We Preach Christ Crucified

this is all heresay

we can look for patterns as it seems pagans and gnostics do from my end or we can proclaim ourselves as saved and everyones else damned

it all leads to do what you feel is right

i have seen this constant many places

....and what if jesus really is the son/sun lightbearer?

if you want no part of it stay away
leave the sun/son worshippers to themselves
if theyre doing wrong some will wake up
as i think alot already of in these last seven years

personally i think america is done for too but icant be sure
not really

we have rome to look to, germany, etc. etc., but really its ALL conjecture

all i believe is its not saving someone if you need to kill them first to get there

sorry but the world is NOT pyschopathic extremes were all seeing in America today

it isn't all 'join us or die', not everywhere
not everyone is locked into fearing
were arent all part of *that*

this begotten son stuff has to end
christians enjoy pain too much, it bleeds over into everything they seem to do

which is just my perception of ocurse......i could go on & on here like you guys

this is all heresay

we can look for patterns as it seems pagans and gnostics do from my end or we can proclaim ourselves as saved and everyones else damned

it all leads to do what you feel is right

i have seen this constant many places

....and what if jesus really is the son/sun lightbearer?

if you want no part of it stay away
leave the sun/son worshippers to themselves
if theyre doing wrong some will wake up
as i think alot already of in these last seven years

personally i think america is done for too but icant be sure
not really

we have rome to look to, germany, etc. etc., but really its ALL conjecture

all i believe is its not saving someone if you need to kill them first

sorry but the world is NOT pyschopathic extremes were all seeing America today

were arent all part of that

this begotten son stuff has to end
christians enjoy pain too much

Hello, nice site :)

Hello, nice site :)

It is rare when an atheist agrees with a believer, but the issue here is not faith but morals. The Rev. Bohlin is absolutely right. Terrorizing or torturing other people (or any living being) has never been and can never be morally or practically correct. This concept is valid for the believer as it is for the atheist. Acts of brutality are wrong for the people doing them and equally wrong for those who witness the acts and say nothing. Why is this simple concept so controversial?

It is rare when an atheist agrees with a believer, but the issue here is not faith but morals. The Rev. Bohlin is absolutely right. Terrorizing or torturing other people (or any living being) has never been and can never be morally or practically correct. This concept is valid for the believer as it is for the atheist. Acts of brutality are wrong for the people doing them and equally wrong for those who witness the acts and say nothing. Why is this simple concept so controversial?

faithdweah@yahoo.co.uk
My Dearest One!
Greetings to you, I hope this mail will find you well & healthy and I hope we can established a relationship since we are meeting here for the first time, I have gone through a profile that speaks good of you on this site: I was impressed when i saw your profile and decide to communicate with you. It is my desire to know you, I like honesty, trust, love, caring,truth,& respect, I have all this qulities in me,easy going girl with sense of humour , very caring , understanding , honest and sincerely looking for a man that i can call my soul mate who will love me just the way i am a real partner to share life , share good and bad moment with , who is ready to marry me alone and stop searching ...........a very sincere person who stands by his word .kindly respond to me through my private mail box (faithdweah@yahoo.co.uk) so we can know ourself 's better.RESPECT is the key for understanding and tolerance among human beings. I hope to read from you if your are also interested. Thanks and hoping to hear from you soonext.
Miss Faith

For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.'

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'

So the last will be first, and the first last."

Campellite, Joet, Humble,

Nice posts all around!

Campellite,

"I believe in mercy because I have experienced it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

I agree!

Lol, Joe and Humble! And to get even picker, ANYONE can administer baptism, if done with the correct intention and in the Trinitarian format. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3L.HTM

I think all theological argument comes down to this: which is greater, god's mercy or god's justice?

If you believe god's mercy is greater, then you will find holiness in any form of worship.

If you believe god's justice is greater, then you will strive to bring the correct form of worship to as many people as you can, with the intention of saving them from themselves.

If you believe there is no god, no mercy, or no justice, then you'll do whatever you think you need to, to get by.

Call it irrational, call it irresponsible, whatever. I believe in mercy because I have experienced it. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Campbellite and Joet,

Both good posts!

To add to it, if someone on their deathbed wants deeply and sincerely to convert at that moment, with no priest available, you as a Catholic have the power yourself to baptize them. The sincere Act of Contrition still has its role here too.

As far as some of the posts above go:

"As if someone who could get past the first part (excusable ignorance in the face of evangelicals in their face constantly) would have any idea how to find grace to move them to seek a god they haven't heard of (through no fault of their own)."

I could not have said it better, Joet!

Let me rephrase: not pay off his debt, but heal the inner spirit which caused him to murder in the first place. Cosmic therapy, if you will.

Campbellite: just to be picky, the murderer who converts on death row does go straight to heaven if he dies in a state of grace following the sacrament of pennance (now called reconciliation to sound more PC) or a perfect act of contrition (invented to avoid the unfairness that would ensue if there were no way to go to heaven if you couldn't find a priest just before dying and you had a mortal sin you really wanted to confess), unless he commits some venial sin like an impure thought before the needle does its work. and your quoted concession to the nonbelievers has enough qualifications to make a lawyer giddy (as if it didn't take a few lawyers to come up with the stuff I started with). Your Bhuddist would have to argue that he's never heard of the Catholic Church, and can't be faulted for never glancing at the bible in his hotel room. The passage you quote was invented to avoid the absurdity of deaths before the apostles made it to the ends of the earth. As if someone who could get past the first part (excusable ignorance in the face of evangelicals in their face constantly) would have any idea how to find grace to move them to seek a god they haven't heard of (through no fault of their own).

Nope. The murderer who truly repents goes to pergatory to pay off his debt. Aung Sang Suui Kyi goes straight to heaven.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

I'm so often astounded by how many people *think* they know what a religion teaches, when they clearly don't. RTFM, folks. Don't just go by what the cranks on TV say.

==========================

"So, according to Catholicism, a murderer who converts to Catholicism on death row might get to go to heaven, but Aung Sang Suu Kyi, a devout Buddhist, goes to hell. If this thought does not trouble your conscience, Vicar Bohlin, then you have neither love nor compassion within you. "

A Christian ruler may and must defend his subjects against every higher authority that seeks to force them to deny the Word of God and practice idolatry.

The dissolution is such, that the souls entrusted to the clergy receive great damage, for we are told that the majority of the clergy are living in open concubinage, and that if our justice intervenes in order to punish them, they revolt and create a scandal, and that they despise our justice to the point that they arm themselves against it.

UCCER: "I am tired of the bullying from you fundamentalist pigs. It's time that the rest of us expose you for the hate-mongers you are."

Agreed - then when you're finished with that, look back over Catholic history to remind youself of how often Catholics treated others the same way.

There's not a whole lot left to say when a protestant calls catholocism apostate, and suggests that it's followers aren't praying to the true god and will go to hell for their heresy. Canyon then seems to suggest that it hardly matters which reformer you follow, so any protestant sect is just fine, thank you (so they all sort of collectively form the "true" church - even though the respective denominations have never made such a collective claim that I have ever heard). Luther had a few problems with church leadership, but he never suggested that he had discovered a different god.

Canyon is right on one point. All that matters is whether what you believe in is the truth. I have just been pointing out that the more folks who absolutely believe that they have the exclusive franchise on the truhe and everyone else is a deluded fool for not believing in Jesus, Mohammad, neither prophet but a god nonetheless, or someone else, the more likely it is that they are all right, and they are all deluded. Canyon has just added a corollary within Christianity, making my point for me. At a minimum, this calls for some humility. I have no quarrel with believers, agnostics, atheists or anyone else, as long as they 1) keep their faith or lack thereof out of my government, and 2) either keep it to themselves altogether or at least argue it with some respect for their listener's equally held beliefs in search of common ground, or some respect for the sheer improbability that they were just coincidently born of the tiny minority of parents who held the true faith (all of us being in one minority or another on that score, and few of us chosing a faith after adult study without childhood guidance). this is perhaps the one area where we give our parents too much credit.

To Canyon Shearer:

How dare you insult the faith of our Catholic bretheren by calling their church an "apostasy" and condemning them to hell. Who do you think you are, you coward? Do you think you are God? Please, let God do the judging. It is a great sin to put yourself in God's place.

I am tired of the bullying from you fundamentalist pigs. It's time that the rest of us expose you for the hate-mongers you are.

CSS,

Obviously I can't shake your faith, and that's why it's good that my time has gone for debating on On-Faith.

Remember, the truth is more important than what you believe, make sure what you believe is the truth.

In your studies, read a few books about/by Jon Huss, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, and John MacArthur, to name a few good reformers. There is a real reason why Catholicism has fallen to the wayside in favor of the true church.

Hell is too hot and lasts too long for you to continue your cultish understanding of the scriptures.

Come now, Canyon,

As usual, pretend to address a post by NOT addressing a post.

"The Book of Revelation is first and foremost a book of prophecy, it calls the religious leader in Rome a wh*re; how do you reconcile that?"

I NEVER said "The Book of Revelation" (Apocalypse) wasn't a book of prophecy. You said that Babylon meant Rome. I said that by this thinking, then Peter mentions Rome. Nice sidetrack.

I can reconcile your ridiculous assertion by indicating that the scripture NEVER says "the religous leader in Rome" is the wh*re of Babylon. The Pope does not wear purple anyway.

While Catholic theology may agree that Babylon is Rome, it is PAGAN Rome. As far as prophecy goes, it predicts that pagan Rome will persecute Christians for the coming three hundred years. I guess we can see from the historical record that the prediction was true. Nice try.

Then you change the subject (surprise):

"The Bible says that “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Are you ready?"

I find it stange, but it seems to me that you can only believe in YOUR OWN state of grace by comparing yourself to another and tearing it down. So the question would be of more use to you if you asked YOURSELF; Are you ready? REALLY ready? Do you believe in YOUR faith MORE than you disbelieve mine?

The Bible warns me of those like you. You will NOT shake my faith. I will pray for you.

Canyon & CSS:

You guys should put on some gloves and box it out.

As for the Book of Revelations, it is not a book of prophecy, it is a giant metaphor that describes the evils and downfall of Rome.
Just thought you two would like an outside opinion.

Canyon......where's that MGD at boyo?

CSS,

I said I wouldn't reply, but I'm taking a break from my book to post a very short reply, because it's important.

The Book of Revelation is first and foremost a book of prophecy, it calls the religious leader in Rome a wh*re; how do you reconcile that?

The Bible says that “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

Are you ready?

BTW...I Googled Tina Yothers...HA! A novena...ROFLMAO!

Canyon Shearer's last post is her most telling of herself. Make assertions that are illogical, or can't be backed up and call the other person's faith an apostate.

Oh...and then leave, so you can pretend you were the "rightest".

"CSS, you can post a made up list of people all you want, none of those would agree to the Papacy. Clement I would have probably hit you for making such a claim. Pelagius was the joke of his age and was nearly excommunicated several times. If anyone was in the authority to be Pope during that time, it would have been Augustine, or maybe Jerome, albeit they stand against everything your apostate religion believes."

None of them would agree?! You presume to know the thoughts of dead men...I love it!

By whom would Pelagius have been "nearly excommunicated several times" by? According to you HE was not the Pope (who probably would not excommunicate himself) and there ACTUALLY was NO Pope until 600. So what's up with these repeated and near excommunications?

"How do you account for Peter never ministering in Rome if he was supposedly such an important bishop there?"

No one said that PETER was ever the Bishop of Rome. The Pope would be the Bishop of Rome after the Papacy was CENTERED there, but not before. The Bible does not mention Peter in Rome, but does not mention him not in Rome either. Jesus was not in Rome, so making him the first Pope would not have happened there anyway. His presence, or lack thereof neither proves nor disproves the Papacy beginning with him.

But let's go with what YOU have to say on the subject anyway. Babylon refers to the Papacy and Rome...so I guess it IS in the Bible after all.

"The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you: and so doth my son Mark."
First Epistle Of Saint Peter 5:13

"I'll leave you with the rhetorical question: Is it more important what you believe? Or if what you believe is true?"

It's a very good question, but you would do YOURSELF a greater service by asking yourself; Do you believe THE truth, or have you created your own?

Let's suppose I am wrong about all I believe. Your lies and manipulations of information have not made YOU right anyway.

Canyon,

""In all Fairness", Revelation 17 is clearly about the Pope, it describes his dress perfectly. He is undoubtedly the wh*re of Babylon."

Look here, Champ, you RE-WRITE scripture to argue with KIDS...you have NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever!

Sheeps clothing describes YOUR dress perfectly.

Say whatever you want, and I will pray for those you successfully trick on your path to perdition.

Thanks for the Kirk Cameron link, but I am busy saying a novena with Tina Yothers and can't spend too much time on that.

The greatest irony is in your hatred of me, you are the worse for wear.

BC, I can't converse with you if you won't pay attention.

CSS, you can post a made up list of people all you want, none of those would agree to the Papacy. Clement I would have probably hit you for making such a claim. Pelagius was the joke of his age and was nearly excommunicated several times. If anyone was in the authority to be Pope during that time, it would have been Augustine, or maybe Jerome, albeit they stand against everything your apostate religion believes.

How do you account for Peter never ministering in Rome if he was supposedly such an important bishop there?

The Papacy is one of the greatest soap-operas in history, you have womanizers, atheists, and money-grubbers. Not to mention Jon-Paul was a pagan by all accounts. Papal infallibility is the exact opposite of what we see. Not to mention when Germany, France, and Rome had their own Popes...at the same time.

