Origin and coming into being

When we look at the world we can wonder how it all came into existence, believe either in a Big Bang, Darwin Theory, other evolution theories, many ideas of many people having brought forth many religions. We all want to explain things or require an explanation for everything? But the world is so complex and our brain so limited that hunman beings can not explain everything. They are not able to find an answer for everything. They may be smart but they are all limited.

Perhaps because we do know our limitation and that of others we are happy to agree with purpose-based explanations for natural states of affairs. We also sometimes like to link such purpose-based explanations to thinking that someone (e.g., a god) accounts for the purpose. Even young children have the intuition that purpose is best accounted for by someone willing that purpose to be. So, perhaps it is a part of human nature to accept purpose-based explanations which also supports belief in a God or gods. As such people made up gods and created many religionswhich are not just a quirky interest of a few, it’s basic human nature.

English: Brain in a vat. Famous thought experi...

Brain in a vat. Famous thought experiment in analytic philosophy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Looking for answers in science

From the 1960s onwards more people started wondering and doubting all the behaviours around God and gods and tried to find more answers in science. There has been a desecularization in academic philosophy departments since the 1960′s, according to naturalist (that is, atheist) philosopher Quentin Smith. By the middle of the 20th century, atheism was the dominant view of mainstream analytic philosophy. By the second half of the twentieth century, universities and colleges had been become in the main secularized. The standard (if not exceptionless) position in each field, from physics to psychology, assumed or involved arguments for a naturalist world-view; departments of theology or religion aimed to understand the meaning and origins of religious writings, not to develop arguments against naturalism. Analytic philosophers (in the mainstream of analytic philosophy) treated theism as an antirealist or non-cognitivist world-view, requiring the reality, not of a deity, but merely of emotive expressions or certain “forms of life” (of course there were a few exceptions, e.g., Ewing, Ross, Hartshorne, etc.).

Naturalists

But realist theists were not outmatched by naturalists in terms of the most valued standards of analytic philosophy: conceptual precision, rigor of argumentation, technical erudition, and an in-depth defense of an original world-view. Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism, most influenced by Plantinga’s writings (God and Other Minds, in 1967 a.o.), began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians.

Several naturalist philosophers reacted by publicly ignoring the increasing desecularizing of philosophy (while privately disparaging theism, without really knowing anything about contemporary analytic philosophy of religion) and proceeded to work in their own area of specialization as if theism, the view of approximately one-quarter or one-third of their field, did not exist. Quickly, naturalists found themselves a mere bare majority, with many of the leading thinkers in the various disciplines of philosophy, ranging from philosophy of science (e.g., Van Fraassen) to epistemology (e.g., Moser), being theists. The predicament of naturalist philosophers is not just due to the influx of talented theists, but is due to the lack of counter-activity of naturalist philosophers themselves. A large number of publications advancing theism have come onto the scene by such philosophers as William Alston, Robert and Marilyn Adams, Peter Van Inwagen, Eleonore Stump, Nicholas Wolsterstorff, and Linda Zagzebski. Arguing for theism is no longer “an academically unrespectable scholarly pursuit.

Quentin Smith points out that in the past decade one catalogue of Oxford University Press, which is arguably the top publisher of contemporary philosophy, included 96 books on the philosophy of religion. 94 of these argued for theism, while the remaining 2 discussed both sides of the issue. I would add that since this time, with the advent of the new atheists, the publication numbers may not be as one-sided. Still, this is a radical shift that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago.

J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig say that philosophy aids Christians in the tasks of apologetics, polemics and systematic theology. It reflects our having been made in the image of God, helps us to extend biblical teaching into areas not expressly addressed in Scripture, facilitates the spiritual discipline of study, enhances the boldness and self-image of the Christian community, and is requisite to the essential task of integrating faith and learning.

Oppression by religion

Sceptics have been around all the time. Fundamentalist we can find everywhere. Strange consequences may also be found. When religion is put onto people there is going on something wrong. For example when in Kentucky, a homeland security law requires the state’s citizens to acknowledge the security provided by the Almighty God this is imposing something on a whole community which is a matter of personal belief. The law and its sponsor, state representative Tom Riner, have been the subject of controversy since the law first surfaced in 2006, yet the Kentucky state Supreme Court has refused to review its constitutionality, despite clearly violating the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.

The law states, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, presidential proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy‘s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’”

The law requires that plaques celebrating the power of the Almighty God be installed outside the state Homeland Security building–and carries a criminal penalty of up to 12 months in jail if one fails to comply. The plaque’s inscription begins with the assertion, “The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

Tom Riner, a Baptist minister and the long-time Democratic state representative, sponsored the law. He forgets that God does not want to be imposed on others. Condemning people because they do not believe in God, nor forcing people to accept that there is a God shall bring those people closer to God. To constrain a faith onto people does not get people to adhere that faith.

“The church-state divide is not a line I see,” Riner told The New York Times shortly after the law was first challenged in court. “What I do see is an attempt to separate America from its history of perceiving itself as a nation under God.”

In this instance clearly God and His Law are mis-used to limit people in their freedom of choice. God commits nobody to His Laws or to any faith. He does not compel people to undertake to do co-operate.

Dependence on God may be essential to come to the best form of living. In the end we shall get the best ‘political’ or ‘theocratic’ constitution or condition with the Kingdom of God. But as long as Jesus does not return we shall have to do it with human constitutions. In the Law of God, God demands people to make the choice and He does not force them. Though there are many people who want to force their ideas of Christianity, what to believe, what to chose and how to behave on others. It are them who do not allow freedom of mind, though they often call onto the constitution to say that provides for Freedom.

Saudi atheist “Jabir,” talking to Your Middle East:

Isn’t it a basic right for humans to believe or not believe freely! I know this is only a dream in Saudi, but it doesn’t change the fact that people will have different views and believes [sic], whether society will allow it or not.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

On Thursday in America they had Thanksgiving which nearly every year means it’s time for the ‘Religious Right’ to start carping about the so-called “war on Christmas.” The American Family Association (AFA) has released its annual “Naughty Or Nice” list of retailers. Traditionally, release of this list, which the AFA published on November 15, marks the beginning of the annual Religious Right whine-fest about the war on Christmas.

In Santa Monica, California, a large display depicting the nativity of Jesus had been erected for several years. Last year, an atheist group requested the right to use the space too, so city officials decided to hold a lottery. Atheist groups won most of the spaces in 2011, and there was some discontent over this – mainly, intolerant residents trashed the atheist displays. This year, the city has decided to shut down the forum rather than host any displays.

Lots of Christians do not recognise all the heathen elements in this so called Christian high-feast. Many even think it is an essential part of their faith and they can not come into a spiritual right state without celebrating Christmas.

Others do find that thankfulness is one of the distinguishing traits of the human spirit and therefore Thanksgiving should be the most important Christian holiday.

They may be right to point to the necessity to say thanks, and we realize we ought to be more grateful than we are. We furthermore perceive that we are indebted to (and accountable to) a higher power than ourselves — the God who made us. According to Scripture, everyone has this knowledge, including those who refuse to honour God or thank Him.

Indebted in a human being

Because Scripture tells us that the Creator of heaven and earth has given every part of creation something of Him and the knowledge of the Supreme being, we should not worry about forcing the knowledge of God onto others.

We are conscious that ingratitude is dishonourable by anyone’s reckoning. In case people willfully are ungrateful toward the Creator we do have to accept their choice to deny an essential aspect of our own humanity. The shame of such ingratitude is inscribed on the human conscience, and even the most dogmatic atheists are not immune from the knowledge that they ought to give thanks to God. Try as they might to suppress or deny the impulse, “what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them,” according to Romans 1:19.

Every person born gets from the moment he or she can think a confrontation with everything what is around its person. He or she gets confronted with many ideas and questions about the ‘whys’ and ‘whats’. Each person while growing up shall come to think about existence. More than once in a person’s life the man or woman in question shall think about the reasons why he or she exist and what he or she comes to do or has to do on this earth. A question about beliefs and religion shall also arise.

In many people’s conception if you really can’t be religious, at least you should try to be spiritual. If you are not, then you must be a damned selfish materialist according to them. If taking the word ‘Spriutality’ literally as if you are spiritual you believe in spirits (not of the alcohol-laden type), to be averse to the idea that matter and energy are all there is to the universe. This would not translate into someone being a better, more moral and hence more contactable person.

Indicating someone who devotes part of her time and energy to cultivate her “spirit,” as opposed to just being concerned with “material” things is the better part of the spirituality. It is where we try to get into our life an extra sense. Naturally we are not born with the materialistic mind. We have it in our selves to think about more important matters than just the material ones. It is our wealth which brings our head on the roller-skates. We do not originally think of our life as a dichotomous enterprise in the course of which we have to provide material/energy food for our stomach to process, as well as an entirely different kind of nourishment for our “spirit.” Our mind, whatever the detailed explanation of how it works, is a product of our brain, and the two simply can’t be disconnected, upon penalty of the first one simply ceasing to exist.

The soul of a person is his being, his breath, his thinking. It is not an other sort of spirit being accommodated in a physical body. Without breath we can not survive. Without thinking we shall also not be able to survive, because the brain lets us take care of the thoughts to preserve our body (it is our soul). From the start of the existence we had to get to know it was important to breath, to eat and to drink. We learned we had to provide for nutrition. Nourishment , we learned did not exist only as a power supply, we learned bad food or malnutrition would bring us in problems. Strangely enough many people did not get to see that malnutrition on the psychical part also would bring a person in in-balance and in problems.

From the beginning it was also indebted that we should take care of cultivating and reflecting on our ethics, our way of behavement, certainly because we are not on our own in this world, so we should take care of the others around us. when born soon we learn to react to our environment. The people around our cot let us make certain reactions. We learn from them and we continue to learn from reactions others make in our life. We do have to learn behaving justly and compassionately toward our fellow human beings, and of nurturing our aesthetic sense through arts and letters. This learning process is so different by all that it makes some people more reflective than others, some more compassionate, some more inclined to read literature and go to art museums or concerts (the latter activities also of course greatly depending on one’s means and education, not just our natural propensities).

Odysseus in Dante’s Inferno says: “Fatti non foste per viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza” (We were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge). No matter if a person is religious or not, it is part of our nature that we have our brains to let us think about matters. Every person has the basic notion about compassion and ethics. We all have a feeling about manners and how to behave to get on in our society. For this reason some think an interesting human being doesn’t need to be either religious or spiritual. He just needs to be human. But this being human, according to us, just demands using the brains to think about everything to get the own soul in unison with the rest of the world. Spirituality is the way to get in line with the surroundings. Religion may help to get oneself sorted out and to have moral qualms.

Question of spirituality

Traditionally, many religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of religious experience. Among other factors, declining membership of organized religions and the growth of secularism in the western world have given rise to a broader view of spirituality. {Michael Hogan (2010). The Culture of Our Thinking in Relation to Spirituality. Nova Science Publishers: New York.} The term “spiritual” is now frequently used in contexts in which the term “religious” was formerly employed; compare James‘ 1902 lectures on the “Varieties of Religious Experience”. {James, W. (1985). The varieties of religious experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1902) + Gorsuch, R.L., & Miller, W. R. (1999). Assessing spirituality. In W. R. Miller (Ed), Integrating spirituality into treatment (pp. 47-64). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.}

Many people do come to an evaluation of a particular individual’s durable moral qualities. Virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits are questioned. Thought and excellences of character are being questioned.

The Bible defines character as any behaviour or activity that reflects the character of God. The Book of Genesis says that God created man in his own image. (Genesis 1:27) Though we are created to act in accordance to the will of our creator, we are given the freedom to expand, to rule the earth and to use our brains in the manner we would like to use it. But humans should know that Christian character can only be “Fruits of the Spirit” . (Galatians 5:22-23)

Looking for ‘luck’ people have wondered who or what was behind the creation and if they did need to come to a spiritual form to form themselves and to create happiness around and for them. Many people hoped to find peace for their mind in spiritual practices such as mindfulness and meditation. Nearly everybody looks for human fulfilment without any supernatural interpretation or explanation. Spirituality in this context may be a matter of nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with a belief that everything in the universe is mutually dependent; this stance has much in common with some versions of Buddhist spirituality. Sometimes it looks like every human being wants to go into an individual battle with himself and with the ‘existence‘. It seems we want to go into a struggle with the issues of how our lives fit into the greater scheme of things. This is true when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life. {Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, But Not Religious. }

In broad terms “spirituality” stands for lifestyles and practices that embody a vision of how the human spirit can achieve its full potential. In other words, spirituality embraces an aspirational approach to the meaning and conduct of life – we are driven by goals beyond purely material success or physical satisfaction.

Spirituality is connected and particularly shaped to any individual. it can not be imposed by others onto some one else. The human mind wondering and putting ideas in a certain order, trying to coop with behavement according those thoughts, is individually-tailored, democratic and eclectic, and offers an alternative source of inner-directed, personal authority in response to a decline of trust in conventional social or religious leaderships.

Quest for the sacred

“Spirituality involves a search for “meaning” – the purpose of life. It also concerns what is “holistic” – that is, an integrating factor, “life seen as a whole”. ” writes Philip Sheldrake in “Is spirituality a passing trend?”. He continues: ” Spirituality is also understood to be engaged with a quest for “the sacred” – whether God, the numinous, the boundless mysteries of the universe or our own human depths. The word is also regularly linked to “thriving” – what it means to thrive and how we are enabled to thrive. Contemporary approaches also relate spirituality to a self-reflective existence in place of an unexamined life.”

The great wisdom traditions suggest the adoption of certain spiritual practices and it is this aspect of spirituality that attracts many contemporary people. Forms of meditation, retreat, physical posture or movement such as yoga, chanting or prayers, disciplines of frugality and abstinence (for example from alcohol or meat) or visits to sacred sites and pilgrimage (for example the popular practice of walking the “camino” to Santiago de Compostela) are among the most common. The point is that spiritual practices are not merely productive in a narrow sense but are disciplined and creative. A commitment to the regularity of a spiritual discipline like meditation gives shape to what may otherwise be a fragmented life. Many people also experience their creative activities in art, music, writing and so on as spiritual practices. {Is spirituality a passing trend? Philip Sheldrake}

Spirituality integral part of life

Spirituality is actually concerned with cultivating a “spiritual life” rather than simply with undertaking practices isolated from commitment. It offers a “value-added” factor to personal and professional lives.

Spirituality also expands ethical behaviour by moving it beyond right or wrong actions to a question of identity. Senior Research Fellow in the Cambridge Theological Federation (Westcott House) Professor Philip Sheldrake says “We are to be ethical people rather than simply to “do” ethical things. Character formation and the cultivation of virtue then become central concerns.”

The world moves on and many forms of meditation and ways to come to spirituality have been created. Many forms of meditation, physical posture or movement such as many forms of yoga, disciplines of frugality and abstinence (for example from alcohol or meat) or visits to sacred sites and pilgrimage (for example the popular practice of walking the “camino” to Santiago de Compostela) are among the most common. People try to get their mind to settle inward beyond thought, to experience the source of thought or come to pure awareness. They do hope that they shall be able to come into a state of restful alertness, where their brain shall be able to function with significantly greater coherence so that their body can gain deep rest. The main concern for many is to experience higher states of consciousness at this critical time for humanity.

Every year people seem to come out with a new form of ‘coming to the own self”. The cocooning spirit wants to find a growing diversity of new forms of spirituality as well as creative reinventions of the great traditions.

Sheldrake says: “The language of spirituality continues to expand into ever more professional and social worlds – for example urban planning and architecture, the corporate world, sport and law. Most strikingly there are recent signs of its emergence in two contexts that have been especially open to public criticism – commerce and politics. Equally, the Internet is increasingly used to expand access to spiritual wisdom. So, on current evidence, spirituality appears to be less of a fad than an instinctive desire to find a deeper level of values to live by. As such, it seems likely not only to survive but to develop further into many new forms.”

Careful with spiritualist forms

As Christians, followers of Christ Jesus, we should look to the Master Teacher Jesus, how he meditated and found a way to honour his Father.

太極拳 / 太极拳 Taijiquan or T’ai chi ch’uan in Lanzhou

We should be very careful how we want of if we want to incorporate meditation forms or prayer practices from one faith tradition into another. The last few years we see that for many this seems so natural to them. Many people have a fear of other religions and a nervousness about incorporating any elements drawn from other faith traditions into their own religious practice. And they have good reason. But we must also see that certain forms can be un-connected from the religions where it is associated with. To our mind you may be doing yoga or t’ai-chi without being a Buddhist or without committing yourself to Buddhism or integrating Buddhism in your Christian Faith. The only problem is that we notice certain people doing that.

It is not because many Christians in many parts of the world have long looked to Buddhism and other Eastern religions for spiritual nourishment, that this would be acceptable in the eyes of God. Such a going away from the Biblical guidance has shown that many also abandoned their Christianity altogether. In several regions we can see more pagan rites are taken in to the worshipping and many other have already incorporated Zen meditation or Theravadan vipassana meditation into their Christian prayer.

Many find it hard to focus their mind, but God has also provided ways for them to come at ease. In His Word He provided enough information to come at peace with the own self. It also gives advice to come at peace with other people around you.

St. Francis de Sales, French saint and Bishop of Geneva, said: “If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently…And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you bought it back, your hour would be very well employed.”

Each of us can take a moment in the day to just take time for him or her self. Taking a few minutes just to put all the happenings of the day in the collection box of our mind and to analyse everything what happened that day.

When it is difficult to get a moment of rest, wonder what is of hindrance. If you cannot silence your mind, take the opportunity to become aware of what your mind is going on about. Self-awareness is an important skill! Every bit of effort you put into meditation and mastering your mind is time well-spent, even though the process may sometimes seem slow. Meditation, taking time to think or to let your spirit wonder over thoughts, and prayer are very closely related in that they are periods of intense focus, however meditation can be a purely secular practice of relaxation, mind control, and self-mastery. Meditation techniques may differ from one culture to another. Often different meditation techniques are suited to different personality types. Some techniques are expansive and allow for the free flow of thoughts and their observation whereas some types are concentrative that involve bringing focus into one’s thoughts.

A liberating spirituality

Take the Bible in your hand and open it wherever it falls open and start reading there. See if you can find guidance in those text which came in front of your eyes. Next, try to take every day a moment to continue reading the Bible according a plan, for example each day one chapter of a Bible Book.

The Spirituality God has to offer in His Word brings ‘insight’ and shall after some time give you the ability to see things as they really are, attained through a process of self-observation. It means identifying one’s own nature, recognizing the bad elements and consciously eliminating them from the system. When you shall continue to read the Holy Scriptures you shall find that those Words shall be able to transform you. When you are willing to put aside all previously learned doctrines you shall see that the Word of God can set you free of rites and shall help to develop wisdom. The great surplus the Words from the Bible shall give is that it will change your thoughts from being negative to positive. Focusing more on within our self, letting the Word of Goddoing its work we shall becoming free of negativity, transforming yourself, your thoughts, and recognizing the negative thoughts, and changing them into positive and peaceful thoughts.

The Bible compass for life

The Bible shall set your mind free and give a spiritual feeling which brings you further on the road of self-development.

No one can control eradicate adversity in life but you can master the way you respond in regards to your thinking processes. Giving yourself in the hands of the Most High Supreme, shall offer you an open gate to a spiritual world where you shall be able to encounter many more souls with the same free mind. Those people having found the liberating power of the son of God, are prepared to come together too spirituality as Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

Please do read:

Of interest:

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New Books in Theology, Philosophy, & Apologetics – November 2012 (greatcloud.wordpress.com)
Philosophy, archaeology and science are hot topics in Christian circles, perplexing many believers about how these issues relate to faith.
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Do people hold to a particular religion just because of an accident of geography? Is believing in Jesus as arbitrary as believing in Zeus? Why would God order the slaughter of infants or send people to hell? How do you know you’re really real, and not just a character in someone’s book?
William Lane Craig lectures against naturalism at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (winteryknight.wordpress.com)
Dr. Craig was in Scotland to lecture at a physics conference, but a local church organized this public lecture at the University of St. Andrews.
“Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’” (insightscoop.typepad.com)
For too long, Mr. Plantinga contends in a new book, theists have been on the defensive, merely rebutting the charge that their beliefs are irrational. It’s time for believers in the old-fashioned creator God of the Bible to go on the offensive, he argues, and he has some sports metaphors at the ready.
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Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he writes. “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’ ”
Naturalism and science are incompatible (openparachute.wordpress.com)
Well, that’s what the Christian apologist philosopher Alvin Plantinga claims. And he has written a book to “prove” it - Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Apparently its required reading for students of theology and the philosophy of religion. Probably because he declares there is a “deep concord between science and theistic belief, . . . . and deep conflict between science and naturalism.”
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all philosophies or ideologies are incompatible with science in the sense that science does not, and should not, a priori, include any of these ideological/philosophical presumptions.
An Imperfect God (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)
You often hear philosophers describe “theism” as the belief in a perfect being — a being whose attributes are said to include being all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, perfectly good, perfectly simple, and necessarily existent (among others). And today, something like this view is common among lay people as well.
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Philosophers have spent many centuries trying to get God’s supposed perfections to fit together in a coherent conception, and then trying to get that to fit with the Bible. By now it’s reasonably clear that this can’t be done. In fact, part of the reason God-bashers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are so influential (apart from the fact they write so well) is their insistence that the doctrine of God’s perfections makes no sense, and that the idealized “being” it tells us about doesn’t resemble the biblical God at all.
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As Donald Harman Akenson writes, the God of Hebrew Scripture is meant to be an “embodiment of what is, of reality” as we experience it. God’s abrupt shifts from action to seeming indifference and back, his changing demands from the human beings standing before him, his at-times devastating responses to mankind’s deeds and misdeeds — all these reflect the hardship so often present in the lives of most human beings.
Theism, Naturalism, and Morality (psychologytoday.com)
philosopher J.P. Moreland argues that there are several aspects of reality which naturalism is unable to account for, while theism can: consciousness, free will, rationality, morality, value, and a substantial human soul.
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The sense of guilt one feels for falling short of the moral law is best explained if a good God is the source or ultimate exemplification of that law. As Moreland puts it, “One cannot sense shame and guilt towards a Platonic form” (p. 147).
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Evolutionary explanations fall short because of what is selected for in evolutionary processes on naturalistic versions of evolutionary theory.
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the theist can offer a variety of reasons to adopt the moral point of view–the moral law is true; it is an expression of the non-arbitrary character of a good, loving, wise, and just God; and we were designed to function properly when living a moral life.
Believe It or Not (dedicatedtothegame.com)
Dr. Kim wants to know if the relationship in question is describable and thus knowable to us as we know other things. He frames his question in terms of a “pairing problem” to lay out how we think of causation. We must somehow be able to “locate” or identify events and objects in relationship to each other to establish a cause and effect relationship between them. He concludes that our understanding of causation requires some shared context. Space-time provides such a relational context for physical objects, but what of the immaterial, wholly separate divine substance?
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The knowledge of a separate substance could only be a direct knowledge. It must be a thing out of context, unextended. . Anything we can know about it is thus available only through “revelation”, “faith”, “intuition” – whatever you want to call pure, non-contingent experience, if such a thing exists, and so, as Kant says, our awareness of the other stuff’s existence must be the full extent of what we know about it.
Plantinga Reviews Nagel (maverickphilosopher.typepad.com)
What excites the theists’ approbation, of course, are not Nagel’s positive panpsychist and natural-teleological suggestions, which remain within the ambit of naturalism, but his assault on materialist naturalism.
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Materialist naturalism cannot explain belief, cognition, and reason.
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As for natural teleology: does it really make sense to suppose that the world in itself, without the presence of God, should be doing something we could sensibly call “aiming at” some states of affairs rather than others—that it has as a goal the actuality of some states of affairs as opposed to others?
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What is Reason? How Did it Arise? Nagel and Non-Intentional Teleology + Nagel’s Reason for Rejecting Theism

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Breaking up with a cult

Posted on September 21, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Christendom and Christianity, News and Politics, Religion | Tags: Adultery, Baptist, Blog, Blogger (writer), Cult, Eleanor Phelps, Following Christ, Fred Phelps, Jakob Phelps, Journalist, Louis Theroux, Marty Duren, Most Hated Family in America, Shirley Phelps-Roper, Sin, Topeka, Westboro Baptist Church |

In “A plea to all media outlets re: ‘the Westboro cult’” Marty Duren gives us an idea how the attitude of some one who has been in a cult does not change easily.

He let his readers know on his blog mitsilancer that he has been a member of the “Westboro Baptist Church” (WBC), which is situated in Topeka, Kansas. This so called Baptist Church which has not much to do with the original Baptist Church nor with the later American Southern and other Baptist unions.

Cult-leader dies

This week the news came out about the death of Fred Waldron Phelps (1929-2012) who jJudging by the smell and decomposition of the body, officials from the coroner’s office say Pastor Phelps’ probably died at least six months ago. Because there wasn’t any sign of foul play this would mean that nobody of his church ever questioned why dey did not see their leader or why he did not preach to them for such a long time. It also proofs that it is or are other people who are in charge of his church and several companies. It also looks more that it is Margie Phelps, daughter of Fred Phelps, who runs the Westboro Baptist Church.

Fred Phelps (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not so surprising is that the investigators did find the pastor in front of his television still playing, and appeared to be “scrambled up 80s pornography.” From all the reactions he made and how he let his church members react on pornography and other sex related issues, we could finger out that this man was very obsessed and frustrated with sex, social and religious matters.

Davis Shields, one of the coroner officials on the scene said “I think I saw boob in there” . “But with this stuff, there’s really no way to be sure.”

Probably the members of the Westboro Baptist Church have been too busy with “all these funerals against all the fag-enablers,” like Jakob Phelps said that they were not able to take some time to visit their granddad. His grandson showed some signs of embarrassment and said “I was thinking that maybe we could sort of, prop him up and put some make-up on him to still make him look alive, like Weekend at Bernie’s.”

“Oh really? You want to put make-up on him? You must be a fag sent from hell,” said Phelps-Roper. “Get the hell out of here! God will punish you!”

Pictured

Despite some disagreement, most of the members of Westboro say they will be proud to “do the Lord’s work.” But like Louis Theroux showed already in his documentary series for the BBC, life is not as rosy and clear as it looks on first site.

Westboro Baptist Church members from Topeka, Kansas protesting in front of RFK Stadium located in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Louis Theroux, who has done several series of films on, among other subjects, various fringe groups in our culture like neo-Nazis, UFO believers, survivalists, etc. He lived with and filmed the Phelps family for “The Most Hated Family in America“, a 2007 BBC documentary, shown in many countries, on the Westboro Baptist Church. Mr. Theroux wrote an article about his time with the Phelps family for the Guardian newspaper and oddly enough, describes a family somewhat like the rest of us but whose head of the household holds some very strange beliefs which he has managed to instil in the rest of his relatives.

With the years there has been not always such unity in-between the family members; let alone the church goers.

When we see all those small kids having to picket and shouting ugly words, of which they do not understand the essence and about subjects of which they have no clue. When they would become older and starting to learn certain things at school and hearing other opinions they must become torn between many pushers and pullers, having to go into the battle on all camps.

Possibility of changes

Some think the death of Fred Phelps, apparently from natural causes, means the reasoning within the church could be shifting.

“I’m putting together a sign here for when we protest the demonic Fred Phelps fag,” said daughter Eleanor Phelps. “It says ‘Thank God For You Dying In Your Sleep’.”

Church members went on to show other signs they were preparing for future protests, including “Thank God For Car Crashes”, “God Punishes Fags With Diabetes”, and “Homo Sex = Cardiovascular Disease”.

It all does not fit a Christian.

Growing up with hate language

When somebody grows up with such hate language and with feelings against one or more groups in the society you can wonder how they shall be able to become part of that society and shall be able to work in that society.

The Westboro Baptist Church began picketing funerals in 1998 and initially targeted the funerals of individuals they believed to be homosexual. But the protests later expanded to other funerals and, starting in 2005, the church started protesting at the funerals of military soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We do not know how long Marty Duren has been a member of the WBC but clearly he has not unlearned the way of talking of those people. He clearly did not yet break out of the words they use, and has learned that he could reach something with throwing mud.

He calls the journalists and bloggers “cheats,” “word thieves” and “plagiarists”, and would like tht they hear to his voice and follow him. Though in the years it were many journalists and bloggers who pointed out to the dangers of this old man, they now become accused and at the same time Duren asks for their help, while they have always been on the brink of helping to open the eyes of those members of the WBC.

Having a name & Writers giving a name

He is surprised that a “Westboro Baptist Church” Google search returned thousands of stories from news outlets, but forgets that it was under that name the organisation of pastor Phelps worked and also wanted to be known as the voice of God. They always have said to be from the Old School (or, Primitive) Baptist Church. The press has always been open to listen to them and to their opponents and many have tried to give a fair picture of both parties. A lot of journalists and bloggers also kept neutrality and did not want to bring a verdict on that organisation , which presented itself as a church. several of the writers also did not want to pass sentence on one of the involved parties, but wanted to inform the public. Others gave their readers their opinion so that those could judge for themselves.

It was the WBC itself which presented, and still do, that they adhere to the teachings of the Bible, preach against all form of sin (e.g., fornication, adultery [including divorce and remarriage], sodomy), and insist that the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace be taught and expounded publicly to all men. On one site there were the theological blogs and religious organisations and on the other site where those who had to inform the public of what was going on in the world. But all parties had to go on to press material given by the involved parties, and today that is also not different. We only can go on interviews, press material, and printed material given onto us by the different parties involved in the question we are looking at. All bloggers shall look at such material from their own point of vision. With bloggers it is possible you get a more subjective interpretation that by journalists for a general newspaper.

We do not understand Mr. Duren, what he want to accomplish, now he is throwing mud at the many writers who always have been wiling to spend time to research and to bring certain matters into discussion.

Lies and vile language

For this reason we also would like to ask Mr. Duden why he still considers it ‘to be Arminian lies’ that “God loves everyone” and “Jesus died for everyone”? He clearly still does not want to believe in the One and Only God, but looking at his site is even prepared to go to fight against those Arminian and other non-trinitarian Christians.

We do get the impression he is still running with the idea of that WBC which thinks to believe the Bible and to live according the Bible.

He himself has now become a member of the bloggosphere. This means he now has also become one of those writers, about whom members of groups could talk like he does. We do hope he shall find a way to get rid of his past education of hate-actions. It certainly would not be a good attitude for a real Christian to show such hatred and to use such vile language.

Putting away an accustomed attitude

But his way of writing shows how difficult it is for people who have been in such a hate-system or hate-group for a while. this also clearly shows the reason why people should act on such groups and in particular on the innocent little or young children. They are an easy prey for cultgroups and they often have no choice when their parents are part of a cult. For this reason it is the community who should take up her responsibility much more. They should protect the youngsters and the weaker ones as well the weak-minded.

He may be right in stating “Simply stated, Fred Phelps and his Topeka followers are a cult, and should always be designated as “the Westboro cult.” They should never be called a “church,” nor should they be called “Baptist,” ” (here we plagiarize – according his words- his writing on his site, though he asks as well, though he himself asks also to copy or use his text as a template “for your own post. Please share on social media as you have opportunity”.) But his continuing “and it is grossly inaccurate, as well as offensive to millions of Americans, to continue to do so.” is overdone and shows also how important he thought his group was, and how the figures of attendants of that cult group are still exaggerated in his head.

What we can see with cult groups is that often they attack others a lot, but they cannot stand when they have to receive comments or when they are attacked by others with the same weapons. For those wanting to cut loose the ties with a cult they shall need a lot of time to readjust and to get used to communicate on a normal manner. They also shall need time to readjust their mind, their way of thinking and their way of talking. We can only hope for Mr.Duren that he shall be prepared to learn that and that he shall be willing to take the time and energy to transform himself to cut himself loose from his old ties.

Able to change

It is only by willing to open up the mind that the spirit shall be able to change and that a person who was been taken in by a cult shall get himself free of that cult.

We wish him good luck on his journey in a new world for him.

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Find Marty Duren his blog: mitsilancer and his plea: A plea to all media outlets re: ‘the Westboro cult’
Find the mainblog of the Westbor Baptist Church: God hates fags
The Most Hated Family in America
Announcing picketing upcoming funeral
Marty Duren’s Plea against Westboro Baptist Church
Leider van meest gehate familie sterft
Fred Phelps’ Death Prompts Westboro Baptist Church To Protest His Funeral

Perhaps of interest:

Fred Phelps attended Bob Jones University; rape-apologist now on BJU board
Bob Jones University is currently pretending that Fred Phelps did not go to their school. Is that FUNNY or what? I can remember when they would have been proud, but demonstrating at the funerals of Elizabeth Edwards and Steve Jobs? Even too embarrassing for BJU!
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At this time, I was borderline Opus Dei myself (saints preserve us) and was in the grip of that Old Time Religion, like really really old. I considered Protestants heretics, and the more Protestant, the more heretical. Since I live in Jesusland (see map HERE), this gave me Major Attitude. I was in the religious minority, and I enjoyed it.
I would compare my self-righteous pseudo-Opus-Dei buzz to the same buzz I got from being a Maoist for a few scant months (nobody lasts long under the Chairman)… it’s a feeling of certitude that I often miss, now that I am not certain about so many things. Being existentially certain takes a lot of the hesitation, confusion and fear out of everyday life. Therefore, I totally understand the hypnotic draw of fundamentalism.
Open Salon and God Hates Fags
This humorous slogan, a variation of Phelps’ protest mantra, has also become a common counterprotest to Westboro. It also is accompanied by actual Bible verses.
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How far do we go in permitting Freedom of Speech? At what point does one cross a line and one starts promoting hatred and/or violence? The web site Subverted Nation by Adam Austin promotes anti-Semitism. The Ku Klux Klan promotes white racism. That stuff is kind of scary, especially when you start seeing references to Hitler and the Nazis. Show me a swastika and I get a tad apprehensive.
However, Fred Phelps is so virulently anti-gay with such a bizarre, sometimes irrational message, I wonder if he doesn’t come across as more ridiculous than dangerous. Then again, after viewing some videos and listening to the bunch of them, I’m surprised how some counterprotesters keep their sense of humour without wanting to go over and slap Phelps silly.
Westboro Baptist Church About WBC A Publicity-Hungry Group Pickets Inspire Legislation and Legal Action A History of Anti-Gay Hatred Fred Phelps Disbarred In Their Own Words: On Jews On Gays On Blacks On Christians On America Responding: Responding to the Westboro Baptist Church (.pdf 116 KB)
Read More:

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Westboro Baptist Church praises Sikh temple shooting (rt.com)
Almost immediately after the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church took to Twitter, calling the shooting a beautiful punishment from an angry God.
Westboro Baptist Church Attracts “Pigs,” Causes Clash (offthebase.wordpress.com)
This post is for all those who have turned out to protect military family members of fallen warriors when members of…
Ever-Offensive Westboro Baptist Church Praises Sikh Shooting (thedailysheeple.com)
Fred Phelps, the leader of Westboro, wrote on Twitter that the shooting was a “beautiful work of an angry God who told Wisconsin to keep their filthy hands off his people (WBC!) #godsenttheshooter.”
Westboro Baptist Church Threatens To ‘Super Picket’ Aurora Prayer Vigil For Batman Shooting Victims (huffingtonpost.com)
Using the hashtag #ThankGodForTheShooter, Examiner.com reports members tweeted out their plans to “super picket” the candle lit prayer service, saying “God is at work in Colorado.”
Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Sage Stallone Funeral (jdjournal.com)
The Westboro Baptist Church is known for its protests at funeral for military personnel because of its anti-gay agenda. Now, the church has decided to target Sage Stallone because of his father’s relationships.“Adulterous dad brought wrath of God on son. ‪#BloodOnDadsHands ‪#picketfuneral ‪#woe,” Phelps tweeted. She also tweeted, “Tell @TheSlyStallone to mourn for his sins, not pimp out son’s dead body to more proud sin!”
California Gov. Brown signs bill banning protests near funerals (earththreats.com)
California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday which makes it a crime to protest a funeral unless the protesters are at least 300 feet (91 meters) away, the governor’s office said. The bill is mainly in response to controversial demonstrations by the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

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People of Faith for Obama video

Posted on September 20, 2012. Filed under: Christendom and Christianity, News and Politics, Religion | Tags: Baptist Preachers, Barack Obama, Bill Keller, Christian values, Faith, Freedom, God, Huma Abedin, Islamic Phobia, Jim Sensenbrenner, Judaism, Judeo-Christian, Liberty, Marcus Ampe, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Old World, Pluralism, Politics, Religious Diversity, Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson, United States, United States Constitution, Worship |

Bill Tchakirides does not think control of the Muslim Brotherhood is in America’ purview… but having extreme right Baptist preachers pushing anti-Muslim sentiments worldwide is bound to cause an extreme response. {Looking at the current relationship of religion to government I am returning to Jefferson}

Several times we did hear Mitt Romney saying that if he is elected president, he will emphasize the role of God in American society and will not “take God out of the public square.” this to the likeness of many conservative Americans. We sometimes wonder if they remember also to which denomination Romney belongs and how he sees the differnet figures: God, Jesus and his prophets.

On Monday a “People of Faith for Obama” video was unveiled as a new initiative to mobilize voters that included Web video of the president and a faith platform.

In the video candidate Obama makes the case that his faith plays a major role in his decision-making process. He says when hearing stories of faith from Americans he is touched, “They reinforce the power of my Christian faith which has guided me through my presidency and in my life, as a husband, as a father, and as a president.”

“The American people should know this: In a changing world, my commitment to protecting religious liberty is and always will be unwavering. As America’s religious diversity grows, we have the chance to reaffirm the pluralism that has defined us as a nation. A pluralism that is expansive enough to protect the rights of all to speak their minds and to follow their conscience.”

The president also made specific reference to the issue of religious liberty. “In a changing world, my commitment to religious liberty, is and always will be unwavering,” he said.

The last ten years the Islamic phobia has grown in the capitalist countries. In their fear for people they preferred to put all Muslims under the same banner and started even thinking they worshipped an other God than the Jews and Christians. Though real Christians also should adhere to One God who is Only One.

Lots of Americans do not seem to see the danger when religion and politics become tied together and certain denominations do get into power. Marcus Ampe on Marcus’ Space wrote a series on the reasons why many fled the Old World and wanted to find new pastures where they could build up a new life and have religious freedom.

On several occasions Barack Obama let the world see his family and without spending word on it showed certain Christian values.

