I attended Church today where my family has gone to church for years and I have to say that it wasn't what I'd consider one of the best sermons I've listened to.

In the Church my family goes to, they have a leader or preacher as in all churches. There's always someone standing behind the pulpit teaching his or her version of what they conceive to be the truth. The church I attended today, as I have times in the past, seem judgemental of other doctrines and faiths. Very little of the Bible is actually read but there is a lot of teaching on how we should live and be saved. Doesn't the Bible teach not to judge? However most Churches I've attended seem quick to judge all that are not followers of their philosophy of life and Bible. "Judge not, lest ye be judged.". Anyone ever heard of that?

Saying your a Christian and living it are two very different things. It's not often you'll find a Christian that lives like a Christian should live. Granted, that's understandable because many of the Christians are followers of the teachings of their leaders, many of which don't know or understand everything about what they are teaching.

In my personal experience with Religion and God and this omnipotent, omnipresent power and being, I've come to the understand that Religions divide people, they don't unite. All religions have their own doctrines and beliefs and it has divided people and created a lot of chaos.

All that being said, I'd like to talk about Religion and different beliefs. There are so many roads to take in the journey of life, which is the right road and which is leading down a path of destruction?

Please feel free to comment. It's interesting to gain an understanding of what other beliefs are and what they are founded on.

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"By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us." - Edwin Markham

Hey Justin,

My name is Trey Meeker, and this is my first posting on this forum. I read your post, several months after you wrote it, so I hope it's not too late for you to make a response after mine.

I understand the immense confusion you have to be experiencing right now, there are a tremendous amount of roads to take in this life, and you are exactly right.........how are we to decide which road is the right road, which one is the answer to everything? The essence of everything? Nearly every human in this world is asking the same question you are, however they choose not to acknowledge their search for truth, they are secretly denying their emptiness.

I am telling you right now, and everyone else who is reading this message, what the answer to everything is, what the truth to everything is. Why is that we as humans spend our entire lives searching for the answers, and no one seems to ever fill this empty void. I know without in doubt in my mind the Jesus Christ is the answer to this world, that is why we feel this empty void, we haven't filled it with presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now before you quickly go on to a new post, because I said the name Jesus Christ, let me explain to you how I know this. I realize you've probably been to church your whole life, you've heard a million sermons, you've heard all about Christ......and frankly you have never really cared nor have you understood what all the frenzy was about. But bro, let tell you this not as a friend, not as some distant stranger, not as a family member, I'm telling you this as a fellow member of the human race, Jesus Christ is the author and architect of this giant universe. He is the answer to everthing, He is beautiful creator, our savior, our Lord, and our truth.

Every religion out there, every other one besides Christianity, in all of these religions you have to work your way to Heaven. It's all based on you, you are the one who has to do the work to get to Heaven. All except my faith in Christ, I can't work my way to God, I'll never be good enough............never. Jesus Christ is the only way we can get to Heaven, there is no other way. I'm not claiming this, I'm telling you this.
In Christ, we have no admit our sin, accepting Him as savior and Lord, and denying ourselves, realzing that He alone can save us. And by doing this we gain an eternity in Heaven.

And right now you're thinking, but how do you know that Christianity is the right religion? How do you know you are right? What if you are wrong? Here's how I know.........I believe. I have faith, and that's what is so hard for us as humans to do, we find it so difficult to believe in something we can't see. Why is that? We think, if science has discovered it, then it must not exist! But why do children find it so easy to believe in things that they cannot see?

You have to trust me, I promise you, I assure you, this is the only faith, this is the reason for everything, this is the essence of everything. It all comes down to Jesus Christ, He was who He claimed to be, and He is the Lord whom I will pursue all the days of my life.

First of all, welcome to the Philosophy Forum. Thank you for expressing your thoughts freely.

The science of man is the least known at all. How can we live life without knowing why. It's the question of lifetime!

I do believe in Jesus and what he taught. I find the most important teaching is: Love Ye One Another!

Faith is the most power moving force and a man must develop faith to replace fear. I respect your faith Trey. I also have faith in Jesus, however I cannot control that thirsting desire to understand life a little more. My thirst is only for truth.