"In all Fairness", Revelation 17 is clearly about the Pope, it describes his dress perfectly. He is undoubtedly the wh*re of Babylon.

Joet, et al. Am starting a new class tomorrow, will not have time to respond. Good because this conversation has passed it's expiration.

I'll leave you with the rhetorical question: Is it more important what you believe? Or if what you believe is true?

http://www.wayofthemaster.com/goodperson.shtml

I'm not Canyon...I was agreeing with Gerry about Canyon. But it does look like Canyon is speechless all of a sudden.

HAHAHAHA, Now Shearer won't even reply under his own name, using ????? !!!!

Well, there's no ? but that he's a pathetic creature. Maybe in a future incarnation, he'll learn....

Gerry,

Like a Jack Chick comic, without the camp value. The manipulation of "facts" is like he took a correspondence course.

The street preacher C. Shearer really is a good salesman for all the terrified simpletons, the "poor in spirit". Just read his hateful and joyful sadomasochistic rants about hell and you will know what he means when he says "...the fruit of the Spirit (his spirit?) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control etc."

No wonder Jesus (let us grant his existence for the argument's sake) said: "Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven".

Reading Shearer's infantilisms: He is a dead sure subscriber for heaven. Thank god (excuse me) I will never get there, the mere thought to meet this guy there gives me the measles, lol! He is also one of those retarded creationists that produce laughter all over the world!

Canyon Shearer posted:

"The wh*re of Babylon in Revelation 17 has historically been agreed upon to be the Pope in Rome, and Catholics consistently agree that Babylon in Revelation 18 is Rome...all you have to do is stop being willfully ignorant and connect the dots."

The Catholic agreement regarding the "wh*re of Babylon" being Rome, is that it is referring to PAGAN Rome!

Why are you so vitriolic and blatantly manipulating scripture to YOUR own end (Matthew 16:16&18)to a kid who is (at least) attempting to cite evidence of his faith?

"WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED"

Of course you do, because Christianity originated in an obsessive fixation on a torture scene.

That Christian fixation on torture has continued down the ages, and still infects the core of Christianity.

As with many such sadomasochistic obsessions and fixations, the Christian torture image was projected outward on to others, which is why the Christian Church has tortured so many throughout history.

I PREACH THE BUDDHA'S LIFE AND TEACHINGS, HIS COMPASSION, AND HIS PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Re: number killed on the "Trail of Tears"

Well, Canyon, *you* are the one always going on about truth. When you say "millions" and then, basically, "well, never mind, it was an atrocity", I never said it wasn't. I just said 13,000 is not 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 if you want it plural.

Now the number might not matter to you, but to the 1,987,000 Cherokees who did *not* die,I would say it made a difference, wouldn't you?

And "whole people group" is just plain bad English and, you must admit, pretty imprecise. Do you mean "whole people" like people that have not had any limb or, say, appendix amputated? I ask because *you* are the one that who says the Bible sprang fully formed in, I guess, the Council of Carthage in AD 387 (397?)and every word is true.

Yet words can be very imprecise, Canyon.

Words strain,
Carck and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

Canyon: and now you come clean and spew protestant hatred of catholics? what happened to your protest that all religions are just fine, don't preach that heaven is reserved for their believers and all we have to do to get there is play nice?

Canyon Shearer:

Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda

More hate speech. Your "Christian" dogma that those who disagree with you will undergo eternal pain and torture simply represents your hateful wish that it will be so.

And this hate projected onto God, is both idolatry and sacrilege rolled into one.

Canyon: you still don't get it. try as you might to suggest that sin is the only way to Hell, you ignore the fact that that is absolutely not what your (I don't even need to know what it is) or almost any other religion's theology on nonbelievers says. None preach that all that matters is whether you are righteous. All preach that theirs is the only way. "no one comes to the father except through me" is not ambiguous. The best I was ever taught in catholic school was that we believe you have to be catholic to go to heaven, but of course we don't really know what god will do with everyone else (so we could all secretly assume the heresy that they might be saved too, because the alternative was just too stupid to swallow) you can PC it all you want, just don't anyone pretend that Christians, for example, preach that Jews or Muslims can get to heaven with no serious obstacles as long as they don't cheat on their wives.

For Canyon:

Succession of Popes prior to 600:

St. Peter (32-67)
St. Linus (67-76)
St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
St. Clement I (88-97)
St. Evaristus (97-105)
St. Alexander I (105-115)
St. Sixtus I (115-125) -- also called Xystus I
St. Telesphorus (125-136)
St. Hyginus (136-140)
St. Pius I (140-155)
St. Anicetus (155-166)
St. Soter (166-175)
St. Eleutherius (175-189)
St. Victor I (189-199)
St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
St. Callistus I (217-22)
St. Urban I (222-30)
St. Pontain (230-35)
St. Anterus (235-36)
St. Fabian (236-50)
St. Cornelius (251-53)
St. Lucius I (253-54)
St. Stephen I (254-257)
St. Sixtus II (257-258)
St. Dionysius (260-268)
St. Felix I (269-274)
St. Eutychian (275-283)
St. Caius (283-296) -- also called Gaius
St. Marcellinus (296-304)
St. Marcellus I (308-309)
St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
St. Miltiades (311-14)
St. Sylvester I (314-35)
St. Marcus (336)
St. Julius I (337-52)
Liberius (352-66)
St. Damasus I (366-83)
St. Siricius (384-99)
St. Anastasius I (399-401)
St. Innocent I (401-17)
St. Zosimus (417-18)
St. Boniface I (418-22)
St. Celestine I (422-32)
St. Sixtus III (432-40)
St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
St. Hilarius (461-68)
St. Simplicius (468-83)
St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
St. Gelasius I (492-96)
Anastasius II (496-98)
St. Symmachus (498-514)
St. Hormisdas (514-23)
St. John I (523-26)
St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
Boniface II (530-32)
John II (533-35)
St. Agapetus I (535-36) -- also called Agapitus I
St. Silverius (536-37)
Vigilius (537-55)
Pelagius I (556-61)
John III (561-74)
Benedict I (575-79)
Pelagius II (579-90)
St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)

Nice editing Canyon, you surely are the BEST at cleverly manipulating scripture...and so ANGRY when you can't go unchallenged.

Nice try though:

Gospel According to Saint Matthew
Chapter 16:16-19

16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

Good comma use.

"You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." "On this rock I will build my church." There is a reason there wasn't a Pope until ~600, because it's a recent addition to the heresy that is the Roman Catholic Church.

The reason it was put in is because it was put together by the real church, not the apostasy that you are following to Hell. The wh*re of Babylon in Revelation 17 has historically been agreed upon to be the Pope in Rome, and Catholics consistently agree that Babylon in Revelation 18 is Rome...all you have to do is stop being willfully ignorant and connect the dots.

"In the long war on the truth, the most formidable, relentless and deceptive enemy has been Roman Catholicism. It is an apostate, corrupt, heretical, false Christianity, it is affront for the kingdom of Satan. The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has always understood this."

Do you think it's a little odd that when the Roman Catholic Church was in charge, we call it the dark ages?

"No surprise from CSS, spouting lies she heard in class."

HE...thank you very much, ma'am.

"There is no room for a Pope in the Bible, because such a position is antithetical to the church."

Peter was the first Pope, per Jesus: "And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18

"Besides, the seven books you dream contain the missing lies your faith is founded on are worthless books barely worth the history contained in them. They contain no extra doctrine."

And Peter, the first Pope says: "Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation." 2 Peter 1:20

You sure are a nasty one, but for all the nastiness you spew at me, you have not answered the question at the heart of my post. Just nastiness and the easy stuff from you.

So if the parable of the unjust steward and of the rich man and Lazarus was referring to the Pope, why did The Church put it in? Furthermore, what evidence is there that parables were also prophecy?

I guess staying home from school with a cold can be a blessing when it allows me to defend the faith.

Recusant,

What weird and worthless questions.

Whether one or a trillion Native Americans were killed, it was an atrocity.

People groups means people groups. There is only one race, so obviously it wasn't that.

More importantly, "What's it to thee? Follow me." Says Christ.

Or perish.

Canyon wrote:

"In the name of Land, men killed millions of Native Americans.
In the name of Gold, men wiped out whole people groups."

Millions of Amerindians is a big number and there is no evidence. The Amerindians died of germs the Europeans brought with themselves and their animals. The worst atrocity killing Native Americans for their land was the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee nation, "trail of tears", I think the number dead was 13,000. Hard to bear but a long way from millions.

What is a "whole people groups"? Do you mean tribes? race? What do you mean?

Incoherent.

No surprise from CSS, spouting lies she heard in class.

How do you think the Protestants were able to so thoroughly remove themselves from Catholicism? It wasn't because they made up doctrines, it was merely by following the true doctrines of the Bible. There is no room for a Pope in the Bible, because such a position is antithetical to the church.

You know that, I know that. We all know the Bible was COMPLETE according to the Council of Carthage in AD 397, a catholic council, catholic-universal, not Catholic-apostate, as the 66 Books we have today. Besides, the seven books you dream contain the missing lies your faith is founded on are worthless books barely worth the history contained in them. They contain no extra doctrine.

BC,

Sticking your fingers in your ears and going, lalalalalalalalalalalala will not make reality go away.

You won't go to Hell for failing to be a Christian.

I never said that, the Bible doesn't say that, it's a ridiculous thought.

Sinners will go to Hell. Sin is transgression against the law. The law is contained in, but not limited to, the 10 Commandments.

You will go to Hell for hating righteousness, worshipping yourself, money, or iniquity, using the name of God in vain, worshipping creation above the Creator, dishonoring authority, murder, hatred, lust, fornication, stealing, lying, and coveting, and tolerating those who do.

The law brings wrath, and the wages of sin is death. You probably think that God doesn't care about your sins because you haven't been punished for them yet. You are storing up the wages of sin, just like you may have worked this week, but won't get paid 'till next week, you still expect to be paid. Expect to be paid for your transgression on the Day of Judgment.

So, while you won't go to Hell for failing to be a Christian, there are so many other reasons you'll go to Hell.

I hope this cleared up your confusion.
trustobey.blogspot.com/2007/08/pop-quiz-hotshot.html

To Canyon Shearer:

Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda

Your so called "Christian dogma" that anyone who disagrees with your religious views will spend "an eternity in Hell," is simply your personal bigotry and hatred for anyone who is different from you, projected onto your idea of god -- idolatry and sacrilege combined.

No surprise from Canyon Shearer: "The Pope is not a Christian, read the Biblical story about him in Luke 16:19-31"

The Bible was origianlly compiled by the Catholic church. Protestant Bibles, among other edits, are otherwise the same Bible with some (7?) books removed.

So if the parable of the unjust steward and of the rich man and Lazarus was referring to the Pope, why did The Church put it in? Furthermore, what evidence is there that parables were also prophecy?

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

BC,

You're right, Christianity is not the only way to God:

It is appointed once for a man to die, and then the judgment. On that day, you will spend at least some amount of time in Heaven standing before the Great White Throne.

God will open the book of your conscience and see everytime you've disrespected your parents, everytime you did something deceitful to the detriment of someone else, everytime you were unfaith to your spouse in flesh or in spirit. Remember that God considers hatred as murder (Matt 5:21), lust as adultery (5:28), lying lips are an abomination (Proverbs 12:22), and all of these will have their part in the lake of fire. (Revelation 21:8)

Deeds done in darkness will be brought to the light, and just as on earth, a sliding scale of judgment will not save a murderer no matter how much good he's done, neither will the good you've done save you from your transgressions. A rapist who painted eldery peoples' houses won't stand any better than a rapist who didn't paint eldery people's houses.

The punishment for a transgression against an infinitely holy God is an eternity in Hell, where you will forever pay your fine, but never pay all of it. God will be glorified both for being patient and giving you the opportunity to repent, and for being perfectly just.

Or you can realize that while an infinite punishment was due, Jesus Christ paid that fine on the Cross at Calvary when the eternal Trinity was torn in twain. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was made sin for us, your sin was on His back and when He was separated from His Father, your sin was separated from the Father.

But just as if a criminal can pay his fine, but shows no remorse and will continue breaking the law, the judge won't let him go; so is it with God, that while your fine is paid, an unrepentant heart will keep you in damnation.

Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and embrace the God who loved you so much that He DIED for you.

In closing, ask yourself this important question, when your religion brings you into the presence of God, will you face Him as your Saviour, or as your Judge?

While Jews, Christians, and Muslims traditionally have no particular objection to killing both their 'enemies' and each other for that matter,
Buddhists are by and large supreme pacifists - they may be victimized by governments, but these modern-day governments and their minions are not followers of the pacifist philisophy of Buddhism by any stretch of the imagination - they're militarist despots, killers and egomaniacal psychopaths in the same fashion as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest of their evil breed. These mass murderers can't even be called atheists, because any kind of philosophical outlook whatsoever is alien to their kind, other than feeding the supreme ego gratification of total dominance. Now that kind will burn in a hell of their own making.

As usual, this is a forum for the well-known brand of Christian bigotry: No other spiritual path leads to god except theirs.

In fact, there are many excellent paths to God, and the one chosen by most Christians today involves endorsing war and hate, unlike that of Buddhists like the Dalai Lama, who has sacrificed even his country in favor of the Buddhist principle of Peace and Compassion.