On more than one occasion Obama let people know that a president of the United Statesof America had to be a president for all Americans. But he added also that a president without his people could do nothing. It was nothing he could do at his own. He also wanted that the different ethnic groups got to understand that they all had to work together. “We’re greater together than we are on our own. These shared moral obligations have guided me as president,” he said. For all

Though it had not been easy for him working against the stubborn negative attitude of the Republicans he tried to work on getting education for every one, diminishing poverty, and wanted to tackle immigration. On all occasions Obama showed that he was and still is “standing on the side of human dignity and the belief in the inherent worth of all human beings.”

English: Official Congressional portrait of Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last July the longtime Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) praised the Constitution’s ban on religious tests to hold office, saying Thomas Jefferson’s vision “was right.” When the constituent responded with bigoted accusations about Islam, Sensenbrenner countered: “Religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States…And that has been one of the most cherished freedoms that this country has had since it’s beginning.”

“I think the Constitution in saying that there shall never be a religious test for any office of trust and profit under the United States meant that people should not be judged on the basis of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs. That was Thomas Jefferson that put that in the Constitution — I think he was right.” said Sensenbrenner.

More people should listen to his words and understand that the First Amendment prohibits the government from making a distinction between what is “good religion” and what is “bad religion.” “That’s none of the government’s business.” he continued, stating also that religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States.

Those who want to build up the United States of America, should better study their history and should better take some time to read some writings from the Pilgrim Fathers and from those who escaped the Old World for religious and political reasons.

In case people would like to live in a free country they also should be able to say and think whatever they want in respect to others. In a free democratic state all the people should be able to choose either to believe in a God, many gods or no gods at all. They also should have the liberty to choose how they want to practice their faith. No governement should be allowed to dictate which faith or how people have to practice a faith. Also when people do not want to practice a faith they should have the same rights as the other inhabitants. “Whether you say you’re a member of a faith but don’t practice it, it’s none of the government’s business. ” agrees Sensenbrenner. “And this is the whole issue of religious freedom. And that has been one of the most cherished freedoms that this country has had since it’s beginning.” he said.

America can be proud in a certain way that they can get lots of people into their many churches, even mega churches. But what is preached over there in those churches is often not according to the Bible. Lots of preachers also have more actor skills than believing in God and in following Jesus, the son of God. You should read the article Quote by a Crazy Christian – His solution? Vote for Jesus! by Bill Tchakirides to have an idea how far certain preachers, like the Televangelist Bill Keller (said by some to be the most popular televangelist in America), want to go to throw dust in the Americans their eyes. Often the churchgoers do not wonder what a certain man who had been in prison brings them. Satan is the key figure in those preachers doom-scenarios. Remembering that Satan for lots of Americans is a real demonic personality. A ghost or being hovering all over the world to get people in his nets. According to him Satan has a lot of accomplices. Mitt Romney, is such a henchman and a 5th generation member and priest of the Satanic Mormon cult.

Bill Keller forgets that many conservatives consider Romney as the one who is the Christian who can lead the country, while Obama is the Muslim who would bring their country into doom of the satanic Islamic world.

Those white American evangelicals and conservative Christians also still think that Jesus was a white Caucasian. Many even do not want to accept that Jesus would have been a Jew. For most of them it is clear that the Jews killed Jesus, and more likely they would not mind having got rid of all the Jews in the world.

Already more than fifteen years ago Marcus Ampe gave a warning that we should be careful that the West was not heading for a similar situation as in the 1920ies-1930ies, having first a financial crisis, followed by a political crisis and a swoop to the far right, with having fanatics sawing the seed for religious phobia and fanaticism. The Catholic church played a dubious role in Western Europe, and now we should be careful not to have an evangelical streaming to dictate political direction of which it shall be sorry after a few years, but then it would be too late.

Read:

An Ex-Muslim’s Open Letter

Posted on September 11, 2012. Filed under: Religion | Tags: Ahadith, Aisha, Allah, Banu Qurayza, Burqa, Christians, Ex-Muslim, Hadith, Hafsa, India, Islam, Jews, Kadhija, Manifest, Molestation, Mullah, Muslim, Pakistan, People of the Book, Qur'an, Rape, Sahih Al-Bukhari, Sawda, Sharia Law, Sira, Slavery, Zaid, Zainab |

Muslims repeatedly claim Islam is a religion of peace, of rights for women and ‘harmony’.

When Muslims say they follow Allah, who is the One and Only God, you can wonder why they give more following to their prophet and their religious teachers.

On ‘The Muslim Issue” one of their readers from Indonesia was kind enough to forward this open letter for them to post for others to read – and to reach as many Muslims as possible. The writer and thy asked also to “Feel free to copy and reblog.”

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Dear Muslim Brothers and Sisters

Greetings in the name of Allah, the beneficent and the Merciful!

Today we are fortunate to watch what is happening in the world on TV from our living rooms – whether it is tsunami, floods, earthquakes, plane crashes, refugee camps, the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan etc. In this panorama of world events, we also watch our Muslim brothers continually involve in unending fights in Palestine, Kashmir, Southern Thailand, Mindanao (Philippines), Nigeria, Chechnya, Burma, Xinxiang province in China etc. We also watch Muslims killing Muslims, or Sunnies fighting against Shiites Ahamadias, Bahais, often attacking their Mosques using suicide bombers.

The world is watching us with renewed interest, especially after the Al Qaeda attacks on America, London, Spain, Bali and Mumbai. People have started calling our Holy Quran A WAR MANUAL OR A TERROR MANUAL. Is it not a sad thing?

Please pay careful attention to this letter, which is being translated into 300 to 400 languages and sent to about 500 million Muslims and non-Muslims around the world.

After seeing so much of terrorist attacks by our self-proclaimed Jihadist brothers, non-Muslims have started reading our Holy Koran, Hadith and Sira, and are raising so many questions. Only ten questions are given here with explanations. Please be ready to answer them.

1. Why Allah changed his own statements in the Holy Quran?

The following are examples of the good and kind verses, Allah revealed to our Holy Prophet in Mecca when he had only one wife, Kadhija.

“Be patient with what they say, and part from them courteously” (Q.73:10)
“To you be your religion, and to me my religion.” (Q.109:6)
“Therefore be patient with what they say, and celebrate (constantly) the praises of your Lord” (Q.20:103)
“…and you will find the nearest in love to the believers (Muslims) those who say: ‘We are Christians”; because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.” (Q.5:82
“We well know what the infidels say: but you are not to compel them”. (Q.50:45)
“Hold to forgiveness; command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant” (Q7:119)
“Pardon thou, with a gracious pardoning.” (Q.15:85)
“Tell those who believe, to forgive, to forgive those who do not look forward to the days of Allah.” (Q.45.14)
“Those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians – any who believe in Allah and the last day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” (Q.2:62)
“And do not dispute with the followers of the Book, except what is best.” (Q.29:46

After the death of Kadhija, our holy Prophet married Sawda, and then under-aged 9-year-old Aisha at the age of 53 and by this time he became very powerful in Medina. However, the Jews and Christians had rejected his claim of prophethood and his call to embrace Islam. Now the attitude of the Prophet and tone of Allah’s subsequent verses dramatically changed. Let us now take a look at the new Koranic verses, and also reflect a little on why Allah could not honour his own earlier words.

“Oh you who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you” (Q.9:123)
“I will instil terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite above their necks and smite all their finger tips off.” (Q.8:12)
“Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him.” (Q.3:85)
“Slay the idolaters wherever you find them.” (Q.9.5)
“slay them wherever ye catch them.” (Q.2:191)
“Humiliate them and impose on them a penalty tax if they are Christians or Jews,” (Q.9:29)
“Allah deceived and Allah is the best of deceivers” (Q 3:54)
“Muslims do not take Jews and Christians as your friends” (Q 5:51)
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the last day, and fight people of the book.” (Q.9:29)
“O people of the Book (Jews and Christians), do you find fault with us, except that we believe in Allah? Shall I inform you of him who is worse than this in retribution from Allah? Worse is he whom Allah has cursed and brought His wrath upon, and of whom He made apes and swine and he who served idols. Such are in worse plight and far more astray from the straight path” (Q.5:59-60)

If Jews and Christians are the breed of monkeys and pigs in the eyes of Allah, then how it is possible that out of 820 or so Nobel Prize winners, 800 belonged to the People of the Book (Christians 620, Jews 180)?

Have you noticed that all inventions and discoveries that we use today, from safety-pin to aspirin, were made by people who never read our Holy Quran?

How we, the Muslims, can demand respect from others without any contribution to humanity?

2. Accusation of our Holy Prophet of being a paedophile?

According to Sahih Al-Bukhari (Volume 5, Book 58, Number 236), our Holy Prophet married ‘Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.

Is it normal for a 50-year-old Holy Prophet to fall in love with a 9-year-old girl and for a 53-year-old Holy Prophet to consummate a 9-year-old girl?

Was he the best of Allah’s creation, as we claim?

Are we to follow this example and marry six-year-old girls?

3. Accusation that our Holy Prophet a looter of caravans, a rapist and a slave trader?

Sahih Bukhari Volume 5, Book 59, Number 459:

“We went out with Allah’s Apostle for the Ghazwa of Banu Al-Mustaliq and we received captives and we desired women and we loved to do coitus interruptus.( molesting the women and withdrawing before ejaculation, because pregnant women are difficult to sell in the slave trade) So we asked Allah’s Apostle, he said, ‘It is better for you not to do so, for if any soul is predestined to exist, it will exist.”

This hadith proves that our Prophet looted caravans, raped captured women and was involved in slave trade.

Accordingly, non-Muslims are accusing our Holy Prophet of being a looter, rapist and slave trader. How do we counter these accusations?

4. Accusation that our Holy Prophet was a mass murderer?

According to Sahih Bukhari (Volume 4, Book 52, Number 280), after 25 days of holding Banu Qurayza besieged, the Jews eventually surrendered unconditionally as was demanded by our Holy Prophet. By the order of our Holy Prophet, between 600 and 900 of the Jewish men were beheaded.

Even if these Jews were found ‘treacherous’, was he not a “mercy of God to mankind” as Allah has said in the Quran? How could he then commit this horrendous massacre?

Yet, our Prophet boasted of such cruelties: “I have been made victorious through terror”. (Bukhari 4:52:220)

Soon after our Holy prophet set foot in Medina, he started his campaign of terror. His followers have been doing the same ever since until this day.

5. Accusation of polygamy against our Holy Prophet

After Kadhija’s death when our Prophet was 50 years old, he had more than 20 wives and concubines. They were: Sawda, Aisha, Hafsa, Zaynab biny khuzayma, Umm Salama Rayhana, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Juwariya, Safiya, Barra, and Maria etc. Many of them were beautiful young widows from war-booty between the ages of 15 to 20.

6. Did Our Holy Prophet marry his own daughter-in-law Zainab?

Our Holy Prophet peeped through the window of his adopted son Zaid’s house and found Zaid’s wife Zainab in her night dress, which aroused his sexual desires for her. When Zaid heard about it, he become heart-broken, and divorced Zainab so that our Holy Prophet, his father, could marry her. And to clear the way for him to marry his daughter-in-law, which was not approved in Arab societies, our Prophet produced the following Quranic verse:

“You did hide in yourself that which Allâh will make manifest, you did fear the people whereas Allâh had a better right that you should fear Him. So when Zaid had accomplished his desire from her (i.e. divorced her), We gave her to you in marriage, so that (in future) there may be no difficulty to the believers in respect of (the marriage of) the wives of their adopted sons when the latter have no desire to keep them. And Allâh’s Command must be fulfilled” (Q.33:37).

Was this verse, which gives Muslims licence to marry the wife of their adopted sons, needed for guiding humanity to the right path?

7. Why Our Holy Prophet had broken the promise given to his 12 wives?

Mariah was a very beautiful Coptic Christian slave-girl of Hafsa, a wife of our Prophet. Though our prophet had promised to his wives that he would not have sex with Mariah, he cleverly planned and sent Hafsa out to her father Omar’s house on the pretext of an urgent matter, and had sex with Mariah when Hafsa was gone. When Hafsa found out that father didn’t call for her and returned home quickly, she found our Holy Prophet having sex with Maria in her bed.

In this awful situation, how did Our Holy prophet react? He pulled out another Quranic verse, allegedly coming from Allah, to give him divine license to commit such sexual act:

“O Prophet! Why do you ban (for yourself) that which Allâh has made lawful to you, seeking to please your wives? And Allâh is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. Allâh has already ordained for you (O men), the dissolution of your oaths. And Allâh is your Maula (Protector.) and He is the All-Knower, the All-Wise”. (Q.66:1-5)

Is this verse needed to be there in the Quran for guiding humankind to the right path? Or was devised just to cover his sexual pleasures?

Intelligent Aisha, being the favourite wife, knew our prophet well and rightly said: “Allah really sends his verses at and for your convenience, Rasool Allah!”

8. Is Allah the pagan moon God?

Was not our Prophet’s father named Abdullah, meaning “slave of Allah”? If so, how this Allah came into existence before our Prophet was born? Was this the pagan moon god Allah which the people of Quraish in Arabia, revered and worshiped? How this idol moon god of the Arabs became the heavenly one God for Muslims?

9. Why the rights of a woman in the Muslim world are so weak?

In Islam, a woman can be beaten by her husband (Q:4:34); the Quran and Hadith give her no right to divorce her husband; her testimony in court is half the value of a man’s; her inheritance is half what her brother gets; and she cannot leave the house officially without her husband’s permission.

Under sharia law, for a violated woman to prove that she was raped, not committed adultery, she must produce four male witnesses. So, how can a woman prove that she was raped? Does rape happen in front of four men? Was there any incident in the world that four men came to the court and said they have witnessed the rape? How do we justify this law, cruel to women?

10. Why Muslim women must wear burka?

When our Holy Prophet died at the age of 63, Aisha was 18 years old and his other wives, except Sawda, were between 23 and 27 years of age. On his later years in life, probably when our Holy Prophet became sexually weak and was unable to satisfy his wives, he faced a serious problem of protecting his 12 young and beautiful wives from the lustful glance of others. Hence, he ordered his wives and also the concubines to cover them from head to toe. This burqa dress has become the symbol of ‘modesty’ for women in Islam today. Please remember that our Prophet’s first wife Kadhija never wore burqa. Today, half a billion Muslim women have to veil themselves, because our Prophet had devised this dress-code to cover for his sexual weakness (impotence).

Islam, the fastest-growing religion?

We Muslims proudly claim that Islam is the fastest-growing religion. Islam is not the fastest-growing religion in terms of conversion. Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani gave Aljazeera T.V. the following facts and figures: “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity.” (note that even two professors and Imams of Egypt’s most prestigious Al Azhar University, Dr. Mustafa (now Mark Gabriel) and Dr. Mohammad Rahoumy (now Dr. Samuel Paul) have left Islam, because of the unacceptable teachings of the Koran.)

But Islam is certainly the fastest-breeding religion. If you can have up to four wives and take a lot of children without bothering about their future and well being, that’s what will happen. The population will increase fast, but your community will be poor with hunger, and lack of education and jobs.

Conclusion

My dear Muslim brothers and sisters, please do not treat this letter as an American or Jewish propaganda. We love you very much. Why? Because we were Muslims like you before. We want you to see the truth for your self. If you have any doubt about this letter ask, any educated Muslim, but not a Mullah, who will be angry with you. You may have heard this story. A young Muslim asked a Mullah:

“When Allah created Adam & Eve, that is one woman to one man, how is it that our Holy Prophet had more than 12 wives and allowed us to have 4 wives? Because of this, we Muslims are poor everywhere?” The Mullah slapped on his face and shouted: “Don’t ask questions: believe and obey what we say.”

The Mullahs want you to remain chained in the 7th-century Arab culture. When we, the ex-Muslims, studied Koran, Ahadith and Sira together, with a logical and analytical mind, we found that Islam was not what we were taught in childhood: Islam is the best religion and Prophet Muhammad was the finest man in history. In fact, the exact opposite is the truth. And we became heart broken; we felt depressed; shame, shock, guilt, and frustration. But eventually, we came through that difficult stage, and got enlightened and freedom from the shackles of Islam. However painful was the process, we came out strong, confident and happy. Believe us: only after we were out of the bounds of Islam, we realized that how great a feeling it is not to live a lie and to be free. Please look around the world on the TV, the Kaffir people in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Punjab have found peace and are pursuing higher education, prosperity and happiness. You all know that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (East Pakistan) got freedom on the night of 14 August 1947. The idol-worshiping Indians are progressing well and steadily toward a superpower nation, but Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who follow “allegedly” the best religion and ‘greatest prophet and human being ever on earth’, are struggling to exist as nations. India is building 1,200 km fence to stop the hungry Muslims from crossing into India.

We the ex-Muslims will have no greater joy than seeing you – the Muslim brethren of our birth-religion – progress, prosper and excel in the race of civilization. For that to happen, leaving the false, backward, unjust and cruel religion of Islam and walking the path of truth and justice and loving humanity is essential.

May God bless you abundantly.

Yours truly,

Roman (An Ex-Muslim)

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Note: The following ex-Muslims have written some books about Islam. You can read them.

Dr. Ali Sina: Understanding Muhammad

M. A. Khan: Islamic Jihad

Wafa Sultan: A God Who Hates

Dr. Mustafa (Professor & Imam): The mind of an Islamic Terrorist

Nonie Darwish: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Farhan Qureshi (Islamic scholar)

English: The massacre of the Banu Qurayza. Detail from miniature painting The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the Massacre of the Prisoners of the Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah, illustration of a 19th century text by Muhammad Rafi Bazil. Manuscript (17 folio 108b) now housed in the British Library. Taken from the cover of The Legacy of Jihad by Andrew Bostom. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Kitab-Al-Tauhid and its heresy (makashfa.wordpress.com)
The book At-Tauhid Written by famous abdul wahab al-najdi or wahabi and salafi misguided khariji. In the book he try to break the ummah into sects, and there are many wrong interpretations which has nothing to do with the classical ideology of True ISLAM which has been supported by hundreds of thousand ulemas Scholars of Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamah was upon.
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Allah T’ala said: And Allah will not mislead a people after He hath guided them, in order that He may make clear to them what to fear (and avoid)- for Allah hath knowledge of all things. (Al-Qur’an, 9:115)
Egypt : Kill a Christian, Collect a Reward (amyloutarry.wordpress.com)
In Hardship Where you fall ! (irenealia.wordpress.com)
People get angry in their heart as if they are angry with their Lord. So, they become angry with what Allah decreed for them, and this is not permissible. It’s possible that it could even lead to disbelief.
Insanity at its best! – Punishment for Breaking Ties in Islam (khalidmkhan.wordpress.com)
Family rifts amongst asian families in particular can go on for years due to ignorance in following the culture rather than the deen. May Allah guide us all. Read the attached excellent article and take heed in particular to “Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said, “It is not lawful for a Muslim to forsake his (Muslim) brother beyond three days; and whosoever does so for more than three days, and then dies, will certainly enter the Hell.” [Abu Dawud]“
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When I look around me, I see people breaking-off ties with their close relatives as if nothing matters, siblings not talking to each other for days, weeks, even months at a stretch. I am a mortal and have done the same on more than one occasion. Thankfully for us, Islam comes to the rescue and explains the importance of family ties and brotherhood.
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The Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “The one who maintains a relationship with his relatives only because they maintain a relationship with him is not truly upholding the ties of kinship. The one who truly upholds those ties is the one who does so even if they break off the relationship.” (Reported by al-Bukhaari, 5645).
The Methodology of Yusuf Estes (ahlulbidah.wordpress.com)
whoever is capable should detail the truth in order for the methodologies of the various groups, sects, and parties be made manifest so that the masses are safeguarded from their evil. In addition this conveyance not only benefit’s the Muslims by protecting them from evil, it also benefit’s the carrier of this evil.وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُفَصِّلُ الْآيَاتِ وَلَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
+As is aforementioned we see that the methodology of Yusuf Estes is to sit with any Muslim irregardless of their creed or methodology in order to take benefit where benefit can be sought, per his statement “I took benefit where I could take benefit…” Thus this method in which he has adopted for himself lead him to take knowledge from some of the most astray of individuals and groups as he states “I’ve sat with sufi scholars, shia scholars….” This admission of his is very strange for someone that claims to follow evidence and encourages other to do so as well. Therefore my question dear reader may Allah preserve you, is acquiring knowledge from innovators in accordance with the text? Is it in accordance with the Quran, Sunnah, and methodology of the Salaf?هُوَ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ مِنْهُ آيَاتٌ مُّحْكَمَاتٌ هُنَّ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ ۖ فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ زَيْغٌ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَابَهَ مِنْهُ ابْتِغَاءَ الْفِتْنَةِ وَابْتِغَاءَ تَأْوِيلِهِ ۗ وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ ۗ وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ يَقُولُونَ آمَنَّا بِهِ كُلٌّ مِّنْ عِندِ رَبِّنَا ۗ وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّا أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ
3rd Night of Ramadan (ramadanprayers.wordpress.com)
The responsibilities of Muslims, both in their dealings amongst themselves and with non-Muslims are stressed. Allah (SWT) has revealed the Qur’ân, confirming previous revelations like the Torah, revealed to Moses Mûsâ (A.S) and Gospel, revealed to Jesus ‘Isâ (A.S).
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‘Sufficient for us is Allah & He is the best Disposer of Affairs.’ (verse 173)
An Ex-Muslim’s Open Letter to Muslims of the World (themuslimissue.wordpress.com)
Interpretation of Quran Verse by Sahih Bukhari Hadith (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Muslims should also Fear God

Posted on September 11, 2012. Filed under: Holy Scriptures, Jehovah יהוה YHWH JHVH God Elohim Yahweh Jahweh, Religion | Tags: Allah, Fear God, God, Qur'an |

Koran 7:59 We sent Noah to his people. He said: “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but him. I fear for you the Punishment of a dreadful Day!”
Koran 7:65 To the Ad people, We sent Hud, one of their own brethren: He said: “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but him. Will ye not fear Allah?”
Koran 11:84 To the Madyan people We sent Shuaib, one of their own brethren: He said: “O my people! Worship Allah: Ye have no other god but him. And give not short measure or weight: I see you in prosperity, but I fear for you the Penalty of a Day that will compass you all round.”
Koran 16:51 Allah has said: “Take not for worship two gods: For He is just One God: Then fear Me and Me alone.”
Koran 23:23 Further, We sent a long line of prophets for your instruction. We sent Noah to his people: He said, “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him. Will ye not fear Him?”
Koran 23:32 And We sent to them an apostle from among themselves, Saying, “Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him. Will ye not fear Him?”

العربية: القرآن في متحف التاريخ الطبيعي في نيويورك Polski: Koran w Muzeum Historii Naturalnej w Nowym Jorku (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Repent to Allah … After Engaging in Worship? (halimadjimrao.wordpress.com)
As Muslims, we know to repent to Allah when we commit sins. We also know that Allah accepts our repentance when we turn to Him sincerely and with remorse for our errors.

It is interesting, though, to consider that the topic of repentance is brought up in the Qur’an in another context as well – in connection with our worship and spiritual devotion.
Off-Topic – Re: Do you punish or reward to the human in the grave? (disclose.tv)
Some researchers have denied the punishment of the grave on the grounds that it did not appear in the Koran, the Hadith in the right-Bukhari and Muslim have denied these grounds that they violate the Koran, what is the truth of the matter?

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Hard Qur’anic and logical that the grave is either the gardens of Paradise, or piece of fire, and say both deny the punishment of the grave, if not convinced by these verses clear this is your problem, not the problem of the Qur’an, Qur’an which explains everything, but only to look and ponder and reflect on.

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Feeling-good, search for hapiness and the church

Posted on September 3, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Christendom en Christenheid, Faith, Family, Life and Death, Manners and Association, Religion | Tags: Baptism, Belgium, Catholic, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Choice, Christian, Confidence, Flanders, Interfaithmarriage, Kirchensteuer, Love, Making choices, Pope, Relativism, Roman Catholics, Security |

In Flanders many Roman Catholics did not feel good with the happenings in their Catholic church and asked to be written out of the community. though there is something strange with the ciphers the Church and the state are giving, which are not in accordance with certain organisations who also send request to the church to have the christening of them made unfinished.

In 2011, 1.827 Flemish requested to put a line to their registration.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clearly they are not feeling happy. But do they have an idea what they really would like to have concerning their faith and concerning influences on their way of living?

Many people look for meaning in their lives and struggle to find it, whereas religion offers an answer to the purpose of life and a hope that things will get better. But the last few years in Belgium many people became very disappointed with their faith and with the church to which they belonged, mostly because they were baptised in it. As a so called Catholic country it was common use to have the children baptised at birth. Not many Flemish people are interested in God and the baptism is often just a formality, making part of the tradition, having the feasts marriage, baptism, first communion, second communion and confirmation.

In 2010, there where still 60% of the newborns in Belgium baptized. This number was 40 years ago still above 90%. The rate is strongly dependent on the region in which one lives. The baptism figure is significantly lower in central cities (41.8%) and significantly higher in rural municipalities or urbanized rural municipalities (81.6%). In central cities this figure is also influenced by the relatively high birth rate of the non-indigenous population. But in 2010, only 7% of the Belgian population still went to Mass every week, even though there are figures that speak of only 3%.

Not many go to church and and not many to feel affection for the Pope, which normally as Catholics they should follow. The problem often is that many do not see the difference between Christians and Catholics and between The Church, a church and a church community. To be a Christian is to “consider the others, show respect for other beliefs, religions, etc., to help people in need, …” Catholicism is often equal to violate certain religious rules (which nobody really succeeds).

Though not many follow that so-called infallible Pope, they still remain Catholic and think there is still very little for to make their Catholic infant baptism undone. Many are also afraid that they would loud chances to be happy when they brake with tradition or by not keeping to those known ‘safety bringers’ as a cross on the wall, a Christoffle in the car, etc.

While it is important to focus on the “good” in our lives, they have ideas of the goodness they can receive from burning candles or doing pilgrimage. Family, relationships, career, sexuality and spiritual psychology are matters where they are afraid of to bring something in out of tradition, because it could become deregulated by it.

Often the people are not so interested in the faith and do think it does not matter. But when there is an interfaith marriage often problems do arise because a lot of things where not thought off before. They are not sensitive to and considerate of their spouse’s feelings and belief. Because they are unable to accommodate to differences between themselves, the marriage will suffer. And this certainly includes differences in religious or spiritual beliefs.

Of course, how critical these differences will be depends upon the religious conviction each of the spouses holds. If the major decisions you make in your marriage have little to do with your religious beliefs, than your marriage won’t be very much affected.

If one or both of them has strong beliefs, however, than these beliefs play a large role in the decisions the couple and their family make in their life, in their values and practices, and how they live their life. Often they did not seriously looked into the matter how they made to live their life befor, their values, their morals.

More than once they are both “lukewarm” in their religious practices, but once married and children coming on the way they become under pressure of the family, to adjust to certain practices of tradition. In such case it could bring a solution if one of them want to consider converting to the religion of the other. Discussing it logically, rationally, and see if one of the two can convince the other of the benefits of conversion, could bring a solution. If this option makes sense, than the child-rearing concern is taken care of.

If both are attached to their particular faiths, they will need to negotiate. Beginning with an attitude of openness, acceptance and love is than very important. Talking and making no swift decisions are important than. Each of them should take turns making suggestions on how they would like to raise their children, how they would like to expose them to their respective religions. But both also consider to check their own religion and to make a balance of their faith-life. It could be interesting considering to note a turning-point in life where both choose to take another route. Both finding a new religion which should be closer to the beliefs and practices of both.

At such a point in your life it is important to look at you faith. Consider how you were introduced to your religion by your family. Was it effective? Did you embrace the choice or was it forced upon you? Did you rebel? How did you eventually decide upon your own spiritual beliefs and how strongly did you integrate them into your life?

Sometimes we need to understand what isn’t working, so that we might transcend it and move forward in our lives. We should try to put the previous traditions aside and search for what we really want and search for what is really important, either to follow people, traditions and organisations, or better to follow God, the creator of heaven and earth.

Remember, despite what you want for your children, they will eventually need to make their own choices in the world, and find their own path. This is especially true about the role of religion and spirituality in their lives. Determine ahead of time how you would like your children to be exposed to your respective religions (or even other religions as well). Eventually, they will choose what path is best for them. Give them that space!

As parents, we can point our children in the direction we would like them to go, we can expose them to many different options. Ultimately, it is how we live our lives, how we treat our family members, our friends, strangers, and ourselves, which will guide our children!Our lives are their models, not our words.

We should learn to “make things happen” and to make choice which can alternate our lives. Knowing how important it is to look at the world and the things which happen and to transpose them to our life. Never stopping questioning. Being interested and curious about yourself and about others. Don’t assume that’s “just the way it is”. Look for the choices behind your results. And to be able to find luck, you have to be able to relativate and to be interested and curious about yourself and about others. Don’t assume that’s “just the way it is”. Look for the choices behind your results. Never stopping to learn. The brain is a muscle just like any other, and it will stagnate if you let it. Make it your rule to learn something new every day. Then use what you learn to make your life better. Nurture what you want to grow. Many many people are (figuratively) wondering where the roses are in their life, yet they spend all their time planting and nourishing weeds. You reap what you sow. That’s just the way it is. there we do have to make the choice which shall bring us more goodness in life.

Very important is not to lie to yourself. Telling lies to yourself is the most harmful form of disrespect. Write out ways in which you are untruthful to yourself, and how to correct it. Never give up on life. Be interested and curious about yourself and about others. Don’t assume that’s “just the way it is”. Look for the choices behind your results.

Don’t waste your time complaining about what you can’t control (weather, other people, economy). Concentrate on what you can control, like who you hug, what you read, how much you laugh, where you go, what you do, what you think about.

And to be able to be in control you have to start with controlling yourself, and knowing which way you want to go, what you want to believe and where you want to go for.

Do you want to live your life just for the now and then are do you want to live your life because you are expecting a reward?

We think you are on the wrong track if your goal is only recognition and a reward at the end of the track.

You only live once, and it is now you have to make it. But you should be aware there could be more. There is an important promise of which you should take account and which could change your life and your future.

It is something which can enable you to “Stand like a Rock” and be sure of your life.

Instead of thinking what other people think start getting to know that it is more important to think what the Creator would think.

A feel-good factor isn’t enough for the long haul through life. You better go and look into yourself and look for the relation you want to have with everything around you and with the maker of that all.

It is first in this world we do have to find the beauty, the love and the genuine kindness. It is here that we do have to work relations. and to make our relationships work we first of all do have to build up the right relationship with the most important person in the universe. And that is the Maker of that universe Himself, who we have to get to know and to love. Without proper love to Him it shall not be so easy to have the proper love to others.

Recognising that Someone is in control is a great help to being content with your situation, whatever it is.

Many people look for meaning in their lives and struggle to find it, whereas religion offers an answer to the purpose of life and a hope that things will get better. Do not wait until tomorrow. Tackle it today. From now on make work of making choice and taking the right decisions.

This is the Burton Christadelphians new logo for their website, specially designed to show the importance we attach to reading the Bible for ourselves, individually and collectively.

Dare to question your ‘current faith’, the denomination to which you belong. Look at your church and compare it with what they do and teach with the Book they are so called following. Have a look at the doctrines at the bottom of this page of the Burton Christadelphians. There you shall the words on which Christ himself based his beliefs and of what he himself told others to belief. You should question what you want to follow if you want to be called a Christian.

On the mentioned page you shall be able to find Bible quotes. Do not just take them for guaranteed, but dare to look them up in your Bible and compare the printed words with the concordance of your Bible. As our our aim is to follow as closely as possible the teaching and example of Jesus, as recorded in the Bible, we do listen to these words written down in the Book of Books, the Bible. Can you see the importance of having Scripture to back up our beliefs?

Please do read more about it:

also of interest to read:

available until December 2012 on our Multiply sites (and afterwards to look for on our WordPress sites:

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The Struggle With Religion (ptl2010.com)
There is a struggle with religion in today’s church, although this struggle has been going on ever since there have been different denominations in the church. What exactly is religion anyway? What would you say religion means?
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There are many religions out there that claim the label “Christianity”, but are not true to the definition of that label. Some don’t even understand the basic premise of true Christianity, namely the death and resurrection of Christ and that this one act purchased our freedom and eternal life.
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Following Christ means exactly that, follow Christ…not a man. If my Pastor leaves, I am not going with him because Jesus is right where I am already. Follow Christ, not a denomination. We all have a preference in a church and their particular style of worship and so on, and that is fine. However, are you worshiping Jesus or are you worshiping or following the denomination’s particular way of worship and or ceremony?
Suffer the little children to come unto me (guardian.co.uk)
When might it be in the best interests of a Jewish 10-year-old to be baptised as a Christian? That was the question Judge Platt had to decide at Romford county court in Essex earlier this year. His judgment, released for publication at the end of last week, makes fascinating reading.It involves a couple who were divorced in 2010 after 14 years of marriage. They had two children: a girl who is now nearly 11 and a boy who is nearly six. Both parents are Jewish, as are all four grandparents.
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What made things more complicated was that the father had decided to become a Christian. After the marriage had come to an end but while the couple were still living under the same roof, the father experienced what he described as a meeting with God. “He started attending church each Sunday which naturally excited the interest of his children,” the judge said. “They asked if they could come with him and, with the agreement of the mother, they have been attending church regularly ever since.”
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But what was the judge to do now? By law, his “paramount consideration” must be the “child’s welfare”. The court has no power to order the girl to baptised. What the judge had to do was to decide whether he should stop the father from taking steps leading towards the child’s baptism, as the mother had asked.

In the end, the judge was satisfied that the child’s “welfare interests are best served by allowing her to be enrolled in a baptism class and to present herself for baptism into the Christian church as soon as she is ready”. However, the judge ruled that her confirmation into the church should not take place before she is 16, unless the mother agrees.
200 Years Behind the Times (from the BBC website) (sandystrachan.wordpress.com)
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has described the Roman Catholic Church as being “200 years behind” the times.
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Catholics lacked confidence in the Church, he said in the interview. “Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous.”Unless the Church adopted a more generous attitude towards divorced persons, it will lose the allegiance of future generations, the cardinal added. The question, he said, is not whether divorced couples can receive holy communion, but how the Church can help complex family situations.

And the advice he leaves behind to conquer the tiredness of the Church was a “radical transformation, beginning with the Pope and his bishops”.

“The child sex scandals oblige us to undertake a journey of transformation,” Cardinal Martini says, referring to the child sex abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church in the past few years.

He was not afraid, our correspondent adds, to speak his mind on matters that the Vatican sometimes considered taboo, including the use of condoms to fight Aids and the role of women in the Church.
How Protestantism Lost Its Mind (theamericanconservative.com)
The Todd Akin flap, in which the suburban St. Louis congressman revealed a less than adequate grasp of human reproduction, could hardly have been timed better to dramatize the implications an Aug. 7 referendum giving Missouri schoolchildren the right to opt out of science classes on religious grounds. Parents should be free to keep their children out of the public school system entirely, but an a la carte approach to classwork entirely defeats the point of general education.
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Teaching is an exercise of what the Romans, and the Roman Catholic Church, have called magisterium, a kind of authority. It always carries moral overtones, and it’s an explicitly hierarchical concept. Why the more extreme Protestant instinctively rebels against this sort of authority should be obvious enough. And when, as in the case of science education, reflexive anti-clericalism combines with doctrinal objections, the reaction is powerful.
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Protestantism is a matter of degrees, however: between an infallible papacy and the self-ordained soapbox preacher there are many levels. But the intermediary layers that once counteracted America’s more radically Protestant tendencies have lately collapsed. Episcopalians and other old-line, more traditionally “authoritarian” churches no longer provide a common culture for the country. What has changed is not just a question of numbers but also of status. Liturgical Christians once wielded prestige out of proportion to their percentage of the population, even when that percentage was much greater. Protestant radicalization is not only a consequence of evangelicalism’s postwar growth but also an effect of cultural leveling and rebellion against privilege (at least, old sorts of class privilege) throughout the 20th century. A mass-market commercial mentality and left-wing concerns for equality have undercut the status of the old Protestant elites from a secular direction, leaving the purer Protestantism with a greater sense of self-confidence.
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What’s more, the distinction between popular politics and the religious congregation breaks down under the influence of radical Protestantism.
Is spirituality the antithesis of religion? (joelmlay.com)
It is not uncommon – actually it is fashionable these days – to hear people express anti-religion sentiment, saying, “I am spiritual but not religious”, especially when talking to strangers or new acquaintances. (There are some good examples in Match.com). The impetus is the desire to distance oneself from formalities.
Why Can’t This Atheist Accept Her Husband’s Loss of Faith? (patheos.com)
He had “been a Christian” because his family was, too, but when he actually thought about it, he realized it was all just ridiculous.
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Then there’s the birth of their son and the inevitable question of whether they should take him to church (correct answer: No) just so he has a “spiritual base,” even though both parents reject it.
Switzerland: Kirchensteuer Probably Deadly Wounded. (mundabor.wordpress.com)
It is a mystery to me how a person might think he is not a Catholic anymore because he refuses to pay a mafia-like monetary contribution (truly redolent of the Sicilian pizzo) to the local Church. Still, I do not come from the German-speaking world, where people tend, erm, to be a bit more rigid.Now a Swiss citizen (a true Catholic, but fed up with the local mafia) decided to stop paying the Kirchensteuer and – obviously - remain a Catholic. Unsurprisingly, the local hierarchy was not persuaded baptism and orthodoxy are enough: if you don’t pay the pizzo to us, they said to her, you aren’t Catholic anymore. Kapiert?
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the membership to the Catholic Church is now formally separated from the support to the administrative apparatus through the Kirchensteuer. Therefore, every Swiss Catholic can refuse to pay the pizzo (the same way you and I don’t pay it) in the full knowledge of remaining as much a member of the Church as you and I are.
Christian/Catholic Priests Are The Victim Of Those They Molest (truelogic.wordpress.com)
The Catholic Church, unbelievably, continues to receive money from ~~dumb sheep~~ Christian followers. These followers apparently think that when they stand before their God on judgement day that he will not ask them; “Why did you continue to support an establishment that had done such great harm to my children?” Giving money to the Catholic Church is to support child molesters/pedophiles by assisting in the payment of their salary, assisting in defending the priest through money paid to lawyers, money to move these guilty priest from church to church to avoid punishment, paying off victims and others to avoid justice.
When Other Christians Become Catholic (doohan.id.au)
Each year, many adults who have never been baptized become Catholic. In the United States, these adults are outnumbered by baptized Christians of other denominations who seek to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. In the minds of many Catholics – indeed, in many parish preparation programs – there is little difference between the two groups. Baptized and catechized Christians are often placed in programs with those who have not been baptized.
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The appropriate rite is that of Reception of Baptised Catholics into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church and not the more commonly utilised Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Although the former might be considered a ‘sub-rite’ of the latter, if only because they are found in the same ritual book, the two rites refer to two distinctive pastoral situations. The confusion of the two, and thus the use of the RCIA for those baptised Christians who are seeking to become Catholic, creates a confusion about their proper status, and thus a confusion within the person seeking to become Catholic. The other contributing factor is a belief that the same preparation process – of weekly meetings, and other activities – can cover the different ‘categories’ of those who are seeking to become Catholic.
Living ‘in the middle’, in between and keeping the peace. (1catholicsalmon.com)
England is a secular country, boasting secular values and ways of life. Living here has brought Faith issues to the fore and continues to do so on a daily basis. Because of this I ‘ve had to make a conscious decision about how I am to live as a Catholic Christian. There’s no room to manoeuvre half-heartedly through the secular mazes I’m confronted with from day-to-day. I’ve had to make my position as a Christian quite clear, and for me there’s no going back on this. It’s too important.