Religions are defined by mankind when there is but only one mind (deity). Therefore I'm thinking that this relationship is not between us and the Church... and it's not between us and our Religious Leaders... and it's not between us and our Families, - Its between us and God. Jesus said God was with us. I don't believe we should have to seek out a relationship with God when we are the physical thought creation of God. The search for God and the desire to get closer to God is misunderstood because God is omnipotent and omnipresent:

Bottom line is Jesus was the light of the world and God is Light, and we must also become light as co-creators of our lives and our very existence.

Thanks for posting. I look forward to more posts by you. These posts are timeless. Feel free to respond to any post you wish and at any time.

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"By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us." - Edwin Markham

Hey Justin,

Thanks for the reply, I'm really glad you took the time to read my post. I read your message and I have taken some time to analyze where you're coming from. I'm not trying to make you become a Christian, and I'm not trying to influence my beliefs upon you. But if you knew what the answer to everything in this world was,(Christ), then wouldn't you shout that answer all across the world? It's like if you had the cure for cancer, would you not race across the world telling everyone you could? I understand you believe in Christ, and you seem to know that He is God, and He is the all-powerful creator. But one thing I do have to stress is that you are right, we do not choose God..............God chooses us to become Christians. God has already predestined whom He will save, and because of this many people will inevitably question free will. You have to understand, because of the fact God chooses those whom He will save, that means whenever he chooses you, you are convicted by the Holy Spirit to become a follower of Christ. I do agree with you that I find it very offensive that people view Christianity as just another religion. Chrisiantiy is not a religion..........It's our life, it's our very lives, Christ is our source for living, our reason for living, and everyone out there in this world is searching for this reason for living.

You said you are desperately seaching for truth. I can tell you what truth is, truth is not found in the things of this world. If truth could be found in this world, why did Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle spend their entire lives searching for truth, but never found it? They were looking for truth in this world! It's not in this world. Truth is Christ, Jesus is Truth.
John 14:6,"Jesus said:I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one can come to the father except through me." Jesus did not just claim to be truth, He claimed to be "the truth." He is the reason for everything, and the He is who He claimed to be.

I don't know if you are a follower of Chirst, maybe you are, maybe you aren't. But I am telling you.............you don't become a Christian until you are chosen by Christ. And when you are chosen, you deny yourself, begging for forgiveness, asking Christ to save you from the sorrowful future which awaits you, and making him Soveriegn Lord of your life. I really respect the fact that you understand the absolute magnitude and soveriegnty of Jesus Christ, but for those who cannot even begin to comprehend His beauty, sharing my faith is like literally like casting pearls before swine.

Trey Meeker

"Truth cannot be found in the things of this world, but in the God who created them."
--Trey Meeker

I think this passage shows that not only should we not judge, but we really shouldn't have all these denominations. This is something all Christians should work on.

"But one thing I do have to stress is that you are right, we do not choose God..............God chooses us to become Christians. God has already predestined whom He will save, and because of this many people will inevitably question free will. You have to understand, because of the fact God chooses those whom He will save, that means whenever he chooses you, you are convicted by the Holy Spirit to become a follower of Christ."

I couldn’t help but notice the frequent use of the word “choose”. When you use this word I think you are making a mistake by personifying God. I (rightly or wrongly) associate the word “choose” with a decision and options. I don’t think God, as an omniscient (all knowing) being, chooses. If a being knows all there is to be known there would be no decision to make, because everything always is. Since God is presumably outside space-time he already knows everything that has, is, and will happen inside our universe of space-time. No other decisions will be made, nothing else is left to be chosen. And if you think about it, God, knowing everything, would have never made any decision, because it would have just been.

Kierkegaard said that God does not think, he creates. This aides in what I am trying to bring forth. It is easy for someone to say that God is omniscient or all knowing, but my guess is that these people rarely stop and think what it means to be truly omniscient. This is why I urge you to think about the omniscience of God. Reflect on what it means to be all knowing. Think about the ramifications, the power, the glory, and you, like myself, might get a brief glimpse of the awe of God.

P.S. Please don't think I was attacking you or what you believe or say. I firmly believe my quote (we must doubt everything), and arguing is one of the best ways to doubt.