Try telling any Christian today that according to Christ's teaching, they must be prepared to give up everything to follow Him, up to and including forswearing war in "defending" their country.

You'd be immediatly "slimed" as a coward and traitor.

The Christian Way is an excellent path to God if followed; unfortunately, most Christians don't follow it. They are too interested in Hate and War.

I'm unaware of Buddhists killing for Buddha - this would be a profound sacrilege for those that take his message of self-less compassion for others to heart. On the other hand, countless millions have been slaughtered in the name of God and Allah.....on that I can completely agree.

Jim,

Reposted from an article I wrote in June:

In the History of the world, there have been some truly heinous acts committed.

In the name of God, men crucified Christ.
In the name of Christ, men made the streets of Jerusalem flow blood.
In the name of Allah, men flew airplanes into buildings.
In the name of Buddha, men murder those who deny him.
In the name of Kings, men oppressed nations.
In the name of Queens, men allowed nations to starve.
In the name of Evolution, men proclaimed the master race and murdered six million.
In the name of Socialism, men in charge of the Soviet Union documented over 100-million murders.
In the name of Atheism, men have murdered clergymen.
In the name of Money, men murder in cold blood.
In the name of Drugs, men sell daughters into slavery.
In the name of Land, men killed millions of Native Americans.
In the name of Gold, men wiped out whole people groups.
In the name of Helen, men have gone to war.
In the name of Women, men have taken high-powered rifles into clock towers.
In the name of Peace, men dropped nuclear weapons.
In the name of Self-Expression, men have murdered dozens of students.
In the name of Babies, men bombed abortion clinics.
In the name of Tolerance, men ignore gross sexual acts.
In the name of Sex, men allow 1 in 4 dead from the AIDS virus to be babies.
In the name of Choice, men have murdered fifty million human beings.
In the name of Road-Rage, men kill each other on the freeway.

There is one common theme through all this. There is no limit to the deceitfulness of the human heart; just when we expected that nothing could top atheistic communism, we find a terrorist group which trains its children that strapping a bomb to their little bodies and running into a marketplace is their highest and best usefulness. As shocking as this is, I do not think it will be the last great measure of depravity we will see.

------------------

Frank Burns,

An interesting idea you have there...how do you suppose we do that? Grow our children in incubators until they reach 18 years old?
Take a look at our state religion:
http://trustobey.blogspot.com/2007/06/dying-religiong-of-evolution.html

It is odd that the most vicious, non-compassionate religion, Christians, continue to preach love. This group of people dropped the atomic bomb. This religious group spread military arms throughout the world that kill and maim hundreds of thousands of people and destroy the property of the poor. This religious group preaches democracy while condoning the most heinous racism. This religious group is money driven and displays contempt for the very God they profess to love. Many of us who are proud to believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just as proud NOT to believe in church and religion both of which are nothing more than organized gangs. They may as well be the Bloods or the Crips. END THE WAR IN IRAQ.

It is odd that the most vicious, non-compassionate religion, Christians, continue to preach love. This group of people dropped the atomic bomb. This religious group spread military arms throughout the world that kill and maim hundreds of thousands of people and destroy property of the poor. This religious group preaches democracy while condoning the most heinous racism. This religious group is money driven and displays contempt for the very God they profess to love. Many of us who are proud to believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just as proud NOT to believe in church and religion both of which are nothing more than organized gangs. They may as well be the Bloods or the Crips. END THE WAR IN IRAQ.

Religion should be free for adults, but no one should have the right to indoctrinate children. It simply isn't fair to the kid. Sad, very sad.

Paganplace,

Is it just me, or have you gotten considerably more angry in the past few weeks?

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

"God is love. This is especially clear in the Christian tradition." You've got to be kidding me. In the life, words, and sacrifice of Jesus, that love was clear. But in the tradition of His church, there have been, at best, periodic faint glimmers. Atonement is a more appropriate reaction to the Christian tradition than celebration. Christians have deviated from the message of their Founder perhaps more than any other religion. Consider that the vast majority of the Nazi hierarchy were Christians. Most concentration camp commanders went to church on Sunday. Division, persecution, judgment, oppression, and narrow minded human dogmatism have ruled the Christian tradition, not love. And me? I'm a Christian, trying to behave more like a Buddhist.

The good monsignor at least allows that other paths can lead to salvation. It's just not direct or obvious. I find this a generous position considering the 'my way or the high way' venom coming from most other quarters.

(Fyi - I am not a Catholic).

If religion be judged by the results it produces in humanity, then all religions (and atheism and its cowardly sibling - agnosticism) are abysmal failures.

Only peaceful co-existence can and should be the goal of humanity. Anything more is futile.

So, according to Catholicism, a murderer who converts to Catholicism on death row might get to go to heaven, but Aung Sang Suu Kyi, a devout Buddhist, goes to hell. If this thought does not trouble your conscience, Vicar Bohlin, then you have neither love nor compassion within you.

What you preach is let's put blinders on our good sense and braces on our brains. . . . . Let's Vote for George W. Bush so we can shove the policeman's 38 cal. pistol down some poor woman's nose to make her obey, Our moral authority.

. . . "Ye shall know them by the fruits they bear." . . . . And what fruit have you boren us? Discord, coersion, and George W. Bush, the worst President in American history.

" nietzsche's ghost:

Religions exist! that much we really know...and WHY do they exist? to delude man into thinking that god (if he/she/it exists, they exist in a fashion we cannot know) somehow cares enough to ensure you some special place in some mythical afterlife for obeying all the silly-ass rules of that particular religion (how I remember my very Catholic father not questioning the pope's decision that meat on Friday's was all of a sudden ok and not a sin!)."

Fish on Friday was a prop for the fishing industry at one point. Medicis and all that.

Religions, per se, seem to exist to sell themselves.

This doesn't mean that there is no spirit...

Probably the biggest lie religion ever sold was that 'If you don't believe in our religion, you have no soul, so swear your soul to us.'

They will say that that very idea is 'satanic rebellion'

I simply say that you have a soul, it's yours. Do not be terrorized for your soul.

Be aware, and do good, don't swear and lie and hope to be forgiven for whatever nonsense is a sin these days.

Live once, and it's worth having a soul.

The rest so many promise is excuses and misery.

Be.

OK?

"Does what Benedict wrote about love express the message of Judaism and Islam, of Buddhists and Hindus? I don’t think so."

You're right. Their messages are of love and compassion. Pope Benedict's message is of authoritarian intolerance.

The Pope's message is also antithetical to the message of Christ.

Religions exist! that much we really know...and WHY do they exist? to delude man into thinking that god (if he/she/it exists, they exist in a fashion we cannot know) somehow cares enough to ensure you some special place in some mythical afterlife for obeying all the silly-ass rules of that particular religion (how I remember my very Catholic father not questioning the pope's decision that meat on Friday's was all of a sudden ok and not a sin!).

And dying on a cross...for ALL mankind...give me a break! How, HOW does that SAVE mankind from anything? If it is supposed to an example of how one is to encounter death in the face of persecution, ok, it's impressive BUT SAVING ALL MANKIND FROM ALL SIN??? exactily HOW does THAT work, huh????

And the Xristian will say I'm the deluded one. And yet I believe in god...just not the god of ANY religion as they are ALL false gods: Yahweh, Allah, Christ, Buddha, Augustus, whoever, whatever that decides somehow that a MAN is the (at best) REPRESENTATION of the Sacred and the Divine...your "faith" is weak because deep down you cannot accept god's own uncertainty: he/she/it/they ARE the uncertainty...and no religion will ever KNOW god!

Basically, yeah, you've raised an altar to Pin, and Gods help the rest of us.

Wouldn't it suck to be you if the Gods valued other experiences.

Yaknow?

Ummm... What?

How bout this... Hard as it may be, imagine a world where you ain't in charge....

It is quite interesting -- the observation that is made about the 'immediacy.'

The flip side of the observation, however, is that if it were believed as legitimate, these other traditions would have found a way to incorporate it into their doctrine[s] and they have not chosen to do so.

Yes, Christianity is truly unique in this regard and we have nothing but 'faith' by which to accept it. But then that is what Christianity is about.

Historical note: I can't believe they turned off the Red Sox game when it got interesting.... just.... turned it off.... I was watching, on a cable TV subscription we spend a certain amount of money we could put elsewhere....

Said I need to subscribe to a pay sports service.... like I care that much....

Talk about the deregulation religious conservatives say 'gets the government out of our lives,' .... now we have corporations spitting in our faces in the middle of the first ball game we've tried to watch in two years.

Seriously, boys, who is it you backing, here?

I can't even keep fodder for a darn metaphor going at this point. :)

Furthermore, (I'm watching baseball, now...)

I would say we nedn't fear or define 'the fences' like we have or could eliminated all mystery from the universe....

It's just that some of the 'fences' we used to use are too small and too short to limit ourselves to.

Capiche?

To me, well, it scares a lot of people... scares them enough that they're wiling to really hurt others to maintain their ideas of 'where the fence is and has been and must always be,'

I'd say that that's not the real game.

I say, when my Goddess really wants to give me a gift, it comes in the form of a *mystery,* not certainty. Not something I think I know, but something that I *don't* ...and *that's* what keeps the blood flowing, and the heart beating, and the eyes looking.

Too much of this 'religion' thing is about trying to *shut it off,* and Gods know we live down to it all too much.

If this life is *something,* it's the drive to, not define, but to look beyond.

There's two kinds of detectives:
Those that hate a mystery and cant rest until it's destroyed,

And those that *love* a mystery and are a little sad when it's resolved.

The former kind will kind of flail around when the mystery's in danger of being 'solved' cause they fear that they have the power to extinguish themselves through knowing.

The latter kind ...*live* it. Maybe even don't want 'final answers' cause that's just not the kind of people we really are.

I say, too many people are being hurt by those who want it simple.

Go outside, ...wherever you are.... lok around, ..breathe. This is life.

It doesn't need permission.

It needs *attention.*

Pay attention.

The rest follows.

"have to apologize for the pedantic post .... my eyes glazed over there for a second. But as for ultimate answers, in the yogic worlds of both Hindu and Buddhist contemplative practice, an end to all effort and seeking is hypothetically possible in a burst of full illumination."

No pedanticness taken. :) Just, I question why anyone would want that. Not that it doesn't sound good at times, but really.

I figure that inasmuch and to the extent I can't handle this nonsesne is precisely as much as I need to be lookin at it. Not away.

Soul's here. Gods wanna pull me off the roster, well, great, but I don't think that's the point of being here. Further, I think that if those who know best are foremost concerned with punching out, no wonder it's a clusterfoxtrot.

But that's just me, not thinkin the world is bad and inferior, just what it is, which it happens doesn't*have* to suck in all kinds of medieval ways if we apply ourselves.

" This is can occur only in the human realm (therefore no one should pine away for the god or deva realms, because the fun only lasts for a few millenia and the inevitable fall is said to be commensurate with the high altitude state of that incarnation)."

Well,I don't particularly buy *that* either, at least in any absolute sort of way... Really, being a human who doesn't apply an erg to the game is surely isn't any better than another kind of critter that applies themself. It's *important* here, cause this is a good mix, but I don't think it's the only thing.

Some nights, I figure that all possible worlds exist, and karma draws my attention to the *worst* of all these possible worlds in which I'm not dead, but, that's me complaining. :)

I tend to figure that it's points like you mention that may be a conceptual way Eastern peoples rationalize where they ain't trying hard enough to live up to ideals n *this* world. Mind you, criticize anyone else, and Western monotheists go, 'Ha! Someone's worse! I don't gotta do jack!'

But...

Ask someone Irish... Pining for other realms is neither bad nor good, ...hardly matters where you are, just what you do.

It's a special kind of place here, cause we're in it... and if we can.. (badump) make it here, we'll make it, .. anywhere... (chachacha)

Get it?

"What might be found beyond the fully enlightened state of a Buddha is cloaked in mystery."

Personally, I'd hope so.

I figure, though, if you're in a league to worry about it, you'll know.

I think people in Buddhist nations still have a sense they are in one life, not speaking for eternity..

I think that if you're swinging for the fences and thinking lesser sports metaphors are somehow not part of life, though, ....Mighty casey might miss out.

Groovy. Really groovy.

Lepidopteryx,

You're only the second calvanistic unbeliever I've ever met. That's pretty cool, actually. Find below a letter I wrote to friend:

I started out believing in infralapsarianism, that God created the world perfect, but made the mistake of giving us a free-will, we broke the Universe, and God has been fixing our errors ever since, especially finding a way to redeem us by dying on the cross in our stead. This is an inept, incompetent god. Of course, after I started reading the Bible, this view vanished, I moved to God created us purposefully to fall so that we would have to seek Him to be saved. This is not a kind God, to put us to so much pain and suffering simply to see if we would come back to Him. Finally I realized that God created the world specifically to answer the question of what would happen without Him, and to show that He loves us anyways, and to show His goodness; this is a reasonable, righteous, loving God.

Consider Noah, which is a great study in predestination, in my opinion. We can take the free-will view, that while billions of people were rejecting God, Noah was the last to reject Him and thus was chosen to build the ark; if Noah had chosen to reject God, mankind would have ended right there. Or else, even if Noah had accepted the challenge, what if other people chose God apart from Noah, then there would be no need for a flood, instead just a really good preacher.