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Continuing Paul’s Prayer Requests

Posted on August 16, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Faith, Religion | Tags: God the Father, Grace, Hope, jesus disciples, meeting, Perseverance, Pray, Prayer, Rejoice, Suffering, Supplication, Thank God, Thanksgiving, Tribulation, Vanity |

Christ did not teach the apostles to give up to pray. Jesus disciples also assured their followers that they had to go to continue to speak to God . They could not give up to call on Him.

Jesus taught them in a parable that they always ought to pray and that they should not have to falter in doing so. There is παντοτε ‘pantote, which means that they really need to pray. We have every reason to approach God, thanking Him and questioning.

We should always pray, not lose heart and not get weary(Luke 18:1)

Thanks to Christ each of us can go directly to God the father.

Through him we have been brought by faith into this grace wherein we stand,and received the possibility to have direct access to Jesus his Father, to speak with Him as our heavenly Father.

By Jesus may we also boast in our hope of the glory of God. Moreover, we can be even proud of our trials, knowing that tribulation leads to perseverance and are proud in the hope of the glory of God.
And not only so, but we also glory in our tribulations: knowing that tribulation perfects patience in us; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. In prayer we can give expression of our hope and of our thankfulness.

Our prayers should be an act of the virtue of religion, the lifting up of mind and heart to God to adore, praise, thank Him, and ask Him for aid, an implied exercise of faith, hope, and, at least, initial love.

The Angelus (1857-1859) by Jean-François Millet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Vocal prayer is the simple talking, the speaking with God out loud; mental prayer is interior. Prayer is necessary , for salvation, the victory over temptation, the practise of virtue, the perseverance in grace. It is the ever possible and ready means of grace prescribed by God as the acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty, and man’s utter dependence on Him.

Prayer which man makes for himself will certainly be heard, if the proper things are asked, and the prayer is made with attention (excluding wilful distractions), sincerity, humility, confidence, perseverance.

But we can also pray for others. As such the prayer of faith shall be able to heal the sick.

We can confess our faults one to another, and pray one for another, that we may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful.

We can have private prayer that is made in one’s own name and public prayer made in the name of the community.

The spirit of prayer consists in the appreciation of the excellence, the conviction of necessity, and confidence in the power of prayer. We should never become discouraged to pray.

Maybe we do not know clearly how, where and when to pray. God has understanding for our ignorance. He has an eye for our faults and is willing to accept some rapprochement coming straight from the heart as honest.

Luke and Paul are convinced that man ought to pray, and they were convinced that God would listen to our prayers.
Prayer is a privilege given to us that we are to fulfil to the best of our ability as much as possible. In the acts of the apostles we can see that the followers of Christ also loved to repeat activities like to meet and pray at regular times. They also were convinced they did not give up because they had the hope that at a certain time, when God found it would be the right time, they were going to get the right answer to their prayers.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us: for if we beseech Him to hear us concerning the things that we ask of Him, we are assured that we have already received from Him those things that we desire.

“I say to you, if he does not get up and give to him because he is his friend, he shall get up and give him as many as he needs because of his persistence. ” (Luke 11:8 The Scriptures 1998+)

God is not an unjust judge or a dispassionate father. Jehovah is a God of love. As a father to his children he will definitely want to listen. He also shall want to come nearer to His children and help them where He can. Provided He knows our hearts, He will see whether it is a sincere approach and whether our desires are founded. We must realize where we stand and should continue to get ready for the Kingdom of God. Never may we have to give up the courage to continue to work at our selves and to prepare our entrance to the Kingdom.

When we do suffer at the moment, we should remember we are not the only ones who suffer. We also should consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of all mankind waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.

For man was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who gave him free will in the hope he would choose rightly. Because man himself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labours in pain to this day. And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies.

In Jesus we not only find our master but also our way to live in hope.

Jehovah God, the Creator of all things searches the hearts and knows what is going on in our heads. We should know that no matter what happens in our life, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. So we should not have to worry.

As brothers and sisters in Christ we should feel united and come regularly together in prayer with one accord, with the women, like the apostles did with Jesus and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

When meeting we should pray, but also on our own we always have to pray, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and in that prayer be should be watchful at all times, praying constantly and supplicating for all the saints. Not worrying over things; but always by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.

English: Sperindio Cagnola, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist kneeling and praying to God the Father (detail of the Last Judgement), 1514 -24, Paruzzaro, San Marcello Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus has given us an example of a perfect prayer: the ”the Lord’s prayer” “Our Father.”

“Therefore, having been declared right by belief, we have peace with Elohim through our Master יהושע {Jeshua} Messiah, through whom also we have access by belief into this favour in which we stand, and we exult in the expectation of the esteem of Elohim. And not only this, but we also exult in pressures, knowing that pressure works endurance; and endurance, approvedness; and approvedness, expectation. ” (Romans 5:1-4 The Scriptures 1998+)

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the esteem that is to be revealed in us. For the intense longing1 of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of Elohim. Footnote: 1Lit. anxiously looking with outstretched head. For the creation was subjected to futility, not from choice, but because of Him who subjected it, in anticipation, that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage to corruption into the esteemed freedom of the children of Elohim. For we know that all the creation groans together, and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only so, but even we ourselves who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we ourselves also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For in this expectation we were saved, but expectation that is seen is not expectation, for when anyone sees, does he expect it? And if we expect what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance. And in the same way the Spirit does help in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray, but the Spirit Himself pleads our case for us with groanings unutterable. And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the set-apart ones according to Elohim. And we know that all matters work together for good to those who love Elohim, to those who are called according to His purpose. ” (Romans 8:18-28 The Scriptures 1998+)

“All these were continuing with one mind in prayer and supplication, with the women and Miryam the mother of יהושע {Jeshua}, and with His brothers. ” (Acts 1:14 The Scriptures 1998+)
“And they were continuing steadfastly in the teaching of the emissaries, and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. ” (Acts 2:42 The Scriptures 1998+)
“but we shall give ourselves continually to prayer and to serving the Word.” (Acts 6:4 The Scriptures 1998+)
“So Kwas indeed kept in prison, but prayer was earnestly made to Elohim on his behalf by the assembly. ” (Acts 12:5 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Concerning this I pleaded with the Master three times to take it away from me. ” (2 Corinthians 12:8 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Messiah, greets you, always wrestling for you in prayers, so that you stand perfect{1} and complete in all the desire of Elohim. {Footnote: 1Mt. 5:48}. ” (Colossians 4:12 The Scriptures 1998+)
“praying at all times, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching in all perseverance and supplication for all the set-apart ones; also for me, that a word might be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to be bold in making known the secret of the Good News, ” (Ephesians 6:18-19 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Do not worry at all, but in every matter, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to Elohim. And the peace of Elohim, which surpasses all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds through Messiah יהושע {Jeshua}. ” (Philippians 4:6-7 The Scriptures 1998+)

“And the prayer of the belief shall save the sick, and the Master shall raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he shall be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, so that you are healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous one accomplishes much. was a man with feelings like us, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the land brought forth its fruit. ” (James 5:15-18 The Scriptures 1998+)

“And this is the boldness that we have in Him, that if we ask whatever according to His desire, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. ” (1 John 5:14-15 The Scriptures 1998+)

“But the end of all has drawn near. Therefore be sober-minded, and be attentive in the prayers. ” (1 Peter 4:7 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Continue in prayer, watching therein, with thanksgiving, ” (Colossians 4:2 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in all circumstances give thanks, for this is the desire of Elohim in Messiah éäåùò for you. Do not quench the Spirit. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 The Scriptures 1998+)
“rejoicing in the expectancy, enduring under pressure, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ” (Romans 12:12 The Scriptures 1998+)
“And let endurance have a perfect work, so that you be perfect and complete, lacking in naught” (James 1:4 The Scriptures 1998+)

Dutch version: Paul’s Gebedsverzoeken Doorzetten

Worship Or Playing Church? (womendivas4god.wordpress.com)
Many seem to have the wrong concept of worship. After pondering on Worship, worship is not in the music of particular, it does not matter how old, new, fast or slow it is. God has open my heart and understanding that Christian music is a label we give in flesh. If someone was to play music without any words would you be able to tell if it is Christian music? No. God created music and He loves music. He gives each person their gift be it Rock, contemporary, or R&B.

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Your prayers worked. Are you sure? (wonderingpreacher.wordpress.com)
Do prayers “work”? And when there is no answer (or not the one we were hoping for), do we say, “Your prayers didn’t work”?
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More than anything else prayer is about relationship. What does it mean when we pray fervently for a friend’s healing? First of all, we are acknowledging our relation-ship with God, and we are approaching him as Father.
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When we pray for healing and wholeness, for reconciliation, for peace, we are praying for those things that God himself wants for his creation. And we can pray deeply, and fervently, and often, because as we pray we are drawing closer to our Father. As we draw closer, we develop a greater understanding of what God wants to do, and (be warned) what he wants us to do.
Intercessory Prayer (II) (frted.wordpress.com)
Realistically we know that we are not protected from all sorrows, we cannot avoid all grief, even through prayer and fasting. People while they were engaged in prayer, in churches, have been attacked and martyred. So our prayers also must ask for the strength to endure suffering.
Jesus’ Prayer for Us (dailybibleplan.com)
In the seventeenth chapter of John, Jesus prays an extended prayer for all of His disciples. He prays not only for the disciples who were listening to Him at the time, He also prays for all of us who are following Him today. In His prayer, He asks God for many things on our behalf.
Keep Praying And Never Give Up! (dmariepowell.wordpress.com)
Have you ever consistently prayed about something over, and over, and over again? Have you ever wondered if this was acceptable unto God? Perhaps you repeated your prayer request, because you thought you weren’t getting through. Well, I have news for You! God is very pleased when we Push (pray until something happens).

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Religious Practices around the world

Posted on August 14, 2012. Filed under: Christendom and Christianity, Religion | Tags: Adherents, Anti-Semitism, Belgium, Church, Dicrimination, Europe, France, Intolerance, Jehovah's Witnesses, Judeo-Christian, Minority, Muslim, Ramadan, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Religious Freedom, Religious Studies, Religious Tolerance, Statistics, United States, Venezuela |

Religious Practices around the world, Compiled and Explained

- posted by Andy Rau

– How many Christians–or Hindus, or Muslims, or Buddhists–are there in the
world?

What country contains the highest percentage of atheists?

What and where are the largest churches in the world? All of these questions and hundreds of others are answered at adherents.org[1], a massive repository of religion statistics, demographic information, and other facts about religious beliefs all around the world. Some interesting places to start are this list of the predominant religion[2] of every country in the world; an extensive database of famous religious figures[3], and a description of the largest religious groups in the U.S.[4] Church leaders, missionaries, and anyone who’s curious about the world’s religious practices will find hours’ worth of reading material.

– Links in this story –

[1] http://www.adherents.com/

over 43,870 adherent statistics and religious geography citations: references to published membership/adherent statistics and congregation statistics for over 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, ultimate concerns, etc.
influential and famous adherents of over 100 different religious groups (famous Methodists, famous Jews, famous Catholics, famous Zoroastrians, famous Jehovah’s Witnesses, famous Theosophists, etc.)
lists of prominent people(actors, politicians, authors, U.S. presidents, artists, musicians, Supreme Court justices, film directors, etc.) classified by religious affiliation. These lists are linked to thousands of detailed religious/spiritual biographies.

[2] http://www.adherents.com/adh_predom.html

In most countries of the world, a majority of people (over 50%) are adherents of the same religion.

[3] http://www.adherents.com/adh_fam.html

Prominent, Notable, Celebrity, Influential, Famous Members of Various Religions and Denominations

[4] http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

the United States has a greater number of religious groups than any other country in the world

How about a module on religious practices, too? (todayonline.com)
the next step is to have a compulsory module on Comparative Religion, to educate our population on the doctrines and practices of world religions.

It would touch on the philosophical concerns of religion, from ethics to the various ways of attaining salvation.

One who takes the course would benefit from a better understanding of the diverse views of human beliefs and practices.
Religious freedom: US not fit to preach (english.ruvr.ru)
“In the Obama Administration we’ve elevated religious freedom as a diplomatic priority”, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said while speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The United States will also stand for the value, the principle that religious freedom represents, not only for us but for people everywhere.”

This poses two main questions: why would a government, in a country where church has been separated from state, try to impose its own vision on something as delicate as religious matters on other sovereign states? And is it in a position to do so?
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Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI warned of a “grave threat” to religious liberty in the United States. He noted that America’s historical experience of religious freedom has been eroded “in the face of powerful new cultural currents” which are “not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity.” Currently, Christianity is practiced by more than 75% of the US citizens.
US says world has lost religious freedom (bigpondnews.com)
The United States says the world is sliding backwards on religious freedoms, criticising China for cracking down on Tibetan Buddhists and hitting out at Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As the State Department unveiled its first report on religious freedoms since the start of the Arab Spring, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday it was a ‘signal to the worst offenders’ that the world was watching.
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The 2011 International Religious Freedom Report noted that last year governments increasingly used blasphemy laws to ‘restrict religious liberty, constrain the rights of religious minorities and limit freedom of expression.’
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The report also warned that European nations undergoing major demographic shifts have seen ‘growing xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment, and intolerance toward people considered ‘the other.”

It complains of a ‘rising number of European countries, including Belgium and France, whose laws restricting dress adversely affected Muslims and others’.
World Backsliding on Religious Freedom (theepochtimes.com)
At a time when at least some countries are loosening up on political expression, the world is sliding backward on religious freedom, says U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Speaking on the release of the United States “International Religious Freedom Report” for 2011 on July 30, Clinton said now more than ever, it was urgent to highlight religious freedom.

“When we consider the global picture and ask whether religious freedom is expanding or shrinking the answer is sobering,” she said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in D.C. “More than a billion people live under governments that systematically suppress religious freedom.”
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In Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Burma, where regimes had fallen or moved to less restrictive practices, people were taking the first steps in newfound freedoms. The transition path, however, is fraught with its own dangers, particularly for minorities.

Violence against Coptic Christians had increased in Egypt, for example, as had incidents against the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority in Burma, who remain severely ostracized.

The expanded use and abuse of blasphemy laws to further restrict religious liberty and expression was also cited as a growing trend. In Saudi Arabia, blasphemy against the Wahabi interpretation of Sunni Islam is punishable by death; while in Indonesia, the penalty is imprisonment.

In Pakistan, anyone blaspheming or criticizing blaspheming laws is vulnerable to assassination by extremists.

A rise in anti-Semitism was identified as a disturbing trend. The report cites Venezuela for anti-Semitic statements in official media and Iran for unrestrained Holocaust denial. In Europe, Ukraine and France saw incidents of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues being desecrated, and Hungary saw the rise of an anti-Semitic political party.

Some governments were also cited for targeting minorities as “violent extremists,” the report citing Bahrain, Russia, Iraq, and Nigeria for the trend.

“Authorities often failed to distinguish between peaceful religious practice and criminal or terrorist activities,” the report said.
Fastest Growing Religious Group in America: The Amish (?!?) (patheos.com)
Ohio State University researchers are reporting that the Amish may be one of the fastest growing religious group in America. It’s arguable that that distinction currently belongs to the non-religious:
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A new census of the Amish population in the United States estimates that a new Amish community is founded, on average, about every 3 ½ weeks, and shows that more than 60 percent of all existing Amish settlements have been founded since 1990.
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“The Amish are one of the fastest-growing religious groups in North America,” said Joseph Donnermeyer, professor of rural sociology in Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, who led the census project. “They’re doubling their population about every 21 to 22 years, primarily because they produce large families and the vast majority of daughters and sons remain in the community as adults baptized into the faith, starting their own families and sustaining their religious beliefs and practices.”
China steps up over religious practice in Xinjiang (fmnnow.com)
Local officials in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have taken strict measurements to prohibit religious practices among Party members, Public officials and students, as many muslims in Xinjiang are fasting during Ramadan.According to local government website of Yecheng County in Kashi, the county conducted a full deployment during Ramadan starting from July 20. All Party members, public employees and school students were prohibited to participate any forms of religious practice. While authorities responded the restrictions of Ramadan are out of health concerns. A regional spokeswoman, Hou Hanmin, was quoted in Global Times as saying authorities encourage people to “eat properly for study and work” but would not force anyone to eat during Ramadan.
Religious Accommodations in the Workplace (blogs.lawyers.com)
f you’re Christian in the United States, you may not have given much thought to how people of other religions observe holidays. After all, many Christians in the United States take it for granted that they won’t have to work on religious holidays. With the exception of some retail stores, most companies close entirely for Christian holidays, including Good Friday, Easter and Christmas. But what if you’re Jewish and observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when work is forbidden? What if you’re Muslim and want to pray five times daily, even though some of those prayer times fall during business hours? What if you are you are a Sikh man who wears a turban but works at a business that wants you to wear a baseball hat with the company logo on it?It is against the law for your employer to treat you differently or to harass you because of your religious, moral and ethical beliefs. Your employer must respect your sincere and meaningful religious beliefs, and must make a reasonable effort to accommodate your religious practices unless they cause an undue hardship on the company.
Austria gives go ahead on circumcisions after religious leaders make appeals (lampandherald.wordpress.com)
In an article for Reuters, Michael Shields writes that physicians ”in Austria’s westernmost province have been cleared to resume circumcisions after the Justice Ministry reassured them that they can perform the religious practice without risking criminal charges.”

Shields says that apparently a regional court ruling in Germany caused confusion when it was reported that “the practice supported by Muslims and Jews amounted to physical abuse.” Doctors were then advised to suspend the ruling.
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If your employer discriminates against you on the basis of your religion, you may be entitled to relief in the form of back pay, hiring, promotion, reinstatement, front pay, reasonable accommodation, or other forms of relief. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also allows you to recover your attorney’s fees.

If you believe that you’ve been discriminated against on the basis of religion in your employment, an employment discrimination attorney can help you review your options.
The DC Folly Trolley – 07/29/12 (dcwreck.wordpress.com)
Eric Cantor seems to believe he could not practice his religion anywhere else in the world as freely as he can in the United States.

I wonder how countries like England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and many others would interpret such a statement, to say nothing of Israel.

Of course, he could be a Pastafarian. In which case I’m not certain which countries allow freedom to practice those beliefs.

Taking his remarks about the right to practice religion freely in the U S more as a statement of American exceptionalism rather than one of limitations on religious practices in other countries, Eric Cantor’s statement does not quite ring true.

I wonder how countries like England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and many others would interpret such a statement, to say nothing of Israel.

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Worship and worshipping

Posted on August 11, 2012. Filed under: Breaking of the Bread, Ecclesia, Faith, Housechurch, Religion | Tags: 14 Nisan, Adoration, Adoration of the lamb, Breaking of the Bread, Christian worship, Church, Devotion, Devotional Song, Eucharist, Eucharistic Celebration, Gloria Patri, Holy Mass, Idolatry, Liturgy, Lord's Prayer, Mass (liturgy), Meditation, meeting, Meeting Hall, Offering, Orthodox Judaism, Piety, Praise, Prayer, Protestantism, Psalm, Reverence, Sacrament, Sacrifice, Salve Regina, Sunni Islam, Tag, The Lord’s Supper, Veneration, Worship, Worshipping |

Under the Tags “Worship” and “Worshipping” you shall be able to find articles concerning adoration paid to a person a god or God as well as about the religious service of a person or community of persons.

The worship can be a profound admiration and affection, an act of revering or adoring, to glorify, a dignity,reputation, high standing.

The word “Worship” is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship

Paying high honours to some one or something, but also the act of performing acts of adoration or bringing honour, offerings and prayers to something or some one.

But in particular we shall talk here about the adoration to the Only One God and the religious service we can bring to Him to show our love, affection and adoration.

Each individual can give expression of his adoration or veneration for some one or something. He can react on his feeling and express himself accordingly on his own (solo) or in group. Often when the act of worship is not performed individually, in an informal or formal group, or by a designated leader, there is taken some order to do it or some people taking charge of the ‘service’.

A modern Western worship team leading a contemporary worship session. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many religious traditions place an emphasis upon regular worship at frequent intervals, often daily or weekly. Expressions of worship vary but typically include one or more of the following:

Prayer, meditation, ritual, scripture, sacraments, sacrifice, sermons, chanting, music or devotional song, dance, religious holidays, festivals, pilgrimage, dining, fasting, temples or shrines, idols, or simply private individual acts of devotion.

The worshipping or act of bringing worship can be done in different forms, which shall be spoken of in different articles. It can be done in the house by a private person or member of the community or in a special built or purpose-built place of worship, like a church or meeting room, or in a public place or in the open. In the Christadelphian community we mostly call the Meeting Hall “Ecclesia House”, “Ecclesia building” or simply “Ecclesia”.

Under Worship we can find:

worship or keep service in honour
the veneration of a saint or higher rank: venerate, adore, veneration, adoration
the esteem and love: adore
Worship / adore a god or God

perpetual adoration
to kneel in adoration: Kneel in worship
Adoration of the Lamb
respectful admiration: worship, reverence

Veneration

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy distinguish between adoration or latria (Latin adoratio, Greek latreia, [λατρεια]), which is due to God alone, and veneration or dulia (Latin veneratio, Greek douleia [δουλεια]), which may be lawfully offered to the saints. The external acts of veneration resemble those of worship, but differ in their object and intent. Protestant Christians question whether such a distinction is always maintained in actual devotional practice, especially at the level of folk religion.

Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Sunni Islam hold that for all practical purposes veneration should be considered the same as prayer; Orthodox Judaism (arguably with the exception of some Chasidic practices), orthodox Sunni Islam, and most kinds of Protestantism forbid veneration of saints or angels, classifying these actions as akin to idolatry.

Worship manifestation of Godliness

So under this “Tag” or the “label” of “Adoration” and “Worship” we will mainly focus on piety, and the exercise of that piety. It will mainly deal with the devout and pious by which a religious attitude is assumed to be faithfulness and submitting to God, Godloving, exalting, glorifying, idolizing and to extol a superior being.

It will essentially to be about God having in mind, to be submissive and to put Him high, treasuring Him, to serve God, awards, praise and bless.
These words will be eligible:

piety, “piety, fervor, unction, devotion, piety, religion, faith, god, community, communion, grace position, probation, resignation, resignation, quietism, spirituality, mysticism, mysticism, apologetics, religious fervor, zeal, though, zealotism, congregation, bigotry , bigotry, tartufferie.

godly, pious, iconoduul, holy, work saint, mystic, zealot, laborer, congreganist, faith hero, hero, church patron, zealot, zelator, zelatrice, church pillar, a saint, bigot.

Prayer

Under the tag “Prayer” we shall look at different form of words said to bring the adoration to something or some one. It is one part of the worship to bring devotion and which can be done in different ways.

Under the “Prayer” tag you may encounter:

prayer, church attendance, prostration, knee prayer, actus fidei, vocal prayer, meditation, consideration, praise, adoration, thanksgiving, intercession, invocation, lost prayer, routine prayer, morning prayer, evening prayer, night prayer, home exercise, table blessing , table prayer, church attendance, prayer cross, pilgrimage, shrine shipping, closing prayer, Triduum, novena, retreats, prayer series, answer to prayer, penance, prayer choir, psalmody.

prayer time, prayer meeting, prayer church time, matins time, praying, prayer place of worship, prayer house, retreat house, oratorio, pilgrimage, pilgrimage, grace place, place of grace, church, ecclesia

Under this tag we could discuss:

form prayer, prayer, cross, prayer, intercession, prayer for, exchange prayer, litany, deed, morning prayer, morning prayer, evening prayer, table prayer, grace, gratias, sigh, short prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, the rosary, the Hail Mary, the Ave, the Rosary, prayer beads, the psaltery Mary, the Angelus, the Salve Regina, the Regina Caeli, the Stabat Mater, Magnificat, Te Deum, Tantum ergo, the Itinerarium, year prayer.
liturgical prayer, church prayer, H. Mass.

A picture of a Lutheran pastor elevating the Eucharistic Host. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Breviary prayer, tides, matins, nocturne, lesson, the Laudes, Daily times, the hours, horce, prime, tertiary, sixths, ninths, Vespers, Compline, completorium, psalm, Vesper psalm, thank Psalm, penitential psalm, plaintive psalm, weeping psalm, the Miserere, De Profundis, the 15 Trap Psalms, hymns, church hymns, Cantica, invitatorium , antiphoon, responsorium, doxology, Gloria Patri, final chapter, the Hosanna, Alleluia, the great Hallelujah, Amen, the Libera.

It can be possible we shall look at:

prayer book, prayer book, Bible, church, communion book, communion plate, Hours, choir book, matins book, Breviary, prayer book, hymn book, psalter, psaltery, diurnal, anti phone book, antiphonarium, kyriale.

sacramentals, scapular, rosary, Beier, rosary bead, rosary cross, holy water, holy bread, Hubert bread, napkin, virtue rose, golden rose, palm, relic, shrine, pledge, gift, sacrifice image , votivefstone/tabel/gift.

Worship

For the term “Worship” we will look at carrying out the devotion and subservience to the exercise of prayer and work towards a superior, with particularity to God.

The worship or service to keep the worship of a god or Supreme Being in the Divine. It is the practice of religion.

That worship can exert a religious service or a keeping or holding church.

service provision, church keep reading church keep ministering, practice, or honour

Encloses a liturgical worship ritual.

liturgical, ritual.

And one can have:
worship, religion, cult, Mary Service, Mary worship, honouring saints, dulia, liturgy, ritual, rite, section, liturgic, ritualism, ritual, cart table, cart table list, church language.

religious practice, practice, service, church, ceremony, religious ceremony, church ceremony, religious use, church use, form of religion, church, Sunday worship service, Sabbath service, early service, matins, morning church. Morning, morning church, mette, morning service, lunch service, lunch church – afternoon service, evening service, Mass

evening worship, evening church, praise, foot washing, routine religion, psalm singing, sacrament hymns, Christmas songs, Easter songs, passover worship, passover sacrifice, last supper celebration, memorial celebration, remembrance meal, remembrance celebration

Protestant / Catholic worship, children’s church, reading church, covenant meal, dinner (s) celebration, dinner, supper celebration, night time, adoption service, supper bowl, supper wine supper table, linked table, communion bread, supper bread, communion wine, night-time singing, night song, breaking of bread, taking the symbols, remembrance meal, memorial, memorial worship

worshiper, dinner-goer, night time goer, minister atonement, sacrificial servant, mass celebrator, Eucharist keeper, memory keeper, Mass-goer, churchgoer

In worship we will proceed to the saying of prayers and spiritual texts usually recited or chanted. Many communities bring in their worship different variations and music and hold offerings in different ways.

A typical altar in a Latin Rite Catholic church — High altar of the Kapucijnenkerk; Ostend, Belgium.

For the Holy Mass or commonly called the Mass the Roman Catholics do have an Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites or in more up todate modern liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The term is used also of similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, in Western Rite Orthodox Churches, in Lutheran churches, and in a small number of High Church Methodist parishes.
For the celebration of the Eucharist in Eastern Churches, including those in full communion with the Holy See, other terms such as the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Qurbana and the Badarak are normally used.
Most Western denominations not in full communion with the Catholic Church also usually prefer terms other than Mass.

For information on the theology of the Eucharist and on the Eucharistic liturgy of other Christian denominations, see “Eucharist” and “Eucharistic theology“.

For information on history see Eucharist and Origin of the Eucharist, and with specific regard to the Roman Rite Mass, Pre-Tridentine Mass and Tridentine Mass.

The term “Mass” is derived from the Late Latin word missa (dismissal), a word used in the concluding formula of Mass in Latin: “Ite, missa est” (“Go; it is the dismissal”). “In antiquity, missa simply meant ‘dismissal’. In Christian usage, however, it gradually took on a deeper meaning. The word ‘dismissal’ has come to imply a ‘mission’. These few words succinctly express the missionary nature of the Church” (Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum caritatis, 51)

Sacrifice or Offering

In the worship or service the offer is to present an act of devotion, homage, charity, etc. to express willingness, to hold out for acceptance or rejection.

To lay before one, to present to the mind.

To give, to pay, to perform.

The offering is the act of making an offer. That which is offered.

In the worship or sacrifice among the faith communities of the various religions can be found:

altar ministry, altar service, love food, agape, sacrifice, sacrifice, altar, church sacrifice, temple sacrifice, altar secret, oblation, atonement, reconciliation, sin offering, guilt offering, peace offering, victorious sacrifice, libation, sacrifice of praise, supplication sacrifice, blood sacrifice , bloodplenging, victim, hecatomb, meat sacrifice, animal sacrifice, bull offering, unbloody sacrifice, oblation, smoke sacrifice, incense, commemorative sacrifice, money sacrifice, libation feast, drink offering, prayer, sacrifice time, dinner, remembrance celebration, remembrance celebration, evening meal, remembrance meal, breaking of the bread.

To gather

To do the worship several religious groups do come together at a certain place. Worshipping should show your faith but also your connection: your connection with your god and with your fellow believers.

In several Christian communities we notice the members coming together.

regularly. The community coming together is part of the succession of

Jesus reminder to regularly get together and meet. The Christadelphians also do come together, either in private homes like the first Christians in what some today call a house-church. These meetings happen in the community of believers or at someone’s home

or in a custom or a public building that can serve as a ‘community

church’ or ‘Ecclesia’. The union of believers who would like to serve God is called

“the ecclesia” and the worship is simply called the “service” or when the

Supper is commemorated “the Lord’s Supper” or “Breaking of the Bread.”

That service can be simple or gloriously with songs. Yearly at the 14th Nisan or Pascha there is a special Memorial Meeting to remember the day Jesus had his last evening meal with his disciples and some close friends to commemorate the pass-over. At that remembrance day Jesus installed the New Covenant, before he was going to die for our sins.

The Religious part of the “Meeting” or coming together to honour and to praise God, and to build each other up more spiritual by the perusal of the Holy Scripture and by discussing the Scriptures, where in the service a lecture is given, a prepared text or ‘admonition’ or ‘reading’ for the instruction of the faith community is called “exhortation” .

In Christian communities there are also feasts of charity or agape meals. In worship sometimes bloodless sacrifices or animal sacrifices are offered.

Further under the tag “Worship” and related tags you shall be able to find articles on:

sacrifice, atoning sacrifice, sacrifices, smoking sacrifice, wine shed, burn incense, frankincense, (gum)thus, thurification, Celebrating holy mass (do, read, sing, celebrate), officers, combine and assist, consecrate, serve Mass, go to Mass, hear Mass.

altar ministry, altar service, love food, sacrifice, altar, sacrifice, temple sacrifice, altar secret, oblation, atonement, reconciliation, sacrifice, sin offering, guilt offering, peace offering, victorious sacrifice, libation, sacrifice of praise, supplication sacrifice, blood sacrifice , bloodplenging, victim, hecatomb, meat sacrifice, animal sacrifice, bull offering, unbloody sacrifice, oblation, smoke sacrifice, incense, commemorative sacrifice, libation, money, sacrifice, libatie, plengfeest, sacrifice, prayer, sacrifice time, dinner, remembrance celebration, remembrance celebration, fraternal meeting.

Note: in the Dutch articles you shall be able to find much more different words, which do have in certain instances also small or bigger differences, but have no equivalent word in English, or are not able to be found in translation dictionaries. Often also many words are very typical for certain Christian denominations, and are not used by the other denominations and often not know by the other denominations. They are part of the typical church language, which is quite common in Holland and Belgium.

Dutch readers please do find:

Aanbidden, Aanbidding, Eredienst en Gebed

In the Categories: Breken van het Brood, Dienst, Ecclesia, Religie, Vergaderen | Tags: Aanbidden, Aanbidder, Aanbidding, Aanroeping, Adoration of the lamb, Afgoderij, Afsmeken, Agape Maaltijd, Alleluia, Avondmaal, Avondmaalsviering, Avondmaalviering, Beelden Verering, Bidden, Cultus Dulia, Cultus Latria, Devotie, Eredienst, Exhortatie, gebed, Gloria Patri, Godsdienstbeoefening, Islam, Judïsme, Kruisbeeld, Laatste Avondmaalviering, Liturgie, loven, Magnificat, Mediteren, Offer, Offerdienst, Offeren, Perpetual Adoration, Prijzen, Salve Regina, Smeekbede, Stabat Mater, Tag, Vereren, Verering, Vergaderen, Vroomheid, Worship

Please do find also:

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True Worship by Mark D. Roberts (trinityspeaks.wordpress.com)
If I were to ask you to envision Christian worship, I expect you would imagine your church gathered for Sunday services, or something like that. Indeed, when God’s people assemble to offer praise and thanks to God, this is an essential element of true worship. But it’s just the beginning!
Have We Excluded Something Important From Worship? (samuelatgilgal.wordpress.com)
Old Testament worship involved all five senses.
Christian Idol Worshippers (rosemichels.wordpress.com)
The very people who cling so tightly to their God-given commandments are often the very ones to break the first one. “Thou shalt have no other gods before thee.” Exodus 20:3 KJV
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What may make the situation of ‘following’ even more dangerous in our Christian walk is what we’re doing to those very Christian people we follow. As their popularity grows exponentially, so does their difficulty in dealing with something thrust upon them in what, oftentimes, seems to happen overnight. Just like us ‘regular’ people, they’re to maintain the balance of being in the world but not of the world.
Mystery Worship Eleven: A Missed Opportunity (barefootpreachr.org)
Traditional church bulletins are littered with headings like “prelude, doxology, Gloria Patri, benediction.” We toss around buzz words such as Sacrament, liturgy, soteriology, ecclesiology, sanctification, salvation, atonement, justification, pre-lapsarianism
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While worship must not be about our own comfort, it also takes place within a community. Often, but not always, powerful worship takes place as part of a connection of people who know each other, care for each other, push one another to greater godliness, and actively work together to serve the world
Enthusiastic Worship for All! (pastorjonev.typepad.com)
One Sunday morning, at roughly 10:12 am, during the middle of the second song, a person on the worship team began to sing and “move” with more enthusiasm than usual. This caused quite a commotion amongst the little girls in the front row. But I’m pretty sure that the outward commotion amongst the little girls was probably multiplied amongst the adults, only they kept it on the inside. This is what happens in a church where little enthusiasm is shown during corporate praise and worship.
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Worship is commanded. So is the physical, emotional act of worship.
God is entitled to our praises but Worship is always for our own sake (olungaotieno.wordpress.com)
Praise and worship is probably the most important aspect of the Christian walk. It is through praise and worship that we as Christians draw near to God. Psalm 100:4 says that we enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Psalms 22 says he that He inhabits the praises of His people.
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Worship is also for our own edification and strength. Worship helps us develop a God-like and Christ-like character. We become likened to those we admire and worship. When we worship God we tend to value what God values and gradually take on the characteristics and qualities of God, but never to His level.
Worship Him (achristianmeditation.wordpress.com)
We pray. We read the scriptures. We try to live for Christ. We serve in various ministries. These are all ways of expressing our level of commitment and love for God. But what God desires more than anything is our worship.
The Multi-Cultural History of Prayer Beads (foragingsquirrel.com)
Over two-thirds of the world’s population employ prayer beads as part of their religious practices. Prayer beads have a variety of forms and meanings, but the basic purpose is the same: to assist the worshiper in reciting and counting specific prayers or incantations. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are the major religions that use prayer beads in important ritualistic roles.Beads have long been linked with the act of prayer.
Questions About Prayer (graceindallas.wordpress.com)
Prayer is an interesting thing. As Christians, we say we believe that the Creator of the universe invites us to talk to Him at anytime and in any place. Yet we rarely take time to accept this invitation. There could be numerous reasons why we don’t pray.
5 Things People Want Their Worship Leaders to Know: Week 2 (aaronwilliamsblog.com)
”What would you like to say to worship leaders?” Week one had some insightful and funny answers. Week two is equally intriguing with more great insight and some outright honesty.
Worship Or Playing Church?Many seem to have the wrong concept of worship. After pondering on Worship, worship is not in the music of particular, it does not matter how old, new, fast or slow it is. God has open my heart and understanding that Christian music is a label we give in flesh. If someone was to play music without any words would you be able to tell if it is Christian music? No. God created music and He loves music. He gives each person their gift be it Rock, contemporary, or R&B.
We are to choose the words that are pleasing to God. He test us to see what we will do with our gifts. Will they be used for good or bad? Is it used to please God, or flesh?

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Fear and protection

Posted on August 5, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Endtimes, Life and Death, Religion, Satan and Evil, World | Tags: Adam and Eve, Aurora Colorado, Case god, Cautiousness, Choice, Christianity, Commandments, Creator, Death, Evil, Garden of Eden, God, Hades, Hell, Human-Rights, Jerry Newcombe, Lake of Fire, Law of God, Listen to God, Love for God, Love God, Love of God, Massacre, Murder, natural law, Political System, Politics, Purgatory, Reason God, Refuge, Sheol, Sin, Tartarus, Theological Teachings, Trust, Trusting God, United States, Weapon, Word of God |

Massacres allowed to happen

The Aurora, Colorado massacre, brought many debates about believes and about carrying weapons. It is unbelievable that many people do really want to believe it would not be so bad in case more people would have weapons on them. Often with such massacres, we mostly can find in the United States of America, and when they occasional happen in other countries, the shooters found their example in the American shooting. In many other countries such atrocious things can not happen because ordinary people are not able to get arms so easy.

But at such occasions also many people wonder how a God can allow such things to happen. They often are not accustomed to know the history of mankind from the early beginnings in the Garden of Eden, where the first man and woman doubted the right of the position their Creator took. It is because they could not agree with His right to decide what would be best or how people had to handle, though God had given a lot which they could decide themselves. They were already allowed to name things and to take care of everything on earth. But they wanted more. For that reason God gave them more. He allowed them to take care of much more. So from the time Adam and Eve committed their first sin, they had to find out everything for themselves. All their children and their children their children had to find their own way to live. They all had received form God to make their own choices.

Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, Adam and Eve, detail. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So still today, we all do have the opportunity to make our own choices. But we should be aware we can not blame God for the choices we made ourselves.

Choice to listen

Though, those who are wiling to listen to God, He surely shall want to help them and be with them. God protects his children from harm sometimes, but not at other times. God uses circumstances to refine the characters of his children. In case God would go into all the questions of His followers that would be not always righteous to the others, and at such time other people could say they are only following God because than they get what they want.

People should also understand that not everything is done at once. But when they do love God He shall be willing to set his love also upon them, therefore He the Most High shall be offering refuge and be as a fortress for those who trust Him. Whatever may happen to us in the world, Jehovah Yahuwah God will deliver those who are for God and honour Him. They may trust that there shall come a moment that they shall be taken away, saved from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover them with his pinions, and under his wings shall they be able to take refuge. His truth is a shield and a buckler, and they will feel it. For that reason we do not have to be afraid for the terror by night or day, nor for the bullets that flies by day or night. Even for the diseases, for the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday.

The Words of God may be tried and mocked at, but they shall keep stand. God shall proof to the others that He is a bucler, who has been for ever and shall stay for ever. God can not be killed, but had to face that His son was killed and so many of his followers. He shall take into account why those followers had to die.

Trusting God

Humankind has been warned that it can be that a thousand shall fall at the side of many others, but when it happens near to us we should trust God. We better have the fear of God instead of the fear of humans, who only can bring us, in the worst instance, to a physical death. But they too shall have to die at one moment. No matter what happens everybody dies one day, and then their live shall be finished. For those living in the Lord, their shall be hope for the time when the promised Messiah shall return to the earth, to judge the living and the dead. That day shall be an important day. After we die it will be to late to prepare for it, or to change anything to become accepted. Now, when we are living beings on this planet, we have to prepare ourselves and to make sure we shall be ready and acceptable to come clean for the eyes of the judge Jesus.

We do not have to be afraid anybody would be able to escape the punishment he or she deserves. Everybody shall get their share one moment in time. Not perhaps the moment we would love to see it happen, but somewhere in future they shall get their share as well. At the mean time we shall have to be content, with the blessings we already can have today. We better count those blessings, instead of looking to those of others.

No matter what happens, at a certain time we shall behold with our eyes, and see the reward of the wicked. There shall no evil befall Gods people, nor shall any plague come near them or God shall take notice of it and He will give his [heavenly] agents charge over those who keep His ways.

“Because he cleaves to Me in love, Therefore I deliver him; I set him on high, Because he has known My Name. “When he calls on Me, I answer him; I am with him in distress; I deliver him and esteem him. “With long life I satisfy him, And show him My deliverance.”
(Psalms 91:14-16 The Scriptures 1998+)

Following

In our live we should consider the difficulties Jesus, the most beloved son of God, had to encounter; and the problems this son of men his followers had by willing to follow the Nazarene and by preaching like he had told them to do.

Jesus knew exactly his position on earth and knew who he had to follow and obey. But even when he or others knew the commandments, this would not make them good or certainly not better than somebody else. Though many Americans do want to believe the so called Christians that they are the most particular smartest group of people because they follow Christ. Instead of recognising that also other people, who do not believe or even did not hear about God or about Jesus Christ, could do good things. But doing good things does not make you a good person. The son of God never thought of himself to being a good one because for him it was clear that none is good except One, God.

Instinct

Murder in Rio

Jesus also told the people that it could be that they knew the commandments, like “You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not testify falsely. You shall not defraud. You shall honour y our father and mother.” but that does not mean yet they would go and keep to them better than others who did not hear those commandments as being the Law of God. All people are namely created in the image of God, and therefore do have certain elements of God in them. All have, like animals, an instinct, by which they are able to know what can be good or bad for them.

The big problem with this current world is that many people do not listen to their inner voice. Lots of people do perhaps know what is best for them, but prefer to go other ways and want to take short-cuts. Often they are not so interested in the things or people around them, and want to gain as much as possible for themselves. This has become the main problem of this world, and not so much that the world is going away from Judeo-Christian Values. The Jew and Christians received the same values and Laws like everybody else in the world.

God loved so much His Creation He wanted the best for it, but it were and are still the stubborn human being who often think they can do better without Him. No matter how many think they can clear it without their Creator, God, in His love for humankind, gave His most beloved only begotten son, so that those who accept his position could have more chances to go through the small gate, to enter the Kingdom of God. But they also should know that it shall not be because they are baptised that they shall be saved for ever and be going to heaven or wherever they want to go to.

Jesus, God’s son, loved the whole world and was willing to die for all, but he was also aware that his death would not bring everybody into the Kingdom of his Father. Many would lack the requirements. He also warned the people that it is not because they would accept to follow him (Jeshua/Jesus) that everything would go smooth. No everybody had to face their problems and was still going to encounter difficulties and therefore had to take up their cross.

We may never forget that our baptism or our becoming Christian is not the freeway to be able to do whatever we want or to be higher placed than other people in this world.

We should consider in what we want to place our trust and what we do want to love from this world. We should be conscious how difficult it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the hole of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. But today many have gone for the richness of the world, and even think, it is only possible to come to a successful world, when Judeo-Christian values are taken care off, and when people are provided with arms so that they can defend themselves.

Arming and being safe

Jesus was against arms, so that is certainly already something against the teachings of Christ, who preached love and peace, while arms shall cause more division and pain.

Instead of accepting that we can not be saved by weapons, nor by people, the majority of the humans think the solution is in their hands and their political system. Though also Jesus knew we can not be without the political system as long as the Kingdom of God is not yet fully established, but in the mean time we should listen to those who are in power. As long as they do not bring laws against the Law of God, everybody should follow those laws, and give the caesar, governor, president or king that what belongs to that ruler.

Jesus said that with men it shall be impossible to be safe, but not with God. For with God all things are possible. But as long as we are in this worldly system even the saviour Jesus could not escape from agony. Also the son of man was delivered to the chief priests and the scholars. And they condemned him to death, and delivered him to the Gentiles. And they mocked him, and scourged, and spit upon him, and killed him.

“And יהושע {Jeshua} said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One – Elohim. “You know the commands, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not rob,’ ‘Respect your father and your mother.’ ” And he answering, said to Him, “Teacher, all these I have watched over from my youth.” And יהושע {Jeshua}, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One matter you lack: Go, sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. And come, follow Me, taking up the stake.” But he, being sad at this word, went away grieved, for he had many possessions. And יהושע {Jeshua}, looking around, said to His taught ones, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into the reign of Elohim!” And the taught ones were astonished at His words. And יהושע {Jeshua} responding, said to them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the reign of Elohim! “It is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the reign of Elohim.” And they were immeasurably astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then is able to be saved?” And looking at them, יהושע {Jeshua} said, “With men it is impossible, but not with Elohim, for with Elohim all is possible.” And Kbegan to say to Him, “See, we have left all and we have followed You.” יהושע {Jeshua} said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for the sake of Me and the Good News, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come, everlasting life. “But many who are first shall be last, and the last first.” And they were on the way, going up to Yerushalayim, and יהושע {Jeshua} was going before them. And they were astonished, and those who followed were afraid. And again He took the twelve aside and began to say to them what was about to befall Him: “See, we are going up to Yerushalayim, and the Son of Adshall be delivered to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death and shall deliver Him to the gentiles, and they shall mock Him, and flog Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He shall rise again.”
(Mark 10:18-34 The Scriptures 1998+)

End according to works

Plan of Mount Purgatory as described by Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy

Jesus who was Wounded for our transgressions and died for all sinners was directed by humans to go into hell. The day Jesus died his soul was delivered in the hands of God, though an innocent man, who did not do any sin, he was placed in hell. What did the Holy man do when he was considered by many the Messiah Jesus three days in hell? Did he not succeed to save the people who were supposed to be there to be tortured for their sins? Was his dying on the stake to pay for all sins of humankind a measure for nothing? Because when Jesus as the Lamb of God sprinkled his blood on this world for forgiveness of all sins, it looks like God not accepting this offer when He ask the sinners first to go to purgatory or to send them to hell even before Jesus can judge them at the end times, when the Messiah would return to judge the living and the death. But when hell is the place of eternal damnation, why was Jesus placed in it and how did he escape from it?

“It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness,{1} whose end shall be according to their works!{2} {Footnotes: 1Mt. 7:15-23, 2 Peter 2:1-22. 2Mt. 13:41-42}. Again I say, let no one think me to be a fool. And if otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, for me to also boast a little. What I speak, I speak not according to the Master, but as in foolishness, in this boldness of boasting. Since many boast according to the flesh, I too shall boast. For you, being wise, put up with fools gladly! For you put up with it if anyone enslaves you, if anyone devours you, if anyone takes from you, if anyone exalts himself, if one hits you in the face. To my shame, I say that we were too weak for that! But in whatever anyone is bold – I say it in foolishness – I am bold also. Are they HebSo am I. Are they Yisra’So am I. Are they the seed of AbSo am I. Are they servants of Messiah? – I speak as beside myself – I am more, in labours much more, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths many times. Five times I received from the Yehudforty stripes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have been in the deep, in many travels, in dangers of waters, in dangers of robbers, in dangers from my own race, in dangers from the gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the desert, in dangers in the sea, in dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness, besides the matters from outside, what comes upon me daily: the anxiety for all the assemblies. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn inwardly? If I have to boast, I shall boast of matters that show up my weakness. The Elohim and Father of our Master יהושע {Jeshua} Messiah, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. ” (2 Corinthians 11:15-31 The Scriptures 1998+)

The apostle Paul was not the only who had to suffer, though he followed Christ and lived according to the Law of God. But he was not afraid for those humans who mad his life less easy and less pleasant. He at that time knew why he was being troubled. But he knew also the country had to encounter many problems, not because they got lesser Christian beliefs followed. He also knew that it was not because they ordered God out of their schools, because in many regions school and religion were separated. Theological teachings were considered a matter of the religious teachers like the rabbi. They had to take care of the right teaching for their community in the temples. The religions had their own temples were worship was done and were people learned more about that religion. Though there were many gods praised and many more temples we do have today in the communities, there were also the military and public conversations at many places, the hell did not break loose.

Reaping

In a column in One News Now, the conservative evangelical spokesperson Jerry Newcombe wrote that the shooting in Aurora was evidence that “we’re reaping what we’ve been sowing as a society,” explaining, “Lawsuit after lawsuit, often by misguided ‘civil libertarians,’ have chased away any fear of God in the land.”

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) attributed the shooting to atheism and attacks on Christians. But today we are not more attacked than in previous centuries. And for sure the psychological ill person did not attack Christianity. It is wrong to always say everything is the fault because Christianity is under attack and it is not willing to defend itself.

Going through or in Hell

It is also strange that those American evangelicals often would not find it bad that people who did something against them would go to a place of torture. You can find a lot who love that idea of hell and even say that it is because so many do not believe in heel that we do have so many problems. For them it is not so bad that a Christian dies early, if a Christian dies young, it seems tragic they agree, but really it is not tragic because they are going to a wonderful place they say. But they also say that, on the other hand, if a person doesn’t know Jesus Christ… “if they knowingly rejected Jesus Christ, then, basically, they are going to a terrible place.” They would like to have everybody getting the fear for that place, so that the world can be saved.

Chart of Hell ca. 1480–1495, pen and ink on parchment, after Dante’s Divine Comedy. – Sandro Botticelli (1445-1515)

First of all, the word used for that place of which they are so afraid, is “sheol” or “hades” which means the “grave“, the place were everybody gets into when he dies. By certain people the dead are burned, by others they are cremated, in other cultures they are put in holes or in caves or mausoleums. Being put in the grave, is only been done when a person did pass away. After Jesus died, he also was put in the grave and was for three days in sheol or the hell, the place of which he warned to be aware of because there the fire would not be quenched. That fire which could be considered to be a literal fire, because at that time the people who died were brought out of the town to be burned on that hill ‘sheol’. But in Mark 9:48 the same verse says it is “where their worm does not die”. It is most unlikely that this means everlasting fires and immortal worms, and much more likely that it is a figurative expression describing the destruction that occurs in a rubbish tip.

In the Holy Scriptures is clearly written that Death is the penalty for our sins, we when we die we have paid for our sins, and God is not giving us an extra charge, having us place in a purgatory or in a hell for eternal torture. Having a feeling after death would also be against other writings in the Old Testament were is clearly indicated that the living can feel certain things but that those who died can not take anything with them or can not feel anything.

“For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know naught, nor do they have any more reward, for their remembrance is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy have now perished; and they no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun. ” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Do not put your trust in princes, In a son of man, in whom is no deliverance. His spirit goes out, he returns to his earth; In that day his plans perish. Blessed is he who has the of Yafor his help, Whose expectancy is in יהוה {Jehovah} his Elohim, Maker of the heavens and earth, The sea and all that is in them, Who is guarding truth forever, ” (Psalms 146:3-6 The Scriptures 1998+)

““See, all beings are Mine, the being of the father as well as the being of the son is Mine. The being that is sinning shall die. “But if a man is righteous and shall do right-ruling and righteousness, if he has not eaten on the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Yisra’nor defiled his neighbour’s wife, nor comes near a woman during her uncleanness, if he does not oppress anyone, does return to the debtor his pledge, does not commit robbery, does give his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, if he does not lend on interest or take increase, turns back his hand from unrighteousness, executes right-ruling in truth between man and man, if he walks in My laws, and he has guarded My right-rulings in truth – he is righteous, he shall certainly live!” declares the Master יהוה {Jehovah}. ” (Ezekiel 18:4-9 The Scriptures 1998+)

Which commandments following or ending up in hell

In the modern world it is already for ages that people, like the Americans lend money and ask or pay interest, often oppress others, come close and go in bed with women in their period. Are all those, because they do not follow those saying of God, are going to end up in hell and being tortured for ever?

For sure they all will die, like we shall die and be cremated or put in a grave to be in sheol, which is translated by many Bible-versions as ‘hell’, but is the same place where Abraham, Jacob and other holy many were placed.

“And Yatore his garments, and put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “Now let me go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” So his father wept for him. ” (Genesis 37:34-35 The Scriptures 1998+)
““And it came to be that the beggar died, and was carried by the messengers to the bosom of AbAnd the rich man also died and was buried. “And while suffering tortures in the grave, having lifted up his eyes, he saw Abfar away, and Elin his bosom. “And crying out he said, ‘Father Abhave compassion on me, and send Elto dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame.’ ” (Luke 16:22-24 The Scriptures 1998+) (Please do compare this translation with your version. In many versions sheol and hades are translated as hell, as the word for the ‘underwold’ “Tartarus”. Often, not to clash with certain teachings, different words are used, or they place the original Hebrew and Greek words untranslated to give the impression it is a proper name of a place and not a substantive.)

We can find the word γεννα (gehenna) 11 times in the Gospels, and the word αδης (hades) 10 times. By comparison, the word ουρανος (heaven) appears 141 times in the Gospels as “heaven” (the word actually shows up 153 times; 7 times translated “air,” 3 times translated “sky,” 1 time “side,” and 1 time “other”, NRSV). We should be aware that in the days of Jesus they did have an other concept of the ‘burning place’ then the Christian world has taken over form the Dante understandings of the concept of “hell.”

In case there could be a real fire also this could be the fire bringing “the second death”, spoken of in the Bible, where the wicked will be destroyed after facing judgement. That is then consistent teaching of scripture.

Sinners or opponents, fire and the lake

Lake of fire of Kilauea at night (1910) – Popular Science Monthly Volume 77

Sinners are opponents of God. They shall receive their punishment. The lake of fire, spoken of in Revelation 20:10 could be a real fire, but we notice that in verse 14 of the same chapter Death and Hades are also to be thrown into that lake of fire. It is clear in this case that the fire symbolizes destruction.

“And they came up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the set-apart ones and the beloved city. And fire came down from Elohim out of the heaven and consumed them. And the devil, who led them astray, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet are. And they shall be tortured day and night forever and ever. ” (Revelation 20:9-10 The Scriptures 1998+)
“And I saw a great white throne and Him who was sitting on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged from what was written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. And the death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.{1} {Footnote: 1See 2:11, 20:6, 21:8}. And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. ” (Revelation 20:11-15 The Scriptures 1998+)

Although fire is often used symbolically in this way, it is possible that God will literally use fire to destroy the wicked. For example, 2 Peter 3 contrasts destruction by water in the Flood with destruction by fire when Jesus returns:

“For they choose to have this hidden from them: that the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by the Word of Elohim,{1}{Footnote: 1Heb. 11:3}. through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. And the present heavens and the earth are treasured up by the same Word, being kept for fire, to a day of judgment and destruction of wicked men. ” (2 Peter 3:5-7 The Scriptures 1998+)

God’s judgement will be executed on those who rebel against him. It is not “souls” that are described as being tortured, but “dead bodies” as being burnt. In Old Testament times worshippers of foreign gods such as Baal and Moloch sacrificed their children in the Valley Of Hinnom just outside Jerusalem. The “hell” in Mar 9:47 is translated from the Greek word for the Valley of Hinnom. This refers to the fire which was continuously burning there in the first century, and was used to destroy rubbish and the bodies of executed criminals. The name of the Valley of Hinnom came to be despised.

This fire is not literal. Nor are the worms literal; even those people who believe in the doctrine of the immortal soul do not believe in the doctrine of the immortal worm.

Loving and fearing

We should not have hell being a reason to fear God nor to keep His commandments. We should be loving all the people around us, believers and non believers, and wishing the best for them all. Because we know that God is the best teacher and Guide to give us all the tools to make the best of our lives, we should recognise His Gracious Love and for to this end we should labour and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.

Lets us remind Samuel, fearing God, not fearing human people:

““יהוה {Jehovah} rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He repaid me. “For I have guarded the ways of יהוה , And have not acted wrongly against my Elohim. “For all His right-rulings are before me; As for His laws, I do not turn from them. “And I am perfect before Him, And I guard myself from my crookedness. “And יהוה repays me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness before His eyes. “With the kind You show Yourself kind, With the perfect one You show Yourself perfect, “With the clean You show Yourself clean, And with the crooked You show Yourself twisted. “For You save the humble people, But Your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low. “For You are my lamp, O יהוה , And יהוה makes my darkness light. “For with You I run against a band, With my Elohim I leap over a wall. “The – His way is perfect; The Word of יהוה is proven; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. “For who is besides יהוה ? And who is a rock, besides our Elohim? “is my mighty stronghold, And He makes my way perfect, “Making my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places, “Teaching my hands for battle, So that my arms bend a bow of bronze. “And You give me the shield of Your deliverance, And Your lowliness makes me great. “You enlarge my step under me, So that my feet shall not slip. “I pursue my enemies and destroy them, And I do not turn back till they are destroyed. “And I destroy them and crush them, So that they do not rise, And fall under my feet. “And You gird me with strength for battle, You cause my adversaries to bow under me. “And You make my enemies turn their backs, Those hating me, and I cut them off. “They look but there is no saviour, Unto יהוה , but He shall not answer them. “And I beat them as dust of the earth, I beat them small as dirt in the streets – I spread them out. “And You deliver me from the strivings of my people, You safeguard me as the head of the nations; A people I have not known serve me. ” (2 Samuel 22:21-44 The Scriptures 1998+)
“For You are not an taking delight in wrong, Nor does evil dwell with You. The boasters do not stand before Your eyes; You hate all workers of wickedness. You destroy those speaking falsehood; יהוה {Jehovah} loathes a man of blood and deceit. But I, I enter Your house In the greatness of Your kindness; I bow myself toward Your set-apart Hin Your fear. O יהוה {Jehovah}, lead me in Your righteousness because of those watching me; Make Your way straight before my face. For there is no stability in their mouth; Their inward part is destruction; Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue. Declare them guilty, O Elohim! Let them fall by their own counsels; Thrust them away for their many transgressions, Because they have rebelled against You. But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; Let them ever shout for joy, because You shelter them; And let those who love Your Name exult in You. For You bless the righteous, O יהוה {Jehovah}; You surround him with favour as with a shield. ” (Psalms 5:4-12 The Scriptures 1998+)

Loosing

UN Peace keepers collecting bodies from Ahmići, Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1993 – ICTY April 1993

The American Family Association’s Fred Jackson said concerning the Aurora shooting: “Whether it’s the Hollywood movies, whether it’s what we see on the Internet, whether it’s liberal bias in the media, whether it’s our politicians changing public policy, I think all of those somehow have fit together—and I have to say also churches who are leaving the authority of Scripture and losing their fear of God” are what “give us these kinds of incidents.” How does it come that in countries who are less evangelical or less Christian as their country there does not come up one incident were people do have to question the values of their population?

Fear and the matter of protection has been in every community. In the U.S.A. some choose to debate about gun control or the state of healthcare for the mentally ill, other stalwart truthseekers have made it their mission to get to the bottom of James Holmes’ massacre at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, willing to come to the core of the wrong goings in their living community. Conspiracy theories are made up for the cause to get their priorities. “Inconsistencies” easily attributed to psychosis or misreported facts, several authors find it a more reasonable explanation that this was all government coercion.

People should question in which way a person can be brainwashed or can made to act in a certain way. They should know that you have the parents, the teachers, the religious teachers or atheist teachers, the playground caretakers, sports educators, and all the friends and acquaintances a person has contact with which shall form him or her. The background a person gets shall be part of his formation.

Many times in history there have been people who wanted to take the law in their own hands. Several times in history we saw individuals or groups taking justice into their own hands.

There have been sound and well balanced people but also not level-headed persons or lunatics who either wanted to change the world, who more often wanted to make their point clear to the community.

Protecting the community

The community shall only be able to protect itself, when it has a proper eye on what is happening in her community and sees how everything is evolving. They also should know that examples in a community and social pressure are important matters which can influence a lot of persons and have their repercussions on the whole group.

We shall not deny that when more people would live according to the Law of God we shall have lesser problems. But we always shall have to be realistic, knowing that not all people shall think the same way or believe in the same things.

In the fear of God we can and should try to get others believe in the Natural Laws and natural ethics and show them or prove to them that following the Law of God can give better results in live for all. To get credibility by others, we in the first place have to show that we are trustworthy. Acting from religious conviction has to proof that the right values are chosen for and that for a Christian the love for every one is shown.

Living according rules of Freedom

When one demands freedom that shall have to include freedom of religious belief and practice as well. By many Christians we can only see that there is a lot of hatred between the denominations and many of them accuse one or the other of things which they do not want to see by them. When they who say to be followers of Christ do want to arm themselves, and do not trust God in protecting them, how can others believe in their God, when his people do not show this love they should have according to the son of that God.

As real Christians we should go for the Love and should be careful in our choices, whom we want to elect and want to allow to present certain civil laws. When we can avoid that certain civil laws, which would not be in accordance with God Laws, be voted, we can contribute ourselves to this worldly system. As long as Jesus did not return we shall have to make do.

By living according the Law of God and educating our beloved in this Law we shall be able to form a generation and group of people who shall be able to protect themselves by living according to these divine rules and by giving good examples.

To be continued:
Condemnation of the World and Illustration of Justification

Background:

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All trust, no fear (layeredhearts.wordpress.com)
this is how God loves us. He sees the big waves coming, and sometimes they do crash over us and that’s when He holds us tightly so we don’t drown. But then there are times when He lifts us up so we are above the circumstance. I want to learn to trust in God’s love and protection, so I have no fear, like my son trusts me.
Use Godly Power or Die Forever Broke! (muponisi.wordpress.com)
With godly power, for example, we can choose to become rich, and it would happen. The godly power is for us to do any positive thing, while we are still on earth to make our living better. We must claim all things, which God has granted us through His power.
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Fear connotes inability to do something about a situation because one is afraid of repercussions from either the known or unknown. Yet, cautiousness denotes the notion that one is aware of shortcomings, and is avoiding possible dangers surrounding a given situation. There is a very thin line between fear and cautiousness. It is very possible to glide from cautiousness into fear without knowing.
Living the Surrendered Life (Day 20) (christlikeministriesnwa.wordpress.com)
I make mistakes on a daily basis. I have times where I doubt God. I have times where I disobey God. I am always making mistakes. I’m always missing God…and I have a lot of me that still gets in God’s way. So…if that disappoints you…I am sorry…but I’m not perfect…and never will claim to be.
August 5 (newstrength.wordpress.com)
Do you feel like you’re a target sometimes, too? It’s mentally and physically exhausting to be a target. Do you sometimes feel like you’re running out of strength? Does it sometimes seem like the enemy is closing in on you and there’s no where to turn?When it’s clear that someone is out to get you—you need strength, and you need a shield.

When you trust in the Lord with all your heart, He will become your strength and shield in every area of your life. But having complete support and protection comes from truly making God Lord of your life.
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We all need to get better at trusting and praising instead of fussing and fearing. When we trust and praise—God’s power is magnified in our behalf. When you step on the accelerator of a gasoline powered car—it goes faster. When we choose to trust and praise, it’s like ‘stepping on the gas’. When we are all caught up with fussing and fearing—it’s like sitting still, or going in reverse. Fussing and fearing turns off the power of God.
Home Invasion…….divine Protection…….attacked by Fear……peace (unwalled.wordpress.com)
daring stealthy home invasion

failed attempt at burglary
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attacked by tormenting fear

active focus on God and His Word

relaxing and sleeping again in delightful peace
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I thank you for your promise that no weapon formed against us shall prosper and I trust you to continue to keep us safe and in perfect peace. I present the person(s) who invaded our home to you.
Massacres in Aleppo, Syria (EndtheLie.com)
“Responsibility to Protect” crumbles as Western-armed terror front slaughters civilians while foreign sponsors attempt to tie hands of Syrian security forces.

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With the Western press freely admitting that their “freedom fighting” FSA is lining up “suspected government supporters” and machine gunning them en mass, it seems the massacre the West feared would unfold in Aleppohas come to pass – only it wasn’t perpetrated by the Syrian government or its security forces, but rather by NATO and the Gulf State’s very own armed and coddled FSA terrorists.
Hang Ten (hodgepodge4thesoul.wordpress.com)
Sometimes it seems that the waves are crashing all around, and you keep getting pulled under. And just when you raise your head above water, here comes another set knocking you around. It’s at those moments I’ve learnded to be still, relax, grab my board, and just ride it.
Fear (alifegivingmoment.wordpress.com)
I’m afraid of — snakes, spiders, some loud noises — but do I tell her the real things I’m afraid of? Things like …–almost every time I see a funny place on my skin I’m certain I have skin cancer that will surely end in death or …
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I couldn’t look this little girl in the eyes and say, “It’ll be okay, honey! When you grow up you won’t be afraid of things anymore. ” I didn’t have any pat answer to give her to take all of those fears away but I could tell her that I’m afraid sometimes too and at least let her know she wasn’t alone in that battle.
Le’Andria Johnson: Sooner or Later (rhachellenicol.com)
it was easier for me to run from God and hide my face than to ask for forgiveness and continue to move forward with the plans that God had for my life. Just like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, it is easier to run and hide than it is to stand. I ran from the very protection and covering that I had in my life.
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We have to be careful of the judgement that we put off on people. We do not know the relationship that she has with the Lord. The enemy will use the very aspect of your life that causes you to live in shame and fear to keep you from fulfilling the purpose that God has for your life.
Paradise, the First Sin, the Fiery Sword, and the Path to Rectification (alaskawildgirl.wordpress.com)
Fear of punishment is how the minion mind is controlled.
Anger is punishment itself, and minions live in a world of suffering which arises from their own uncontrolled, violent anger, passions, and poisons of the mind.
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We must walk past the burning sword to reenter the garden they say. That sword is the Word, holy books, dharma, or even the fire of torment and punishment, i.e. those things which remove attachments. We must allow wisdom or karma to cut away all remnants of wanting so that we can experience true happiness. It’s not about acting upon things or living beings and expecting results, rather acting upon the self, removing judgment and fear of punishment and all other forms of fear in order to know ourselves as not just things of clay that are born and die, but beings of love that go beyond time and space.
To Tell the Truth (stefanicarmichael.wordpress.com)
perpetual lack of honesty tells something seriously askew with your child’s relationship to God. It shows your child is not truly trusting God enough to obey His commands. It could be that he fears the consequences of telling the truth more than he fears God.
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Was the child afraid of what you would do rather than fearing the Lord? You might need to point him to God’s goodness and faithfulness to encourage him to trust God more deeply. Was the child lying to make himself look better to someone else? Maybe you need to help him understand that God’s perfect design in creating your child that is marred only by sin (and lying is a sin). He needs to see himself through the eyes of God and not his peers.
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Whatever the situation is, you need to fight your child’s lies with God’s truth. Help them see clearly.
Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge (theharvestprinciple.wordpress.com)
What really happened in the Garden of Eden? Was it simply a sin, or a horrendous mistake? Adam and Eve lived in the Garden in a spiritual relationship with God. In order to live in the spirit a person’s own will had to choose to deactivate and to live through God’s will or spirit.
Julian Assange is right to fear US prosecution (guardian.co.uk)
As the drama unfolds over Julian Assange’s bid for political asylum in Ecuador, a troubling irony has emerged: the besieged founder of WikiLeaks is seeking refuge in this small Andean nation because he fears persecution from the United States, a nation whose laws famously grant asylum to people in precisely Assange’s situation.
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The US claims to lead the world in freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the role these play as the foundations of democratic government. These freedoms do not die when governments feel threatened or are embarrassed by the publication of information. As Justices Stewart and White famously said, “the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defence and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry – in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government”.

Indeed, it is precisely those who challenge the powerful, including government, who most require the protection afforded by fundamental free speech rights. If our current administration chooses to abandon them, it may fall to Ecuador to uphold the best of American principles.

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Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures

Posted on July 30, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Endtimes, Holy Scriptures, Jehovah יהוה YHWH JHVH God Elohim Yahweh Jahweh, Jesus Christ Jeshua the Messiah Jahushua, Religion, Witnessing, World | Tags: Advice of God, Allah, Apostle Paul, Barnabas, Becoming in Christ, Being Afraid, Believe, Bible, Book of Jasher, Capitalism, Capitalist World, Christian, Civilisation, Commandments, Congregation, Decline of Society, Democracy, Dignity, Divorcing, Downfall, Enjoy, Evil, Exhaltation, Faillure, Family, Fear God, God, Good, Goodness, Heaven, Hell, Human-Rights, Islam, Judeo Christian Culture, Judeo-Christian, Muslim, Muslim World, New World, Non-Believer, Old World, People of God, Priority, Protevangelion, Sex, Sexual Abuse, Son of God, Stealing, Sunday School, Tenants of this World, To Lie, United States, United States Declaration of Independence, Western world, YaHuWah |

Elections or a Voice

In Belgium there shall be the elections for the communities, bringing new mayors, but this year probably also with a vote over the political situation in the whole country. In the United States of America they are not going to look for a new mayor or governor, it is the presidential candidate who shall be on the lips of everybody.

In the Old World as well as in the New World we see similar conditions, people taken for a ride by the banks, taken in by the money-market. Many people being sold not just to pull the wool over their eyes.

In many so called civilised countries, we see not only that capitalism has blinded many people but brought them so far that they are not afraid to fool the others or to bring out a lot of lies enabling them to make more money and to enjoy life themselves at the costs of others.

Muslim Newspaper

Several inhabitants of those industrialised Western countries or States are proud of their birthplace and take pride that they can live in a Judeo Christian culture. But they have really become afraid for their Judeo Christian values. Lots on the inhabitants want to blame the rising Islam and point their finger to the many Muslim who seem to grow like fungi.

Friends and values

In Judeo-Christian values and liberty we mentioned already the problem of people being confronted with the loss of values which were a few years ago of high esteem. Many generations were brought up with values which were nourished as the most important in the family. People cherished their children and loved those who took care that their family could live in a good environment. Many also had high hopes and had the intention of making something good of the family and of the world.

It was found to be a pleasure to bask in some ones love. And friendship was considered as something special.

Today ‘friends’ has become a word that does not seem to mean much. On the social network-sites, like Facebook, people look like they have many ‘friends’, but often it are even less than real acquaintances. Worse is it about the relation in the family itself. Many children can not tell their friends they have one father and one mother. Often they even do not consider it normal that their friends are still living in a happy first married family. Kids, after a few years, go home from school to ask their parents when they are going to behave like normal parents and are going to divorce. Divorcing has become the normal norm is this society. And that has nothing to do with Muslim traditions taking over the world. In such families they do still know the bond of the family.

About telling a lie, we notice that has become come grounds for all sorts of people, of all sorts of religions or secular groups. Lots of people do not mind to lie in his teeth till they are black. To be a fibber has become ‘cool’ and the way to get a place in the community. Many people have come in power by using their words in an other way than the words at first would imply. Many also do like it to hang with their ears at the moth of those storytellers. Rather to be ‘befriended’ than to be considered as a looser or ‘unbeliever’ of those fairytale-masters. Best to be the directors pet or the blue-eyed boy, than the one who is considered as the milksop. No one wants to look as the spoilsport, but several people who want to keep on to certain values are considered as the chickens. though their blanket may stay clean it is being considered the wet blanket, while others who wet their blanket literally do not mind to use the women as usable objects. For this we, yesterday could once more see, like a few weeks ago, that it were North African people living in Belgium who clearly found it not a problem that they went after the girls on the street, because women are just a lust object. Many of the white European men population have been eager to take over this idea, but also many Caucasian women do not mind to take men as their play toy.

We shall not dispute that a lot has also come this way because, while previously generations were brought up by the Word of God, being told about good and bad, heaven and hell, being told to go to mass and worship, while honouring father and mother. Those teaching of the catechism or the teachings of the Sunday school do not exist any more, or when they are still present or available at a denomination, not many are interested in it.

Learning and teaching

A few decennia ago the Christian teachings perhaps could be a huge success, today that’s a different kettle of fish. The horse of a different colour is that everybody finds it balderdash or twaddle to spend time in Old Books or spending time talking about spiritual things and about uncertainties. Nobody wants to stand for fool by outing himself to believe in something which many have long time ago swept it under the carpet.

Many find it pathetic people still want to believe in things which were said so many millennia ago. The death a a man twenty centuries ago is something not to be spoken any more, when there are now so much funnier things to talk off.

Years ago some people could still think they could come off by being a good Christian, but today most of the citizens think they are only able to manage when they can join the successful world by becoming totally part of it, integrated in the world of fashion and stuffed shirts.

English: Map of the Muslim Population by Percentage in the World (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of people do want to blame others for their problems of for the things going wrong in the world. The Muslim world has become the group to blame now while a few decennia ago many Christians blamed the Jews, and did not find it bad to get rid of them for ever by burning their bodies literally.

More than two centuries ago many people noticed the Old World already getting no good place to bring up their children. They learned from the Bible, the Word of God, that in case it became so bad and people did not want to listen to them, it was better to put on the shoes and go to other places. Many oppressed people did not want to wait until it became worse. They thought a lot and spoke with many friends before they decided to go and look for their luck in other unknown countries. They risked their lives to escape the country were power of certain Christian denomination forced such laws and believes on them they could not agree with.

Those people where familiar with the writings of the apostle Paul who wrote: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” And some of them knew the book of Jasher in which was spoken about the fear we do had to have for God. In such Holy books they had learn that in such places were there was no fear for God it could be not nice to stay and not the right place to live. so why would they sojourn in places were nobody was interested in what they had to tell about what they had learned from the Holy Scriptures?

Jasher 4:3 And Methuselah acted uprightly in the sight of God, as his father Enoch had taught him, and he likewise during the whole of his life taught the sons of men wisdom, knowledge and the fear of God, and he did not turn from the good way either to the right or to the left.
Jasher 15:4 And Abram said to his wife Sarai, Since God has created thee with such a beautiful countenance, I am afraid of the Egyptians lest they should slay me and take thee away, for the fear of God is not in these places.

Living with Fear, every day

Jasher 32:57 And God put fear and kindness toward Jacob in the hearts of the men that came with Esau, and they also kissed Jacob and embraced him.
Jasher 34:59 And Judah said unto Simeon and Levi, and unto all his brothers, Strengthen yourselves and be sons of valour, for the Lord our God is with us, do not fear them.
Jasher 43:41 And Jacob took the beast from the hands of his sons, and he cried out with a loud and weeping voice, holding the beast in his hand, and he spoke with a bitter heart unto the beast, Why didst thou devour my son Joseph, and how didst thou have no fear of the God of the earth, or of my trouble for my son Joseph?
Jasher 47:8 Now therefore my son, teach thy children and thy children’s children to fear the Lord, and to go in the good way which will please the Lord thy God, for if you keep the ways of the Lord and his statutes the Lord will also keep unto you his covenant with Abraham, and will do well with you and your seed all the days.
Jasher 55:3 And Jacob said within himself, I will go and see my son whether the fear of his God is yet in his heart amidst all the inhabitants of Egypt.
Jasher 63:8 And in order to know the signs and mighty wonders which the Lord would do in Egypt on account of his people Israel, in order that the children of Israel might fear the Lord God of their ancestors, and walk in all his ways, they and their seed after them all the days.

In early times of this era it was noticed in Protevangelion 8:3 “and when she was twelve years of age, the priests met in a council, and said, behold, Mary is twelve years of age; what shall we do with her, for fear lest the holy place of the lord our God should be defiled?” Protevangelion 8:14 “then the high-priest replied, Joseph, fear the lord thy God, and remember how God dealt with Dathan, Korah, and Abiram, how the earth opened and swallowed them up, because of their contradiction.
Protevangelion 8:15 now therefore, Joseph, fear God, lest the like things should happen in your family.

Fear, hope, liberty and love

It is because many people do not fear God, who can bring hope, liberty and love, any more that many things do come over their family. It is not because God loving people do warn them that they went astray and have to return to God that they and their country are falling to pieces.

Paul and Thecla warned (4:7) on this account, God sent his son Jesus Christ, whom I preach, and in whom I instruct men to place their hopes, as that person who only had such compassion on the deluded world, that it might not, O governor, be condemned, but have faith, the fear of God, the knowledge of religion, and the love of truth.

In case the men in the several countries where capitalism got the ruling position, would remember that the real value of life would be to go for the gold of the Words of God, and giving themselves in the hand of the only mediator between God and men (Jesus/Jeshua), they surely would find it easier to find the real treasures of life.

To continue with Paul who did find his colleagues believers who were kind to one to another without grudging; being ready to every good work, and being adorned with a conversation altogether virtuous and religious, because they did all things in the fear of God; whose commandments were written upon the tables of their heart. (1 Corinthians 1:15)

Today we do not find many who have the Words of God written onto their hearts, or even in their mind to think about them.