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de omnibus dubitandum est

May I ask you, de Silentio, something? Do you not believe that if God created all, He would know what it is (and for this purpose, all of what it is) He created?
And since the Bible says that He created everything...
It would make sense that He would know everything, He would be omniscient.

And you wrote that 'God, knowing everything, would have never made any decision, because it would have just been.' I can know how a robot that I might create can function, but that does not mean that I've actually created the robot; I would just have the fundemental knowledge of how my personal robot would function (should it exist[or rather, should I ever bring it into existance]), correct?

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Lord of the Sanguinary
Kitsunetsuki

de Silentio,

Very impressive, you really know alot about the Christian faith, and have a pretty good understanding of the magnificence of God. However I do have to reaffirm my point the God does choose us.

You are right, God is not in the context of time, and He is not subjected to the effects of it either. However, God does intervene with His creation throughout time and history to choose those whom He will save. Now this certainly raise the question of free will.......if God chooses whom He will save then how can we be at fault if we do not become a follower of Jesus Christ?

To question why God chooses the "elect" or whom He will save is to question the goodness of God. And when you question the goodness of God, you are questioning if God has the ability to make the right choices. I understand how it would seem unfair that God chooses whom He will save, however we first have to come to the conclusion that God is ultimately and soveriegnly good.........and then we can realize that who He chooses to save is rightly good.

If you do believe that God is in ultimate control of everything.....then who plants the seed of the Holy Spirit to convict us that we need to accept Christ? God does! God gives us the desire to repent for our sins and to beg for his forgiveness...........so in reality God really does choose whom He will save, because He alone gives us the desire to repent. And at first glance this seems unfair, however we have to reflect that God is good.........and whoever He chooses is always good.

This is a very difficult concept to comprehend....and if you disagree with me, don't worry, this is a very heated debate in the Christian church today.

Hmm... well said, tMeeker. Perhaps, though, you should make a distinction between the two 'good's; God's ultimate goodness, which we may call 'Perfection' and man's goodness, which we cannot call 'perfection'.
And let me raise a point. If God gives us the desire to repent, are you saying that only some of us (Christians) actually follow that desire? I merely ask this because someone else might interpret that section of your post as 'God only puts this overwhelming desire in a few people whom He randomly picks to follow Him, and leaves the others to die'.

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Lord of the Sanguinary
Kitsunetsuki

Great discussion.

tMeeker - Thank you for your post and insight however, I have to disagree with you on when it comes to who or how God chooses.

God creates in the form of mind thought energy. God is a creating God. God chose to create Us and being that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent... and all good, God knows no evil. Therefore God doesn't create that which is evil. So why would God step away from his Omnipotence to create a mankind that is evil then choose not to save him?

We are the creation of God. Flat out. God created mankind in his own image (as it says in the Bible). We are all chosen. God doesn't create evil, nor does God predetermine who will enter into his Kingdom... This is his Kingdom and God has created this. It's each of us individually that has to choose God. If the, 'Footprints are in the Sand' but we choose not to see them, this doesn't mean we aren't already chosen, it just means that we haven't chose.

The desire inside man comes ever nearer as mankind evolves from the animalistic stage of consciousness to a more knowing consciousness of the presence of God all around us and the unity in mankind.

We are not a separate creation from God, we are the creation of God and in his image and his energy is surrounding us and is walking with us if we choose to know this.

On top of all that, Jesus didn't choose us, we chose to follow the teachings of Jesus. Jesus didn't come to preach that only certain of us are chosen, on the contrary, Jesus came with the message of unity and to "Love ye one another".

There is a division in the Christian Church and some Christians believe they are chosen, while others believe we are all chosen but it's our decision to choose to listen.

The bottom line is there is but one Creator of all of us and this Creator is good and is within each and everyone of us because we are the 'mind thought creativity' One Creator. That choice has already been made, it's up to us to listen and recognize the voice of God crying out from within us. No matter how bad the man may be, there is good in all of us and there is love in all of us. If we don't know the essence of Love, how can we know God when God is Love!

Until mankind understands that there is a "Universal One" and that we are all connected in unity through the creator of the universe, there will always be division and disagreement. Our job is not to judge but to become one with the Light of God and build that light that's inherent in each and every one of us. The choice is ours and ours alone. We choose the follow the ways of the world or the ways of God.

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"By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us." - Edwin Markham