Instead Noah was fortunate for God's sovereignty, that God created him for good works, which He prepared beforehand, that Noah and co. should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)

God has answered the question of "How bad could it be without God?" in stages, first there was perfection which God gave us to watch over. We ruined it. Then there was no law from God, and iniquity polluted the land. Then God provided a list of rules, which Israel quickly broke. Then God provided a Helper, while leaving it largley up to us, we had a guide. While this is notably better, it still isn't perfect, when we're in charge, life is not good. Finally we will actually have Christ reigning with us, but people will still rebel. These 7,000 years of examples from Genesis to Revelation are all so that we call out to God, "God, we can't do it on our own, we can't do it without your help, we can't do it with your help, we can't even do it when you're here, we need you to just do it all." It's a predetermined plan which has run from creation to now exactly as God knew it would, and exactly in the sequence in which we will learn the most from it. When we wonder why Nazi's and Communists were allowed to be in charge by God, it is precisely to show us how evolutionism and atheism work in the government. I think that the United States is quickly becoming a pseudoreligious country to show us what happens when you only pretend to love God.

Going back to Noah, he was called by God, God told him what to do, and at the end, when the flood began, Noah covered the boat with "Kaphar" which is only translated as "pitch" in the Noah account. In all other uses, the word Kaphar is translated as atonement, forgiveness, and reconciliation. This is the reason the ark floated above the judgment, above the death and destruction, not because Noah built it well, but because God allowed it to float; and so is why our soul will rise above the judgment, because God allowed it to, not because of any work we've done, not even the work of seeking God.

Finally, there is a danger in this, and I don't have the faith to test this. Hypercalvinism grew out of this view, that if everyone is predestined to Heaven or Hell, what is the reason for evangelism or even doing anything? Truthfully, I think evangelism is one of those works we are predestined to walk in; but if I don't evangelise and the lampstand is taken away, and the whole United States perishes...that was God's plan all along working towards the apocalypse.

I'm 98% sure that everyone is predestined to Heaven or Hell. I'm 100% sure I don't know who 99% of those people are, and thus I will continue to eveanglize, 100% confident I am walking in the works God prepared before time began.

If God indeed willed it that none should perish, He would have preached the word directly to the hearts' of the unregenerate, as He will to Israel (Hebrews 8:8-13), instead of leaving the preaching up to us who cannot possibly understand the length of eternity, the pain of Hell, or the cost of souls. Greater still, certain people were destined to disobey the word (1 Peter 2:8), often I'll share e-mail exchanges with famous 'atheists' and other religious leaders, and I wonder if I'm arguing with a permanent child of the devil, if my efforts are worthwhile. Then I remember stories of great atheists becoming great Christians (CS Lewis to name one), and sometimes the one predestined for disobedience may be a nice old lady who runs an orphanage.

Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, that Christ should die for me, whom hated Him with all my heart; and that Mother Theresa should go unsaved, whom, in outward appearances at least, was a lover of God.

I cannot possibly hope to understand all of the intricacies of those whom God predestines, calls, justifies, or glorifies (Romans 8:30), but I certainly count myself blessed that while many were perishing, I was granted repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Tim 2:25)

It's a damned lie "that the major religious traditions preach love, compassion and forgiveness."
The Pope says only his church is true and withholds communion from those politicians his archbishops disagree with while the whole hierarchy looks the other way and even hides priest who molest little boy.

American Christian extremists preach hatred, exclusion and neocon politics. Muslims do not denounce terrorism and Jews are hell bent on destroying Palestine. You sir, are a liar.

Abraham must be real proud of you all.

Monsignor, if you want to convince me all you have to do is stop talking and let me feel love and compassion emanating from you the way I have felt it from those who have awakened their consciousness such as the Dalai Lama. Be love, embody love, live love. That's all. Stop the talk. Walk the walk.

Paganplace -

I have to apologize for the pedantic post .... my eyes glazed over there for a second. But as for ultimate answers, in the yogic worlds of both Hindu and Buddhist contemplative practice, an end to all effort and seeking is hypothetically possible in a burst of full illumination. This is can occur only in the human realm (therefore no one should pine away for the god or deva realms, because the fun only lasts for a few millenia and the inevitable fall is said to be commensurate with the high altitude state of that incarnation). What might be found beyond the fully enlightened state of a Buddha is cloaked in mystery. It is said that some Buddhas have spiritual domains that encompass many millions of inhabited worlds. For all the mythology and metaphysics of religion (and science) I wouldn't be surprised if the universe isn't larger, stranger and far more magnificent than we ever imagined. I certainly don't think we're here in the great cosmic Void doing it all by our lonesome!!

I love to be preached by men who likes little boys.

I love to be preached by men who likes little boys.

OnFaith is a very welcome addition to washingtonpost.com.

A few things about christianity that confuse me:

God is omniscient. So he knew before he created them that Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit. After all, if God is capable of being taken by surprise, then he really isn't omniscient. And if an omniscient being KNOWS something is going to happen, then that thing MUST come to pass, otherwise the omniscient being is mistaken, and therefore not really omniscient. So with an omniscient being in control of the universe, there can be no such thing as free will, and Adam and Eve really had no choice but to eat the forbidden fruit.

God is omnipotent and God makes the rules. But he makes the rules so that the punishment for everything is hell. And even thinking about doing something bad is the same as doing it, so we have eternal punishment for random thoughts. Then he gets a girl pregnant, has their son executed, and that death is supposed to substitute for the penalty he has prescribed for every human being, past, present, and future. But it only works for those who believe it. Why could God not have made the punishment for wrongdoing something other than hell?

And don't even get me started on all the nonsense in Paul's letters.

Reverend, please, stand up for your story. the full detail must surely include not that the Jew Jesus was simply killed on a cross , a common Roman Empire punishment, and which allowed him no particular distinction in that savage era, But that he was resurrected from DEATH! shortly thereafter. As a Christian, you believe this, or else the individual martyr and prophet Jesus was simply another enlightened being, espousing excellent values, and ahead of his time, but simply - One Of Us. He attempted to purify a then corrupt state of Jewry, not to start a new religion, surely not a New church of any description, and has been Deified by those who wrote his history, but didn*t know him, and solely recorded in a book the official version of which didn*t appear until four hundred years after his passing. In view of these facts, let each man decide for himself = was the historical Jesus a saviour, or was this simply a misinterpretation of those words he is a alleged to have spoken by way of a fuzzily constructed old tome called the bible, and unadornadly a prophet who like many others (some still alive today) hoped for a @better world@. If you seek to listen for the illusive intelligence which has directed the flow of energy in this universe since the beginning of time, I suggest you go, BY YOURSELF, for a walk in the woods, a venture on the sea, to a remote desert, or other lonely place, and LISTEN with all of your power. Attend no pile of bricks on Sunday a.m. to hear a bedecked and bejewelled intermediary give out the official party line of any Church. Be a man about it - it doesnt matter a toot what your mother, father, grandmother, etc, believes. ITS WHAT YOU TRULY BELIEVE ON DUE CONSIDERATION THAT SHOULD RULE YOU. Spend your own forty days in the wilderness of your own deliberate choice. All else is, if i may be permitted a quote: words, words, words.

Wow, I didn't know Franco was still alive.

Good to know.

Consider the source. Opus Dei is what it is,
a Roman Catholic fundamentalist claque.

And the POV the monsignor offers reminds
me of how powerfully so much Christianity
is based on the ancient Messianic cults that
go way back in the Middle East.

All the blood, all the gore, all the
sacrifice. Please. Enough.

And, not to get lost in details, but it happens that some folks like opus Dei seem to believe that the universe is all about buying things and the only commodity therein is... pain.

Some humans have built an altar to pain, and demand everyone suffer in honor of it.

Doesn't happen to be so, more's the pity.

Paganplace -

The issue a hand is that Buddhism postulates infinity. According to this metaphysic there is no beginning or end to the cosmos on the large scale. Things have always been in a process of emergence, entropy, and re-capitulation.

Each successive universe (and everything in it) re-capitulates itself but does not duplicate itself and in that sense each re-creation is unique - there is consequently no mystery as to why the 'universal' constants and fine tuning of each successive universe can happen without a 'watchmaker'. It has always been happening.
There are no individually and independently existing objects in this schematic (the concept of emptiness).

Each universe is the consequence of the preceeding universe - with the additional proviso that consciousness (pure awareness) is and always has been co-existent with the phenomenal universe.

The Buddhist metaphysicians say there is no way to conceptualize this reality - it is neither this nor that( neti neti). Things both do and do not exist but the real nature of things must be perceived directly. Thus the concept of the experience of enlightenment or moksha.

I have faith that this is essentially the truth in a nutshell. It's hard to get your head around infinity - thus we have religion. Today is as good as any other day.

Yesterday I took delivery a a custom hand-made steel-string guitar.....best thing that's happened in the last two days!!

Oh, and as for bringing up the Kama Stra like that proves something, well, you've apparently consigned sex itself to some demonic realm not to be looked at.... and as for the rest, you might want to find out what a sutra is, before you go thinking you're posting zingers about it.

I mean, really.

" You're All Wrong:
"
Jai Khosla, do you mean idol and monkey worship? That is pagan. You didn't mention the Kama Sutra."

I have to say, if all you can see looking at six thousand years of world culture it 'idol and monkey worship,' ...Pardon me if I don't think it's me or the rest of the world without spiritual insight.

I mean, really.

Terry:, "Why any protestant believer would imagine themselves to be in any way superior to a practitioner of catholicism is an unfathomable mystery"

I mean gulp! Catholics are actually pagans worshiping statues and speaking magic words and so on, voodoo like. Just as soon as ecumenical is over, when all Baptists are catholics, wink-wink then the pope will be fired, all those pagan things removed from the churches and Billy Graham established as the king of America. President already clears everything with him - the end is near.

Just keep on believing catholics are better than Baptists. There'll come a time when you'll be a Baptist yourself. So begin by trying to be equal. Otherwise you'll be thrown in jail along with other unequals, atheists and homosexuals etc. In the kingdom of God everybody is saved and the ones that aren't will have to go. 76% of the people already want Bush to go. Read that last part in a conservative newspaper.

Jai Khosla, do you mean idol and monkey worship? That is pagan. You didn't mention the Kama Sutra.

Ha, yes, Terry, we live in similar worlds, just that there's no preconception that being here right now is a lower thing to be escaped...

Pointing to obvious biases, I always thought Zen was a great cognitive exercise, but not, either, any 'Ultimate Answer.' (even if in the form of saying 'There is none.') Just.. Hey. No mind. Do.

Most folks who have been taught to believe they need ultimate answers or big agendas to do anything..end up doing nothing constructive. I'd say 'Nothing' is not the answer,' just a skill you need. :)

Paganplace - of course I agree. I'm a Zen guy myself. I'm alright with the world as is.....

And I think this is the big pitfall of 'preaching a Christ crucified'

You build an altar to *pain.* Promising that if you see this wonderful world as *painful* enough, that it'l be worth *saving* you from.

I think in the process so many are in a hurry, according to their own myths, to 'have knowledge of good and evil' and can't see the *garden* we live in, among near-endless hard vaccuum and nard radiation...

Taught to believe that the world is pain and horror and oppression, and that it needs to end so they can be *saved* from the death they're taught to be in so much terror of they can't think straight...

So much fear of death and judgement that no suffering is too much... for someone else... to go through... as long as they can think 'God' condones or demands it.

Chains?

No, the world is not to be constrained, denied, defamed, escaped, or destroyed.

It's a Frickin good world, actually.

It takes human ingenuity and imagination and insistence to make so much suffering of it.

If your spirit were 'free,' don't you think you'd see that?

And, you know, Terry, I have a lot of sympathy for the Gnostics.... they always seemed to me to be the guys with the right idea about what this Christianity was supposed to do...

"Gnostics believed that the human spirit, being of one nature with the ultimate Truth, can escape the bondage of the material world and return to that Ultimate Source ......"

Only thing about it is, that...If the human spirit is of one nature with.... Nature... the 'bondage' isn't the *world,* it's ...what we in the world see as chains... The very chains so many Christians try and crack up to be such a big inescapeable deal that you need to sign your soul away to escape to parts unknown...

It's not the world that's bad.... The world, was supposedly pronounced in their own religion... to be good.

Does seem to be a certain amount easier to try and escape the world than the *chains.*

Chains could turn a spring meadow into a prison.

It's not the world.

It's the chains.

Well, Thinkaboutit, I think Mr. Clemens was addressing a certain form of religion in particular, one well-familiar to anyone living in those times, or these.

I'd say, if no Gods showed favor toward intelligence or humor, I'd be up one creek or another, myself.

Cause if I'm not being smart, it sure better be funny. ;)

Which may show up how little our current society really values either, but I think that's the substance of one of my first and most sincere prayers. :)

Personally, if I judge some religions and ideologies by anything, it's how cruel and mirthless their 'humor' can seem.

Someone once observed that we humans *are* 'The animal that laughs.' I think we imagine faces of the Gods that can't deal with that at our own peril.

Why any protestant believer would imagine themselves to be in any way superior to a practitioner of catholicism is an unfathomable mystery - no basis for it whatsoever, other than some kind of self-righteous belief that they're following the word of the bible perfectly and without deviation.....that my friends is protestant fundamentalism in all it's dubious glory.

We're seeing one or two of it's premier spokespersons right here before our very eyes, and it's not very impressive. These experts have the preternatural ability to actually know who will and who will not be consigned to that everlasting burning hell of the disenfranchised sinner.