The same as in the early centuries after the death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, righteousness and peace are departed from many people, because every one of them has forsaken the fear of God; and is grown blind in his faith; nor walked by the rule of God’s commandments nor lived as is fitting in Christ (1 Corinthians 2:4)

We all should remember that we are tenants of this world, which God has given to all his creation. Because of man having doubted the right of His Power, He has given the power in the hands of men. Paul knew as we should know that God has given the cities into the hands of those who think they can manage the world; for the fear of them is fallen upon all that dwell therein. (1 Corinthians 6:8)

For those who know God and do like God, they have had all the time to share their ideas with others, and they also had and still have time to let their charity be with respect of persons, alike towards all such as religiously fear God. They can let them learn how great a power humility has with God; how much a pure and holy charity avails with him; how excellent and great his fear is; and how it will save all such as turn to him with holiness in a pure mind. (1 Corinthians 10:11-13)

Double talk and Being Afraid for the right person

Who are Christians following? Who are the real Christians?

They, who believe in God, do know that He knows everything which goes on in the heart, but they are also aware that the actions of believers as well as of non-believers are seen and heard by God; therefore we better fear Him instead of being afraid of ordinary humans, who live now but who shall face the death at a certain moment in their life. At that moment they shall not be able to do anything any more against us. Therefore let us not fear men: but rather God. Wherefore, if we should do such wicked things as many around do and think are the way modern people should do, we shall have to face the judge after life and though we could have considered ourselves Christian and being part of Christ, joined unto the Lord, but not keeping Gods commandments, He would cast this person off, and say unto him: “depart from me; I know not whence you are, ye workers of iniquity.” (1 Corinthians 10:13; 13:1; 2 Corinthians 2:15)

Barnabas wrote to the community to become spiritual, “a perfect temple to God. As much as in us lies let us meditate upon the fear of God: and strive to the utmost of our power to keep his commandments; that we may rejoice in his righteous judgments.” (3:12) and he warned them ” thou shalt not be double-minded, or double tongued; for a double tongue is the snare of death. Thou shalt be subject unto the lord and to inferior masters as to the representatives of God, in fear and reverence.” (Barnabas 14:14 )

It is this double talk that is killing more our general community. It is the dishonesty in talking and handling which brings so many people in difficulties, and not the Muslims who came into our countries and saw how people had gone far from God, so they could not do anything else than to detest their way of life.

Those foreigners and people from other cultures should not have to be bitter in the commands towards any of their servants and co-habitants that trust in God. Still many Muslim fear God, though also a lot went there in a wrong direction and started more to fear people who misuse the name of God, or falsely say that they speak in the Name of God. those Muslims fearing certain Muslim organisations should know better, like Christians should do. They should chance not to fear Him, Allah, God the Only One Elohim Hashem, who is over both.

In case there are some organisations or people who say they can speak in the name of God, all who would like to follow them should investigate if they really live and act according the Laws of God, and follow the Words of God. They should check if those people could really be prepared by the Holy Spirit (= the Power of God). Whomsoever the Spirit had prepared would and should be a person who does not commit idolatry, does not show confidence in the wrong way to his own benefit, puts away pride of power, hypocrisy, double-mindedness, adultery, murder, rapine, pride, transgression, deceit, malice, arrogance, witchcraft, covetousness, and the want of the fear of God. Not having fear of God, does not agree with knowing the Full Power of the Almighty God.

In Commands Hermas we do find «command VII.» “fear God, says he, and keep his commandments. for if thou keepest his commandments thou shalt be powerful in every work, and all thy works shall be excellent. for by fearing God, thou shalt do every thing well.” (Commands Hermas 8:1)

When people got to know that when they fear God they shall be able to live when they do keep His commandments.
“wherefore, fear God and thou shalt live: and whosoever shall fear him, and keep his commandments, their life is with the lord. but they who keep them not, neither is life in them.” (Commands Hermas 8:6 )
“but they that have the fear of the lord, and search out the truth concerning God, having all their thoughts towards the lord; apprehend whatsoever is said to them, and forthwith understand it, because they have the fear of the lord in them.” (Commands Hermas 11:13 )

Reading the right Books

The only way to get to know Gods Commandments is by reading the Holy Scriptures. In case you notice that there are many wrong goings in this world, you probably have already some idea of what would be right or wrong. Without knowledge of good and bad there can not be any judgement over evil and goodness. It is possible that people do notice and even know from the inside that something is not as it should, but do not mind to continue to handle or live that way or to let it happen, because it suits them or they do find it very convenient.

It is that way of feeling at ease with certain situations that brought us down. It is the allowance of so many wrong things that brought the decline of our society. Not Muslims or other believers entering our domain, which in our greediness we prefer to keep to our self, instead of sharing it in love with others. Often it are the evil desires that are the food of our thoughts to go in a certain way in this world.

Pleasures of Life

Instead of so loving the Lord God with all our passion and prayer and intelligence and energy, many of us became loving the pleasures of life and the pleasures of wealth. Many tell others they are such and such person, or believe this or that, but they takes pleasure in foolish gabble. Several call themselves Christian and say that God is their Father, but hey really do not honour Him. Many of them have forgotten that Gods want their full attention as well as their full devotion. they also forget that Jehovah God wants actions by words. When you tell God you’ll do something, do it — now. So if YHWH, Jehovah or Yahweh is their Father, where’s the honour? If The Almighty Creator of heaven and earth is their Master, where’s the respect? (Mark 12:30; Proverbs 23:26 ; Ecclesiastes 5:4 ; Ecclesiastes 5:5; Malachi 1:6)

Which God?

Jehovah = the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but also of Jesus

Jews, Christians and Muslims have the God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, as their God, often also as the God of their father and mother. They both claim that Allah, Yahuwah, whose name is Jehovah shall be judge between them as He was in the time of Jacob and by by the fear of his father Isaac. They both also know Joseph who said that he feared God. (Genesis 42:18; 50:19)

Three prophets

An other problem in this world, which was foretold by the prophets, is that a lot of people do not fear their parents and teachers any more. Several Jews and Muslims try to get this patriarchal rule going and demand that there is also taken one day a week especially to honour God. But when you look into the world were they say they have the best civilisation because they are Christians and do keep to the commandments of God, where can you find them keeping Gods sabbaths. In those communities we notice that here is also not much respect or honour for the old man. Also do we find governments who want to rule over others with rigor and where it is allowed to oppress one another, and people can be excused to do certain crimes (working and handling on the black market is often justified because the governments are demanding to much they say; petty crimes and small lies are allowed for the good of ‘the’ cause, etc.)

“3 Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father; and ye shall keep my sabbaths: I am Jehovah your God. 4 Turn ye not unto {1} idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am Jehovah your God. {1) Heb [things of nought]} 5 And when ye offer a sacrifice of peace-offerings unto Jehovah, ye shall offer it that ye may be accepted. 6 It shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow: and if aught remain until the third day, it shall be burnt with fire. 7 And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is an abomination; it shall not be accepted: 8 but every one that eateth it shall bear his iniquity, because he hath profaned the holy thing of Jehovah: and that soul shall be cut off from his people. 9 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. 10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am Jehovah your God. 11 Ye shall not steal; neither shall ye deal falsely, nor lie one to another. 12 And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah. 13 Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor, nor rob him: the wages of a hired servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. 14 Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind; but thou shalt fear thy God: I am Jehovah. 15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. 16 Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am Jehovah. 17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. 18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah. 19 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed: neither shall there come upon thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together. 20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to a husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; {1} they shall be punished; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. {1) Heb [there shall be inquisition]} 21 And he shall bring his trespass-offering unto Jehovah, unto the door of the tent of meeting, even a ram for a trespass-offering. 22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass-offering before Jehovah for his sin which he hath sinned: and the sin which he hath sinned shall be forgiven him. 23 And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as their uncircumcision: three years shall they be as uncircumcised unto you; it shall not be eaten. 24 But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy, for giving praise unto Jehovah. 25 And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof: I am Jehovah your God. 26 Ye shall not eat anything with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantments, nor practise augury. 27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. 28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am Jehovah. 29 Profane not thy daughter, to make her a harlot; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of {1} wickedness. {1) Or [enormity]}” (Leviticus 19:3-29 ASV)

Idols and things to love

How many persons have not turned to idols, either form the music, television, film, entertainment or sports world? How many persons do not find it most important to get as much possible out of a piece of land, and to use all the upbringing to sell wherever they can to most high price, other-while it can be thrown away better than to give it to the poor?
How many do not find it so wrong to take something home from work, or do not find it so bad to steal something when they have the opportunity, defending themselves that the other person should not be so stupid to let it happen or to give the opportunity to become tempted. Has it not come to a sport for many to deal falsely and not to tell the full truth to others, even to lie one to another, or misusing them and others. Though God wants us to stay honest to our partner, how many do not have other lovers at work or at the sports field?

II (The Presidents of the United States of America album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many do not find it al right that their children experiment with drugs and sex, though they should know that God does not like it that daughters would be used as a prostitute or that there could be something to cause her to be a whore. Dancings have become places to make a sport of conquering a new target, once more an other person to have some good sex with, and leave him or her behind for whatever he or she may be, just as an object to have communal enjoyment.

Instead of looking for the problems in that sort of life, many do want to put the blame on those strangers sojourning with them in their land, though god clearly demanded not to vex such people. But the stranger that dwells with us should be to us as one born among us, and we should love him or her as ourself; for our ancestors were also strangers in the land of Egypt. We do have to be careful to do no unrighteousness in judgement, in length, in weight, or in measure. (Leviticus 19:33-35)

It is so easy to blame other for the wrong going of our civilisation.

One of the Sates which is so proud and in which many think they are the only superstate with the right way of living and the best way of life, brought forth a Catholic president (John F. Kennedy), a Baptist president (Jimmy Carter), a “born-again” president (George W. Bush) and this year, Mormons got all excited that they can go out and elect a Mormon president. For decades, they have been trading Democrats for Republicans, Republicans for Democrats, liberals for conservatives, and conservatives for liberals, and nothing has changed–except the problems kept getting worse, while many did not even notice it until 9/11, when they suddenly got to blame all the Muslim world for their ‘shit’ they were in (to use their own words.)!

Democracy, dignity and achievements

Ian de Silva may think he is living in the only state which was able to come to superhuman achievements, but that is doing violence against historic facts. He is wrongly convinced that there is not a single non-Western culture that indigenously produced a great democracy which continues to attract people from all over the world, because none of those cultures has ever produced a human-rights instrument as powerful as the Declaration or the Constitution.

Marcus Ampe in Christian values and voting not just a game let some rays of light shine on the misconception and the danger of the proud white population their supremacy. Though we as Christians recognise the ability of a lot of courageous people to leave the Old World to try to make a totally New World in the concept of a ‘for God worthy’ country. In that New World many of them got confronted with a sort of people they did not understand, nor their language, nor their habits, and because of the different cultures clashing a lot of blood was shed.

Tamuz, Nimrod and Semiramis or the Holy Trinity

Today lots of Americans do believe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, because it was written by white men from a Judeo-Christian ethos, the country they founded has become the most egalitarian nation in the world, a refuge for men and women of all races and religions. Though you can wonder how far they would like to go in their acceptance of other thinkers and other religions. Often we notice that it is much easier for them to accept persons who totally have some other believes than those who have similar, but still some important different believes, when they call themselves Christian. For example is it for many Americans impossible to live together with such people who call themselves Christian, because they follow the teachings of Jesus Christ (the Nazarene Jew Jeshua), but only believe in One God and not in the Holy Trinity. For a lot of Americans it is even impossible to accept that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was a Jew, because they consider him to be a Christian being killed by the Jews. Some even would say ‘horrible ‘ Jews, showing still their hate for that race, which according to the Bible is and shall be for ever, the People of God. (They seem to forget.)

Many Western people think it was the Judeo-Christian view of the human being, that gave the West its hospitals, charities and the language of the ”rights” of the weak. For them there does not seem as yet, an alternative narrative that can guarantee the inherent dignity of all, regardless of capacities. They argue that Ancient Greece and Rome, the cultures against which Christianity first competed, had little by way of philosophical reasoning that could guarantee the inherent worth of those lacking rational capacity or social utility. So infanticide was common and social welfare for the aged and dying was virtually non-existent, but that is totally incorrect to the facts of human history. In many non-believing communities there was already the dignity to take care of the elder and the sick, so much more than we can find today in those so called Christian countries, were many put the sick and elderly away in foster homes. In many industrialist states, those who are not found useful, for the society, are put away so that the population does not want to be confronted by them (mentally and physically handicapped.).

Yale’s great philosopher-theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff in his book “Justice: Rights and Wrongs” argues that a rational justification for treating humans as ”inestimably precious”, regardless of capacities, can only be found in a theistic framework. Only if the abandoned infant on the hills of ancient Rome or the estranged resident in a Sydney dementia unit is created in the image of God, can we secure an intellectual basis for treating both individuals with the same dignity we afford society’s most able.

In case that would be the truth, those Christians should better react swiftly accordingly. But also when this is not the truth, the Christians would better think about what Jesus had to tell the world. Jesus was a man who had the right to speak in the name of his Father, God, and who knew what it was not to be liked and to be scourged and spit at. Torture was not strange to him, and before it came so far he was aware of what was going to wait for him. But even in case he would not have known he told others not to oppress one another; but to fear his Father, which should be also our God:, as it was and is his God, the Most High.

Proud and downfall

The son of god knew very well his Scriptures and has probably also knew other theological writings, like Sirach 28:22 were is written: ” It shall not have rule over them that fear God, neither shall they be burned with the flame thereof.” In the many parables or stories Jesus told the people in the Middle East, he let them know how God was a loving Father, but one who demanded honesty and fidelity. As other believers in God had written, like Sirach, Jesus warned the onlookers not to exalt themselves, because this could bring the downfall. When we look at the United States this is perhaps which might be happening like in so many countries of the Capitalist world is happening. In many countries of the so called civilised world, who thought they had the best juridical and most democratic system we notice that many people do bring dishonour upon their soul, and so God discovers their secrets, and shall cast them down in the midst of the congregation, because they came not in truth to the fear of the Lord, but because of their heart is full of deceit. ( Sirach 1:30)

Even Jeshua or Jesus does not know when the Time of the End shall come

Those who know their Scriptures shall remember how God more than once changed the spirit of the king or ruler into mildness or made him more angry because the people had not listened to the advice of God, given by his prophets. One way or the other, until the Time of the End, people shall have to find systems to be able to live together. Until the return of Jesus God allows them to look for a good system to live with each other and to make the best of the world. But at the end all nations shall turn, and fear the Lord God truly, and shall bury their idols. (Tobit 14:6 ) and every one shall get to know that they had to fear the Lord of Lord of lords, the Elohim Hashem, Jehovah, the One and Only One God, who shall deliver all His followers out of the hand of all their enemies. (2 Kings 17:39 )

Wherefore now we should, as Christians, let the fear of the Lord be upon us; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with Jehovah, the Lord of Lord of Lords, our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts or bribes. (2 Chronicles 19:7 ) As many people in ancient times have been in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous, we should find enough reasons in that to be willing to learn to know what exactly this Lord of Lord of the lords wants from His flock. To be able to become in Christ we also should listen to his words and should recognise that he wanted that we got to know his Father. To get to know the father of Jesus we do have His letters or words brought to us by His chosen and appointed special writers and prophets. By getting to know what God told us we shall be able to find better ways of living. We shall be able to transform under the guidance God gives us in His Word, notated in the Holy Scriptures, the Bible. By reading more in those words we shall be able to come closer to God and by willing to praise His word, in God we shall be able to put our trust; not having to fear what flesh can do to us.

“In God (I will praise his word), In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can flesh do unto me?” (Psalms 56:4 ASV)

Those reading the Gospel shall get to know Christ Jesus and how he loved his Father. As such they shall learn to become eager to know even more about this special Father, who is willing to be our Father as well. This interest shall make it that not only the New Testament shall be looked at, but that ther shall come a sincere interest in the Old Testament, so that the words of God can enter the soul more.

In the end, when we follow Jesus we shall get to understand that getting to know the Almighty God is the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

Worldly books have become the bible of the people – 1931 Cover of Bezbozhnik, 1920s-1930s Soviet atheist magazine Bezbozhnik u stanka – 35 million unemployed in the capitalistic world

As in Roman times there is no fear of God before the eyes of many people living in the capitalist world. Lots having forgotten the promises which were brought by many prophets, like Abraham, Isaiah and Jesus. So many are not interested any more to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Most of the humans in the capitalist world their concern is to gather as much money as possible. They are not interested in what happens to nature or other created species after them. For those around them they do often not find so much interest. Surely submitting themselves one to another, in the fear of God, sounds as something ridiculous, something very absurd. And today many find it much more interesting to get more power by making others afraid of other people. The problem there is that so many have forgotten that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, to use to help each other, even when it would be our enemy. (2 Corinthians 7:1 ; Ephesians 5:21; 2 Timothy 1:7)

By faith Noah, being warned by God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. (Hebrews 11:7 )

Today we notice that not many a son honours his father and a worker his master, and you could blame it because not many listen to their father, teachers and are not interested to read in the Bible to learn the lessons from those old times. It is to the people themselves to decide “Whether it’s right in God’s eyes”, as for us Christians, there’s no question—we can’t keep quiet about what we’ve seen and heard, and should let others know what we do think. (Acts 4:19; Acts 4:20)

We ourselves should be careful, when we watch the world going its own way and should not even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life we had before we came a real Christian. (Romans 6:13 ) We should take our everyday, ordinary life — our sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Not blaming others for what is gone wrong in our own life, but trying to adjust our life in the ways of God. Not preferring to be popular and loving their way of living, but embracing what God wants for us and what He does for us, knowing that that is the only best thing we can do for Him, but also for ourselves and our beloved ones. (Romans 12:1)

When we face the world we should know that we do have our own responsibilities. It are we ourselves who are responsible for how our own children act or behave, as well for how those we brought up, our pupils, behave or act in the world we placed them. Or do we not realize that we had to learn from the Holy Scriptures and had to behave accordingly, giving a good example to those around us. We should have been working at our body and soul to make it such that our body could be as a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit. Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Our world is going the wrong way because many of us have not kept to the human instincts of normal behaviour. Having not allowed Gods Word to come over others by our way of living, acting and teaching, we excluded the Creator of all things in the works we wanted to do. God owns the whole works, but to let God shine in our works we do have to allow Him to enter us. So we do have to take care that people can see God in and through our body. Our firm decision should be to work from this focused centre: “One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat”. Us not loving those who are around us because they do not believe the same things as we do is not having Christ Jesus his love. He loved believers, non-believers and sinners. Christ’s love has to move us to such extremes, that we should be better doing than all those atheists and other believers doing good in this world. Thinking that a non-believer can not do any good work is wrong-thinking. We should know historical facts and also see that ages before Christ was born, also in places were there was not spoken of God, there were people who tried to do good for each other. Therefore we better put our arrogance at the doorstep and look at Christ, who was open for everybody. His love should have the first and last word in everything we do. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own. (1 Corinthians 6:20;2 Corinthians 5:14 ; 2 Corinthians 5:15)

Living according prescribed rules

We should not look with anger to others. We better should be filled with fear when faced with others sharing their faith. While we blame those Muslims who talk about God and the fear we should have, we better show them that we also are aware of the Wrath of God, and that we are also aware of the way we should live. But that we not only let them think that we ‘know’ what God wants. That we also let the other persons in our environment see that we are prepared to live according the teachings of Christ and according the Law of God.

The Seventh Angel of the Apocalypse Proclaiming the Reign of the Lord – Unknown Miniaturist, Spanish (active around 1180)

We should show others that we want to suit the action to the word. We do have to proceed from Gods Words to deeds, having a word and a blow over many generations. Looking at the wrong goings of the world, moaning about it and not doing anything against it is not going to solve the problem. Jesus has given his followers the task of proclaiming the Good News, but how many Christians do we see walking around and going from door to door proclaiming the Word of God? How many Christians profess, promulgate, publish, or let others hear their voice to ventilate their believes in God?

Instead of having the heart race when talking about Jesus, they are more afraid than those followers of Christ who several hundreds of years ago, were tortured for their believes. They were not afraid to die because they believe in the resurrection of Christ. They were not afraid to die because they had a certainty in their believe. Today when asked about their greatest fears you can find death and the fear to fail or ‘Fear of Falling’. In certain countries this fear of falling, is also transposed into a fear in falling into a fire of destruction or in a fire of damnation and torture. Instead of going for God because He loves us, they are going for God because they are afraid of getting into a hell which is for them a place of torture for ever. While the Biblical hell is just the grave, the end of everything, because by death the penalty is paid for our sins, and we do not have to pay once more.

The Self

One of the problems of this world is that the fear of God, which is part of the Natural Law of God written in men’s hearts, has made place for the fear of the own self. The problem is that far too many people’s hearts have grown callused and hard to the “inner voice” of moral consciousness. Most of the people are most concerned that everything would go all right with them, while they live here on earth, and that they would not fail in front of others. Their fear of death is not because of the wrath of God, but because they would not accept that when they die their life would come to an end, and that all those things they did on this earth, then would be worthless. That is their main concern.

While the natural fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for their mother and father. (Leviticus 19:3) and the fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for others, especially those who are disadvantaged. (Leviticus 19:14), people have put away their interest in others, surely when it are just plants or animals for them. Because the loss of the creation of God, so many things went wrong in nature. All the things our ancestors did return to us. Also their way of educating others, and their way of teaching and preaching about God, the Father, and about Jesus, the son and Saviour.

Getting or hiding loud noise?

Many have become afraid of ‘Loud Noises’ which make them think, but not of ‘Loud Noises’ which seem to entertain them, as the heavy music sounds. Public Speaking about God is the worst they could think of. They would rather die than speak publicly!They do not mind getting deaf because of the loud popular music, but they are afraid as death, for the noise of people talking about God.

Departing pleasures

They do not want to abandon certain pleasures they got to know from the new media. They love all the desires which can be gratified, by all the new tools. Lots of so called Christians prefer to think they shall be able to live for ever, because they had been baptised, and as such would never ever have to fear for not going to heaven. They are so much mistaken. Bible tells totally different things, but those they do not want to know because that would distort their picture of heaven and hell which makes them not to worry. And they do not want to worry about the future, they want to live today. It is this attitude of not wanting to know what would or what can happen in the future, which has brought also a lot of problems onto this world.

Many do not want to know that the evil lusting is going to bring them down, and not people coming from over their borders. In case everybody would do good in society, new ones would quickly been taken into that society and would not dare to do any thing wrong. The Evil (Satan in Hebrew) shall be as a thorn in the eye, and those wishing it to do such a thing would know they shall have to face a righteous penalty. But the example we have given to other the last few years is that we just all could do as we wanted and that many, also Christians, made it a sport to lure others, so that they could have the best of the world and gain as much money as possible.

The threatening of governments have come to nothing, many words of persons do not have any value any more, because so many people do not keep to their word. The ease of playing with words and actions made that our world has derailed.

Priorities

Those who would like it put in order again, should first make work to get to know the Word of God, fearing Him, instead of the people around them.

The Bible warns there will be no peace in our lives until we make peace with God through His Son, Jesus (Yeshua), the promised Messiah.

Jesus warned his pupils they could have to face persecution because he was sending them out like sheep surrounded by wolves. Being tenants in this world having to sojourn with other religions we should be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
For us today we may see those things happening about what Christ talked, when he spoke of followers of Christ being handed over to councils, being brought before governors and kings, because of faith in Jesus, as a witness to them and the Gentiles. We have to accept that we shall come to live in a time when brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And we will be hated by everyone because of Jesus’ name.

Knowing that, we should find confidence in the words of the Gospel, and compare the evangils with what was written many years before and promised by Bod speaking through the prophets. When we take notice of what is written in the Holy Scriptures, we should not be afraid, because the one who endures to the end will be saved.

But we should take up the tasks given by Jesus because it is expected that the Good News Tellers will not finish going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. “A disciple is not greater than his teacher, nor a slave greater than his master. It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they defame the members of his household! Fear God, Not Man.”

Of whom do you want to be afraid?

We should not be afraid of men of this world, for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. We should not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, we have to fear the One who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

We should let others get to know Christ Jesus and should never deny him before people, because he will than also deny that person also before his Father in heaven.
Yes religions may have set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. But in this all it is important that the right choice is made and that we dare to take up our own cross to follow Jesus. (Matthew 10:16-38)

Commands Hermas 13:6 whosoever therefore shall depart from all evil desires, shall live unto God; but they that are subject unto them shall die for ever. for this evil lusting is deadly. do thou therefore put on the desire of righteousness, and being armed with the fear of the lord, resist all wicked lusting.
Commands Hermas 13:10 and I said, sir, I would know how to serve that desire which is good? hearken, said he, fear God and put thy trust in him, and love truth, and righteousness, and do that which is good.
Commands Hermas 13:22 and turn yourselves to the lord your God, and forsake the devil and his pleasures, because they are evil, and bitter, and impure. and fear not the devil, because he has no power over you.
Commands Hermas 13:27 for if ye resist him, he will flee away with confusion from you. but they that are not full in the faith, fear the devil, as if he had some great power. for the devil tries the servants of God and if he finds them empty, he destroys them.
Commands Hermas 13:33 be not then afraid in the least of his threatenings, for they are without force, as the nerves of a dead man. but hearken unto me, and fear the lord almighty, who is able to save and to destroy you; and keep his commands, that ye may live unto God.
Similitudes Hermas 1:9 but what ye shall do for the name of the lord, ye shall find in your city, and shall have joy without sadness or fear. wherefore covet not the riches of the heathen; for they are destructive to the servants of God.
Similitudes Hermas 6:28 I said unto him; sir, I intreat you still to show me now one thing. what, said he, dost thou ask? I said unto him; are they who depart from the fear of God, tormented for the same time that they enjoyed their false delight and pleasures? he answered me: they are tormented for the same time.

and let us lay aside our wicked works which proceed from ill desires; that through his mercy we may be delivered from the condemnation to come.
now more resembles the oppressed nations that those people fled.

(Nehemiah 5:15 The Scriptures 1998+): “But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people, and took from them bread and wine, besides forty sheqels of silver. Their servants also oppressed the people, but I did not do so, because of the fear of Elohim. “

Previously:

To be continued:

A world in denial
Fear and protectionl
Condemnation of the World and Illustration of Justification

Fear:

Additional Dutch articles:

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Multicultural apocalypse: Stealth jihad has taken root in Europe and is coming to America (worldnewstribune.com)
Geert Wilders spoke at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado on July 1. The following is the complete transcript of his speech.
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However, if you really love freedom, you have to speak the truth. If not, we will fall victim to Islam, like earlier the people in the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, India and Indonesia fell victim to it.
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As the Muslim population is concentrated in urban areas, many European cities have very large Islamic concentrations. We are confronted with headscarves and burkas, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor-killings.
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The rise of Islam also means the rise of sharia law in our judicial systems. In Europe we have sharia wills, sharia schools, sharia banks. The introduction of elements of sharia law in our societies creates a system of legal apartheid. Sharia law systematically discriminates groups of people. …
It’s out with the old as Christian values fall away (smh.com.au)
Given the Judeo-Christian origins of our long-held tradition of caring for the frail, census data indicating the demise of Christianity and the ageing of Australia’s population could herald a perfect social storm.
Takedown: Divided We Stand (persephonemagazine.com)
“The essential difference between liberals and conservatives” is not that conservatives are independent and liberals are leeches. The essential difference between liberals and conservatives is in their political beliefs.
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liberals and regressives and Marxists are all the same, which is a tired joke.
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Nobody owns history. Nobody. And if you want to “keep” it, you should probably keep what came before, with the Native American culture. As far as symbols go? I mean, they’re just symbols. The flag is important, but not because of the colors or the shape — it is important because of what it stands for. Symbols really aren’t important in and of themselves.
+ Takedown: American-Americans
The 6 Most Offensive Things Said in the Wake of the Aurora Shooting (alternet.org)
After reeling in shock from the horrifying details of the Aurora, Colorado massacre, many of us were soon reeling from the callous, exploitative reactions.
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There is a race to come up with the most farfetched things to blame–anything, essentially, besides the ease of purchasing firearms and a system that doesn’t provide for the mentally ill.
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During a radio interview on the Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country. “You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place,” Gohmert said.
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Mike Huckabee blames sin.
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Extremist evangelicals Jerry Newcombe and Fred Jackson blame the liberal media, say victims who aren’t Christian are in hell.
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Internet conspiracy theorists blame government, Obama, Illuminati.
Rep. Louie Gohmert apologizes for earlier comments linking Colorado shootings to attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs (trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com)
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, issued a statement over the weekend apologizing for comments he made on Friday linking the shootings at a Colorado theater to “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.”
Humanists denounce Rep. Gohmert’s comments linking Colorado shootings to “attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” (secularnewsdaily.com)
“Rep. Louis Gohmert truly tortures logic when he concludes that this violence had something to do with perceived attacks on majority faith in America,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “At a time when families are mourning in the wake of this tragedy, Gohmert used it as an opportunity to push a religious agenda.”Gohmert suggested the shootings could have been avoided if the country placed a higher value on God when he stated, “We’ve threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God’s name, they’re going to be jailed … I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don’t want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present.”
‘Judeo-Christianity’ – More Jewish mocking and hatred of Jesus Christ (theuglytruth.wordpress.com)
Amy Aremia: Judeo-Christianity are in direct opposition and do not belong together….Christianity brought man out of the darkness of slavery and gave him human dignity and the freedom to make his own way in life.
The Right Wing’s Psychotic Version of God (planetpov.com)
“Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important. Whether it’s John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people … Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters … We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country.
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Welcome to the Dominionist Christianity of the Religious Right. It is a travesty of Christianity and the message of peace, love and compassion that was central to the teachings of Jesus.This cult version of Christianity instead obsesses about dominance, hatred and the triviality of the lives of any who aren’t directly supporting or promoting their goals. It is a form of Christianity that packages up all of the traits of their alleged adversary, The Devil, and coats them with a sweet veneer of victimhood, self-righteousness and superiority that makes it easy for them to swallow all that nastiness and keep it inside of them in the name of “faith”.
The antidote for public-school indoctrination (wnd.com)
If you want to see what’s wrong and right with our country, watch Bradlee Dean’s ‘My War’ DVD series. It’s full of surprises.
Are You Full Of Yourself? (highlyfavored74.wordpress.com)
Am I an empty vessel for God to use or am I full of myself ? This means am I worthy to stand before God, and if so will I be able to say to my Father who art in Heaven – Lord, I did it with your help! When you are full of yourself you are selfish! Always thinking of self and less of others.
Self Denial and Evangelical Parenting (thechristianpundit.org)
On the weekend I was talking with a mother of teenaged girls about the statistic that 80% of evangelical, college age kids have premarital sex. Obviously, there’s a problem, and this mother was concerned for the future of the church.

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Judeo-Christian values and liberty

Posted on July 24, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Education, Manners and Association, News and Politics, Religion | Tags: Americans, Christians, Creationism, Fear God, Freedom, George Washington, God, Health Care, Human-Rights, Jerry Newcombe, Jesus, Judeo-Christian, judge roy moore, Liberal Christians, Mitt Romney, Moral Values, Morality, Native Americans, Praying, Public Decency, Punishement, Roy Moore, Teaching, Ten Commandments, Tradition, United States, United States Constitution, United States of America, Violence, Weapon, Worshipping |

Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries can’t help but feeling that to some extent, The United States of America is reaping what they’ve been sowing as a society.

In one way he may be right, but in an other he may be totally wrong by pointing his damning finger to for him too liberal Christians.

Everywhere in the capitalist countries we have seen a move of people’s attitude considering belief, worship and their relationship with God. In many, so called civilised places, the citizens said to God, “Get out of the public arena.” but they also often said: “Get out of my life.”

Lots of people are not interested any more in good customs and traditions about decent morals. Ethics are far away to look for. Nobody looks up any more if some one offends common or public decency. The decorum has just become some scenery of the older generation. The younger ones do think you are not with time if you do not change partners regularly to have some good fun. Love has got a physical meaning instead of a psychological relation.

A Ten Commandments monument which includes the command to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But some of those who do not mind to watch certain television shows of lesser quality and movies with a lot of, all sorts of, violence, do mind when tradition are disputed. In the States we, for example, notice they do mind that the government would take away the morning tradition of greeting the flag and praying all together.

Jerry Newcombe said: “I’ll never forget what an Alabama black pastor said to me one time when I interviewed him about Judge Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge. He said: “All across America people should stand with Judge Moore about the Ten Commandments. Why? Because when they took prayer out of school, you didn’t hear about kids killing each other, about them bringing dope to school, shooting the teachers, you didn’t hear about that. You see what I’m saying? That’s what’s wrong. We need more God-fearing.”

Does he really belief that in those countries where they say no prayers before the classes start, people are shooting at each other like nothing. No they do not in such countries, as in Belgium, because they do not allow weapons to be carried in those countries, while in the States lots of people do think they can’t defend themselves without something that can kill the other person. Are they not able to find other weapons that can not kill peoples or animals, to defend themselves, if they are not able to do it with words or with body language?
Also lots of Christians do not keep the Sabbath, though they find it important to have it engraved in stone before them so that they should not forget?

Do they forget in those states that Jesus demanded his pupils not to take up any weapon? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, even mended the ear of the person who was going to bring him closer to death.

Newcombe argues that the founders gave the American people a system where voluntary God-fearing was the underpinning of civility in society. “The more internal restraints people have, the less need they have for external restraints. (And the converse is true.) That’s why I can’t understand the ongoing crusade of those who want to remove any vestige of Judeo-Christian in the public arena. All they’re doing is making everything worse for everyone else.”

But they forget that we do not have to throw away certain Judeo-Christian values to be democratic and respective for people of other faiths or non believers. Those who have a believe, Advaïta, Animism, Asatru, Buddhism, Confusianism, Christianism (inclusive Gnostic), Haptonom, Hindu, Ikwanism, Jainism, Ikwanism, Kabbalism, Legalism, Manichaeïsm, Mazdaznan, Miticcism, Mithraism, Muslim, Non-thitics, Occultism, Paganism, Pantheism, Platonism, Satanism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, Theosophism, Universalism, Wicca, just to name the most important wones we encounter in our communities, in a democratic system, should be free to live according to their believes, but should also know they should never impose their believe to others.

Freedom (Photo credit: sacrifice_87)

Freedom means respecting the freedom of the other. When two or more people are together they should know and respect that they could have more than one opinion.

A State wanting Freedom, should take care that such freedom can be guaranteed to everybody living in that community. Therefore they should look to the common values and should take care nobody in that society can get hurt, physically or psychologically. They should also take care that no professional organisations could make use of certain systems to enrich themselves on others. (Think of private insurance companies who could misuse their power, by setting somebody out of the policy-protection when he has become too ill or too old.)

For that reason it is also better custody is taken by the government to provide a safety net or at least some security, so that those who are less fortunate in life can be helped. That is a matter or loving your neighbour: willing to provide also for him or her when he is in trouble.

George Washington may have highlighted the source of morality: “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” This is one very important element in the choices we want to make: Morality. But that has nothing to do with carrying weapons or having to impose those who believe something different to act and do the same worship. Worshipping belongs in your own environment. In your own house you can pray, in a public place you can pray, in a special provided building, like a church or temple you may pray, but nobody should force any body to pray with him. Prayingshould be free to all. And everybody should be free to pray thea way they want to do it. If they prefer doing this kneeling, so let them do it; if they prefer it standing up arms wide open, let them do it; if they prefer to dance and sing, let them do it, but before all let them never disturb or offend others with it.

The controversial Ten Commandments display at the Texas State Capitol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In case a government would like to have prayers said in school, before class starts, which prayers and which songs are they going to enforce on all those present (atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslim and others)? Best is that State and religion are totally split. Religion is something persona and can and may not imposed on somebody else without his free will.

Imagine for example that Mitt Romney wins the election and agrees that the flag shall be greeted before the classes start, and that everybody joins in with singing and praying, after having listened to a reading out of the Book of Mormon. Because as president elected by the people they have chosen to follow his wisdom. And the Christian brothers of Romney who would be very pleased to see polygamy at last allowed by legislation, would demand him to get the Mormon prayers said before every action taken in public.

Are the Americans going to stay to ignore the religions of the native Americans, or are they going to introduce their religion as the frame to follow in the National educational system?
Many Native Americans would agree that the American people have gone far away from their gods and therefore have become so bad. Because in their religion there is the focus around nature, and around having unity in the family. Today there is not much unity to find in the many divorced families everywhere in the capitalist countries. They did not focus on ‘having’ and owning’ but knew that they were blessed by being able to be a part of this universe. They know that they are tenants of this system, while many Christians forgot that as a leaseholder of this world they should have respect for everything and for everything in the Creation of God.

Peyote’s illegal status in the United States prevents many non-Indians from participating in peyote ceremonies and becoming members of specific tribal religions.

The landscape, animals, plants, and other environmental elements play a major role in the religion of Native Americans. Many of the legends passed down were an attempt to explain events that occurred in nature. are the modern Americans wiling to accept Native American religion in their midst? Is Romney to include a number of practices, ceremonies, and traditions in the schools and in public ceremonies?

Are the voters for having the Catholic or other Christian symbols prepared to allow the symbols of the original American population? Are the modern Americans willing to accept that as Christian celebration are kept also native ceremonies can be brought publicly in honour of a number of events? The practice of taking certain hallucinogens was commonly used to gain greater insight or communicate with the gods, so would it be reasonable than to legalise such drugs? Are is one community saying to an other one that they may not come in communication with their god? Ceremonies may include feasts, music, dances, and other performances. All believers should do that in theri own environment but leaving it open to others to join in or to be a guest.

But the same as the original American population, the native Indians cannot demand of the others to join their festivities and worshipping, the others have even lesser right to demand such a thing in a land that they conquered and took away from those natives. Also they may not demand it from others whose ancestors just fled those chains of different sorts of religions and political systems.

The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is a United States Federal Law and a joint resolution of Congress that provides protection for tribal culture and traditional religious rights such as access to sacred sites, freedom to worship through traditional ceremony, and use and possession of sacred objects for American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians. It was passed on August 11, 1978.

Why should the Ten Commandments or the Mozaic Law be displayed in a public place, or why can it not be displayed? Everybody living in a free community should have respect for other believers, history and tradition, and for the majority in the community. In case a community wants to set up a monument or a stone resembling the Ten Commandments, this should be possible. Having them place in a house of justice this could be a way to remind people of certain values to which many people would like to hold on. There should be no ‘No’ against letting others know values behind which one can find themselves. But by placing certain symbols in public places one should also accept symbols of other beliefs to be placed on those premisses as well. How much do the Americans accept the symbols, actions, monuments of the Native Americans? In the first place should they not have first priority to bring on their totems, symbols, way of worship, in public? They were the inhabitants of the land which was conquered by the white Europeans. Would it be right that those white Europeans keep imposing their tradition on this native folk? Is that the idea of liberty where they want to stand for: “You may be free, but this means that you only do and say and think as we do say and command you to think”?

