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| UNKNOWN WROTE: Although your webpage makes some good points, I can't help but bringing up a few issues for you to ponder. Even though I have no empathy for the religious facet of it, a lot of the ethical issues raised do happen to strike a note with me. People need to take responsibility for their actions, and do to others as they'd like to have done to them. If everyone followed these two rules, there'd be no reason for religions to blossom up over time. But then again, The Golden Rule doesn't have a speck of the fear-induction qualities that organized religions have. Hence, the deity philosophies seem to work pretty well at keeping people in moral shape -- That is, until people dissect the origins of religion and say the hell with it. Common sense dictates taking care of your genes, your environment, and your social circle. Over millennia of civilization and consequent erosion of common sense, people have no concern any longer. They're protected by the harbors of modern society and technology. So now, everyone's screwy and hiding behind the laws that were implemented to replace common sense in the first place. And I don't agree with it one bit. I say we leave religion out of the picture, and bring back common sense and compassion! Just so you know, your site had some misinformation in it... here's the biggest blunder in it: http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/drspock.htm You might wanna tell the person that showed you that article, that Dr. Spock's son is alive and well. :) DON WROTE: I’m confused. You say you have no empathy for the religious facet of our site. However, it has been our intention to demonstrate how that the religions of the world are a product of man, that they are actually in defiance of God’s will, that they are at the grass roots of most major wars that have afflicted man, and that it was the religion of the Jewish people that actually had the Only Begotten Son of God crucified on the Cross. And this is naming only a few of the curses that religion has brought upon mankind. The only "good" religion that we can find in the Bible is mentioned in the Book of James.
This type of religion is "pure and undefiled" because it is not motivated from self-interest. It picks up on the concept that the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led believer will put the needs of others ahead of his own. Here is how James 1:27 reads in context. The comments in italics are mine.
You also say: "People need to take responsibility for their actions, and do to others as they'd like to have done to them." As to people taking responsibility for their actions, that is a given. They will reap what they sow—if not in this life, for sure, in the next.
But as to the Golden Rule you referred to, I’m afraid that the way it is represented today shows a total disregard to its context. Today, it is set forth as an excellent rule for relationships in society, and as such it is so popular that the Dictionary has adopted this limited version, but let’s look at the Scriptural basis for this rule.
You also say, "The Golden Rule doesn't have a speck of the fear-induction qualities that organized religions have. Hence, the deity philosophies seem to work pretty well at keeping people in moral shape -- That is, until people dissect the origins of religion and say the hell with it." Unless I miss my guess, you consider yourself to be an agnostic. At least, this statement would seem to label you as such. (For our cyber-visitors, the Dictionary defines an agnostic as: "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality [as God] is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god") From its definition, we can conclude that an agnostic has problems with the way that the Bible presents God. In fact, it has been my experience that they consider the Old Testament to be little more than a lot of violent, nonsensical gibberish. From the tone of your WRAP, I assume that this lines up with your beliefs. But I have problems with agnostics; for you see, I happen to know that God is and I also know that He knows me. This is so not because of my intelligence, my righteousness, or of anything that I might have or might be. It is because of Who He is and of what He has done through the sacrificial death of His Only Begotten Son on the Cross. In way of explanation here is brief version of my testimony. As a young man in my middle twenties, like so many of my generation, I had bought into the lie that sin was fun. I had been having "fun" long enough that what I had sowed was beginning to bear fruit and part of the fruit was hurting people that I cared for. The Bible declares that God is not far from a broken and contrite heart, and when I called out for forgiveness and deliverance with such a heart, His Holy Spirit made real to me the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. When I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, it was as the songwriter so aptly put it: "heaven came down and glory filled my soul." The following week I had a similar experience when the Lord Jesus called me to preach. Since that time, I cannot tolerate a day when the Lord does not make Himself real to me in some way or another. So you see, at times I can act stupid and revert to the behavior of my old man and I’m sure that there are times that I can be hard headed and hard to get along with, but by its very definition, I can never be an agnostic. A major problem that I find with agnostics is that they consider themselves to be the center of the universe, and that all things must line up with their beliefs. But because of my experiences with God (and this is the testimony of all born-again believers) I would like to suggest that God is the actual center of the universe—His Word puts it this way:
Not only is God the Center of the Universe because everything exists in Him and is sustained by Him, but the Bible declares that God created all things by His Son Jesus.