Curiously, they are followers of the old rather than the new testament .... although they talk about Jesus incessantly. The Gnostics knew the god of the old testament and this was the Demiurge - the purblind god creator of the material world that assumed he was therefore the ultimate and supreme Truth in his abysmal ignorance. He is of course a supreme egoistic diety, and a wrathful god of absolutes that demands complete obedience from his followers. Suffering eternal damnation is the consequence of failure - there is no middle ground. His followers understand this well.

Gnostics believed that the human spirit, being of one nature with the ultimate Truth, can escape the bondage of the material world and return to that Ultimate Source ...... but only with real knowledge (gnosis) and direct apprehension of that Source. They believed that Jesus showed the way as a pure manifestation of the Ultimate Source - however, one has to achieve salvation through their own efforts. That's as it should be, after all.

Wow. I couldn't think of a more effective way to bring down the Catholic church more quickly than to print more articles like the Monsignor's. One can only hope that moderates in every religion will begin to advocate change to rid their institutions of backward-thinking power mongers like this guy. Please, people, the Bible is the beginning of our attempts to understand reality. If it is considered the beginning and the end, it will be the end of us.

Can anyone address Mark Twain's reasons for being an atheist? Seems to me things haven't changed on the religious scene since his observations. (Please jump in folks if anyone disagrees.)

• The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it.

• One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They have also believed the world was flat.

• Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

• I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force.

• Between believing a thing and thinking you know is only a small step and quickly taken.

• Against a diseased imagination demonstration goes for nothing

• *Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand

• *The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them

• God's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.

• Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employ a million.

• What God lacks is convictions -- stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something -- not try to be everything.

• A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!

• A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.

• I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit.

• If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks. He would not stoop to ask for any man's compliments, praises, flatteries; and He would be far above exacting them. I would have Him as self-respecting as the better sort of man in these regards.
He would not be a merchant, a trader. He would not buy these things. He would not sell, or offer to sell, temporary benefits of the joys of eternity for the product called worship. I would have Him as dignified as the better sort of man in this regard.
He would value no love but the love born of kindnesses conferred; not that born of benevolences contracted for. Repentance in a man's heart for a wrong done would cancel and annul that sin; and no verbal prayers for forgiveness be required or desired or expected of that man.
In His Bible there would be no Unforgiveable Sin. He would recognize in Himself the Author and Inventor of Sin and Author and Inventor of the Vehicle and Appliances for its commission; and would place the whole responsibility where it would of right belong: upon Himself, the only Sinner.
He would not be a jealous God -- a trait so small that even men despise it in each other.
He would not boast.
He would keep private Hs admirations of Himself; He would regard self-praise as unbecoming the dignity of his position.
He would not have the spirit of vengeance in His heart. Then it would not issue from His lips.
There would not be any hell -- except the one we live in from the cradle to the grave.
There would not be any heaven -- the kind described in the world's Bibles.
He would spend some of His eternities in trying to forgive Himself for making man unhappy when he could have made him happy with the same effort and he would spend the rest of them in studying astronomy

• The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes.... The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession -- and take the credit of the correction. During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.... There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

• Surely the ass who invented the first religion ought to be the first ass damned.
-- Mark Twain, on the margin of a newspaper report titled "God & the Earthquake; Rabbi Says God Who Would Kill The Innocent Isn't Worthy of Worship," about an earthquake in Italy and how people were fleeing into churches and then the building would collapse in aftershocks killing the followers

Wow, Monsignor, look at all the 'love' your teachings bring us every day.

My, MY, My,

Baptism........

The really import question here is, and all of you have ignored this: "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin".

My favorite quote?

"Baptism!
You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers" (Ulysses Everett McGill - in 'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou).

BOOM!

Don't make me come back here.

Candide, close, a God of wrath.

The Pope is not a Christian, read the Biblical story about him in Luke 16:19-31

God is not love. God is persecution, burning, killing, hatred and segregation. Religion has made God a horror.

I wonder who does the pope admits his mistakes to! I read in the bible that rich people will not enter heaven till the camel goes through a needle's eye. Why isn't the pope living a life of poverty? How about evanglists who own airplanes, multi-million dollar houses, broadcasting sTV/radio stations, expensive boats, car fleets, ..etc. Is it true that all these people are in it for money? Zack?!

Please reread my 1:48pm post.

It has NOTHING to do with getting to Heaven. NOTHING.

I could care less what they're preaching, it's the PRACTICES of these religious institutions which I believe to be of Great Interest, in the
USA alone there's a long and storied history of
scams and rackets having been operated in the name
(and basically under the tax exemption of) some
kind of god, and that's not to mention (but I
will anyway) the various and sundry parties
attempting to organize Large Numbers Of Easily
Influenced People in the name of same, for
purposes not clear but likely not civil or
peaceful or ostensibly in line with whatever
teachings you prefer to derive from all of that
religious literature. Turning the page, and
spinning the globe, we realize that some of
those intentions are in fact warlike, and
therefore the preferred and prominent subject
of the moment. The middle east is the subject
of daily coverage in the news, jewish/christian/muslim/subsects of the previous
mentioned entities, and there's billions of dollars involved, and Lots Of Stupid People, Too.

I'm a heathen skeptic, I have very little faith
in any given religious institution, and if you
stop and read about Jesus, well, they sure nailed
his butt to the cross, those nice roman people,
goes to show you what you'll get for running
around calling yourself the son of God and all
that, poor bastard, some thanks you'll get for
teaching people how to swim, too(think about that). Yeah, we live in a world of high-dollar
politics and people that want to throw their
weight around for whatever purpose, probably
profit-oriented, there's an ATM machine in
the lobby of the church(refer back to the
moneychangers and Jesus' missing sandal), curiousl;y you don't see people calling themselves 'christians' lined up with torches
and pitchforks to correct THAT situation, so
yeah, there's a lot of cash-related hypocrisy,
and I think that ALL of these institutions would
be well-served to analyze and perform serious
introspection on the actions and activities
that all these well-funded bodies have engaged
in over the years. How long 'til there's a church tax?

Correction to 2nd line:

If this doesn't describe *baptism*...etc

"Major religion traditions preach love (defined by the Massachusetts Supreme Court as an 'opinion'), compassion, and forgiveness?" Are you crazy or just kidding? These religions have brought warring conflicts (remember the Crusades?), massive deaths (remember the Spanish Inquisition, 1483-1834?), and religions bound and determined to eliminate each other. The Catholic Church is the poster creed representing the folly of Benedict XVI's naivete or invincible ignorance to the history of his own faith and the scandalous corruption that existed within the papacy for centuries.

To Canyon Shearer:

In the words of Jesus: "Amen, amen I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit." John 3:5

If this doesn't describe baptist and if baptism doesn't define who is and isn't a Christian I'll eat the Pope's hat.

/edit/ My appologies, my 1:48pm post should read, second line, "You all believe that Christians believe you're going to Hell because you aren't a Christian."

Also, my post had nothing to do with reconciliation at all.

Your religious beliefs have no bearing on why you should go to Hell.

Joet,

Please read my last post again, I said NOTHING of Heaven.

is this a joke?

Canyon: it clears up nothing at all. Jews, Muslims, Christians - their messages are absolutely antithetical to each other. They cannot be reconciled in any way. Muslims preach that Jesus was not God, Jews don't believe Jesus or Muhammad was. Therefore, each believes the other is completely and utterly deluded and praying to a false god.

I was raised Catholic. I remember vividly the teachings of the church with respect to non believers. you would have to be a lawyer (I became one) or a politician, to appreciate the spin they were putting on the part about non-Catholics having no way to get to heaven, perhaps because they knew that it just wouldn't sell, even to us impressionable kids.

you just can't hide from your own religion's theology on non-believers.

There is a common thread of confusion in these comments.

You all believe that Christians believe that if you aren't a Christian, you're going to Hell.

I never said that, the Bible doesn't say that, it's a ridiculous thought.

Sinners will go to Hell. Sin is transgression against the law. The law is contained in, but not limited to, the 10 Commandments.

You will go to Hell for hating righteousness, worshipping yourself, money, or iniquity, using the name of God in vain, worshipping creation above the Creator, dishonoring authority, murder, hatred, lust, fornication, stealing, lying, and coveting, or tolerating those who do.

The law brings wrath, and the wages of sin is death. You probably think that God doesn't care about your sins because you haven't been punished for them yet. You are storing up the wages of sin, just like you may have worked this week, but won't get paid 'till next week, you still expect to be paid. Expect to be paid for your transgression on the Day of Judgment.

So, while you won't go to Hell for failing to be a Christian, there are so many other reasons you'll go to Hell.

I hope this cleared up some confusion.
trustobey.blogspot.com/2007/08/pop-quiz-hotshot.html

A Different Point of View: you (and several others) have hit the nail on the head, and made my point from a different direction. Monsignior and other religionists are hiding their real theology (we worship the true god, the rest of you are damned), around some lukewarm, PC version (our path to god is more economically efficient) because telling the truth would cause problems. when proselytizing involved walking from town to town with a really new message unlike anything heard before, it was easier to teach such superiority nonesense without the listener putting two and two together. In the modern age any one person can listen to Jews, Muslims, Christians (and the little subdrama of Catholics vs. Protestants) and the rest of the religious universe all proclaim truth. In the information age, religionists have to soft pedal the "you are damned, we are not" part, for the simple reason that if 20 cults are each claiming that they teach the truth and the other 19 are frauds, intelligent people will reach the conclusion that all 20 are.

I just don't get it; I just fail to see the connection between torturing someone to death and love. I'll never understand why God required some poor fool's bloody death in order to love us.

I just want to go to hell after death. I dont want to meet Bohlin in heaven. I am only afraid that he might also show up in hell. That would be really hell, a double whammy.

While baptism in Jesus and the Holy Spirit is held up by all Christians as an absolute necessity to attain Heaven, it is interesting to note that nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus himself ever baptized anyone.

TO: A QUESTION TO ALL CHRISTIANS

When a Christian or a non-Christian dies, the person is not sent anywhere. The dead do not repent, or do anything else, because they are dead.

Once you accept this simple and obvious truth, you can stop wasting time pondering metaphysical nonsense.

If a non-Christian dies and is sent by God to hell and upon arrival repents and says "God, forgive me, I was blind to the fact that you really did want me to be Christian. I ask ask for your forgiveness and I accept Jesus Christ as my savior.", does he get forgiven and get to go to heaven or does he have to stay in Hell forever? I don't recall seeing anything in the Bible that specifies that the believing in Jesus has to occur prior to death. Does anyone have a Biblical citation to answer this as opposed to simply making up your own answer?

You said that parents punish their children so we shouldn't be surprised that God does so also.

Yet parents don't punish their children for exercising freedom of religion. further, we consider countries that punish people for exercising their chose (non-violent) religion to be evil and wrong. So why is to OK for God to punish the free exercise of religion, especially when the worshipper sincerely means to honor God?

While we do punish, we also have the notion of cruel and unusual punishment which is forbidden by the Constitution. We consider torture to be evil. But what could be more cruel and unusual punishment than torturing someone in hell forever? Were we not all shocked at the way the Muslims were treated at Abu Ghraib? Yet you believe they will be treated far worse and for far longer when they die. If we who are evil think torture for any length of time is wrong, why would God who is good think that eternal torture of a devout Rabbi or Buddhist monk is just?

Let me get this straight.

The all-loving God sends his only Son to earth to be tortured and tormented beyond endurance and to suffer a slow, horribly painful, excruciating death.

Somehow in the cosmic scheme of things this makes everything all right, and all is forgiven, even though there was nothing to forgive in the first place.

This fixation on torture and cruelty then gives rise to The Religion of the Tormented Jew, otherwise known as Christianity, and its most virulently cruel form, the Roman Church.

This Church then continues its torture fixation by torturing and killing unknown numbers of innocents down through the ages.

All this cruelty being done in the name of love, and a far better love than any other group has been able to seek, find or manifest.

What's wrong with this picture?

Am I missing something?

This post goes out to our devout Christian friends who hold the strong view that Christianity is true and all who disagree burn in hell forever. I ask you to consider my questions with critical thinking as it is all too easy to dismiss contrary thinking as the work of the devil. If something is true, it should survive being held up to honest examination, should be internally consistent and it should make sense.

The premise of Christianity is that about 6000 years ago (according to the timeline in the Bible), the first man and woman, Adam and Eve ate an apple they weren't supposed to. As a result, all people born since then are born into sin and will be damned to hell unless they are Christians. The only thing that saves us is that Jesus died for our sins.

Can any Christian follower offer a rational answer to the following questions?

How does one reconcile the Bible's account that man has been around for 6000 years with the collective work of science and history that shows that man has been around for hundreds of thousands of years?

According to the Bible, Adam and Eve did not know the difference between good and evil. Accordingly, by what basis would Adam and Eve know that God who said "don't eat the apple" was the good guy and should be listened to and that the serpent who said "eat the apple" was the bad guy and should not be listened to?

Given that God knew that Adam and Eve couldn't tell right from wrong, why would He put the apple in the garden of eden in the first place. God knew that if they ate the apple, all of humanity would be damned to hell. God knew the devil was tempting Adam and Eve (God knows everything), yet God didn't intervene. Is this something a truly loving parent would do to His kids? Don't loving parents keep poison away from kids and if they see the kids trying to drink poison stop them rather than letting it happen? If we who are evil would not let our kids drink poison, why would God who is good let them eat the poisonous apple?