All the people in the United States should remember why they forefathers left the Old Country. They should be glad their ancestors dared to take such a dangerous trip, and be proud for what they could establish. But they should never forget the dream so many of those ex-Europeans had to go to a place where they could be free, meaning not bounded.

Today it looks like you have many Americans who are afraid and are against new laws which would bring more equality and more recognition of other cultures and attitudes. Today so many fight against those people who want to continue in the line of their ancestors their dreams to bring more freedom for Everybody, and not just for a few rich or lucky people.

In America’s early years, a “future state of rewards and punishment” was an important concept, but nothing says this has to be thrown away. What we have noticed the last few years is that it was the plebs wanting to do whatever it wanted to do, and the rich trying to make more money no matter what the consequences where for others. The loss of values, moral, ethics and respect for the environment (human, animal and plant), that has caused the humans to be derailed.

Common Decency (Photo credit: Burns!)

Though we as believers, may never think that others do not have values or ethics, we may not think we are superior to them. In all sorts of folks there where some rules which made living together possible. All cultures have certain values. But what we can notice is that by the Christian population a lot got far away from the teacher, they are supposed to follow, his teachings. Instead of looking in their own bosom they want to put the problem by the other ones.

Instead of striving division among themselves they should have concentrated more on getting the flock to keep to the Ten Commandments of God. Instead of blaming others we should all acknowledge blame.

It is high time to search one’s own heart and to get a clean conscience.

Making a free country implies that there is the will to open everything up for others and to give them freedom to believe their own things, but whit the promise that the other person also allows the other the same freedom.

That freedom does not mean everybody can just do as he likes, because they there would be an infringement on the other. It also does not have to mean that everything has to go unpunished. Punishment and discipline are necessary to lead everything in good order.

Those who call themselves Christian should know that we are blessed to have the Holy Scriptures to give us guidance and to teach us how to go through this life and how to win the race. We should make more use of those Scriptures to teach our own flock and those people around us.

“But you, stay in what you have learned and trusted, having known from whom you have learned, and that from a babe you have known the Set-apart Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for deliverance through belief in Messiah יהושע{Jeshua}. All Scripture is breathed by Elohim and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for setting straight, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of Elohim might be fitted, equipped for every good work. ” (2 Timothy 3:14-17 The Scriptures 1998+)
“The proverbs of Shelomoh son of Dawidsovereign of Yisra’For knowing wisdom and discipline, For understanding the words of understanding, For receiving the discipline of wisdom, Righteousness, right-ruling, and straightness; For giving insight to the simple, Knowledge and discretion to the young. The wise one hears and increases learning, And the understanding one gets wise counsel, For understanding a proverb and a figure, The words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of יהוה {Jehovah}is the beginning of knowledge {1}; Fools despise wisdom and discipline. {Footnote: 1See 9:10, Ps. 111:10}. ” (Proverbs 1:1-7 The Scriptures 1998+)

Those who know wisdom and instruction should take care that from the beginning, when the children are small, they shall get used to discipline and learn to have respect for everything around them. This has to happen at home in the first place. And it is because so many children did not learn such things any more that when they became adult they were not keeping to those values any more. The education system wanting to have enough pupils and by that enough money to stay in existence offered certain values and ways of discipline to keep their students. Often under pressure of parents discipline was loosened and teachers were not allow to punish any more. To say now that it are the liberal Christians who are at fault is not justified. The parents and that generation who prefered to have it easy are at fault. Life is just not easy. We do have toe learn by falling and getting up.

Because not all parents can provide enough possibilities the State (government) has to take care that everybody shall be able to receive proper education. And that education should be free of any bias, giving the proper values to give the opportunity for everybody to be respected in the whole community. Either the State could choose to provide moral or educational courses as an option or people should take care of that extra education themselves, as in previous days in the Sunday school. In how many Christian countries are there still Sunday schools, and people going to it regularly?

“The heart is crooked{1} above all, and desperately sick – who shall know it? {Footnote: 1See 7:24, 16:12, 18:12, 23:17}. ” (Jeremiah 17:9 The Scriptures 1998+)

The community should take care that nobody can be deceived and has the opportunity to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the words of understanding, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness and justice and equity, to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion, that the wise man may hear, and increase in learning, and that the man of understanding may attain to sound counsels, to understand a proverb, and a figure, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

The fear of God of many should have them taking on the right attitude, so that they can become an example to follow. In such an instance no atheist or different believer would mind following that right attitude. Though we must always remember that whatever is done, the foolish always shall despise wisdom and instruction.

Putting up no boarders, or reasons why not to attend a school; like being Catholic, Protestant or of an other denomination, the government should provide schools with the rightly trained teachers, who keep to the values and moral of the majority, but allowing also further private schools which can or should be able to provide education in the way they self prefer. So in case they want to learn creationism, it can be presented in a private school as long they learn also biology and history. But to ask to have such a teaching for everybody can not be demanded. What can be proposed is that it also becomes a subject which can be chosen to follow. By letting to choose subject everybody can stay free either to follow such a course or to ignore it. For praying in such or such way, also can be done in the appropriate class, be it a conservative or liberal Jewish teaching or a classic or more progressive Christian teaching, or even an Islam class.

The world has to recognise it has a multicultural population and that there is a globalisation which we have to follow. We all have to grow to one united people.

It is very strange that when Osama bin Laden was finally killed in May 2011, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released that 61 percent of the public thought he went to Hell, as a place of torture for ever, that so many Americans do live a live which gives the impression it does not matter what they do. They even are not afraid of the impression of them, what they would leave behind. But it is know and not after life they have to prove themselves. It is also know, in this live that they and we should take care to be ready to be able to enter the Kingdom of God. When we die it is to late to do anything about it. Then we missed all chances. Now is the moment to run the race laid in front of us.

On the 9° Av (27th of July) the Summer Olympic Games may start, but on that remembrance day we should see Babylon in front of us.

While the world is preferring bread and games, we should offer them better ways, by allowing good education, care for the psychological as well as the physical health. This shall only be possible in case enough people are willing to contribute financially to make such things possible. Not willing to contribute to a National Health System and to a Public School System, can be more a selfish thing than an excuse that it would not be catholic or protestant enough. We should show ‘Babylon’ the way of love and sincere interest.

The Christian value of taking care of the needy should be the free way not only for the good Samaritan but also for the enemy to get to know the real brotherly love as, long before us, Jesus has given his brotherly love to many, believers but also to non-believers and sinners.

Please do read:

A dark night indeed
Another senseless act of random violence in America has made the headlines. This time there was a random shooting in a movie theatre, during the opening night of The Dark Knight Rises. This was the midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver.
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I can’t help but feel that to some extent, we’re reaping what we’ve been sowing as a society.
Newcombe: CO Shooting a Result of the Fact that Americans Don’t Fear God or Hell
AFA News Director Says Liberal Churches, Media Share Responsibility for Colorado Shooting
Jackson maintained that unlike in the communities of forty years ago, liberals in the media and churches, along with movies and the internet, have “have come together to give us these kinds of incidents.”
The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
The Spirit of God brings love, hope and freedom
No time for immorality
Native Americans
Indian Symbols
Native American Religion
Native Americans Chart

Also of interest:

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The antidote for public-school indoctrination (wnd.com)
In this day of public-school indoctrination and even political correctness infecting the American church, what can lovers of truth and liberty do to counteract the cultural rot impacting our kids?The uncompromising pastor and musician Bradlee Dean took up that question and built a controversial but resolute ministry sharing the truth of God, freedom and personal responsibility by taking it directly to young people – and the results have been jaw-dropping.
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“If you want to see what’s wrong and right with our country, watch Bradlee Dean’s ‘My War’ DVD series. It’s full of surprises.”
Multicultural apocalypse: Stealth jihad has taken root in Europe and is coming to America (worldnewstribune.com)
From Holland: Geert Wilders spoke at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado on July 1. The following is the complete transcript of his speech.
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Denver is also privileged to be the home of Colorado Christian University and the Centennial Institute with its motto “Faith, family and freedom”. Your motto shows that you have your priorities right. Faith, family and freedom are the pillars of our Judeo-Christian civilization and need to be defended.
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As the Muslim population is concentrated in urban areas, many European cities have very large Islamic concentrations. We are confronted with headscarves and burkas, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor-killings.
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The number of people who organize their lives according to Islamic requirements is growing, especially among young people. Among 15-year-old German Muslims, 40 percent consider Islam more important than democracy. Among Muslim university students in Britain, 40 percent support Sharia. One in three of those students consider it legitimate to kill in the name of Islam.
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Cultural relativism is weakening the West day by day. Government leaders, lawyers, judges, churches, trade unions, media, academia, charities – all of them are blinded by political correctness and are condoning Islam. As a result of cultural relativism a little bit of the free West dies each day.
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Multiculturalism made us open our borders to those who cannot be assimilated; it made us tolerate the intolerant, and now intolerance is annihilating tolerance. We should, in the name of tolerance, claim the right not to tolerate the people who are intolerant to us anymore; we should, in the name of self-preservation, not allow those who refuse to assimilate to our values to enter our countries anymore.
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My friends, you and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the values and ideals of our common heritage. In order to preserve our nations and our homes, in order to pass our heritage on to our children, in order to survive, we must stand together. Otherwise we will be submerged in the uniform Nation of Islam. That is what we do not want to happen.
How not to respond to a tragedy (maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com)
After the Columbine massacre, for example, then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) blamed science textbooks for the murders
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In 2007, after the Virginia Tech massacre, Newt Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting “situation ethics,”
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after the slayings in Aurora, Louie Gohmert weighed in with some stupidity of his own.
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During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.
“Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important,” he said. “Whether it’s John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people … Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters. We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country.”
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in the mind of this strange Republican congressman, a madman killed 12 people because of … the separation of church and State? The First Amendment is to blame for a shooting spree in a movie theater?If decency had any place in American politics, this would be an immediate career-ender for the ridiculous congressman from Texas. Some political missteps are simply unforgivable.
Humanists denounce Rep. Gohmert’s comments linking Colorado shootings to “attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” (secularnewsdaily.com)
“Rep. Louis Gohmert truly tortures logic when he concludes that this violence had something to do with perceived attacks on majority faith in America,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “At a time when families are mourning in the wake of this tragedy, Gohmert used it as an opportunity to push a religious agenda.”
Gohmert: Obama Encouraging War On Christian And Jewish Faiths (secularnewsdaily.com)
Discussing accusations that the director of a federal cemetery in Houston removed religious references from the cemetery, Gohmert claimed that the government was trying to make secular humanism the established religion of the land. The congressman went on to suggest that President Obama and his administration was working closely with the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a “war on Chrisitan beliefs and actually Jewish beliefs,” and Perkins agreed that the administration is “sympathetic to if not embracing the Islamic religion”
‘NHS doctors have a duty of care that does not include proselytising’: BHA comments as Christian GP investigated following complaint (secularnewsdaily.com)
Dr Richard Scott, a former missionary and a lay preacher, is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, the sister legal organisation of the socially conservative lobby group Christian Concern, which aims to ‘introduce a Christian voice into law, the media and government’. The BHA has reported on a number of cases raised by the Christian Legal Centre on the grounds of discrimination, including those of a Christian registrar and a couple who wished to foster children, and the subsequent dismissal of these arguments in the courts.
Gohmert Blames ‘Attacks on Judeo-Christian Beliefs’ for Colorado Massacre (dokmz.wordpress.com)
“You know what really gets me, a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this.”
Let’s keep America exceptional (humanevents.com)
America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, but today many of us hesitate to voice such values lest this or that immigrant group might take offense. Consequently, we have become a ship without a compass, not knowing whence we came or where we are going.How can a nation that once stunned the world by its superhuman achievements castrate itself into such sheepish timidity where its people now hesitate to celebrate their Judeo-Christian patriotism? The answer is fairly simple—America has turned its back on its founding values. It is an apostasy that is particularly poignant on the Fourth of July.
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In fact, if all cultures are equally relevant and respectable, then they must be equally capable—yet why is there not a single non-Western culture that indigenously produced a great democracy which continues to attract people from all over the world?
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Take the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They were written by white men from a Judeo-Christian ethos—and the country they founded has become the most egalitarian nation in the world, a refuge for men and women of all races and religions. Despite the liberal claims about the wonderful accomplishments of non-Western cultures, none of those cultures has ever produced a human-rights instrument as powerful as the Declaration or the Constitution.
BREAKING: “American Freedom Law Center” (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
Through AFLC, Yerushalmi and Muise seek a return to what they describe as “America’s founding commitment to receive God’s continued blessing for America.” Yerushalmi commented, “AFLC will fight for faith and freedom by advancing and defending America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundation through litigation, education, and public policy programs. Fighting for our Judeo-Christian values is more than simply defending religious liberty; it is fighting for the very survival of our Nation.” He added, “Throughout history, great nations have fallen from within. Make no mistake, America is a blessed Nation, but only so long as it remains faithful to the Judeo-Christian values upon which it was founded.”
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“To great effect, elite secular progressives are systematically assailing and destroying our Nation’s moral foundation. Driven by a transnational world view that is hostile to our Nation’s Judeo-Christian values, progressives are zealously sweeping religion from the public square, foisting sharia law and other harmful international precedents into our courts and Constitution, assaulting the traditional family, and weakening our national defense by — among other things — undermining the strength of our military through social engineering and political correctness. Our traditional liberties hang in balance. And for good or ill, this battle for America’s soul is being waged in the courtrooms across America.”
Louie Gohmert suggests the shootings could have been avoided if the country had not lost faith in God (freakoutnation.com)
People are quick to lay the blame or invoke God in all things, such as George Zimmerman recently stating that Trayvon Martin’s shooting was part of God’s plan. Gohmert is part of the recent McCarthism-like witch hunt, so his voice in the Aurora shootings, is nullified by his distinct bias.
Romney understands America (wnd.com)
Most American universities seek to graduate men and women who are as committed to secularism as nearly all the members of faculty are. In contrast, at traditional Christian and Jewish schools, the aim is, as Romney said, to produce students who know “whom [they] will serve.”What Romney is asking is this: If one is not morally accountable to God, to whom or what is one morally accountable? Most universities will respond: to one’s conscience. But those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values do not trust the conscience alone. What Nazi or Communist mass murderer was not at peace with his conscience? The conscience is as easily manipulated as the heart (the heart being the other guide to behavior among most college graduates).
You can’t separate politics and religion… nor should you try. (boilingthefrogs.wordpress.com)
It takes intentional deception or just plain ignorance to believe that our Founding Fathers intended or would tolerate any restrictions on religion. They did place heavy restrictions on Government…. restrictions that have been blatantly and repeatedly violated, shredded, burned, beaten, stabbed, electrocuted and sodomized by government.
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no matter how hard you try, you cannot separate politics and religion. More importantly, and contrary to the secular-left hand-wringers who hyperventilate at the mere thought of Christians… the result is not ‘one extreme or the other.’ In fact, even in the perfect Judeo-Christian world, Judeo-Christian teachings do not call for a theocracy, nor should it. But no one has EVER addressed this highly volatile subject more beautifully or more wisely than our Founding Fathers.
Greenberg’s Muslim remarks widely decried|Congressional candidate cites ‘cult’ (rep-am.com)
Congressional candidate Mark Greenberg put himself on the defensive Thursday when he called Islam “a cult in many respects,” during a live WNPR interview.
Campaign seeks to unleash God’s Spirit on election (wnd.com)
There’s a new campaign that puts Election Day 2012 in the bull’s-eye, but organizers say it’s not about a political or social issue, or about who gets in Congress or the White House. It’s not even, really, about people.It seeks to turn God loose on the nation.The “40 Days to Save America” campaign has been launched by a who’s who list of Christian leaders who say the Bible explains in simple terms the solution to whatever troubles a nation, from social turmoil to financial stress to a failure of faith.
In the News: ‘GOP struggles to banish ghost of Jeremiah Wright’ (awitchylife.wordpress.com)
Romney:“Without question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Christian philosophy is an integral part of our foundation is really an extraordinary thing. I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like America to be more secular. And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we must be a less Christian nation.”
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How does the idea that the US is a “Christian nation” still find a way to live? The US is a nation of many different faiths and beliefs, and clinging to this idea that it is one way and only one way is putting a stranglehold on attempts to move beyond the belief and the politics associated with it.
Giles case settled: Ten Commandments removed (secularnewsdaily.com)
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski accepted a settlement and ended the lawsuit between a Giles County, Va., parent and student and the Giles County School Board on July 3. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed the suit last fall.The school board has agreed that the Ten Commandments will not be posted in any school “unless and until there is precedent in the Fourth Circuit or United States Supreme Court allowing the posting of the text of the Ten Commandments in the public schools.”
School board candidate Kemple calls foul on fake website (tbo.com)
Terry Kemple, a candidate for the countywide seat on the Hillsborough County School Board, said he plans to fight back against an invisible foe who has set up a bogus website maligning him.
It’s out with the old as Christian values fall away (smh.com.au)
Given the Judeo-Christian origins of our long-held tradition of caring for the frail, census data indicating the demise of Christianity and the ageing of Australia’s population could herald a perfect social storm.The 2011 census makes clear that Christian affiliation is diminishing, falling 7 per cent over the past decade to 61 per cent. The slack has been picked up by the ”nones”, those claiming ”no religion”, with almost 5 million of us, or 22.3 per cent, turning our backs on God (or, at least, on God’s registered brands). That’s up 7 per cent since 2001.

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Of course, most of us love our grandmas. We don’t need religion to tell us to look after them. But as more Australians move into high-care facilities and dementia units, sometimes at a great distance from family, society will need a solid intellectual ground for increasing contributions to those who can no longer give back.Ancient Greece and Rome, the cultures against which Christianity first competed, had little by way of philosophical reasoning that could guarantee the inherent worth of those lacking rational capacity or social utility. So infanticide was common and social welfare for the aged and dying was virtually non-existent.Christianity changed this. It inherited from the Jews a theology of human dignity and a program of social welfare, and added the thought that Christ had died for the world, even for the lowly and neglected. Compassion was due to all, especially to the overlooked. And so was born the tradition of ”charity”.
Humans And Other Animals (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Although few people today would be happy reducing animals to the level of unthinking, unfeeling objects in the manner of Descartes, it’s true that most of us still assume that the dividing line between humans and all other animals is one of kind rather than degree.Yet recent studies have tended to argue that other species have developed notions of personhood, display astonishing levels of consciousness, often live in societies and employ culture, language, tools and symbolism in everyday interactions to a far, far greater extent than previously thought possible.
‘Ten Commandments’ Judge Roy Moore: Secularism leads to Sharia law(rawstory.com)

In an interview with conservative talk show host Steve Deace last week, Roy Moore opined that “a government that is denying God” was also allowing Sharia law to take hold.

The Republican candidate explained that he had no regrets after the Alabama Court of the Judiciary was forced to strip him of the chief justice title in 2003 because he rejected a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse.
Roy Moore on his Ten Commandments monument (reassuringquotes.wordpress.com)
Naturally the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center – also called the SPLC – which also eventually brought suit against me were happy to play on such confusion. They claimed that I had “sneaked in the monument in the middle of the night”.
Don’t blame Darwin for theater shootings (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
“I doubt that religion had anything to do with these murders, but religion is so quick to point the finger at science and evolution when they happen,” Coyne wrote on his “Why Evolution Is True” blog. “So much for Rick Warren, the man Barack Obama chose to give the invocation at his inauguration in 2009.”
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On the flip side, some atheists suggested that Christianity was to blame, capitalizing on reports that Holmes came from a Presbyterian family. On the “Debunking Christianity” blog, Cathy Cooper argues that Christian belief encourages the idea that all people are sinful, but that all believers are saved by faith alone. “Christianity provides believers with a basis for the belief that they are absolved from taking responsibility for their own bad behavior,” she writes.
Egypt ex-MP guilty of indecency (bbc.co.uk)
A radical Islamist politician in Egypt has been convicted in absentia of violating public decency after police found him fondling a woman in a car.
Ali Wanis was sentenced to a year in prison for the incident and six months for abusing the policemen. The woman involved got a six month jail term.
Don’t blame the shootings on Darwin (or on God’s wrath) (cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com)
“When students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it,” Rick Warren, the mega-church pastor and inspirational author, observed in a Twitter update just hours after the shootings.
Publicly Indecent Women (gloriabrame.typepad.com)
women busted for flouting public decency laws, and firmly establishing the fine American tradition of women standing up for sexual freedoms by taking off their clothes.
Wendy Kaminer – The Health Care Ruling Trivializes Civil Liberties (prn.fm)
This is how you exaggerate the “tyranny” of petty bans and an ACA penalty projected to affect one or two percent of the population, while you trivialize civil liberty and distract us from the growth of a potentially totalitarian national security state. This is how you generate hatred of big government and direct it at opposition to social welfare programs, environmental regulations, or oversight of financial markets, while you generate support for (or indifference to) domestic surveillance, the targeting of Muslim Americans, militarized police departments, the criminalization of political dissent, drone warfare, and the failure to close Guantanamo.
Barack Obama, Authoritarian Conservative (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)
Socialists or those on the economic left are to the left of the center line. Capitalists and those on the economic right on to the right of the center line. Authoritarians are above the horizontal line in the middle. More civil libertarian types are below the center line in the middle.
“The Fear Of God Is Not In This Place” (chuckbaldwinlive.com)
What in the world has happened to America? How has it come to this? The America that we currently see is unrecognizable from the America many of us grew up in. The America that many oppressed people risked their lives to escape to now more resembles the oppressed nations that those people fled. (I’ve had scores of immigrants tell me that personally.) And make no mistake about it, the problem is much deeper than the shallow partisan mantra, “It’s the Democrats’ (or Republicans’) fault.” The root cause of America’s woes is much deeper than that. For decades, we’ve been trading Democrats for Republicans, Republicans for Democrats, liberals for conservatives, and conservatives for liberals, and nothing has changed–except the problems keep getting worse!
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The natural fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for their mother and father. (Leviticus 19:3) The fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for others, especially those who are disadvantaged. (Leviticus 19:14) This passage specifically notes the deaf and the blind.
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how can politicians in Washington, D.C., possess the fear of God when they routinely lie, steal, violate their oaths to the Constitution, and wreak havoc upon the liberties and freedoms of the American people? How can the banksters at the Federal Reserve possess the fear of God when they deliberately rape the US economy and purposefully manipulate the markets so as to destroy the financial well being of tens of millions of families? How can federal government officials at the highest levels possess the fear of God when they engage in international drug running and murder?
Takedown: Divided We Stand (persephonemagazine.com)
No Future in France: Dire Times for French Jews
A philosopher (holding a prestigious French agrégation degree in philosophy), a graduate of the French Rabbinical School in Paris, and a former student at some of the most orthodox yeshivoth (Talmudic academies) in Jerusalem, Bernheim was until recently very eager to reconcile traditional Judaism with Europe’s “open society.” He has just devoted a book to France as a nation and how Jews can contribute to France’s public debates (N’oublions Pas De Penser La France), and in 2008, the year he was elected chief rabbi, he coauthored a book on Judeo-Christian dialogue (Le Rabbin et le Cardinal) with Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.Despite all that, Bernheim suddenly warned Jewish leaders a few weeks ago about a growing “rejection” of Jews and Judaism in France, something he linked to the global passing of “Judeo-Christian values” in French society as a whole.

‘Ten Commandments’ Judge Roy Moore: Secularism leads to Sharia law (via Raw Story )

The man who is likely to be Alabama’s next chief justice is warning that secular government will lead to Islamic law in the United States. In an interview with conservative talk show host Steve Deace last week, Roy Moore opined that “a government that is denying God” was also allowing Sharia…

(more…)

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Childish or reasonable ways

Posted on July 20, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Faith, Holy Scriptures, Paganism, Religion | Tags: Atheist, Bible, Bible Reading, Clergy, Clergy Project, Clergy Women, Daniel Dennett, God, Guilt, Jerry DeWitt, John Compere, Linda LaScola, Michael Aus, Pastor, Richard Dawkins, Spirituality, Stephen Uhl, Sunday School, Tradition |

Several people think of believers as “naive” and “childish”. In the group of believers you have the ordinary folks and the clergymen and clergy women. They form a particular group with persons who seem either far away from the world, being put on a pedestal or being part of the world, having problems like anybody else and understanding how the world turns.

Christian Denomination Logos (Photo credit: scottlenger)

You have the believers who where so much interested in the spiritual that they wanted to make their profession out of it. Those who followed theology at university learned a lot about how people thought God and His Creation would or should be. They did not much learn from the bible, but concentrated on a lot of worldly writings by the so called saints. They formed their ideas on the dogma’s and doctrine‘s brought in by humans and were not interested to take more contact with other believers or unbelievers, save for the few they met in their “fishing expeditions” at the grocery store or during “seeker services.” Thus, all to often, when they have questions about faith or about the Supreme being they do not find other places to go to than their own bunch of people of the same denomination. But there are many who by doing their demanding job and by doing Bible reading for the preparation of their preaches, get in confrontation with the Holy Scriptures and what they have learned. Instead of daring to take the Word of God as the real Word of God, they doubt those Scriptures and want to prefer to hold fast on their doctrines. Much too often this brings them in a severe conflict. Like ordinary people trying to keep on traditions they also want to keep to those traditions, but learn from the Bible how wrong that can be. Everything they have been thought seems to come in the zone of doubtful literature. But when they start questioning those teachings it starts nagging and they do come in conflict with their surroundings. Being interested in the spiritual they first go look with other similar denominations and go to look for other spiritual religions and find much pleasure in Buddhism. Instead of wanting to believe what is written in the Bible, that once we die we are death and cannot think or do anything, they love the idea of the immortal soul they had learned in their teachings. At first they become attracted by the incarnation, but when they go deeper into the teachings of such groups who believe that they do not feel at ease either. As such, they fall outside of the fence of Christian fellowship, there seems to be a complete lack of support. This can be a very depressing place, and it is only exacerbated by the belief that there is nobody else out there who could possibly understand the rather unique situation of being an unbelieving member of the Clergy.

You can ask: “What happens when a clergy person — a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam — realizes he doesn’t believe in God? And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they find each other; when they support each other in coping with their crises, when they help each other with resources and job counseling and other practical assistance? What happens when they encourage each other to come out? Could this affect more than just these clergy people and their followers? Could it change how society as a whole thinks and feels about religion?”

On March 21st, 2011 in the United States of America the Clergy Project was launched and the question “How can the US motto be “In God We Trust” when so many Americans are Out of the Closet atheists?” came to the forefront. Former Roman Catholic priest Dr. Stephen Uhl wrote the book “Out of God’s Closet” and got as motto: “Atheists work to make this life heavenly.”

The feeling of many with doubts is one of “Once you’re enrolled in the system, there is a strong incentive not to criticise or rebel: we’re all in this boat together – don’t rock it.”

Tufts University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Philosopher, cognitive scientist and aprofessor at Tufts University, American Daniel Dennett says: ” teenagers glowing with enthusiasm decide to devote their lives to a career of helping others and, looking around in their rather sheltered communities, they see no better, purer option than going into the clergy. When they get to seminary they find themselves being taught things that nobody told them in Sunday school. The more they learn of theology and the history of the composition of the Bible, the less believable they find their creed. Eventually they cease to believe altogether. But, alas, they have already made a substantial commitment in social capital – telling their families and communities about their goals – so the pressure is strong to find an accommodation, or at least to imagine that if they hang in there they will find one. Only a lucky few find either the energy or the right moment to break free. Those who don’t break free then learn the tricks of the trade, the difference between what you can say from the pulpit and what you can say in the sanctum of the seminary, or in your heart. Some, of course, are unfazed by this.” (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html)

English: Daniel Dennett at the 17. Göttinger Literaturherbst, October 19th, 2008, in Göttingen, Germany. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Linda LaScola, a clinical social worker, qualitative researcher and psychotherapist, and him have been investigating the curious, sad phenomenon of closeted non-believing clergy – wellmeaning, hard-working pastors who find they do not believe the creed of their denomination, but also find that they cannot just blow the whistle and abandon the pulpit. They knew that many churchgoers have lost whatever faith they had but continue their membership for social and psychological reasons, and surmised that there might be clergy who were similarly attached to their church. What is it like to be a non-believing pastor? We found some examples who were willing to tell us, and are now completing a second survey of volunteers.

They wanted to know, ultimately, how this happens, and how common it is. It is apparently not rare – nobody knows what percentage of clergy fall into this category, not surprisingly. Their first study reported on five pastors in different Protestant denominations, who were interviewed in depth and in strict confidence by LaScola. Because it was published electronically (on the website On Faith) and under the headline “Preachers who are not believers” (Evolutionary Psychology, volume eight, issue one), this first pilot study has received considerable attention and brought them a host of new volunteers for their ongoing research.

There are many paths into this predicament, they find, but a common thread runs through most of them: a certain sort of innocence and a powerful desire, not for social prestige or riches, but rather the desire to lead a good life, to help other people as much as possible. The tragic trap is baited with goodness itself. (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html#ixzz219XQR8AC)

” Like reluctant debutantes or privately suspicious Ponzi victims , they button their lip for an abundance of good reasons. (Redundancy is always a good trick; it allows a collection of individually porous defences to overlap into anearly impregnable shield.) Historically, pastors have had slender economic resources, and if they live in a parsonage they build up no equity in real estate. Hanging on until the kids are out of college and one can collect one’s meagre pension is an option that can look better than making an honest dash for the door. But a tentative finding of our study so far is that the economic incentive to hang on is sometimes of less importance than the social and psychological factors. As one of our pastors says, “I’m thinking if I leave the church – first of all, what’s that going to do to my family? And I don’t know. Secondly is, I have zero friends outside the church. I’m kind of a loner.” And what about telling his wife? “It’s going to turn her life upside down.”"

So pastors tend to stay put and search for ways of protecting their conscience from the pangs of hypocrisy. Redoubling one’s efforts to take good care of one’s flock is probably a frequent effect, and hence it could be one of the side benefits of this system, a bonus that could almost pay for itself by turning its shepherds into goodness slaves. Guilt is a potent enzyme in many social arrangements, and has been especially promoted in religions.

Your God Is Here (Photo credit: sutton_steven)

Religions changed more in the past century than they changed in the previous two millennia, and probably will change more in the next decade or two than in the past century. The main environmental change, as many have suggested, is the sudden increase in informational transparency. Religions were beautifully designed over millennia to work in circumstances in which the people within them could be assumed to be largely ignorant of much that was outside the membrane.

“Now that mobile phones and the internet have altered the epistemic selective landscape in a revolutionary way, every religious organisation must scramble to evolve defences or become extinct. Much has been made of the growing attention to religion in the world, and this has often been interpreted as a revival, an era of expanding religiosity, but all the evidence points away from that interpretation. The fastestgrowing religious category worldwide is no religion at all, and the increasing noise we hear is apparently due to the heightened expenditure of energy by all the threatened varieties in their desperate attempts to fend off extinction.” (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html#ixzz219YCt2Wl)

After the publication of “Towards the Light: A fifth generation minister’s journey from religion to nonbelief.” by John Compere more clergy dared to speak out. When Reverend Michael Aus came out as a non-believer on national television on March 25th 2012 a ball got rolling by his moral support to the Clergy Project. The word got round the world and begin 2012 at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia, Dan Dennett spoke about The Clergy Project during his ‘How To Tell You’re An Atheist’ talk.

Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his book, The God Delusion, in Reykjavik

The respectecd Catholic pastor Jerry DeWitt, who lives in Southern Louisiana, went public last October when he posted a picture of himself with the prominent and polarizing atheist Richard Dawkins, snapped at a meeting of atheists and other “freethinkers” in Houston.

Speaking in March before a cheering crowd of several hundred unbelievers at the American Atheists conference here, he described posting the picture as “committing identity suicide.”

The response was swift. His congregation put him out, friends cut him off and some family members will not speak to him, he said.

“It is not just finances and it is not just career,” he said in the fire-and-brimstone cadences of his Pentecostal background. “It is everything that you hold dear.”

DeWitt’s transition from true believer to total skeptic took 25 years. It began, he said, with the idea of hell. How could it be, as he had been taught and preached, that a loving God would damn most people to eternal fire? “This thing called hell, it began to rock my world,” he said.

Instead of daring to find solace by the non-trinitan Biblestudents, who do not believe in hell as a plac of torture, because it is not according to the Holy Scriptures, he did not dare, like the other clergy men are afraid, to go to such a group of believers where he fought against for so many years. and that is the proble we see by so many clergy men. Once they go and read more in the Holy Scriptures they find other ‘Truths’ than they have learned. They hear the same things as the Jehovah Witnesses, Abrahamic Church or Christadelphians are saying. And this confronts them with theological teaching and boundaries to their institutions.

DeWitt found that there were more people wrestling with the same issues he was.

In The Clergy Project he could find as so many others, a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs.

Currently, the community’s 300 plus members use it to network and discuss what it’s like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition from believer to unbeliever including:

Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues
Coping with cognitive dissonance
Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future
Looking for new careers
Telling their families
Sharing useful resources
Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family
Using humor to soften the pain
Finding a way out of the ministry
Adjusting to life after the ministry

Richard Dawkins says: “If a farmer tires of the outdoor life and wants to become an accountant or a teacher or a shopkeeper, he faces difficulties, to be sure. He must learn new skills, raise money, move to another area perhaps. But he doesn’t risk losing all his friends, being cast out by his family, being ostracized by his whole community. Clergy who lose their faith suffer double jeopardy. It’s as though they lose their job and their marriage and their children on the same day. It is an aspect of the vicious intolerance of religion that a mere change of mind can redound so cruelly on those honest enough to acknowledge it.”

“The Clergy Project exists to provide a safe haven, a forum where clergy who have lost their faith can meet each other, exchange views, swap problems, counsel each other – for, whatever they may have lost, clergy know how to counsel and comfort. Here you will find confidentiality, sympathy, and a friendly place where you can take your time before deciding how to extricate yourself and when you will feel yourself ready to stand up and face the cool, refreshing wind of truth.”

It is a pity so many keep in the handcuffs of the trinitarian ideologist who damn the non-trinitarians, so that they do not dare to tackle the idea of those bible students who tke the Word of God for what it says, and not for what people in history have made the so called Bible saying.

We can only hope and pray,that one day their eyes may go open again and they shall find the peace again in the Bible, which can reveal everything, when people are willing to open their heart and mind to it.

Dutch article: Project voor afvallige kerkleiders

Find:

The Clergy Project

“Preachers Who Are Not Believers” (PDF)

Read:

Pastor’s loss of faith started with loss of hell

Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists

Moody Bible Radio Discovers ‘The Clergy Project’ – interview with Teresa MacBain

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Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists (alternet.org)
A burst of media attention has been focused on atheists of an unexpected stripe — clergy members. Could non-believing clergy change how we see religion?
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The project was inspired by the 2010 pilot study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” (PDF), which exposed and explored the surprisingly common phenomenon of non-believing clergy. The need to give these people support — and if possible, an exit strategy — was immediately recognized in the atheist community, and starter funding for the Clergy Project was quickly provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
6 Benefits of a Clergy Sabbatical Leave Program (smartchurchmanagement.com)
It is common for churches to offer sabbaticals for clergy to provide a time for refreshing, recharging and continuing education. Church leaders have great responsibilities and the many challenges that come with working in the ministry can take its toll on clergy. Many churches have discovered that providing a time to retreat from the day-to-day responsibilities can provide a benefit for both the employee as well as the church. When pastors are allowed to take an extended break from ministry they can refocus and recharge their passion and call to lead the congregation.
Administration and Spirituality: A False Dichotomy (barefootpreachr.org)
How can being a good and effective administrator be de-coupled from the type of mature Christian leadership needed as an effective Episcopal servant of the church?
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to go back to Richard Hearn’s comment about losing the clergy: It was my sense and my experience that clergy morale sank to a deep low under Bishop Bledsoe’s leadership. Bishop Bledsoe acknowledged that fact himself in a video put out a couple of weeks before the North Texas Annual Conference. He invited clergy to respond. I don’t know how many did, but I heard (and I could be wrong) that it was somewhere around forty.
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It involves speaking our own difficult truths, seeking to help one another move to perfection in love, moving to deep repentance when sin is exposed, and offering the fullness of forgiveness to one another.
Rev. Frederick Schmidt Has No Idea Why Clergy Members Leave the Faith… but He’s Going to Write An Article About It, Anyway (patheos.com)
Reverend Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. cannot believe there’s so much press about the Clergy Project.First, he blows off the numbers like they’re no big deal
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Check out his grossly misguided reasons for why clergy members leave the faith
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There are probably a lot of reasons for the media’s interest in the subject: Even with a global economic crisis, a few wars, and a presidential election, there are always a few slow news days. “The Clergy Project” probably has a fabulous PR department, supported as it is by The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, The Appignani Foundation, The Center for Inquiry, The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and Recovering from Religion.org. And beyond garden variety religious fervor, there is no religious fervor like that of a former believer. So, it’s the kind of story that always draws a crowd.There are probably a lot of reasons for the media’s interest in the subject: Even with a global economic crisis, a few wars, and a presidential election, there are always a few slow news days. “The Clergy Project” probably has a fabulous PR department, supported as it is by The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, The Appignani Foundation, The Center for Inquiry, The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and Recovering from Religion.org. And beyond garden variety religious fervor, there is no religious fervor like that of a former believer. So, it’s the kind of story that always draws a crowd.
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It is one thing to study theology, church history, and Scripture. It is another thing to integrate that learning with our faith journeys. Not all seminary programs (and very few churches) make the effort to help students with that process. But in some ways it is both more demanding and critical to the well being of clergy than is the acquisition of knowledge about the subject.
REAL NEWS June 17, 2012 (danimartextras.wordpress.com)
“Things such as theodicy [the problem of suffering and evil], the question of hell, God’s omnipotence yet lack of intervention in heinous events, the historicity of Jesus… all these bubbled to the surface and demanded to be answered,” she said. “My work to answer these questions began with the thought that as I discovered the truth, it would create a stronger faith and give me comforting answers to those in my church who were dealing with the same issues. Instead, the truth I found led me away from faith.”This experience is common among members of the Clergy Project.
The Necessity for Daily Practice…?!? (aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com)
Something that I see an increasing number of pagans and polytheists attempting, and struggling with, is daily practice. I’ve talked on previous occasions on “not being afraid to get bored” and so forth with daily practices. However, I’m also asking another question at present: is daily practice really a necessity for many people? And, I’ve come to a conclusion on the matter: no.In reconstructionist religions, one of the great advantages that has emerged over more general forms of paganism is that there are a variety of possible roles: not everyone is “clergy” or “a priest,” necessarily, in a recon context.
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The notion in many sorts of paganism that everyone is “their own clergy” and thus has clergy status, and therefore must in a variety of ways perform as if they are clergy, is rather erroneous in my view. As much as certain teachers and practitioners would suggest all of the modern pagan/polytheist population have some sort of daily practice (which usually looks like “daily meditation” in most forms I’ve seen it), I can’t really support that necessity from a general viewpoint, either as a reconstructionist or as a general spiritual practitioner who has many strong deity devotions, including Antinous.
Major Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists (alternet.org)
Unlike many believers, they actually read the Bible, or Torah, or Koran, or whatever the sacred text of their religion is. They think hard about questions that more casual believers are willing to let slide. After all — that’s their job.
The New Atheism: Its Virtues and its Vices (areycorneja.wordpress.com)
What follows is the text of the 2010 Aquinas Lecture delivered at the church of St Vincent Ferrer, New York. The lecture indicates what makes the so-called new atheism new. It then offers some defense and critique of three authors: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The chief criticism leveled against them is that their dismissal of theism is based on an ignorance of classical theistic thinking and the mistaken impression that ‘theism’ and ‘creationism’ are equivalent.
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the new ones tend to lay stress on science as positively disproving what theists believe.
+New Atheism seems to have a political dimension lacking in the writings of old atheists. The old atheists were all basically what we might think of as ‘armchair philosophers’. They tended to be happy to argue that there is no God and to leave matters at that. By contrast, new atheists appear to have a strong political agenda.
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They often talk about something called ‘religion’ and (especially in the case of Dawkins and Hitchens), they focus on what they call ‘belief in God’. But, we might ask, ‘Which religion?’ and ‘Whose God?’ My impression is that the fathers of New Atheism have not much studied the fathers of Old Atheism or the fathers of theism in its classical Christian form. New atheists (Dawkins and Hitchens anyway) seem to identify belief in God with what is commonly called ‘creationism’.
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In short, much of the ridicule poured on belief in God by the new atheists is one that can be taken on board by someone who believes in God. Unaware of it though they seem to be, in some of their critiques of belief in God (or on forms that this has taken), the new atheists can actually claim support from some serious theologians (Aquinas being a notable example).
Facebook, Biblically Speaking (modtheology.wordpress.com)
Millennials (18-29 year olds) are becoming unaffiliated with their faith* as shown in this article by Robert P Jones on the Huffington Post Blog. What his post made me think of is: does faith truly need to have an affiliation? I think yes. But the reason that kids are leaving their parents church is because a new idea of church is being created. They are communicating their faith and beliefs in different ways. Our classical notion of ‘Church’ is in a state of transformation. Church denomination are shrinking because denominations don’t appeal to the rapid evolution of human morality. Let’s face it, churches are becoming spiritually stale.