And as to Why He created us:
Let me finish my part of this WRAP by referring back to your statement: "Hence, the deity philosophies seem to work pretty well at keeping people in moral shape -- That is, until people dissect the origins of religion and say the hell with it." Apparently, when you speak of the "origins of religion," you are referring to the Old Testament; and here again we can see the carnal mind of the agnostic at work for they believe the Old Testament to be full of myths and errors. But the truth is, though you may strongly disagree, there are no errors anywhere in either the New or the Old Testament of the King James Version of the Bible, the ones upon which all fundamental churches have been built and the one that has served the English speaking realm for centuries. How do I know this to be so? Again, this is one of the fruits of being a born-again believer. One of the first things that the Holy Spirit has a new believer to do is to get into the Bible; and He does so with the assurance that the Bible is the Whole Word of God, settled in heaven and without error—even saying that not one jot or tittle of either Testament shall pass away until all is fulfilled. With this assurance in my heart, whenever I come across something hard to be understood, I put it on the back burner with the understanding that when I need to know about what I had read, the understanding will be there. This has always held true throughout my Christian walk and because of this approach, when I read the Old Testament, I do not see a corrupt God, but a God that has mercy upon people who have been corrupt. I see a God of Truth Who never tried to sweep the shortcomings of the heroes of faith under the rug; but recorded things as they really were – things which demonstrated His grace and mercy and things which validated His being a just judge when needed – even when it was necessary to chastise His own as in the example of King David and his awful sins with Bathsheba, for example. Let me sum up by saying that the main difference between the agnostic and the Spirit-filled Christian is that the agnostic approaches life (the Bible included) with logic while the believer approaches it with faith. Of course, the agnostic feels that logic is far superior to faith and points to all of the nonsense taking place in the name of religion as his proof. However, the agnostic fails to consider that all of his logic comes from a faulty tool: i.e. his mind, which no matter how deep he reasons, can only reason himself out of existence—for logic says that before there can be something, there must first be something to create that something. But faith says that God created us with many boundaries, one of them being that His thoughts are as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth and that it is by faith — not reasoning — that we understand that God created all things and that He has beautiful plans for all who put their faith in His Only Begotten Son. Jesus put it this way.
(And by the way, the faith presented in the Bible is not a product of man’s reasoning or efforts. It is both a fruit and a gift of the Holy Spirit.) As to pointing out a mistake in a WRAP that was sent to us concerning the son of Dr. Spock, I'm not sure just which WRAP you are referring to, but the one who sent it was probably trying to make the point that Dr. Spock's anti-Scriptural approaches to raising children failed with his own offspring. However, there is a great difference between a son and a grandson and I appreciate you bringing the mistake to light. |
| TO OUR CYBERVISITORS: B'Ann has several friends who forward E-mails to one another. I thought the following to be very insightful. Subject: From a Romanian newspaper... ~An Ode to America~ Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, and the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing. On every occasion, they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!" I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people. How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy. What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion... Only freedom can work such miracles . DON WROTE: I would like to add a footnote to Mr. Nistorescu's comments: I feel him to be right in his observations. The US Declaration of Independence states that God Himself bestowed our rights and liberties upon us. As Americans, because of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, we do have the right to choose. This is a common thread among our citizens and all all Americans value it highly. We have the right to exercise our freedoms to become leaders of our great nation, or we can choose to try to tear it down. We can use our freedoms to develop medical skills, educational skills, and individual talents and abilities. Or we can hold higher education in disdain. We can choose to be doctors or we can choose life styles that promote diseases that challenge our finest doctors. We can even choose to do nothing and become nothing. But thank God, the choice is ours! And because the choice is a God given, those who choose wisely have compassion on those who did not; and they do their best to help those who made bad choices--giving them opportunity to choose again. Yes, Mr. Mr. Nistorescu, I feel that your insight is on target; and I, for one, thank God for our freedoms. But I would like to add one more observation. The foremost freedom under consideration by our founding fathers was the freedom of religion--the freedom to worship God, or not to worship God, as we each see fit. However, from the '70's up to today, I have seen religions come into our great One