Religion Vs God
- Thread starter NMSquirrel
- Start date
no, i just don't think that religion should be presented or used as a substitute for a relationship with god, and i don't think that religion offers salvation...only christ does that. i don't see the bride of christ being embodied by a particular religious sect, or by religion at all. and that is not what most indoctrinated people would have you think.
Okay, I know not many people are going to agree with belief that the current day Christian church is a harlot.
did you read that link to revelations 17?
the protestants like to point fingers at the catholics, but i really don't see much of a difference myself. they're all taking his name in vain. they're all buying and selling jesus. that's not so hard to see is it?
the bible talks about being born again...of the spirit, not being indoctrinated into an institution. right?
here's a passage from John, where jesus is explaining this to a religious man...
notice verse 10...
1 Now there came a man of the Pharisees whose name was Nicodemus, a member of the council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could do the miraculous signs that you do unless God were with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”
5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? 11 I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
16 For this is the way God loved the world: he gave his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. 21 But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.146
here is another verse from matthew that explains it...
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’ (NASB) Matthew 7:21-23
No not a Pastor just a concerned citizen LOL. And yes I agree however if not for Science we would not know of gravity we would not understand what it is or what it does. As I said before Science and Gravity or a symbiotic relationship you would not know of one with out the other. If you truly think about it you are not born knowing the existence of a god you learn that via the medium religion it does not just pop in your head hey i think there is a god just one day poof. And if you do not learn it from religion you learn it from others that have learned it from religion.
Even if you did come up with the idea of god all by yourself I would venture a guess that it would be drastically different than the prepackaged one you get from a lot of organized religion.
Well this is true but we have to work withing the confines of what we know and in coming up with your version of God if spoken to someone else and they believe what you are saying then that is a religion so to speak as I said you cannot have one without the other they are not mutually exclusive.
Yes,
revelations17:15 & :18
15And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
18And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
What does those verses mean to you? The Beast mentioned in Rev. chapter 17 has a number and the number is 666. Do you know the meaning of the number 666?
Can Revelations be interpreted correctly? Who is going to interpret Rev. correctly?
Okay, all christians claim they are born again and have the holy spirit. Do they?
Who can say for sure if a person has the holy spirit and born again or not? In my opinion no one can. Its taken by faith and not fact.
God existed before religion..
my thoughts on that is cause religion is trying to establish an 'ownership' of god, they make ppl believe that they can't get to god but through them.
this is not true..religion has twisted god to serve their needs.it is supposed to be the other way around..they are supposed to serve god..
this statement seems to say that you cannot know how to serve god without religion to tell you how to serve..this is not what the bible says..
you can serve god by studying the bible and seeking gods wisdom..
i won't argue that religion does not have some educational value,this is part( only part) of discovering what god wants from us..
this is my point..too many ppl rely on religion to tell them they how to act,how to believe,how to dress,how to worship...
i say let god teach you how to act,believe,worship..(how you dress is completely irrelevant and should not be a point of struggle)
again to find this out,study the bible,seek out different interpretations
decide for yourself what is best..don't rely on religion to tell you what to do..
to rely on religion to tell you what is acceptable and what is not does two things..it puts the responsibility on the religion for your actions, and it teaches you to listen to them instead of god..
again..my arguement is god existed before religion..we don't have to have religion to understand god..(we have the bible for that)
granted religion does help us to understand god, but it is not the dispenser of
god..we do not need religions permission to serve god..
using the gravity anaolgy...
gravity existed long before newton.
god existed long before religion.
newton wrote a book on it..
many ppl wrote a book about god..
both book were not written as a supreme authority on their respective subjects..
both books were written to help explain their respective subjects.
science says newtons book is subjective to new knowledge and wisdom.
religion says their book is the end of any new knowledge and wisdom(if its not in there it doesn't exist)
this is where i think religion is messing up,god did not stop teaching after that book was written...(do you really think god taught us everything we need to know in between those 1000 plus pages)(although i think he did teach us how to learn more with that book)
Any way I can see were you are coming from and I did not mean to derail your thread be lets agree to disagree on this one as I don't believe in any of it just wanted to voice and opinion on the relationship between religion and God/Gods and I am not meaning just one religion but all religions are the same with out there gods they are nothing really and with out the religions I feel the deities are nothing as well.
you did not derail,you have actually helped to clarify the intent of this thread..
you are allowed to disagree (as per god,not religion)
and i hope the way i have argued applies to any religion not just christianity..
Yes I would assume it does.
Actually, I think what NMSquirrel and Lori might be getting at is that there is a need for personal realization, as opposed to merely repeating what one has heard from the pulpit or read in books.
For some people, "institutionalized religion" carries the connotation "no personal realization, and mere book knowledge", and for them, it is either personal realization or mere book knowledge - and they opt for the former.
true.
person 1; why did you do that?
person 2; because they told me to.
as opposed to;
p 1; why did you do that?
p 2; because it was the best thing to do.
(fyi..i use the word 'Best' as opposed to the word 'Right' as right is relative)
The correct usage would be "The best thing to do with the information presented at the time." IMHO
In Keeping with the God verse religion thing what if I believed that God is a pale gray humanoid type creature that has seeded the earth with various forms of genetically altered creatures. And that the Earth is just one big Science experiment for a being to write his/her thesis as to Graduate the Intergalactic University of of the Crab Nebula. What would your thoughts be of me?
Its just as valid as any other theological belief.