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Prophets making excuses

Posted on July 15, 2012. Filed under: Bible Study and Bible Reading, Holy Scriptures, Jehovah יהוה YHWH JHVH God Elohim Yahweh Jahweh, Jesus Christ Jeshua the Messiah Jahushua, Religion | Tags: Allah, Archangel Gabriel, Day of Judgement, Fear, Guidance, Guide, Hearing God, Insight, Knowledge, Lamb of God, Messiah, Muhammad, Name of God, Pray, Prayer, Prophet, Right Path, Servant of God, Son of man, Will of God, Word of God |

In reply to the nice article by T.V. Antony Raj: “The Archangel Gabriel” on “Impressions ~ of what comes to my mind.” I wanted to react and place this reaction also on our ecclesia site, because we encounter many Christians who do not understand Muslims and many Muslims who think that all Christians adhere a Three-Godhead and ignore the writings of so many prophets like Enoch (Idr~is) who prophesied that Godwould “execute judgement against all, and would convict all the ungodly” (Jude 14:15).

Detail of a 12th Century medieval icon featuring Archangel Gabriel. Mestia Museum, Georgia

“And Ḥanoḵ, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied of these, saying, “See, יהוהcomes with His myriads of set-apart ones, to execute judgement on all, to punish all who are wicked among them concerning all their wicked works which they have committed in a wicked way, and concerning all the harsh words which wicked sinners have spoken against Him.” ” (Jude 1:14-15 The Scriptures 1998+)

God brings knowledge. Jehovah God is the “Unfathomable Knowledge” who is willing to who shed the light in the night of this world at night time and day time. Human reason fails to comprehend Him and to get all the knowledge. God is and will be forever there above and beyond all people. We have given Him different names in this line of thought to suit our convenience. We have tried to bring out His attributes in different pictures. We have projected Him in different ways. (There are many a Form and simply Formless.) All this is just to make Him easily understood. But He remains at one with that Knowledge.

But many forget that He is willing to share some of His knowledge and is willing to guide all humankind. But to be able to do so those men and women should give Him their ear.

The son of man Daniel also saw an other son of man, but whom was send in a special way and could do incredible things. This Son of Man Daniel saw was a vision of Messiah‘s kingdom, superseding the bestial kingdoms of the world. Daniel predicted that men shall see “the Son of man coming in the clouds with power and great glory.” And when standing before Caiaphas he thus addressed his judges, “I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Of this, then, there is no doubt, that the name was to Jesus a Messianic name. He would never have used it had he not wished to intimate that he was the promised Messiah of the Jews. And so it tells us, who want to listen, that here is Christ indeed; the Man in whom all humanity is centred, yet the Man who knew that he was more than man, the Fellow of the everlasting God.

The Christian, as a disciple of the Lord, as a pupil in the school of Christ, is being fitted for a place in the Millennial kingdom — for a share in its glory, honour and immortality….Hence, we see the necessity for the frequent admonitions of the Scriptures, that the Lord’s people shall be awake;–not of those who slumber; not of those who are idle; not of those who are overcharged with the cares of this life; but that they be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Their service toward the Lord is primarily the bringing of themselves into as close harmony with the Lord’s will, and into as close likeness to the divine pattern as possible; and secondly, it is that by precept and example they may help others of the called ones in the same narrow way.

“For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So, then, we should not sleep, as others do, but we should watch and be sober. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:5-6 The Scriptures 1998+)

Though prophets are just “Son of man” (like Ezekiel) God reminded them of their position in this world, where they also would have to face death, but could live on in the memory of many others as a servant of God. Those prophets had the function to warn the people and to bring them back to the Elohim, Hashem, Allah, the only One God.

The Prophet Mohammed (figure without face) on Mount Hira. Ottoman miniature painting from the Siyer-i Nebi, kept at the Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, Istanbul (Hazine 1222, folio 158b)

Muhammad as other prophets reacted like many of us when they hear a voice from somewhere, but do not see anybody.
Though very devoted and spending time at the cave in Mount Hira, fasting, praying, thinking, and trying to find answers to the meaning of life. He forgot that Allah always give answers to those who honestly call onto Him. But God never shows Himself because when we would see God we would die. (Exodus 33:20)

Exodus 33:20 Jehovah, the Elohim God/Allah continued, “But you may not see my face. No one can see me and live.”

Jehovah God is the only one who can give us full insight. As worshippers of God we should know as the prophet that there is no one besides Allah that could bring us the night in which we take rest, but also find comfort and insight.
Koran 28:71 Say: See ye? If Allah were to make the night perpetual over you to the Day of Judgement, what god is there other than Allah, who can give you enlightenment? Will ye not then hearken?

As it took some time for the great prophet to understand what God was willing to bring over to him, we cannot take such time any more. god has provided enough prophets for us to see and come to understanding.

Sometimes God tests people to see if they want to go according to the Will of God and really do want to follow Gods Commandments.

Exodus 16:4 Jehovah said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to my Teaching or not.

The same as when the Archangel Gabriel (Jibrāʾīl) appeared before Muhammad and asked him to read we also answer ‘I can’t” when we got a reply in our dreams. How are we then going to come out of darkness, if we dare not to do what is told us to do, but keep thinking we can not. It is a matter of trusting God.

Too many are afraid of Allah to listen to His guidance. He has provided the world with so many prophets to tell the world what to do, how to behave and to what to look forward.

While not violating his own Law, Allah took action to save mankind with sending the prophet in the line of David (Dãwud). God had sent the angel Gabriel (Jibrã’il) to a virgin, who did listen to the news that could bring her death by stoning, because she became with child not being married. But she accepted her sending and brought forth Jesus Christ, Jeshua (‘Isã) (Ãl’Imrãn 3:45; Al-Anbiyã’ 21:91)

The Christ Child and the Infant John the Baptist with a Lamb (1507 – 1532 ) – Bernardino Luini

This Jesus (Esa/Iessou) Jeshua was the only man who could stay without sin and therefore he could be the best sign for mankind and mercy came from him when this man wanted to give his body for a ransom for all. (Maryam 19:19,21) He could become the Lamb who took away the sins of the world. He came with a sign from the Most High, his Father in heaven whom we do have to fear.

“The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV)
“God made him who had no sin to be sin {Or be a sin offering} for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV)

“The fear of יהוה is the beginning of wisdom, All those doing them have a good understanding. His praise is standing forever. ” (Psalms 111:10 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Let those who fear יהוה now say, “His kindness is everlasting.” I called on Yah in distress; Yah answered me in a broad place. יהוה is on my side; I do not fear what man does to me! יהוה is for me among those helping me; Therefore I look on those hating me. It is better to take refuge in יהוה Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in יהוה Than to trust in princes. ” (Psalms 118:4-9 The Scriptures 1998+)
““And whatever is concealed shall be revealed, and whatever is hidden shall be known. “So, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms shall be proclaimed on the house-tops. “But I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that are unable to do any more. “But I shall show you whom you should fear: Fear the One who, after killing, possesses authority to cast into Gehenna. Yea, I say to you, fear Him! ” (Luke 12:2-5 The Scriptures 1998+)

When Jesus lived many could hear him talk and hear him explain the Word of God, but wanting to understand his talking was an other matter. Only a few years after his death an other prophet had to set things right again, because so much had gone wrong again.

Close-up of a medieval-era drawing showing Mohammed preaching, along with a Christian-style halo.

Many of us do want to come up with the same foible answer as the prophet Muhammad. Many of us also do want to say they can not read the Word of God or not understand it.
First off all we do have to want to read it and secondly we do have to put our mind open and be willing to read it and willing to set our mind open to the God of heaven and earth, Allah, who has a divine name which is found more than 7 000 times in the Holy Scriptures.

Do you still want to say I can not hear God? Do you not want to see the many prophets God had sent us?

If you are really loving Allah, you can not ignore His prophets and should listen to them. God has given them a voice to explain Scriptures to us. Even when they originally could not write or read and dictated that what God brought unto them, we can not ignore their voices.

Many hear, but do not take the words in their heart. they hear but do not listen. In such case they shall never be able to see.

When are people going to listen? When are people to read the words of the prophets who God gave the world to listen to and to give an aid to come closer to God?

By whom do you need to be squeezed? How many times do you need to squeezed before you will not persist any more that you “cannot do this or that, or are not able to understand” like the prophet Muhammad repeatedly resisted?

Therefore we also should read with the name of our Most High Lord of lords who created, man out of dust to which he shall return.

“1 Iqraa, or Read! or Proclaim! or Alaq, or The Clot of Congealed Blood. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Proclaim! or Read! in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created — 2 Created man, out of a mere clot of congealed blood: 3 Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, — 4 He Who taught the use of the Pen, — 5 Taught man that which he knew not.” (Qur’an 96:1-5)

Also the great prophet Muhammad advised his people to turn back to God’s ancient books in order to obtain the answers. (see Yunus 10:94; Al-Nahl 16:43; Al-Anbiyã 21:7) These tell us that Asaph the son of Berechiah was the one who by inspiration wrote Psalm 83. (1 Chronicles 15:17; Psalm 83, superscription) Verse 18 of this Psalm says ““That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)

We thereby see that the greatest name of Allah is “Jehovah”.

Do you want to believe He is willing to guide you by the Words He has given to be written down in the Holy Scriptures?

Are you willing to accept His kindness, goodness and mercifulness and be sure that He also wants to guide you? That He is prepared to protect ordinary people, and when I was helpless, you is willing to save you as so many others?

Our are you going to keep repeating that you need to worry because you can’t trust anyone!”

“What shall I return to יהוה All His bounties are upon me. I lift up the cup of deliverance, And call upon the Name of יהוה . I pay my vows to יהוה Now in the presence of all His people. ” (Psalms 116:12-14 The Scriptures 1998+)

God is not a God who misleads those who want to follow and honour Him.

” If anyone contends with the Apostle even after guidance has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that becoming to men of Faith, we shall leave him in the path he has chosen, and land him in Hell, — hat an evil refuge!” (Koran 4:115)

“”Of no profit will be my counsel to you, much as I desire to give you good counsel, if it be that Allah willeth to leave you astray: He is your Lord! And to Him will ye return!”" (Koran 4:34) was clearly said to those who were gone away from God. they who had disputed with believers and multiplied disputation with them. If they are of the truthful ones God would not mind to give them counsel and guide them. Allah only will bring it to you them He is pleased, and the people do not want to escape from Him.

“ “I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden, nor claim I to be an angel. Nor yet do I say, of those whom your eyes do despise that Allah will not grant them all that is good: Allah knoweth best what is in their souls: I should, if I did, indeed be a wrong-doer.” They said: “O Noah! thou hast disputed with us, and much hast thou prolonged the dispute with us: now bring upon us what thou threatenest us with, if thou speakest the truth!?” He said: “Truly, Allah will bring it on you if He wills,- and then, ye will not be able to frustrate it! “Of no profit will be my counsel to you, much as I desire to give you good counsel, if it be that Allah willeth to leave you astray: He is your Lord! and to Him will ye return!” Or do they say, “He has forged it”? Say: “If I had forged it, on me were my sin! and I am free of the sins of which ye are guilty! It was revealed to Noah: “None of thy people will believe except those who have believed already! So grieve no longer over their evil deeds. “But construct an Ark under Our eyes and Our inspiration, and address Me no further on behalf of those who are in sin: for they are about to be overwhelmed in the Flood.” Forthwith he starts constructing the Ark: Every time that the chiefs of his people passed by him, they threw ridicule on him. He said: “If ye ridicule us now, we in our turn can look down on you with ridicule likewise! “But soon will ye know who it is on whom will descend a penalty that will cover them with shame,- on whom will be unloosed a penalty lasting”" (Qur’an 31-39)

For God it is clear that from the Garden of Eden He has given His Word to the man and woman. Men got the freedom to choose which way to go. God does not want to interupt with their choices and ongoings, except in a few cases where it became to bad and to dangerous for His people. God will leave people on the path they have chosen by stubbornly rejecting the Truth. And therefore it would be a totally wrong accusation to point a finger to the Creator. For God it is the free choice of people to either follow Him or to thrown Him out of the way (aghwaytanee). But people should be aware of the consequences of their choice.

“ He said: Now, because Thou hast sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Thy Right Path.” (Qur’an 7:16)

We do have to to restrain our anxieties, perhaps we may tremble, as in an affair of doubt, but when we give our hands in the hand of God He will be with us, though many others may be against us. If what we have in this world increase under our hands, we must take notice of it with thankfulness, to the glory of God, and own that therein he has dealt graciously with us, better than we deserve. It is he that gives power to get wealth, and it is one way of Him to encourage us to continue the path laid in front of us by the Word of God: the Bible. It is a way to give effect to the agreement which He made by His oath with our fathers, as at this day.

““Be on guard, lest you forget יהוה your Elohim by not guarding His commands, and His right-rulings, and His laws which I command you today, lest you eat and shall be satisfied, and build lovely houses and shall dwell in them, and your herds and your flocks increase, and your silver and your gold are increased, and all that you have is increased, that your heart then becomes lifted up, and you forget יהוה your Elohim who brought you out of the land of Mitsrayim, from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and awesome wilderness – fiery serpents and scorpions and thirst – where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, in order to humble you and to try you, to do you good in the end, you then shall say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand have made for me this wealth!’ “But you shall remember יהוה your Elohim, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today. “And it shall be, if you by any means forget יהוה your Elohim, and follow other mighty ones, and serve them and bow yourself to them, I have warned you this day that you shall certainly perish. ” (Deuteronomy 8:11-19 The Scriptures 1998+)

So in case there are people who want to continue their own way, they should not come to complain before God that they perish and land up in the grave (Sheol = Hell = the sepulchre or grave)

You can imagine that even when messengers from God came to warn people and where questioned by them, or did not believe what they heard, how difficult might it be then for us ordinary people, who do not have a living prophet with us today and no direct recognisable signs from God?

But that may not be a reason to have an excuse, like Jonah and others did.
Do you want to have the ear to hear and the heart to appreciate and accept it?

The Only One God Allah, the Elohim Hashem who gave His name to be known, Jehovah grants guidance to all by making the Truth and Falsehood clear through His signs, by His Words given in the Holy Scriptures and with signs within our own selves and the phenomenon around and through the Holy Prophets and everyone is free to follow it.

To hear Gods voice in our selves we do have to be prepared to open ourselves to Him and His Word.

When we pray to God, we also should want to hear answers to our prayers. If we do not open our mind to hear the Voice of God, we shall never receive answers.

In the hope we shall be able to find many who would like to hear answers.
Yours, kindly in the love of God,

Marcus Ampe

Preceding article: Not making a runner
Preceding Dutch article / Vervolgend op het Nederlandse artikel: Geen Wegvluchter

Liberal and evangelical Christians

Posted on July 10, 2012. Filed under: Bible Study and Bible Reading, Christendom and Christianity, Holy Scriptures, Religion | Tags: Adultery, Atheism, Christian Fundamentalism, Christianity, Complementarians, Egalitarianism, Egalitarians, Evangelicalism, Evangelicals, Fundamentalism, God the Son, Gods Word, Homosexuality, Interpretation, Language, Liberalism, Mitt Romney, Muslim, Slavery, Son of God, Trinity |

In the United States of America seems to whirl a wind bring clouds of evangelical and liberal Christians in coalition.

A few years ago we had the doom preachers, but they were overblown by the atheist bringing the end of the world onto the Aztec agenda for the end of 2012.

Cover of Holy Bible: 10th Anniversary Edition

Questions are asked if Christians who read the Bible arrive at a different place, but we better could ask if those Christians really take the whole Scripture to read and to compare the presented fragments or verses in the light of other verses in the Holy Scriptures.

According to Gary Tandy, Professor of English and English Department Chair at George Fox University, there is a cultural tendency in evangelical Christianity that does not leave room for “evolving” positions, complexity, uncertainty, or doubt. He is been discouraged with the nature and tenor of the conversation of Christians reacting in the wake of Obama’s interview stating his personal opinion on same-sex marriage. In Mitt Romney‘s commencement speech at fundamentalist, evangelical Liberty University, Romney only addressed the issue once, but he addressed it in tones of certainty: “Marriage,” he declared (to roaring applause), “is a relationship between one man and one woman.” Here’s what an audience member had to say in an NPR interview when asked about her position on same-sex marriage: “It’s wrong. There’s nothing else to say about it. It’s in the Bible.” This audience member’s attitude was pretty close to the old bumper sticker: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”

With it many questions were raised if people could accept that either their idea had to evolve with what is really meant in the Bible, or that the Bible would evolve with the times. We for sure know that many people would love to adopt the bile to their own ideas. Many would prefer that the world could progress and as such the Bible Words should have to interpreted according evolving times.

The Old Plantation (anonymous folk painting). Depicts African-American slaves dancing to banjo and percussion late 1700s

People do forget that it is not the Word of God that has to adapt to the time of the day. They also forget that often it are people who give it a certain strict meaning which is not exactly there black and white on the paper. Certain denominations do want to give it their interpretation because it suits their thoughts. America as such found a way to accept slavery and to not see any harm in using the black people do do all the dirty work for them at no special wage. We have seen a face in history that white people did not see any harm in ownership of a human being. Also poor white Europeans could find themselves in indentured servitude in the New World.

Historically, slavery was not just an Old Testament phenomenon. Slavery was practised in every ancient culture: Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman and Israelite. Slavery was an integral part of ancient commerce, taxation, and temple religion. For over 18 centuries Slavery in different forms has been imposed by Christians. But they did not see that they themselves also became slave of certain systems and ideas. In Catholic as well in protestant groups we can find defenders of slavery. Biblical verses pro- and against slavery, and textual argumentation were used on both sides.

The whole matter concentrates on the relationship of human beings against other human beings. It has been about colour, about sex and about age, that people tried to use or misuse Bible verses to get their right. Often the problem lay in the not understanding customs of the time and in the differences of forms of servitude, customary in ancient times, those condoned or cursed by the Torah.

The role of women in the human system has been also of a lot of debate.

And in the time of free sex, persons want to get to know the interpretation of the different denominations about the human relationship in a sexual context, between men and women, men and men, women and women, and also in relationship of different partners. All sort of mixes seem to be talk of the day.

We all want to be loved, appreciated and have pleasure and fulfilment in our lives. Today pleasure seems to receive first priority. And lots of people want to consider the Bible old fashioned.

Though we all should be aware that God gave us all the capacity to love and be loved, to have special friendships with others, but that it had to be in a way acceptable in the creation-system of the Almighty. From the first moment human was created God had foreseen that he could have a sexual nature, sexual desires and a will to create new human beings by coming close together. God want that people multiplied themselves.

In the United States some preachers teach that even an emotional tie is still considered adultery. They even consider it as a sin even when the emotional attracted people are not sexually involved. Naturally sin begins in the mind, and it is there that we do have to go to look for. In which way does our mind go strange?

Often people forget that God gives wisdom and also common sense. That last part is often put aside for doctrinal reasons.

Also cultural and language differences made that people wanted to adjust Biblical words, because they thought it would be better to adapt the language to the public. A decennia ago in the Dutch language we got for that reason a Prison Bible, a Youth Bible, a Bikers Bible, with modern slang words in it.

Because certain ideas seem to be offensive for one or an other group they have to be changed, the publishers think. In stead of putting a clear note of explanation of what is meant with such an expression. For example, today some publishers are wondering how they could cope with the words ‘son of’, because Muslims do have a problem with God who would have to have sex to get children. The idea of Jesus as Son of God is highly offensive to Muslims, therefore some of the Wycliffe Bible Translators prefer to use “Messiah” instead of “Son” in the translations and “Lord” instead of “Father.”

When we talk with Muslims about the Father – Son relationship, we do compare it to fosterparents, who also did not have to have sex, to be the ‘father’ or mother’ of the foster child. We also try to let them understand that any creation of a builder is a product and as such a child of the creator. We notice that many Muslims can find our way of thinking reasonable and not so wrong.

Naturally several Christians would encounter more problems when they say the son of God equals God the son, because then there is a real problem, for Christians like us, and for Muslims and Jews, who accept that there is only One God, who is the God of gods, but the Only One Almighty Elohim, Allah whose name is Jehovah. In such concept of the first mentioned Christians we do find the Trinity bias. For those trinitarians the Wycliff Translations are even a bigger problem than for us, who do not like the modern versions either. “Son of God” and “God the Father”, becoming God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are essential elements of the Christian concept of the Trinity, which is the Holy Core of Christianity according the Trinitarians. Many evangelical supporters of the Wycliffe organization find this very troubling, and are considering withholding support for the organization.

More “liberal” critics who see the Bible as a reflection of a particular people in history and their struggle with understanding their relationship to a deity argue that the historical contexts are a fundamental part of the meaning of the books of the Bible. Further, they suggest, reworking or changing the theology of these biblical texts will make missionary work among Muslims more difficult since Muslims claim that the Bible is corrupted and contains errors, and has therefore been abrogated by the Qur’an.

When publishers, for reasons to sell enough books, give preference to adapt the language to the times and culture of the moment, Muslims are very right that they charge Christianity with deformation of Gods Word. A pity they do not consider the main Bibles which stay in publication or can be found many years after they had been published for the first time. Even when certain changes where allowed and even the name of God had been taken away they stayed in the running, saying exactly the same thing as previous publications.

In that, having so many people working against the Holly Scriptures, but standing erect for thousands of years we see a much mightier hand than that of any human being. Even with some less correctly translated versions, people, who really read the whole Book, can find the Truth, because Gods Word is unchangeable.

Words are also part of passion. Which version you have in front of you, shall have a lot to do with your feelings and preferences. Wanting old language or modern language, being used to such a way of speaking or an other way of expressing oneself. It all depends on a matter of choice and ‘inner feeling’. Your love for words or love for telegram style messages. character of the person, his upbringing, schooling, formation on religious level, it shall all form the background to evaluate from a certain standpoint.

Several American Christians attempt to categorize the content of the Bible according to a pre-defined framework that is then passed on to others. The idea is to summarize and condense all Biblical teaching into a handful of topics, with a handy list of verses next to each topic, providing support for the idea. As a result, the framework becomes all-important when training students how to answer the question, “What does the Bible say about ?”

A big problem which we do encounter is that with many of those evangelicals, most often Pentecostals, many times, most of the verses in the list are being pressed into service on a topic to which they do not really relate. Or, perhaps, whether they are applicable depends upon other assumptions held by the person who created the list. Just because a person says something is true, and backs it up with a list of Bible verses, does not prove their point is true. Often the very framework that defines what constitutes legitimate avenues of inquiry, is up for debate.

A big problem we notice also that lots of them do not compare the verses and stories from the Old and the New Testament and do not take the whole picture in account.

The Trinitarian Christians want to place Christ Jesus dot in the centre. Mishkan David correctly observes: “There was a time when all astronomers held the premise that the earth was the center of the solar system. Working with that assumption, they concluded—based on very real and accurate observation—that the planets had some highly unusual traits in their behavior. It seemed that the planets accelerated at some points, and decelerated at others… and at different points on their orbit each time! The characteristic I always loved in high school science class was the notion of retrograde motion—the planets actually seemed to loop back in their paths, literally doing loop-de-loops as they moved along in their orbit!” though he seems to be a messianic Jew who does not believe any more in One God but in three gods, who are supposed to be one as well.

When people take the whole Book of Books, they shall see that Jesus is one part of Gods Plan, and that Israel is an other very important part of the Plan of World Peace. Jesus shall come on the throne in Israel, the municipal city of the Kingdom of God.

King James did like to have the full control of the Christian system in his country. In his edict number three he stated that his Authorised Bible was to retain the word “church” in the translation and it was not to be replaced with the word “congregation.” This he did because he had no jurisdiction over the congregation (people), but he did over the church (physical buildings). So you can see he never wanted the word “assembly” associated with the original meaning of the Old Testament which meant “congregation.” So he knew the correct translation, obviously, but he didn’t want it in there, that way they retain control over “the church.” (Read: Christ’s Ekklesia and the Church Compared, by Richard Anthony)

We always should be very careful what words we want to use and to which translation we want to preference. Having a preference for one or another version does no harm, and reading several versions can broaden the knowledge of every member in the community.

But all those members in the meeting, the ecclesia, should together, search the Scriptures to get to the Truth. This they should do in all openness for the Word of God, recognising that we are always living in a world which wants to give preference to certain ideas, which are not always according to Biblical Truth nor to the Will of God.

The Bible may be about vocation and election, but it is in the choice we do have to make our selves that we can become part of the elected or not. The Word of God gives the inhabitants of the universe the possibility to create a world where every creature can live in unity. The biblical emphasis, across the board, is on solidarity and love for each one and for everything around us.

In such a world we should not be tossed by political views but should stand firm in the Word of God which shall give us the necessary insight.

Marcus Ampe
2 June2012

Please do find additional reading:

The Bible is an anti-libertarian document
People long to do whatever they want. They don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or what to say. But they also long to order their lives in accordance with a concept of right and wrong, and join forces with others who have a same or similar concept of right and wrong. People are in search of a constitution, a commonwealth, that suits them. The contradiction is blatant. The Bible clashes with a libertarian point of view. The Bible is a conglomerate of texts assembled at the intersection of ancient polities, movements, institutions, and traditions. It is full of liberty-restricting provisions and considerations in the service of the long-term viability of said polities and traditions. The Bible simply is an illiberal book. At times it takes an anthropologist to point this out. In her still important critique of Jacob Neusner’s The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism, Mary Douglas pointed out that the rule-making that is part and parcel of biblical exhortation and, specifically, of Torah, both in and beyond the Bible per se, is coercive in intent.
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those who value individual freedoms above all will look elsewhere for a constitution and a res_publica. They will look for a framework that privileges and protects a more expansive concept of res privata than that found in biblical literature, Judaism, and Christianity.

Reimagining the Historicity of the Bible
It might also be important to try again to conceive of a history of the religion of Israel, a history of emergent Christianity and normative Judaism, insofar as they can be constructed from biblical, post-biblical, and non-biblical sources. Now is an inopportune time to walk away from the questions which have animated modern biblical studies from the beginning.
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Historicism and scientism so defined are modern myths. In the diction of Bruce Lincoln, they are ideologies in narrative form. Both stand in contradiction to the narrative of the Bible in which everything hinges on a vital relationship with a singular principle of truth, justice, and goodness which occurs to people as a God of great power and beauty.
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On the contrary, if a text presents itself to a reader as the sum of a variety of precursor texts, the whole is unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts, but an understanding of the whole is enhanced to the extent that a reader can take the text apart and put it back together again.

Moreover, if a particular textual component corrects or contradicts another, why is it irreverent or unloving to point it out? The point is obvious in the case of the book of Job. The truth it mediates lies at the intersection of not one contradittorio (cross-examination, debate) but many. It is no less true in the case of the Pentateuch, if one treats it, as one should, as a literary whole. For example, the treatment of specific topics across the various legal corpora, the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy, and the Holiness Code, embodies a debate, the sum of whose parts must be constructed beyond the bounds of the text. There is a strong sense in which the truth Torah tells inevitably resides, not in the text before us, but outside of it.

Which Kingdom Will You Serve?
What is systematic theology, you ask? It is the attempt to categorize the content of the Bible according to a pre-defined framework that is then passed on to others.

Bibles for Muslims? Should we change the Bible’s basic concepts in order not to offend one religious population?

The Problem with Certitude

My Growing Problem With Liberal Christianity

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My Growing Problem With Liberal Christianity (brucegerencser.net)
On one hand, I understand WHY many people adopt some form of liberal Christianity. They are tired of Evangelical (which is Fundamentalist) Christianity and its attendant certitude and black and white thinking. They are tired of the culture war. They are tired of being viewed as mindless, knuckle dragging Bible thumpers.
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Liberal Christians are known for reinterpreting the Bible to fit their own agenda. They write book after book to explain why the Evangelical interpretation of the Bible is wrong, misguided, or outdated. Never mind WHAT the text says. All that matters is making the square peg fit in the round hole.
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Look at Tandy’s questions. He desperately wants to believe the Bible is unclear on the matter of homosexuality. But , it is not. He is an English teacher. He values words and their meanings. What does the text say? What would an every day, non-original language educated person, in other words, 99% of the people sitting in the pew, think these verses mean?
Pat Robertson: The Bible Is “Terribly Wrong” (slog.thestranger.com)
Apparently, we can pick and choose parts of the Bible after all, says Pat Robertson. When asked on the 700 Club today why some believe “America was founded as a Christian nation” even though it allowed slavery, Robertson said, “like it or not, if you read the Bible in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted.” But Robertson concluded that despite what the Bible says, “We have moved in our conception of the value of human beings until we realized slavery was terribly wrong.” Of course, when Dan Savage made a similar point about the Bible (albeit with saltier language), the Religious Right was irate.
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We’re asking conservative Christians to ignore what the bible says about homosexuality just as they ignore what the bible says about slavery.
Let’s Talk About Sex Part 2 (brucegerencser.net)
Christianity is a text-based religion. The foundation of Christianity is the Bible, the Word of God. From the most liberal Christian to the most strident Fundamentalist, every Christian, to some degree or another, accepts the Bible as truth, as the final authority.
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I am sure that someone may suggest that everyone knows that the word touch used in First Corinthians 7:1 means to have sexual intercourse. Perhaps. All I am trying to do with this post is to show how a Christian, armed with the belief that the Bible is the literal Word of God, could come to the conclusion that the Bible teaches that before marriage a man or a woman should not touch each other.
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As physical familiarity increases so does the risk of engaging in sexual intercourse. Every sexually-aware human being knows this.
How to Witness to an Atheist (brucegerencser.net)
Many atheists were Christians before they became atheists. In my case, I was a Christian for 50 years and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years. Granted, most atheists are not like me but many of them were raised in the Christian church and know what the Christian gospel is and what the Bible teaches.
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- People become atheists for a variety of reasons. Often there are emotional and cultural reasons why a person becomes an atheist but, at the end of the day, most people become an atheist for intellectual reasons.
- Most atheists are not atheists because they are angry with God, mad at the church, or hurt.
Be prepared to give evidence (proof) of the assertions you make. Saying the Bible says will not work since the atheist will likely not accept the authority of the Bible.
Growing Pains, Pt. 6 | “Evangelism” (thereformedwesleyan.com)
Christianity is a religion of return. No one comes to faith in isolation. Faith requires a body of faith to give it to others. If you had never seen a church, a Christian or a bible you never would have known about Jesus. You may have thought about God, for Paul said that the world testifies of God, but what we need can only come through revelation and that gift and responsibility has been given to the Church of Jesus. If there has been any benefit or change in our lives, then we are charged with a great responsibility, to give what has been given to us.
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Sharing your faith with someone else is like taking a vitamin. The more and the longer you share your faith the better you feel and the stronger your faith will become.
Pat Robertson Discovers Cherry Picking (patheos.com)
What happened to all that “Bible is the literal word of God” stuff? Since we already eat shellfish and work on the Sabbath and wear cotton-poly blends, can slavery be dismissed just as easily? Because some of that stuff is so antiquated it is not only irrelevant in the 21^stcentury but downright absurd.If Robertson has his way, we can let thousands of years of Bible-condoned slavery slide… but if someone dares question Leviticus (also in the Old Testament, let us not forget) and suggest that gay people should be allowed to legally marry, we are a nation full of sinners?! Really?!
In Why I am an atheist – Libby Anne (freethoughtblogs.com) you can see the problem when fundamentalist religious people teach their kids certain things which are not in accordance with reality and not in accordance what is really written and meant in the Holy Scriptures. Once they become a person who can make up his own mind and find archaeological and historical scientific works the fantasies they were taught to them fall to pieces.
“I was raised on the line between fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. I was homeschooled, and nearly every subject was related to God and the Bible. History was His story and our science textbooks were all creationists.” … “And then I went to college, where my young earth creationist views were challenged. I responded by fighting back. I argued with both students and professors, sure that I had some sort of truth they were missing.”
For such person the confrontation with other thinkings clashes so that they do not see any more the background of the words of the Bible. They even go out to read about where the Bible came from, written by people who are against the Word of God and distorting its words. Doing that the most of them are going to think the Bible is a book full of errors and contradictions, while there are not such contradictions, though good that they start seeing it is also a very human book.
Often it is because certain religions take away the humanity, like they want to make of Jesus the God, instead of accepting that he was a man of flesh and blood.
When they really start reading the full Bible and get themselves loose of the doctrinal teachings they start to become being pulled in two, for the both loose their grip with the divine and are becoming incredibly fascinated with the very human development of the very human book that is the Bible.
Normally you would expect that they would come to a better understanding and that finally, the Bible would make complete and total sense. Than arrives the problem, that most of them want to hold fast on traditions and the dogmatic teachings in which they were brought up. In such an instance they feel being forced to choose between holding onto the divine and the beauty of total understanding, thinking that that would mean to put God and everything sacred away, instead of coming to the Truth and taking God for what He really is and taking Jesus for what he really is.
Gay for God? A Primer on How to Talk to Christians About the Gay Debate (theparish.typepad.com)
Until someone can give me a compelling reason—without citing Leviticus or Romans—that a class of American citizens are denied the same rights and privileges I enjoy, please just admit that the only real arguments you have are theological (i.e., god doesn’t like it) or aesthetic (i.e., it’s gross). Take away the Bible references, you got no argument save the one about old school conservatism and the wisdom of slow change.
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It’s a Constitutional issue, not a theological one. Our legislators aren’t paid to parse Scripture and debate hermeneutics.
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The Bible prohibits punching babies in Leviticus (it really doesn’t, but we’re pretending). 3000 years later, we learn there is a class of people who are born to punch babies, who actually enjoy punching babies. We call them pugilinfantos. They point out that when the Bible was written, the term didn’t even exist; therefore, the Bible can’t have their orientation in mind.
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an honest read of the OT yields the idea that homosexual acts were considered part of the moral prohibitions, as were all the sex acts listed. The question is whether or not you want Bronze Age people defining allowable sexual ethics.
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There is enough ambiguity in the Pauline corpus about words like arsenokoites and sodomite that liberal and evangelical scholars will continue to argue for decades. Again, the problem is that same sex issues made it into the NT; whether they are specifically about homosexual sex or economic exploitation or pederasty is one for the scholars. They don’t agree on it.
Why do people fall for “old” Christian Fundamentalism? (unbiasedtruth.net)
Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity(unbiasedtruth.net)
I am sending this to you to help those who have left fundamentalist churches that preach damnation, hatred, fear and “you’re not a Christian if you don’t believe like me.” Many have turned against the church and never came back, or just ran away from strict preachers, parents, teachers, etc. and never looked back to find a loving, caring church, group, club, etc. I like a church sign down the road from me that states:

“We Welcome Sinners and Backsliders Like Us.” You’ll find some good ideas from the summary and the reviews shared from others who have had a similar experience.
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The time is past, says Bruce Bawer, when denominational names and other traditional labels provided an accurate reflection of Christian America’s religious beliefs …
Government agency approves Christian fundamentalist exams as ‘comparable’ to A-Level(liberalconspiracy.org)
A Christian fundamentalist qualification which teaches that the theory of evolution has “no scientific basis” has been declared comparable to A-levels by UK Naric.

NARIC is the UK’s National Agency responsible for providing information and opinion on vocational, academic and professional qualifications from across the world.

The International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE) uses a curriculum that was previously criticised for claiming the Loch Ness Monster “appears to be a plesiosaur,” and that the mythical beast is evidence against evolution.
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In a training booklet for ACE staff, future teachers are told, “It’s interesting that in the African primitive languages there is no word for wisdom. We in the West find that surprising, but you see, the idea of wisdom came through the Biblical channels of the Judaeo-Christian religion and filtered into all of western culture and society.”
How Many Christian Fundamentalists Are There in the UK?(leavingfundamentalism.wordpress.com)
Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism,^[1] arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians.^[2]
Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth(scotsman.com)
Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.

Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.

The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.
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!!!

Mr Wilson believes that such fundamentalist Christian teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.

He added: “There’s a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education.