Even if Adam and Eve did disobey God, why should the billions of people who follow all be punished? Couldn't God just let Adam and Eve see good and evil and let the rest of us be born pure (after all God makes the rules)? why should the rest of us be born into sin? We did not eat the apple.

Could God really allow non-Christians to burn in hell for observing other religions or none at all? Most people observe the religions their cultures teach them; this numbers the billions. Could a loving God really allow such people to burn eternally in hell just because the follow the religion they have been taught by their parents? Why is it moral for a Christian murderer to go to heaven but someone like Gandhi who practiced love, peace and non-violence his whole life go to hell merely because he observed the Hindu faith of his culture (and spoke of the goodness of God many times)? For those of you who are Christian and have children, if your child became an atheist and God said, "I will leave the decision to you. Your child can go to heaven or be tortured for eternity in hell., would you really choose to send your child to hell? If we who are evil want only good things for our children and offer lots of latitude for honest mistakes (because what person really would choose hell over heaven if he really believed that was the issue regarding his believe choices?), wouldn't God who is good do the same?

If we are all born into original sin, why crucify Jesus for us? Couldn't God just wash away our sin or declare universal forgiveness? Suppose we caugtht Osama bin Laden and the Pope offered to take the death penality for him. If the judge said yes, ordered the Pope's death and then let bin Laden free knowing he would kill again, would we say that the judge was wise or foolish? If a parent had two children, one evil and one good, and the evil child did something horrible, would we expect the parent to punish the good child or the bad child? If the parent punished the good child and said "this is so that bad child's sins can be forgiven", wouldn't we think that the parent was foolish? Wouldn't we think that children, bin Laden and people in general should be accountable for their own actions, not free to do as they please because Jesus died for them and therefore they'll go to heaven no matter what they do as long as they're Christian?

Jesus teaches that if you have faith you will be healed. Yet the previous Pope had Parkinson's disease. Did the Pope not have faith or was Jesus wrong? Related to that, if you were hit by a car and in danger of imminent death would you want to be taken to a hospital or to your church for your minister to heal you by faith? If you said to a hospital, is it because you don't really have faith in Jesus?

The Jews who wrote the Old Testament, which includes the story of the apple, without which Christianity falls apart as there is no original sin to be saved from, believe that the Old Testament is not the word of God but folklore. If the Jews who wrote about the apple don't think what they wrote is true, why do you? If someone writes a book and says it is a work of fiction, on what basis do you believe you can tell the author that it is a work of non-fiction? Wouldn't the author know better whether what he wrote is fiction?

In the ten commandments, God says "thou shalt not kill" but then tells Moses that sinners should be stoned to death. God tells Moses "an eye for an eye" but Jesus teaches "you have heard 'an eye for an eye' but I tell you that you should turn the other cheek" Do these apparent contradictions bother you in any way?

Does any Christian reader have the courage to offer well thought out answers to these questions or will you simply spouting that you are right and that those who disagree will burn in hell? If you are right, you should be able to demonstrate it. However, merely quoting the Bible isn't really proof any more than you'd consider quoting the Koran proof of the correctness of Islamic faith or quoting a superman comic as proof of life on other planets. You can't prove something is true by merely stating that the thing says it's true. That's just circular reasoning. If Christianity is true, then it should be plausible that God would put an apple in front of two naive people and damn humanity for their actions. It should make sense that God would allow you to kill, rape, steal, cheat and still get into heaven as long as you were Christian. Is anyone up to the challenge?

What claptrap.

The monsignor's column reinforced my position that the sooner the bigots leave for their heavenly home the better it would be for the earth and the rest of us. Hell and damnation ? I'll take my chances. From what I have seen of the devout Christians I'd not like to be in heaven in their company.

From the Catholic Catechism promulgated by the Council of Trent in the 16th century on the subject of the resurrection of the body at the final judgement.

"The same thought (promise of relief from bodily afflictions) must also prove a powerful incentive to the faithful to use every exertion to lead lives of rectitude and integrity, unsullied by the defilement of sin. For if they reflect that those boundless riches which will follow after the resurrection are now offered to them as rewards, they will be easily attracted to the pursuit of virtue and piety.

On the other hand, nothing will have greater effect in subduing the passions and withdrawing souls from sin, than frequently to remind the sinner of the miseries and torments with which the reprobate will be visited..."

From the same Catechism on the subject of the integrity of the risen body:

"The wicked, too, shall rise with all their members, even with those lost through their own fault. The greater the number of members which they shall have, the greater will be their torments; and therefore this restoration of members will increase not their happiness but their sorrow and misery..."

Small wonder these people wear devices to inflict pain upon themselves.

Small wonder these people wear devices to inflict pain upon themselves.

Speaking of heretics, the great Gnostics had the whole business right of course, from the get-go.

They were interested in direct knowledge of the truth, rather than 'faith' in the parsed words of
the Church elect (clergy). Now that can get you
killed, religion being a serious business and all. For all interested, go to Barnes and Noble and buy yourself a copy of the Nag Hammadi Library by James Robinson - the Gnostic scriptures....that's a good place to start.

You will find that 'heretical' works were more realistically humanizing in many and unexpected ways - if there's anything divine about religion, it must be the humans that created it.

Sir,

I am not a “believer” -- Therefore when I look at institutions such as yours – I look at your WORKS-- not WORDS – when judging them!

There is, of course, a biblical verse, “Ye shall know them by their works”, that tells the faithful not to judge their leaders by words alone.

But how often do one see this applied? Hardly ever is my answer: As an indication, I might point out that YOU are urging your readers to judge YOU and your church by mere words alone.

Because I judge individuals and institutions on WORKS – I have found myself increasing being disrespectful (and even angry) at many CONSERVATIVE religious institutions, although I do try to remind myself that at the individual level, many are ignorant of the evil their group does collectively.

Do note this applies to conservative -- and not mainstream/liberal religious institutions. I am not angry at all of religion -- of course – just conservative groups I observe whose actions (works) I observe are evil.

Need examples?

CONSERVATIVE Christians (which are now the majority of US Christians) are getting involved in politics. Who are they supporting? They are aligning with right wing politicians and conglomerate corporations whose priorities are greed, corruption, and plutocracy.

• I am appalled at the grotesque suffering the US has caused in Iraq under the leadership of George Bush. Let me assume for a moment you only care about the CHRISTIAN Iraqis. Are you aware they were BEGGING the US not to invade their country and destroy it? Their communities have been violently demolished. The same is true for the millions of Muslim Iraqis who were innocent of any association with Al Qaeda. Our presence in Iraq has now caused more harm and suffering than even under Saddam! I am disgusted how we imprisoned and tortured INNOCENT people – with a bellicose arrogance that we can do whatever we want in the world because we have the world’s greatest military.

Do I hear you or your Church intercede on the Iraqis' behalf? Ever complain or show concern/compassion? Not one drop, sir.

Your religious group aided and abetted George Bush’s election – even urging members in the pulpit to go vote for him (while demonizing John Kerry) -- so by association you are also responsible for George Bush's actions, seems to me.

• I am appalled how conservative religious groups have aligned with right wing politicians on anti-environmental policies. George Bush installed former corporate lobbyists or sympathizers as heads of the federal agencies to GUT environmental laws and protections. Need specific examples? The Justice Department and EPA were ordered to drop all lawsuits against polluters shortly after Dubya came in office (The top three EPA enforcers Sylvia Lowrance, Bruce Buckheit, Eric Schaeffer resigned in protest.). 2) When NASA’s top climate specialist James Hansen called for efforts to reduce global warming gasses, he was threatened with “dire consequences” by Bush administration appointees if he continued.3) Behind the scenes, Bush aligned with Exxon/Mobil and conservative groups to gut any united global response to global warming.
Recent scientific studies are showing global warming may be more serious than originally thought.

I have no doubt some conservative religious groups will try and extricate themselves from blame by pointing to “apocalyptic” causes.

But rational people will know that religious organizations such as yours aided and abetted the right wing in allowing our government to aid in a rapid acceleration of global warming. I for one find it deplorable your role in support right wing politicians like George Bush on this issue.

• I recognize that this right wing administration is promoting an economy that is for the plutocrats – with 1% of the country owning 80% of the wealth. As Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Sr. and others have noted, this does not bode well for a democracy.

Your groups care nothing about this. You pay some modicum of lip service for the poor, but you are silent when the poor is the first group to be sacrificed by right wing politicians that you ally yourself with.

No. You most definitely don’t WALK THE TALK.

• Do I see “God bless the world” bumper stickers on your cars? No, its almost always “God bless America” on conservative cars. Seems to me you are hoping a little trickle down will then occur for you. Who cares about the rest, right?

No doubt, when you write an essay that one should just believe in WORDS it will be successful in attracting people who DON’T WANT TO THINK by asking where are your WORKS (the where's the BEEF question.)

Of course, you can refute my statements. Show me where I am wrong – and dazzle me by your WORKS next time! I wish I were wrong, sir, but I don't think I am.

Monsignor, thanks for taking time availing yourself for discussions. To me, Christ's ideal of love is expressed through a conversation with Peter, "If you love me, then feed my sheep". I admire Catholic and Quaker charities as reaching ideals above and beyond the conflicts of mankind.

In fact, when it comes to illegal immigrants, I see behaviors unpopular by some tracing back to underground railroad run by Quakers before the Civil War. What bravery it takes to become the voice in the wilderness actually putting beliefs into actions exampling that faith without works is dead. So maybe Quakers demonstrated through faith, that in fact "All men are created equal" prior to the Civil War. I think we ought to be appreciative of concerned legislators who told big brother to back-off Catholic grandmothers and Quakers.

In my dictionary, charity has a meaning of an "...unwillingness to see badly of people or acts (by people)..", what I refer to as the Madonna theory of life. In my lifetime, I have functioned as an Inspector mainly to ferret out the defects of mankind so maybe I am not worthy. But I believe I was the best of the best as witnessed by others. Of course the goal was to prevent castrophic failures by focusing in on man's fallibilities. Mankind has yet to produce an artwork as beautiful as a rising Sun or a full moon in October. My job came down to a simple postulate, catch people lying.

I suggest you include "Truth" as a quality of Faith. Fits quite nicely into "I am the truth and the way". Studying Universalist movement throughout New England states at the end of the nineteenth century I was amazed by the collective wisdom of the faith bodies. We see that counsel of combined religious entities gave merit to the truth as being sole source of Religious authority. Has helped me wade through bogs created by current day church/state movements.

Question remains on my mind Father, is repeating a lie the same sin as the one that created the orginal lie to be repeated ? Or who actually controls my own tongue ? And yes, I think that divine inspiration includes the annonymity and/or confideniality of Confession leading to forgiveness so that One can begin the process of redemption.

If nothing else, I am glad more than a few are seeking wisdom through God, the Creator, the Big Guy in the Sky rather than relying soley on the potential falabilities of mankind perhaps driven by the orginal seven deadly sins ? The Spirits of 1976 are coming into their own now and I can attest they are hungry for "The Gospel" and "nothing but the truth".

Should be obvious to some, as we all lost JFK, MLK, Bobby and Di while practicing "Duck-n-Cover". Perhaps alcohol, drugs and/or prescription medications became wholesale "mother's little helpers", a better life through chemistry, I think not. We survived Nixon and Vietnam but at what cost ? I think we have lost our way as individuals and that of a nation putting our own needs first and not that of our neighbors. One does not need be a Christian to understand the concept of loving thy neighbor.

"...The times they are a changin..."

Matthew:

I suggest you go back and study your history dude, you've got it all wrong.

Oh, what a bunch of twaddle...

All humans are born with the stain of an unpardonable sin upon their souls... and as a result, they are doomed to an eternity of unspeakable torture and suffering, without hope, without recourse. It is inevitable... but WAIT... we've got a PLAN. If you 'work the program', NOT ONLY can you be SAVED from this horrible fate... you will be REWARDED. You will get to live in luxury, without fear or want, in your own mansion, perpetually surrounded by love and happiness, in a magical place where the streets are paved with gold, under the auspices of an all-powerful benevolent dictator... who you get to worship and adore, for all of eternity. WHAT A DEAL.

Let's see... we've got...

* Fraud
* Extortion
* Protection racket

Fraud... the ILLUSION of salvation and the PROMISE of eternal life... products which cannot be delivered.

Extortion... the THREAT of unacceptable consequences, unless you pay the price and do what you are told.

Protection racket... bad things are gonna happen, in this life and beyond, if you don't comply. But if you DO comply (telepathically send the message of complete surrender and submission)... well... you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Looking at this another way, Christianity is also the world's ultimate, longest running and most successful Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scam. Again... the product they are selling is the ILLUSION of 'salvation', and the PROMISE of 'eternal life'... but the 'pay plan' doesn't kick in until after you're dead, and there's nobody there with whom you can register your complaint about having been scammed... which doesn't really matter, anyway... because you're DEAD... and you CAN'T complain... because you don't even KNOW you're dead... you're just DEAD.

Meanwhile the VICTIMS (having been deceived into believing that it is their God-given duty) are out there busily bullying, misleading and recruiting MORE victims. What a racket! Proselytizing (spreading the 'good news')... the 'Divine Commission'... is a key element of the Christian MLM MARKETING PLAN.

"Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered." ~ Victor J. Stenger

"Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure." ~ Harvard Lampoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)
"The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell." ~ Sean Ningen

"The whole point of Christianity is that everyone in the world, from Charles Manson to Mother Teresa, deserves to go to hell." ~ Sean Ningen

Monsignor Bohlin... you are a consiglieri in a 1,700 year-old crime family. You should not be gracing these pages with your 'love' platitudes... you should be under indictment by a federal grand jury for criminal conspiracy, under the RICO statutes.