“The majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don’t believe they should be publicly funded, I don’t believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded.” !!!
In Will Smith Hits Back at Ex-: “Miss Holy Roller”(blackwriteandread.wordpress.com) you can see to which problems it comes when fundamentalism gets to one person in a family.
“ Will goes on to say that it is “fundamental Christians” like her who cause others to fall by the wayside … killing, denying, cheating, lying, stealing, depriving, living selfish lives, committing atrocious acts and heinous crimes in the name of their “god” (the ones listed before) and then coming back to rein people into their world of self-righteousness with a Bible that was used by Europe to put people in slave chains; and to destroy, kill, and steal from others.”
How We’ve Infuriated Centuries of People(str.typepad.com)
It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner. Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths. All of them are clearly delusional….

Bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated….
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The truth is, what has infuriated people about Christians throughout the centuries is that they can’t get us to conform to them. From Shadrach, to Peter, to Richard Wurmbrand, no law, threat or torture can turn true Christians from loving and serving God or affirming what we know to be true.
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it is often characteristic of humans to be most emphatically hostile to things that they themselves most deeply and secretly are guilty of; I wonder how many of the most hostile anti-theists are trying to wipe out god by denying him so strongly.
The Egalitarian and Complementarian Divide (5) (allisonquient.wordpress.com)
Sacred and secular cultures have had massive impacts on Evangelicals, and as a result, have influenced the gender debate. It is common to hear how much secular culture and liberalism have influenced Egalitarianism or how Egalitarianism will inevitably lead Evangelicals down the path to liberalism or even the acceptance of homosexuality. Massive amounts of effort has been dedicated towards making this alleged reality known and warning the faithful of the danger of falling down the slippery slope.
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We ought not to trivialize the issue by substituting rhetoric for substance. We ought not to marginalize the issue by obscuring the clarity of Scripture.
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Many Complementarians believe Egalitarians have read back into Scripture what is at heart a secular ideology, even if Egalitarians do this inadvertently.
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What is overlooked or underemphasized is the commonality between Egalitarians and Complementarians when it comes to the authority of Scripture and how Egalitarians are also influenced by culture in much the same way Complementarians are. In fact, when the Evangelical Woman’s Caucus became polarized between the liberal and conservative Christians over accepting a homosexual lifestyle, those who were liaisons to the Evangelical world found they could not in good conscience stay in their current organization.
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In the article discussed earlier he mentioned that those in the Episcopal church did not feel the need to exit their denomination when a woman was made a Bishop in 1989 and so “advocates of homosexual ordination were not worried about a split in the church.” When a compromise followed just allowing individual churches to bless homosexual unions or not, Grudem wounders “As I am writing this chapter, it remains to be seen whether conservatives will finally leave the denomination.”
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History serves as reminded that Evangelicals are heavily influenced by culture whether it is secular, liberal or our own subculture. For better or worse, we have been influenced to our detriment and are being influenced now. When it comes to the gender debate, fears of a liberal or secular takeover have colored and shaped how Egalitarians are perceived and biased the debate in the opposite direction even though it is unwarranted.

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Barbados 120 years ago a seed was planted

Posted on July 9, 2012. Filed under: History, Religion, World | Tags: Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge, Barbados, Bridgetown, Bro. Blenman, Caribbean, Commonwealth of Nations, James Hepburn, Leonard P. Howell, Rastafari Religion, Spiritual Baptist, William Courten |

Covering an area of 431 square kilometres (166 sq mi) you can find an independent state in the West Indies, full of life, about 100 miles (160 kilometres) east of the Windward Islands. The most easterly of the Caribbean Islands, it is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic it is a country with no official religion, having Bridgetown, the only seaport as its capital.

Map of the Caribbean Sea and its islands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Spanish and Portuguese briefly claimed Barbados from the late-16th to the 17th centuries.

South coast of Barbados, West Indies. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The prevailing winds made the island difficult of access; if outward-bound ships from Europe did not gain the island while heading west, they found it difficult indeed to turn and reach its shores by sailing eastward. As a result of this circumstance, conquest of the island was impracticable. The first English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1624. They took possession of it in the name of the British king James I. Two years later in 1627 the first permanent settlers arrived from England and it became an English and later British colony. The Rev. N. Greenidge become the father of one of the island’s most famous scholars, Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge and suggested the listing of Bimshire as a county of England. Among the initial important figures of the House of Assembly which began meeting in 1639 was Anglo-Dutchman Sir William Courten. Babados remained a British possession without interruption from the 17th century to November 30, 1966, when it attained independence and membership in the Commonwealth of Nations.

Close to 90 percent of all Barbadians (also known colloquially as Bajan) are of African descent (Afro-Bajans), mostly descendants of the slave labourers on the sugar plantations. The remainder of the population includes groups of Europeans (Euro-Bajans), Asians, Bajan Hindus and Muslims, and an influential Middle Eastern (Arab-Bajans) group mainly of Syrian and Lebanese descent.

Most Barbadians of African and European descent are Christians (95%), chiefly Anglicans (40%). Other Christian denominations with significant followings in Barbados are the Catholic Church, ”Pentecostal” ((although this designation is often inaccurate for these Trinidadian Evangelicals) Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventist and Spiritual Baptists, the syncretic Afro-American religion which combines elements of traditional African religion with Christianity. The Spiritual Baptist (or Shouter Baptist) faith expanded to Barbados in 1957 as the Sons of God Apostolic Spiritual Baptists movement. It now ranks as one of two indigenous religions in the country (with the Jerusalem Apostolic Spiritual Baptist Church in Earling Grove and Zion at Richmond Gap, Beulah Temple – Bishops, St. Lucy). “Shouter” is seen as a derogatory term by many modern day Baptists on the island, seeing as it was first originally imposed upon them by the mainstream, the British colonial government. The other ranking originating in the country being the Rastafari religion (founded by Leonard Percival “Gong” Howell in 1932 ) of which the most worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (ruled 1930–1974), as God incarnate, the Second Advent, or the reincarnation of Jesus. And the small group Orisha (0.1 percent).

The Church of England was the official state religion until its legal disenfranchisement by the Parliament of Barbados following independence. Religious minorities include Hindus, Muslims (Indians from Gujarat in India make up majority of the Muslim population), the Baha’i Faith, Jews and Wiccans.

According the Rastafari Zion , or the paradise, shall be created in Ethiopia. But the country got also to know about the real Zion and the hope for all people, black white and others.

English: Disciple of the Rastafari movement encountered on a bridge in Barbados. The Wharf St. & HWY 7, Bridgetown, Barbados. Former musician, Artist, Rastafarian. Believes in Ganja and accepts “Haile Selassie I” as God Incarnate (Jah). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

120 years ago on the Island of Barbados Bro. Blenman was pleased to announce that an ecclesia had been formed on the Island of Barbados, his native land. It all had started with Bro. James Hepburn, a Scot by birth, who had arrived in Barbados. From that time the Truth has been preached to many and maintained by faithful brethren and sisters up to the present.

Though the standard of living of the enslaved African people who were being released from plantation slavery was very bad in the 1930s. They were poor, penniless and desolate after hundreds of years of British and Spanish slavery, hungry, suffering yaws, cholera and yellow fever. The crown of England did not care and doctors charged exorbitant fees which none could afford. Coupled with this was the genocidal part slavery and colonialism left with the people who saw themselves as unworthy and scum of the earth in 1932 Colonial Jamaica.

The brothers who preached the Love of God, did not find it easy to bring those people who held on to their African traditions and mixture of trinitarian beliefs to the Faith. While Leonard P. Howell called for International Salvation for all peoples globally and white Christian populace spurred on by the colonial planters and their acolytes, both clashed with the rebllious Rastafari Movement, the Brothers in Christ preached brotherly love between all folks. For the brethren there shall not be a Theocratical Order of the Nyahbinghi Reign, because the promise is laid in front of us of a theocratic reign under the son of men and son of God, Jesus Christ. the Christadelphians help the people to see the need to be separate from the world as did Joseph during his life of suffering and trial in Egypt.

Bro. and Sis. Prewer from Tobago could be the guests in 1973 for the inauguration of a new hall. Over 70 people attended this meeting of which about 45 were visitors. Plans are in place for a special 40th anniversary celebration of the hall opening next April, God willing. Today the meeting place is home to many ecclesial activities.

Sis. Murl travelled near and far throughout the island to collect children for Sunday School and teach them saving principles of the Truth in her forthright and bubbling way. As for all countries the abundance of slavery, getting freedom for ever, shall only succeed under the government of Jesus from Nazareth, Jeshua the son of God.

‘Bajans’ love their Bibles. Typically, every verse a Christadelphian begins quoting to a friend is finished by the friend. Churches of many denominations around the island are filled on Wednesday and Sundays. Often a grocery store clerk is sitting reading her Bible while awaiting the next customer.

Because of this interest in the Bible, leafleting and preaching in various centers including the Nelson Square in Bridgetown is a great pleasure. Many friends there were introduced to the www.thisisyourbible.com correspondence course. There are over 600 contacts in Barbados. Most are happy with their Church but want to learn more about the Word. Our continual prayer is that some will be moved by hearing the Word and seek out the Truth of scripture to the Glory of God in heaven.

Please read the story about The Truth in Barbados

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Caribbean vacation: experience Barbados’ posh flair
In which Caribbean vacation destination can you spot Prince Harry playing polo, Robin Thicke and Smoky Robinson headlining a jazz festival, and Serena Williams strolling with her beau, all within the same few weeks? Only one island has this much cross-cultural, all-ages, Town & Country-flavored celeb cache: Barbados, the sophisticated, sunny haven of the East Indies.
Dance in the streets at this Barbados festival (orbitz.com)
Grand Koodement Day is actually the grand finale of Barbados‘ biggest and most popular annual festival, Crop Over. A traditional event based around the historic sugar cane harvest, Crop Over comprises five weeks of live music, dance, parties and carnival-esque fun.
Barbados – It Won’t Rain On Our Parade (picturesandplanetickets.wordpress.com)
I have to say that ever since I read Meet Me in Paradise’s post about the beautiful pink sand beaches on Barbados, I couldn’t wait to go and see the beauty for myself. I knew that while we were in Barbados we wanted to lounge on the beach and just relax.
A Role For NCC To Control Jet Ski Operators: Is This A PSV Like Culture In The Making?(bajan.wordpress.com)
Payola and corruption in Barbados as usual as the honest man trying to follow rules gets crushed.and the ones breaking all the rules succeed because their family or friends are employed by the NCC or they have paid money to the rangers…I suppose a tourist will have to die before this is looked at. In Hawaii jet skis are confined to one location and can only be used there.

Driving over the head of a tourist with a jet ski will surely happen as night is as day. These jet ski men are ruthless criminals for the most part but they are out there breaking coast guard laws every day of the week.24/7.
and it goes on and on.
Wait Mia, Wait Mia Wait (bajan.wordpress.com)
Listening to today’s (6/07/2012) edition of Fireworks on VOB, my thoughts ran wild once Mia Mottley again spoke of her dream to see the building of nationhood in Barbados.
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while Bajans substitute character for charisma, the notion of building this nationhood remains just that, so from the great Stalin I borrow this line.
Suggestions To Infuse Our Tourism Model (bajan.wordpress.com)
The success of Crop Over is that it was created for Bajans. Tourism caught on to its tail and the rest is history. This in itself should say to all that the most successful festivals should be made for Bajans not to influence visitors. If Bajans accept and participate in an event, naturally they will tell their friends and family and this will create sustainability.
New BIBA President outlines international business priorities (caribbean360.com)
New President of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) Melanie Jones refers to the international business sector as “highly effective machinery by which Barbados can pump vital “hard” currency into the economy, with very little leakage.”
Tales From The Courts – Part V (bajan.wordpress.com)
In the last month, the financial world has been rocked by evidence of LIBOR fixing by Barclays Bank. LIBOR is the London Inter Bank Offered Rate. The scandal in the making has led to the resignation of both the UK chairman and the UK chief executive of Barclays Bank and the setting up of a parliamentary enquiry in the UK involving, not just of Barclays, but of all banks. Last week Barclays was fined £290 million for LIBOR rigging.
Solar powered government buildings coming for Barbados (caribbean360.com)
Barbados will shortly be replacing almost all its public street lights with energy efficient lamps, retrofitting at least 12 government buildings with solar power systems, and deploying energy efficiency and conservation technologies throughout the public sector.
Barbados begins new drive to bolster local agriculture (caribbean360.com)
The agriculture minister said officials in his ministry would shortly begin “a complete restructuring and repositioning” of local agriculture, including a national consultation next Wednesday and a related comprehensive White Paper on Agriculture to be available by early July.
Rihanna Attends Grandmother’s Wake in Barbados, No Sign of Chris Brown (celebs.gather.com)
According to a report from Just Jared, the We Found Love singer immediately cleared her schedule upon learning of her grandmother’s passing. She flew from London to Barbados to spend time with her family and mourn the loss of a lady who was very special to her.
Rihanna: Back to Barbados After Grandmother’s Death (justjared.com)
Rihanna flies back to Barbados after grandmother’s death (caribbean360.com)
Rihanna’s decision to fly home was reported after the news that she had pulled out of the Rock In Rio festival in Madrid, Spain, where she had been booked to make a headline appearance on Thursday.Organisers of the festival have confirmed they are trying to book a replacement for the grieving star, but are also offering fans refunds.

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Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ

Posted on April 2, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Christadelphian, Feesten, Housechurch, Jesus Christ Jeshua the Messiah Jahushua, Meeting, Religion | Tags: Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Christadelphian, Christmas, Church, Church community, Community, Congregate, Easter, First Born, Followers of Christ, Gathering, Image of God, meeting, Messiah, New Creation, Unity |

In the Christian communities these coming day should be very special. In some Christian churches they still take time to remember that special weekend something happened which changed everything for the world.

Though most Christian communities have brought the accent to the birth of Christ and celebrate it on the heathen feast of the goddess Light, we should see the real light in the world and look up at the man who gave his life on the 14th of Nisan some two millennia ago.

It is the moment by which everybody could come a new creation. Through having become to the faith in Christ, it is like old things are past away and in his name we have become a “new creation.”

Though we have the same body as that man from Nazareth and all the men around us, we can follow in the footsteps of the one teacher, rabbi Jeshua, who was loved but hated even more. Because of the action undertaken by that simple workers son some day in glory, we will trade this temporal, earthly body as tent for an eternal heavenly house build not with human hands. Meanwhile, though we live in the same old tent we had in Adam, we are by the 2° Adam new tenants, a “new creation.” As followers of Christ we should have taken on new clothes and though we may have the same old physical brain, we should have been transformed in a new being. Every day again we should be working on our new construction and should we learn to think an entirely new way.

¡Jesús María! (Photo credit: supernova.gdl.mx)

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you prove what is that good and well-pleasing and perfect desire of Elohim. ” (Romans 12:2 The Scriptures 1998+)
“For “Who has known the mind of יהוה? Who shall instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Messiah. ” (1 Corinthians 2:16 The Scriptures 1998+)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he is a renewed creature – the old matters have passed away, see, all matters have become renewed!1 Footnote: 1Rom. 6:2-22, Gal. 2:20, Eph. 4:22-24, Col. 3:10, 1 John 3:9-10. ” (2 Corinthians 5:17 The Scriptures 1998+)

As Jesus told us to pray to his Father we should give thanks to the Only One Elohim, the One having qualified us for the portion of or, to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in the light, who rescued us out of the dominion of the darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the ‘Son of His love’, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. It is this remarkable man, born -4 CT who is the image of the invisible God who went walking through many villages, along the lakes, in the dessert and on the hills, teaching the people to honour his Father who provided a solution against the consequences of the first sin of men. In Christ Jesus Jehovah God did find the first human being who managed to stay without sins. Like we all are created in the image of God, this one man was the only one who would become the first-born of all creation, figuratively existing before all of Gods New Creation, because by this Jewish man all things were reshaped and everything from the past was destructed. He cruised the curse of death.

By Jesus his death on the stake he offered his whole being as a Lamb of God and final substitute for the payment of sins. As the payment for the sin of men was death, now live was given again to all who wanted to accept this ransom. The old guilt is replaced by new forgiveness. By Jesus his action there has come forgiveness over all of us. Consequently, there is now no condemnation to the ones who are willing to give themselves in Christ Jesus. But than they really should not keep on to tradition following the world and having to be bound to human organisations or institutions. They should be liberated. Perhaps they want to have a label on their head, but that should not be the main point. Each one calling himself Christian should withdraw from every one who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from the apostles of Christ. In case the one in front of us, calling from the pulpit is not speaking according the teachings of Christ Jesus and not according the Words of God we should not listen to him or her, but only take Gods Word from the Bible at heart. The focus of those who recognise the man who died at the stake should be to try to live as him and to walk about and conduct themselves not according to flesh like most of the human breed likes to enjoy life. No, we do have chosen to meet each other as brethren and sisters willing to live according to the Spirit. We should not follow Pantheism or Buddhism or a set of special religion, but the mystical union of the believer with Christ in the Holy Spirit. For we know that this will lead to deliverance for us, through our petition and the provision of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, according to our earnest expectations, our eager longing and hope, that in nothing we will be ashamed, but with all boldness we shall be able to stand underneath the wings of Christ in whom we have found confidence.

John MacArthur on Calvin's Pulpit (Photo credit: six steps )

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Elohim dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Messiah, this one is not His. “
(Romans 8:9 The Scriptures 1998+)
“There is, then, now no condemnation to those who are in Messiah יהושע, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the Torah of the Spirit of the life in Messiah יהושע has set me free from the law of sin and of death. For the Torah being powerless, in that it was weak through the flesh, Elohim, having His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the Torah should be completed in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the matters of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the matters of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Because the mind of the flesh is enmity towards Elohim, for it does not subject itself1 to the Torah of Elohim2, neither indeed is it able, Footnotes: 1Or does not obey. 2John 15:5, 1 John 4:4, 1 John 3:9, 1 John 5:18. and those who are in the flesh are unable to please Elohim. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Elohim dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Messiah, this one is not His. ” (Romans 8:1-9 The Scriptures 1998+)

As we have chosen to follow יהושע Jeshua / Jesus Christ the Messiah, we should not be concerned to have a human label, being baptised than having to be a “Baptists!”, being renewed or being reformed than having to be “Reformed“, trembling at the Word of God, but therefore not having to be “Quakers!” , following certain rules or methods, but not having to be a “Methodists”. Following the advice of Jesus to come together, to meet or congregate but not having to be “Congregationalists” we should come together as brothers and sisters in Christ. And the coming days we should even feel more united, because we should celebrate the moment Christ Jesus cut the chains of this world and liberated us for ever.

In the early days of Christianity there were congregations of believers, which came together to remember the moment that Jesus took the loaf of bread and shared it with those whom he called his brothers and sisters. United in Christ we have also become Brothers and Sisters in Christ (or Christadelphians) and remember the day Jesus died for our sins, to open the Gate to liberation for ever, to be able to enter the Kingdom of God as renewed bodies.

In our choice to follow Christ Jesus we have become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

“Shimʽon Kĕpha, a servant and emissary of יהושע Messiah, to those who have obtained a belief as precious as ours by the righteousness of our Elohim and Saviour יהושע Messiah: Favour and peace be increased to you in the knowledge of Elohim and of יהושע our Master, as His Mighty-like power has given to us all we need for life and reverence, through the knowledge of Him who called us to esteem and uprightness. ” (2 Peter 1:1-3 The Scriptures 1998+)

“So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the set-apart ones and members of the household of Elohim,1 Footnote: 1Rom. 11:17-24, Isa. 14:1. ” (Ephesians 2:19 The Scriptures 1998+)

Having obtained a like precious faith, let us come together and gather in the name of Christ and let grace and peace be multiplied to us and all around us by a knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Therfore let us not look to find a church formed by men to mens wishes, but look for a community formed and moulded by God to His Will. Like Abraham of old, we “seek a city, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb.11:10). That is to say, we hunger for a godly community in every sense of the word. Law and order, peace and justice, truth and goodness, love and mercy, freedom and creativity. In one word — godly.
Jesus made it clear that He came to start just such a community on the earth. “I will build My Church,” He said, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The word He used is ecclesia, meaning “the community of the called out.”

“What, then is it that we have been called into?” To be sure, it is a community like nothing this world has to offer. The Bible refers to it in such comprehensive terms as The House of the Lord, the City of our God, and the Kingdom of Heaven. It is both local and global, as well as eternal. It is not institutional; but relational. It is gathered in the name of the Lord, governed by the word of the Lord, guided by the Spirit of the Lord, guarded by the power of the Lord, and garnished with the glory of the Lord.
And there is only one way into this Community; it is through faith in the Lord Jesus, evidenced by love for His people, which springs out of obedience to His word.

Do you want to belong to the world or to that community which simply wants to follow Jesus Christ and his Father, as Jesus did, and honour his and our Father with full honour like the Supreme God of gods deserves?

Are you willing to come to this community that forms the Ecclesia as Jesus Christ wishes?

Dutch version: Niet gebonden door labels maar vrij in Christus

Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant

Posted on February 8, 2012. Filed under: Being Christian, following Jesus Christ, Breaking of the Bread, Christendom and Christianity, Churchplanning, Religion, Witnessing | Tags: Belgium, Celibacy, Council of Trent, Disaffiliation, disunion, Eucharist, Flanders, Heresy, Manifest, Mass, Mass (liturgy), Ordination, Othodoxy, Priesthood, Roman Catholic Church, Sacrament, The Lord’s Supper, Transubstantiation, Women in Church |

In 2007 there appeared already a Manifest for the believers in the Low Countries. It was started by people from the Protestant church of the Netherlands (PKN = Protestantse Kerk Nederland) and at the turn of the year the Flemish Catholic priests launched a Manifest for believers Manifest “Gelovigen nemen het woord”, “Believers take the word”. Both the manifests wanted to take care that their church community would be growing and be a union of believers.

Both manifests with a new one this month are concerned by the falling church-membership and the loss of believers. The first manifest: Manifest ‘Wij kiezen voor eenheid’ or ‘We choose for unity’ consecrated on the union we would like to see between all those who call themselves Christian. For the writers of the manifest it does not go up that there is so much enormous disunion in the churches in the Dutch-language religiously of the Beneluxand therefore they want to call the believers to go for a joint slogan: ‘We choose for unity’.

Their “Manifesto for unity” got not such an attention from the public and did not get so known. The manifesto for believers Manifest “Gelovigen nemen het woord” presented to the Belgian belief community at the turn of the year hit like a bomb. It got the approval from 8233 religiously but had probably more counter parts. A lot of Roman Catholics launched a counter attack. In the month January the reaction was so violently that the initiators against the end of the month, or begin this month took away their website with further definitions. (The manifesto itself can still be found.)

Interior of a Flemish Church - first half of 17th century Pieter Neefs (1609–1656)

The intentions of the Manifesto for religiously had been meant honourably to have the Roman Catholics embrace their Catholic Church in Flanders. The writers of the manifesto are well disposed towards the Roman Catholic Churchand do not want to bear it ill feelings but life in the brewery appeared when they outed their grievances and presented their proposals to get some more life in church again.

Quickly they were compared to unbelieving and their ideas as “disbelievingly” and they became reproached to have taken over the protestant language and by doing so already committed treachery to the Roman Holy Catholic Church.

By the religious that followed masses by the undertakers of the manifest now even more confusion crept in and created despair. That enthusiast priests that called up the ordinary man in the street to come to work together building up the church for today and for the future felt now abused and contemplated through the Catholic establishment as “Heretical “.

Although we may know we that heresy or heterodoxy points to a deliberate and intentional deviation of what in a particular belief community or belief or church community is considered as being part of their fundamental belief teachings and laws. As it is also an accusation levied against members of another group which has beliefs which conflict with those of the accusers, we can see certain conflicts came up in the debate, but which should not be in contrast to the Roman Catholic Law.

The signatories of the “Manifesto for believers” had certainly no intentions at all to let an other separation follow the already awful thinned out group of religious men in the small country Belgium. The sex-scandals in the Roman Catholic Church did already too much damage. The clergy as well as the believers needed the commotion like they needed a hole in the head. They want to adhere to the Catholic teachings but would prefer to go back to the first century church. They do think they have enough teachings provided in the Holy Bible so that men do not need to bind others to man made teachings or to restrict others by their own teachings. They just wanted to go back to the teachings which were already part of the church life in early centuries. They also found that the church had to put away certain teachings which where brought into existence for all sorts of reasons, of which some were financial (as protecting the church property).

We are also not quite sure that the signatories could be charged with Apostasy because their action should not be considered as ‘a defection or revolt’, and they do not want to get a disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by any person. The debate on the function of the woman in church has been a difficult point for many years already in the Roman Catholic Church. Rudolf Bultmann and the “character” of debates over ordination of women and gay priests brought forward many accusations of heresy in the past and again today.

Writing amidst the turbulence of the political, monetary, clergy paedophile abuse sex-scandals, and church population crisis, the writers of the Flemish manifest did not want to counter the high-handed or stubborn traditionalist and conservative Catholics. They saw how the Church was loosing souls and wanted to save them and to get people back into the church.

The same as smoking is harmful for your health, the Rooms Katholieke Vliegenmeppers (The Roman Catholic Flyswatters) do find that the priests who wrote and signed the Manifest for believers are as harmful for the people souls welfare. They do call the believers not to receive the Holy Sacraments of these priests and not to go to partake their Holy Mass. They, with many others, do find that those priests who call for a change in the Roman Catholic Church, are heretics and unworthily to do the Mass or ‘ Misoffer’, the “Sacrifice of the Mass”.

According Katholieke Actie Vlaanderen (Catholic Action Flanders) there has come a schism in the Belgian Catholic Church. (See: Ketters in Vlaanderen = Heretics in Flanders) The accusation levied against those Catholic priests who are concerned about the decline of the Roman Catholic Church is somewhat strange. First of all those makers of the manifest do everything to keep the Roman Catholic Church on its feet in those turbulent times. They want the best for the survival of the Catholic Church in Belgium.

They do not want to undermine accepted morality and cause tangible evils, damnation, or other punishment. Contrary they are against the silent hierarchical Roman Church, who wants to do a cover-up operation. They do not want to sweep the many child sex abuses under the carpet. They want to make an end to the possible cause of so much damage. Therefore they ask that priests could get a normal sexual life, have a wife and children.

The Roman Catholic Church holds Protestantism as espousing numerous heresies, while some Protestants retrospectively consider Roman Catholicism the “Great Apostasy“.

Today several people do find the makers of the ‘Manifest for believers’ to be priests who use the terminology and ideas of protestants, and therefore should be called protestants and not Catholics any more.

The ordination of a servant of God - Bishop Pates' Ordination.

The stressing and enlargement of the role of the laity is being considered one of the main points of protestantism. For the Roman Catholics Ordination is sacred and comprehends that the person who is following the ‘call of God’ becomes consecrated (set apart for the administration of various religious rites) in which he acts as the bride of Christ. Being ‘married’ to Christ he should not have any other woman and abstain from any form of sex or sexual contact, because he has given his full life and body to the Lord. Calling for an ordination of women is desacralising the priesthood, opponents say. For the conservative Roman Catholics the role of the priest and servant of God giving out the sacraments should remain the role that an ordained male person has to fulfil.

For the Roman Catholics who shout “everything for Flanders and Flanders for Christ” a layman perhaps could ‘lead’ administratively a parish, but would not be a shepherd. For them the manifestos confuse or mix lay and clergyman with each other. The language of the manifest, using words like “voorgaan” ‘precede in the Sunday celebrations’ or conduct the services and “liturgisch voorganger” ‘liturgical minister’ is protestant talk and not worthy of a Roman Catholic. For the conservatives words as ‘liturgical leader/pastor/minister’ for a priest is not recognising the sacramental holiness of that servant of God. Several Catholics question what those notions mean. For the conservatives a ‘Sunday celebration’ is not Mass per se a Holy Mass or Eucharistic Offering!

The matter brought forward by the Flemish manifesto that not only ordained people who abstain from sex can bless the bread of the Lord’s Supper and say “This is my body” after which they may hand out the symbol of Christ his Body and Sacrifice is for the conservative Catholics also degrading the Holy Sacrament and blasphemy. *

Their call also to become all, men and women, workers in Christ, is considered an awful protestant idea.

From the homily of Pope Bendict XVI (11 June 2010): “The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away.”

The conservatives do find that a lay men can not bring a sermon because according to the Roman Catholic Church such a task is only for the ordained, priest, bishop, cardinal or Pope. “Lay may not may preach. Point. A sermon is not ‘the word Gods’, but an explanation by the H. Gospel” the Catholic Action says and therefore the writers of the manifest asking to have laymen also to be able to preach is one more reason they are heretics.

In the next chapter we shall look at the reaction about disrespect for the body of Christ the believers who take the word have, according to the conservatives who are fed up with the idea that ordinary man put their hands in the goblet with the Holy Host. Certainly women keep off their hands from the tabernacle! the conservatives say.

In the next chapter we shall see why for the dis-pleasured the matter of the Eucharist and the believe in transubstantiation is so important for the Roman Catholic believe. While the writers of the manifest give the impression they want to dispose of some dogmatic laws which were not in the church of the first centuries of this time, the conservatives hold fast to the historic popes like Pope Innocent III and Paul VI .

According to Staf de Wilde the Catholic church is standing in front of a firm dogmatism and for a pyramidal, say dictatorial structure in which the basis church has to squeak little or nothing. Him remains it surprising that critical religious people within this institute wishes to remain active. According to him an organized belief community does not really has to be church with the qualities of the church of Rome. And as you take away these qualities, then you hold something else over: something resembling the original Christianity perhaps, at that time there did not exist yet an infallible pope and yet no dogmas.

Ignace D’Hert, Dominican and instructor theology at the Higher Institute for Religious Science in Antwerp; Marc Van Tent oblate and former instructor theology at the Centre for Ecclesiastic Studies in Louvain and the Higher Institute for Religious Science in Ganshoren; Eddy Van Waelderen, priest of the diocese Antwerp and many years active as theologian on the Theological and Pastoral Centre in Antwerp, were some of the first theologians that signed the manifesto “Believers take the word” . When these Catholic theologians may not bring in a contribution the mental world of the Catholicism in Flanders, may wonder one self who may well do. Were orthodoxy is for them remaining to seek in fidelity to new sense coming from the Jesus-happening lighting up in the variable circumstances of life. According to me that holds not in that they reject therefore that Catholic Belief.

Today we hear the Flemish priests and serious Christian believers of the Catholic Religion call for some reform. They let Belgium hear their protest about what happened in the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium and how it is degrading or falling to pieces. In case you would call such whistle blowers who protest against a situation “Protestants’, than perhaps you could consider them belonging to the “Protestants’, but because they have no similar teachings as those of the ‘protestants’ of the ‘Protestant Church’ they can never belong to the Protestant Church as such. They may engage in prolonged efforts to make their early efforts intelligible to Rome but they are not aiming to spawn separate movements in their own names. On the other hand we do seem some thoughts to get the people liberated from the mediation of sacramental and clerical system and to give them a freer experience of grace.

An other protestant twinge is their act to want to go more to the Biblical teachings instead preferring to keep to human doctrinal laws. We can notice that they manifesters turned to the Bible for guidance about church governance.

They are still real integer Catholics who want to bring a signal to save the Roman Catholic Church. As in both the Protestant and Catholic Church those people serving those churches should in first instance bringing over Gods Word. They should proclaim the Good News. It should be about the Sacrificial Offer by Jesus. Both have to talk about atonement and reconciliation.

The believers who took the word rang the alarm-bell but did not commit treason to their Roman Catholic Faith. These signatories of the manifesto agree that it is not simple to face those differences which came to light now. The differences that came onto the surface may have lingered already for many years, though those in charge of the Belgian Catholic Church did not want to face them. It will not be easy to go about with the differences on a sober and evangelic manner. Plurality becomes quick disunion. That makes it so difficult in our chaotic world to hold in front the vision of someone else, and to experience it full of joy.

“Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptised into {Or in; also in verse 15} the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:13 NIV) asked Paul already at the torn municipality of Corinth.

All ought to yield the courage with each other over these fundamentally different views, to come in dialogue. With an open mind and without fear for mutual questioning.

* God can not die, but Jesus, being a man could die but only once. A “re-sacrifice” of Jesus Christ for our sins, or a “re-offering / re-presentation” of His sacrifice is not necessary. Scripture says, that Jesus died “once for all” and does not need to be sacrificed again (Hebrews 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18). Hebrews 7:27 declares, “Unlike the other high priests, He (Jesus) does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself.” The bread and the wine are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus, but are not a representation of God nor His body or his blood (Because God is a ghost and has no body or blood as human beings.) The bread Jesus was breaking represented what he was going to do. The same for the wine he gave them – his blood hadn’t yet been shed, but the wine represented the blood that would be shed. These words were not meant to be taken in a literal sense then, nor are they now.

°°

To be continued: Manifests for believers #4 Eucharist + Manifests for believers #5 Christian Union

Preceding article: Manifests for believers #2 Changing celibacy requirement

Please do find to read:

A Call for National Dialogue on the Future of Priestly Ministry
Celibacy and the Priesthood
Bishop of Derry calls for end to celibacy in Catholic church
Tracing the Glorious Origins of Priestly Celibacy
Is Jesus Christ actually present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist/communion?
The Lord’s supper is done both to help Christians remember what Jesus has done, and also to proclaim what Jesus has done (‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’: 1 Cor. 11:26).
What is Holy Communion? Why is it necessary to a Christian’s life?Children ate the OT passover so why not NT bread and wine?Are the bread and wine just symbols, or are they really Jesus flesh and blood?Why did Jesus say he wouldn’t drink wine again until the kingdom when he ate and drank other things? (Mark 14:25)Why wasn’t the lying prophet killed? (1 Kings 13)
What is transubstantiation?

In Dutch:

Beminde gelovigen
Gelovigen nemen het woord: Manifest van Vlaamse gelovigen Najaar 2011
Een Manifest voor Gelovigen
Manifest tot protestantse kerk
Manifestanten Protestant of Katholiek
Manifest: [On-]Gelovigen nemen het woord
Terecht scherpe kritiek op “Manifest Gelovigen nemen het woord”
Alfabetische lijst van 8.228 ketters in Vlaanderen
Mgr. Johan Bonny, bisschop van Antwerpen: ‘Ik versta verzuchtingen van het manifest Gelovigen nemen het woord ‘
Theoloog Stijn Van den Bossche:’Woord- en communiediensten zijn niet de eerste oplossing’
Manifest: Wij kiezen voor eenheid
Gelovigen ‘nemen’ het woord niet… Gelovigen ‘AANVAARDEN’ het Woord
Manifest voor het Katholieke Geloof: http://www.petities24.com/gelovigen_aanvaarden_het_woord
Schisma in de Vlaamse Kerk http://kavlaanderen.blogspot.com/2011/11/schisma-in-de-vlaamse-kerk.html
Werkdruk te hoog voor priesters

+++

Pope calls for ‘profound renewal’ of Roman Catholic Church (telegraph.co.uk)

The Pope called for “profound renewal” in the Roman Catholic Church on Monday in an appeal sent to the first conference ever held by the Vatican on the subject of paedophile priests and child abuse.
+
A Vatican statement said that Benedict “supports and encourages every effort to respond with evangelical charity to the challenge of providing children and vulnerable adults with an ecclesiastical environment conducive to their human and spiritual growth.”
+

“You can have all the symposiums you want, but why don’t they open a constructive debate? The Church is too closed in on itself,” Roberto Mirabile, the head of La Caramella Buona, an Italian victims’ group, told AFP.

Sue Cox, from Survivors’ Voice, a coalition of support groups from the US, Britain, Ireland and Germany, said: “You don’t need a jolly in Rome to learn what the right thing to do is. This is just a PR stunt. It’s just theatre really.”
The Catholic Church (theobamacrat.com)
Recently, the catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some catholic institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the catholic church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between catholic teaching and catholic reality.

Unholy War (annem040359.wordpress.com)
In the last couple of weeks, the President Barack Hussein Obama White House, like hitting a bald face hornets nest during the daytime when it ought to know better, “declared war” on not only the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States, but also the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America.
Catholic Church ready to declare war on Obama (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)
From the campaign trail last month, GOP contender Newt Gingrich said US President Barack Obama had declared a “war on the Catholic Church.” Some clergy have heard that call and are warning the president: look out, we’re ready to rumble.
Gulf Exists Between Catholic Bishops And Laity On Contraception (lezgetreal.com)
For those who do not grasp the significance of the gulf between the Catholic Bishops and the Catholic laity, what eventually happens is that the laity will drift away from the Bishops. The recent decision by the Obama Administration to require Catholic owned businesses- schools, hospitals and so forth- to carry healthcare choices that cover contraception has the bishops up in arms, but not the laity.
Catholic Church ready to declare war on Obama (rt.com)
“It’s not about contraception. It’s about the right of conscience,” Archbishop Timothy Dolan tells reporters. “The government doesn’t have the right to butt into the internal governance and teachings of the church,” he insists.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” adds Dolan. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”
US Catholic Bishops Don’t Know Their Congregants (lezgetreal.com)
The statement issued by the Bishops called contraception against “the mandate of Jesus Christ.” They pulled that one out of their fancy hats. Christ said very little about sexuality and nothing whatsoever about preventing pregnancy. Only the leaders of the church have ever addressed the issues, and did so from some very warped personal positions. They were also the ones who said that clergy should be celibate. They just assumed that since no one bothered to mention any wives that the Apostles might have had, that there weren’t any.
Grimm And Murphy Spar Over Obama Contraception Plan (timesunion.com)
Mr. Murphy also had less-than-kind words for Mr. Grimm’s approach to the issue.

“Once again, when faced with controversy, my opponent is playing the Washington game of seeking publicity and creating division instead of seeking a workable solution,” he said.
Nancy Pelosi: ‘I am going to stick with fellow Catholics’ in Pres. Obama’s war on Catholics. Wherein Fr. Z rants. (wdtprs.com)
Even as the United States’ Catholic bishops have launched an all-out campaign against the Obama administration’s birth control mandate and urged their flocks to resistance, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has invoked the support of “fellow Catholics” to justify her position in favor of the mandate.

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Religion

Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah

Callers upon יהוה {Jehovah}

Please do fins also to read:

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A taster article from the October 2012 edition of the Christadelphian magazine

Book review: Science and God’s existence

Creative intelligence

Valuable information

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Origin and coming into being

Looking for answers in science

Naturalists

Oppression by religion

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Indebted in a human being

Question of spirituality

Quest for the sacred

Spirituality integral part of life

Careful with spiritualist forms

A liberating spirituality

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Cult-leader dies

Pictured

Possibility of changes

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Able to change

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Worship manifestation of Godliness

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Massacres allowed to happen

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