, the man god, was a much better man than the your propeht Muhammad who made the god Allah.

TO Canyon Shearer,

Blessings to you, and much gratitude, for the courage to call a heretic a heretic.

In discussing faith, it is imperative to remember that there is only one True belief. The Truth in its entirety is found in the Bible. Not the pope, not the apocryphia, not in liberal secularism, not in satanic or false religions.

The United States of American was founded by Bible-Believing Christians as a place where they could worship in freedom. The founding fathers were nearly all Bible Believing Christians. They wrote the first amendment so that we Bible-Believing Chrsitians could practice our true faith. The first amendment protects ONLY Bible-Believing Chrsitians, not heretics nor apostates nor atheists nor agnostics.

Claims made by this author are not scripturally True. Therefore they should not be allowd.

Canyon Shearer wrote:
"When you preach the truth to the unregenerate, you are preaching directly in opposition to their nature, a nature which they’ve grown to love and one which defines them; telling them they’re wrong is going to be offensive. If that wasn’t bad enough, verse (2 Tim) 26 tells us we’re arguing with agents of satan himself."

Yep, offensive alright. An offense against reason and reality.

Well Monsignor,
I think Pope Benedict say the truth. He said what we are indonesian christian's wants. Take a look about things happened there.. to many church burned by moslems.

Here is what we want to hear about.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/20/AR2007102000273.html

GBU.

Well Monsignor,
I think Pope Benedict say the truth. He said what we are indonesian christian's wants. Take a look about things happened there.. to many church burned by moslems.

Here is what we want to hear about.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/20/AR2007102000273.html

GBU.

Canyon Shearer's comment is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Zack,

Based on your input, it is now clear to me that you took the position of "blindly believe everything the bible say even if it is contradicting itself". You won't "think" of how the bible came to be what it is today. You want to throw away every historical fact about the bible creation. Not only that, but you won't even consider other bibles (32,000 original [and still counting] and different/contradicting manuscripts) which have completely opposite belief systems.

You are a perfect christian, i.e., born and still trapped in the church box!

I don't have any particular holy book in front of me, but I don't believe I would find any passage anywhere that reads:

Genericans I: And God said to his chosen ones, "Go forward onto the internet and seek out chat rooms and, in the most impersonal and anonymous way, insult and harangue the non-believers. Beatest thine breast in righteous indignation and self-congratulation and repeatedly refer to the unwashed as idiots. If you perform such holy deeds, forever, thou will be saved from my wrath."

Stephen Boyington, New Hampshire

Zack wrote:

"I believe in the infallability of the Scriptures, and you obviously don't."

If this isn't evidence of gullibility, I don't know what is.

So Zack, if you believe this, stoning adulterers and killing people who work on Sundays is okay with you?

It amazes me that the are Americans that actually believes this.

Somalitrade

How about you read a little before John 3"16, lets say in verse 10 where it says "and Jesus answered and said unto them..." Yes, Jesus did say those things, but that is irrelevant. Who are you to say what parts of the Bible I can or cannotquote? You make it sound like the only reliable words in the Bible are the things Jesus himself spoke.

Did I not tell you that you can consider the Bible the Christian's textbook? Did I say only the words in red??? NO! Christians are free to use any part of the Bible to explain to you what they believe. And they believe in the perfect authority of the Bible. This whole argument is over whether Jesus died for more than just the Jews, but this is turning into an argument over the Bible's reliability. We could sit here and argue until our fingers fall off, but we both know we are not going to get anywhere, Because I believe in the infallability of the Scriptures, and you obviously don't. I will quote things you will refuse to accept, and therefore, this will go nowhere. The Bible clearly says that Jesus was sent to earth to save everyone, and everyone has a choice to accept Jesus as their personal savior. And yes, that does include "third party" quotes.

Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. The last time i checked, "world" does not not mean "Jews"

(oh, and look it up...really, these are Jesus' words, I promise...)

The most horrible tyrant of all time can be found in a bronze age scripture: the old testament.

It amazes me the people would actually put their faith in such a dictator... and people like Thomas G. Bohlin make their living telling people God is "love".

Your God condemns people to an eternity in hell for simply not believing in him, which seems petty. But no matter how heinous your crimes were while you lived, if you ask for forgiveness (as the hundreds of child-molesters employed by Catholic Church will surely do), you're pardoned.

Its impossible to me how anyone of any intelligence can believe in such garbage.

Unfortunately, as belief in Catholicism shrivels among the citizens of educated/prosperous nations, there are millions of uneducated/poor people to fill the pews.

When I read much anti-Christian bigotry I am always amazed at the sheer superficiality of the arguments and the lack of intellectual depth by the writers. The drivel that is spewed here is further evidence that we live in a religiously ignorant society. Forgive me Lord, but I fear that most persons cannot experience Your love because of idiocy.

Jesus did not die on the cross because he was the son of god. He did not claim to be so. He died on the cross because that was the Roman punishment for dissent. He was a remarkable man in dangerous times and history records many such men. His teachings of love can be used today, but many of his contemporary teachings are outdated. Jesus is an historical character, a political activists for his time.....

NAB:

Let's see if I can explain that, immediate judgment and final judgment. It's a thing called terrorism. The gun of hell is held to the heads of children until it becomes a permanent fixture, they are terrorized into falling in line, in particular putting the "money on the plate." That's why there is any judgment at all but that doesn't explain why two judgments.

See http://www.hoax-buster.org to understand the "history if the judgment of God." That's the immediate, just died and came back to life on the nebol bridge, nabbed by devils and given the test of soul by Satan the accuser. It evolved from being fed to a monster and "eaten" all gone to stay gone to being cast, "over the side of the bridge" down into the abyss, (sewage disposal). Greeks set it on fire and renamed it hell.

A place called hell was invented by the ancient Egyptians who held that Pharaoh IS God and went on to rule in the next world. Only those who did as Pharaoh dictated were allowed into the next world. Ancient Egypt was the kingdom of God and Pharaoh
was God, "king of kings" because they invaded the whole known world and set up puppet kingdoms. This scenario assumes Pharaoh has supernatural powers, like Billy Graham or the pope and a flat earth with the "next" earth being another flat earth below this one.

Because you know the earth is round you cannot readily grasp that very simple terrorist scheme. The ancients assumed the earth was flat and there were more flat earths beneath this earth, (pictures at hoax buster). Then, many centuries later the Greeks invaded Egypt. They saw that religion but knew the earth was round, no flat earths below.

The notion of a "judgment day" springs from the need to continue the terror, the ignorance of the average faither and the simple facts of geophysics. Of course one cannot change everyone's mind right away and besides immediate judgment makes a real good terror tool.

Judgment day as such comes from the need for something that might work, dead coming out of the grave instead of somehow having spirit, (information needed to completely define a physical object) used to regenerate a new, young and healthy body on the nebol bridge. Of course they got that all messed up, (Revelation).

Conclusion: Until religion is brought to account for it's inherent terror the war on terror is lost. When you have a government that promotes religion that is not likely.

Welcome to the terror filled world of religion. Even though they are proved lies you can understand them as see how stupid it is to be seen in a church while saying you are anti terror and believe in democracy. There is no terror greater than the terror of hell fire else it would be the updated, new age hell.

Challenge - name a terror greater than being set on fire and left to burn forever and ever.

Every time I read one of these 'my god is better than your god' screeds I am left with nothing but puzzlement. Fortunately, for me at least, I long ago read the fabulous book 'Knots', by the noted Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing. In 'Knots', Laing provides multiple examples of the twisted and contorted logic that the rationally challenged so fervently want others to accept and believe.

Monsignor, your thoughts are illogical, irrational and simply knotted with pathology.

Kennith, Matthew and others:

If we are judged at the time of our deaths and are either granted a heavenly reward or condemned to eternal punishment, why is there a need for a final judgement?

If heaven and hell, respectively, are the ultimate joys and horrors imaginable why is there a need for a resurrection of the body too?

At what age is our body resurrected? At the age it was when we died?

What is the youngest age possible for persons burning forever in hell?

Matthew:

You are going blind my friend, very blind indeed.

Just a quick reminder. Jesus IS the great anti Christ. The end is near.

http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul

The father of Jesus was the supernatural being in the ball of fire. That being has is identified. It's Lucifer, the biggest Devil of them all, the leader of the fallen angels.

Monsignor,

To say that God is Love misses an important dimension about the LORD. God is also of wrath, and we are subject to God's wrath unless we believe that Christ Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and was resurrected on the third day. We also need to believe that Christ is the sole head of the church and that it is heresy to place a human at the head o the church. This implies that the Catholic Church is committing a serious heresy by placing the pope at the head of the church. The Catholic Church is at the mercy of God's wrath. Please repent while you still can.

Let's look at the message of DL with open mind. That all major religions be carrying an message of love commpassion foregiveness,having little value,if not being put to practise.It be not an case of self congragulations,rather the words of DL, brings major religions,its leaders,to shame.

Well, Monsignor Bohlin,you have surpassed Chuck Colson in positing Christian non-sequiturs that must make the faithful feel warm and fuzzy inside but leave the rest of us cold and perplexed. Imagine, the God who created the whole universe--the billions, and billions of billions, of stars; galaxies; galaxy clusters; exploding super-novae and black holes; the atom; mesons, gluons, whatever; the uncertainty principle; spacetime; the strong force the weak force, and gravity; the God who smote people right and left and gave his chosen people license to do the same; the God in whose service millions of people have killed millions of other people; the God who on planet earth periodically wipes out entire species and virtually begins creation all over again--

This God can be summarized as God is love. The Pope has told us so. And this God's son dying on the cross somehow provides a path to love and forgiveness not available to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.

And Christians like Chuck Colson and Monsignor Bohlin wonder why the Christian religion--especially its mainstream version--is beyond the grasp of many ordinary people. Or why so many books by religious-bashing authors have reached the best seller lists.

If you fixate on Christ, you will achieve Christ.

But if you focus on God you will be one with God. And the only way to be one with God is to serve humankind and all-beings-kind. Saying you love is not enough. Action or karma yoga , is more dear to God who came to this world as Krishna, not as Jesus.

Jesus was a man.

Krishna was God.

The first critical step on the path away from love is exclusivity...Sorry padre, but you seem to traveled quite a ways down that road.

I would aprticularly direct the rev to the chapter on Karma yoga in the Bhagvada Gita or the Chapter " Who is a Brahmin" in the Dhammapadda. Mere pompus claims to being loving is not enough, these chapter ask for action in the service of humankind and that is true love.

The rev has evidently not read the Upanishads, The Bhagvada Gita or the Dhammapada, the books used by Hindus and Buddhists as part of their scriptures. If love and compassion are what the rev is looking for these books are far superior to Christianity.

Monsignor Bohlin wrote:
"Does what Benedict wrote about love express the message of Judaism and Islam, of Buddhists and Hindus? I don’t think so. Their path to love and forgiveness is not going to be as immediate or as obvious as the Son of God dying on a cross for the sake of love and forgiveness."

Sorry, but I can't see how Jesus dying is an act of love. The Christian message makes no sense. I don't see how it is immediate or obvious.

Suppose you did something wrong to your neighbour, let's say you stole one of the plants from his garden. If he then came around and said OK, I forgive you, and to prove it I'll let you beat my son to death, how would that be a moral act, an act of love???? How would it benefit you? What would be the point? It makes no sense! Would it make you feel better? I don't know about you, but I would find that revolting - I think any normal human being would. I wouldn't want the death of a supposedly innocent person on my conscience.

Wouldn't it make more sense to say, "Please apologize and return the plant, and then why don't you come over for lunch and we can forget about the whole thing?" If I have an issue with someone, torturing and killing someone else does not make sense as a means of resolving the problem.

Christianity seems to be all about blaming people for things that they didn't do, evading responsibility and punishing the innocent for crimes they didn't commit.

In the Christian view of the world, we are told that we are born as flawed sinners, carrying the blame for Adam and Eve's sins that we didn't commit, and the loving God then sacrifices his own son to himself to convince himself to forgive us and not to torture us for all eternity for being the way he created us in the first place.

I don't know how anyone could not see that as psychotic.

Regards,
Realist

with respect to Family-Identity-Signer
Thomas Bohlin,

We Preach Christ Crucified
Son of God dying on a cross

he had been disapproved by distinguished people.
on the way home, gives the education and wisdom.
colour that each and every one appears in light.
crew of sea had fied, bridge of those hears not.
who calls also sends a vehicle to have the land.
christ that walked with mass of ordinary people.

with Courier New.

crucify: cruck+fy-fie

cruck:
4. a crowd especially of ordinary or undistinguished persons or things;
7. To draw into wrinkles or unsightly folds; to crease

fie:

1. shame on you! for shame!.
2. An exclamation denoting contempt or dislike.
4. Used to express distaste or disapproval. fie on sb used to express anger or disapproval towards someone.

fy:

1. A suffix signifying to make, to form into.
2. A word which expresses blame, dislike, disapprobation, abhorrence, or contempt.

What, someone talking about what Christians believe on this leftist forum without mixing it with bushhitler hating and platitutes? But of course the catholic bashers are all here...

Including the guy who never heard of Baptism of desire, that all people can be saved by Christ if they follow their consciences to the best of their ability...

Kennith

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been spanked, or punished by any means by your parents? I am sure you have. Everyone has. But does that mean that your parents don't love you? Absolutely not. If you have a parent who really, genuinely cares for you and wants you to do whats right, and that parent loves you, he/she has no choice but to punish you for wrong doing. They don't spank you because they hate you...they spank you because they love you.

You failed to realize that punishment is a result of love. And I know, you are probably thinking something along the lines of "how cold God be that mean." Yes, Hell is unlike any other punishment imaginable. Eternal damnation in Hell is nothing like being grounded to your room for a day, but you must remember that we are dealing with a infinitely holy perfect God who CANNOT live with sin. I don't see it inconceivable by any means that God has to just sin so harshly. But He also made a way to escape...Jesus. If God truly did not love you and I, He would not have given us a second chance.

ps Sorry about the previous comment. This was not posted my Kennith, but by me, Zack. My apologies.

Zack:

You didn't dispute the fact that Jesus only preached to the Jews (the dogs versus childeren verses!). Not only that, he INSTRUCTED his desciples to NOT go preach to the gentiles and ONLY go to the house of Israel (the Jews). These are Jesus' own words while he walked on this earth.

What you quoted are NOT Jesus' words. These are "third party" scribes who added these words themselves to the bible. For example, the only place where the bible mentions anything about trinity is in the book of revealation, which is based on a "dream or a vision" by someone, 30 or more years after Jesus left the earth. Yet, you see it in the bible and people (like yourself) quote it. Why is it always the case that Jesus is NEVER quoted by people like you when it comes to important matters like these. AT the end, you are left with two choices: either the bible is contradicting itself or you have to keep Jesus' words and cast a doubtful spill on everything else in the bible.

Now, it is so clear that you are the one who needs to GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT. Stop looking in the bible for words other than Jesus' words. Tell me where did Jesus say that he was sent to the whole world. No third party quotes please.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been spanked, or punished by any means by your parents? I am sure you have. Everyone has. But does that mean that your parents don't love you? Absolutely not. If you have a parent who really, genuinely cares for you and wants you to do whats right, and that parent loves you, he/she has no choice but to punish you for wrong doing. They don't spank you because they hate you...they spank you because they love you.

You failed to realize that punishment is a result of love. And I know, you are probably thinking something along the lines of "how cold God be that mean." Yes, Hell is unlike any other punishment imaginable. Eternal damnation in Hell is nothing like being grounded to your room for a day, but you must remember that we are dealing with a infinitely holy perfect God who CANNOT live with sin. I don't see it inconceivable by any means that God has to just sin so harshly. But He also made a way to escape...Jesus. If God truly did not love you and I, He would not have given us a second chance.

Somalitrade,

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I don't know how many times i have to say this to people, but GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT! If you want to consider the Bible as the Christian's textbook, do so. The Christian faith is based off of the Bible. Therefore, if you want to make accusations or assumptions on what Christians believe, read the Bible first.

Christ did not die for just the Jews. Yes, He was the "king of the Jews," but that does not mean He came to this earth to die for only them. He died for YOU too. The key word in John 3:16 is "WHOSEVER." The verse dose not say "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that and Jew who believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

I also don't think its totally out of the question that Jesus was very passionate when it came to Jews. After all, He was a Jew. I don't think its incomprehedable that Jesus was very passionate about the Jews, and really cared for them. That is why He started His ministry with the "Jew first."

So again, PLEASE get your facts straight about Christianity and don't post things you don't know anything about. I'm not saying you have to like Christians or their faith, but please don't b ignorant in what you say. I am not going to sit here and accuse Athiests of being a certain way until I know EXACTLY what they believe. Its called common courtesy. Get over your bias about Christians and find out what they are REALLY saying but reading the Bible.

He's half right. Jesus did not come to bring peace and love. He came not with peace but with a sword. And is a message of peace and love at the center of other religions? I do think so. Christian do not have a monopoly on peace and love. If anything Islamics, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists follow the teachings of their scriptures and "prophets" more closely than any Christian. Buddhists for example are tolerant and accepting of all religions as symbols promoting peace and serenity. You propose to know the true will of GOD and then condemn the concepts of others?

"The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses;"

Jesus did bring us GOD and you have turned him away. You believe universal love to be the will of GOD? I think not.

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and 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. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it."

Repent. Throw off this yoke and find your love of GOD. Only one love matters. GODS

“What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity and a better world?
...notwithstanding the Dark Ages.

I'm always curious about this only begotten son business. Shouldn't an omnipotent deity be able to beget sons at an astonishing rate? Since logic obviously doesn't apply here, should he be able to beget the same son over and over again, concurrently? Just how tough is that going to be for him?

Truly, I have more respect for the mother who gives her only begotten son for her country.

And why are humans today paying for a crime committed by this eve woman? How is this god of yours showing love by allowing people he's going to torture after they're dead to slaughter this only begotten son?

And do you really want to spend eternity with this god? What are you going to do, spend all day basking in the effulgence, humping his leg, praising magnificance, fearful he's not paying attention to you?

Frankly, as a carrot, this heaven of yours sounds like an awful place, and the landlords sound like horrible creatures. You can keep it.

Dear mr. vicar(ious) christ,

How dare you carry that title around with such a poor understanding of "we preach Christ crucified."

We do preach Christ, and Him crucified, but the reason is apparently lost on you.

From my article, "The offense of the Cross", July 2007:

When you preach the truth to the unregenerate, you are preaching directly in opposition to their nature, a nature which they’ve grown to love and one which defines them; telling them they’re wrong is going to be offensive. If that wasn’t bad enough, verse (2 Tim) 26 tells us we’re arguing with agents of satan himself.

Paul never intended for us to be inoffensive, another of my favorite verses says "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." (1 Cor 1:22-23)

Then later in his ministry he calls preaching, "The offense of the cross." (Gal 5:11)

The Cross is offensive, it attacks your self-righteousness, sets your conscience ablaze, and demands that you repent or perish.

In order to rescue your soul from the doom of Hell, your God had to subject Himself to the broken and diseased world of earth, where He lived a perfect example of faith, obedience, righteousness, and love; but His pointing out of faults was so offensive to the Pharisees that they KILLED Him for it.

God takes sin very seriously, He counts lust as adultery (Matt 5:28), hatred as murder (1 John 3:15), lying lips are an abomination (Prov 12:22), and all of these will be thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 21:8)

Our sin was upon Christ at the Cross, He bore our burden in love, He had no burden of His own to carry and carried ours solely so we could be rectified and God could be glorified. By me preaching to you that Christ carried your sin to the Cross, then that implies that you have sin, and not only so, but a great deal of it. Christ paid for your sin in His own life's blood, so that where sin increases, grace abounds all the more.

Repent of your sins, cease your transgressions, apologize to God for wrongdoing, and turn towards righteousness, and then place your full trust in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross. If you do these things, God will forgive you, your sinful heart will be replaced with a new heart, and you will be reborn into the family of God. Not because you are a good person, but because you are a bad person whose sins have already been to the Cross, and you have been forgiven by a good God.

Boom!!

We're back! Why? because humanity need and deserves it.

You christians.......you just kill too many innocent people. Your killing rate shames the Aztec and Romans alike.

Indeed Monsignor; Jesus is the only one to die for his follower's sins, the ultimate sacrifice; and he dit it gladly; out of love.
Now Ghandi said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."?
Jesus was superb; unfortunately nobody follows him properly, humanity has next to zero compassion to itself; no matter what religion they profess or refuse to.

Monsignor, like too many of your brethren, I can only hope you're not sodomizing alter-boys,

Good luck to you,

Harold

Especially in the old testament, God expresses his love for people often.

Killing humanity except Noah and his clan, killing Job's family, pressuring Abraham to kill his son, etc.

In the New testament, its even better.

God sacrifices his son for our "sins", the dead are able to be punished in hell, and the world comes to a violent end through armegeddon.

Yes, according to Christianity God's love everywhere...

JD,

You do understand that Jesus was called the prophet of Nazrat and he "explicitly" declared that he was sent ONLY to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, i.e. the Jews? I say let the few million Jews around the world decide what they want to do regarding Jesus's message.

Now, why would anyone else push Jesus' message beyond its limits and claim that all humans must follow it. Jesus himself called (metaphorically) non-Jews as dogs as opposed to the childeren (Jews). Didn't he say, in a dramatic tone, that "dogs are not supposed to eat childeren's food"? That's the metaphore he used to prevent his message from reaching anyone else other than the Jews. What makes you think that everyone must be "in Christ" to get to some favourable place at the end of the world? What is that means anyways?

How come christians never think of that? Why do everyone have to listen to this unsupported/packaged "in the box" statements that lead no where but to a lost path?

Amen to that, Father.

The One True Religion...? really? Not for me...I tried it and found it full of hate and bigotry.
And after reading this I am so glad I am Pagan...My gods do not pretend to love in one hand and give damnation with the other.

They teach that we all are connected to Godhood, that there is not One way, a narrow way, an elite and exclusive way. They are not greedy nor jealous. They do not ask that their children be anything but their best...loveing and careing for each other translates to loveing and careing for them.
We do not have The one and true religion...nor do we wish anyone harmed for not believeing as we do. Heck most of the people on this forum; panelist and commenters, I would not want in my religion, we have enough problems.

I have a theory that its those who have self esteme problems that need to have the One True Religion...after all that makes them special...kind of "better then thou".

I respect all religions and their followers...it is part of my religion that I do so. But I do not have to respect or accept words that take away the dignity and realities of all Faiths.

I would much rather the love and kindness of the Dalia Lama then the bigotry and inhumaness of the Catholic Church.

Goddess save me from the love of the Christians!
terra

All roads do indeed lead to God. But if your not "in Christ" you are NOT going to like your eventual destination.

Tom,

Forgive me if this isn't quite lauding of me, but it sounds like you've been spending most of your time with other Christian officials and people who want to be more conciously Christian.

I say this because your simple lines: "I don’t think so. Their path to love and forgiveness is not going to be as immediate or as obvious as the Son of God dying on a cross for the sake of love and forgiveness." are so desperately in need of context to be persuasive.

Your entry here comes across as neither false nor true. It lacks persuasive content. period. There is not material to find either aggreeable or disagreeable. It is simply phoned-in.

Your fellow Monsignors and such would probably receive your words meaningfully having discussed hundreds of buttressing notions with you already. However, for the rest of us, it's just not terribly useful.

I'm sure, like the rest of us, you're a very busy man and don't have time to explain everything. But if you accept the offer to contribute to this forum, it would be at least polite to provide more than a brief coin your own sense of certainty.

Maybe Christianity is the one true religion. I don't know. But your words above just don't give us much to work with.

Tom,

Forgive me if this isn't quite lauding of me, but it sounds like you've been spending most of your time with other Christian officials and people who want to be more conciously Christian.

I say this because your simple lines: "I don’t think so. Their path to love and forgiveness is not going to be as immediate or as obvious as the Son of God dying on a cross for the sake of love and forgiveness." are so desperately in need of context to be persuasive.

Your entry here comes across as neither false nor true. It lacks persuasive content. period. There is not material to find either aggreable or disagreeable. It is simply phoned-in.

Your fellow Monsignors and such would probably receive your words meaningfully having discussed hundreds of subsequntial notions with you already. However, for the rest of us, it's just not terribly useful.

I'm sure, like the rest of us, you're a very busy man and don't have time to explain everything. But if you accept the offer to contribute to this forum, it would be at least polite to provide more than a brief coin your own sense of certainty.

Maybe Christianity is the one true religion. I don't know. But your words above just don't give us much to work with.

So, we have two insistences here:

"God is love and my Catholicism is God,"

Ergo, everything his brand of Christians does must be love, and anything everyone else does must *not!*

I would say that Ratzinger's failure to embody the love other people's traditions have is his own fault.

"Does what Benedict wrote about love express the message of Judaism and Islam, of Buddhists and Hindus? I don’t think so. Their path to love and forgiveness is not going to be as immediate or as obvious as the Son of God dying on a cross for the sake of love and forgiveness."

The more I read, the more I thank God for being a muslim.

Gandalf:

Let's see what the Bible says about that.

Matthew 16:18 [Jesus speaking]
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

That's the big oops good buddy. Did Jesus say churches? Of course not. There's but one equal church and that's not all Jesus said. Take warning.

Matthew 16:19 [Jesus speaking]
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Heretics shall all go to hell. Peter was appointed pope by Jesus and given the power to define sins. All other non Roman Catholics are heretics and were condemned to hell by his holiness under the authority granted by Jesus centuries ago.

Evidently Jesus thought that was important enough to repeat.

Matthew 18:18 [Jesus speaking]
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

It's a crying shame how little protestants, all non Catholics know about what the Bible says. But then who was Jesus? According to the Bible Jesus was the son of the supernatural being in the ball of fire, the one to whom Moses sold his soul to become the biggest shot that ever lived.

Here we go again, http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul Ignorance is no excuse no matter how ignorant.

The pope has no requirement to announce the continued condemnation of all non Roman Catholics to hell and is free to lie and say he's withdrawn the earlier condemnation. Pitiful.

Not to worry. Lucifer welcomes all churches. Did I mention there's a fire extinguisher in heaven? Just as soon as Lucifer takes over heaven,, like the book of Revelation says He will.

Jesus looks an awful lot like the great anti Christ expected to come at the end of the world.

Really Monsignor? So your way is the ONLY true way? Is it really the BEST way? That is the kind of attitude that gives religion a bad name!