Nation Under God that do not worship the God that was worshipped by our founding fathers. And these religions are using our freedom of religion to establish their religions, although the prime directive of their religions is to gain power and to deny all religions except their own. Even though our politicians have called these religions "great religions of peace," nothing is further from the truth. Their ultimate goal is to stamp out all other religions and they accept "violence" and "oppression" as bonafide ways of bringing their goals to pass. It is common sense that even though I live under the God-given freedoms of Amerca-- freedoms that did not come withour a price as many fallen U.S. Service men attest-- I am obligated to protect my freedoms. Surely I would not knowingly invite a murderer or a child molester into my community or my home simply because he wants to be free to murder or molest. Likewise, should we go out of our way to make "religions" feel free to do what they do, even though their guiding purpose is to remove our freedom of religion? I'm satisfied that there many Americans who still value the right to worship God. My prayer is that they who will not hand over this freedom without at least having their say. |
| You Wrote: Question-Comment: Thanks Don for the side-by-side comparison of Islam vs. Christianity. I plan to keep the key points at the tip of my tongue. You can probably tell from my tone, that I'm a wanna-be Christian apologist. I presently live in the Los Angeles area and attend a Baptist church. Meanwhile I'm am curious, even surprised that you would include Catholics in the very last paragraph along with Muslims, Hindus, Confucianists all having "hope" for coming to the Waters of Life and drinking freely. Note please that all of these groups surely still have hope I too believe. But why the inclusion, in the author's mind, of Catholics with these otherwise pagan groups? As one raised Catholic for the first 18 years of my life, Catholics do have rituals and beliefs that are questionable as to having a direct scriptural basis. And many Catholics have a "snooty" attitude that theirs is the only true faith. But beyond that human failing, Catholics fundamentally believe that faith in Jesus is the key to salvation. This is a direct contrast to Muslims, Hindus, and Confucianists which are all pagan; that is to say have false scripture, fraudulent prophets, and totally bogus visions of God. Further, the central person/prophet of each of these pagan groups is still dead, and in their earthly graves. Whereas Jesus is alive and risen, fulfilling just one of over 300 Old Testament Bible prophesies about the man Jesus of Nazareth, aka the Messiah. And of course, the Resurrection of Jesus delivered the crushing blow to Satan ultimately (gosh, could we talk about that for a while, all by it self). Bottom Line: I would have understood if the author had included Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses in this paragraph instead of Catholics. Because Mormonism and JW's are Pernicious cults, that is to say are absolutely pagan in every respect. Especially Mormons who in a way are even more shocking. This is due to the half-truth's that Mormons perpetuate about themselves as true Christians. They subscribe to many lies, including that their fraudulent prophet (Joseph Smith) was visited by God (or should I say god's, plural) and their scripture (Book of Mormon and "Pearls" actually plagiarized from a fictional story appearing in the New Yorker Magazine in the early 1800's) supposedly take up where the Bible left off. So Mormon's are brainwashed with this false view of themselves as having their eyes open where all other Christians are stuck in their apostasy giving victory to Satan(the current propaganda I am fed by a Mormon friend of mine, and which typifies the Mormon mind set as talked about in the books The Godmakers (Decker) and Beyond Mormonism (Spencer), and others including the Newsweek article of Sept 10, 2001. And let's not forget that Mormon's believe that Mormon men will become gods and rule over their own planet some day, provided Joseph Smith allow these men into heaven at the final Judgment when Jesus and Joseph Smith come back to earth. (no joke, Mormons believe this, and then lie to our faces, and themselves, that Mormonism is in agreement with the Bible) So I'd be interested to know the viewpoint of the author as to why the inclusion of Catholics with these pagan groups? Thanks again, Bill Don Wrote:Hello Bill,I must apologize that I had to go to the dictionary for the definition of "apologist." For our visitors, an "apologist" is not someone that apologizes a lot, but one who sets out to defend something. In Bill's case, he apparently feels that he needs to defend Christianity, and as one looks around at the church world, it looks like he might have a lot of apologizing to do--but enough of the funny stuff. The side-by-side comparison of Islam vs. Christianity that Bill is talking about is part of an E-mail that has been circulating around the globe. If you would like to see the E-mail and receive a copy that you can forward to your loved ones, click on the "smiling face" on our home page and follow the instructions. The paragraph that he is referring to says:
For a thorough understanding of why I included Catholics in this list, check out our on-line book "Mark Them" wherein we deal with one of the dangers of the "saved and lost" doctrines of the pentecostal movement. The same reasoning applies to the Catholics and it goes back to "Noah's Ark" being a type of Christ. For over a 100 years, Noah preached; warning of the impending flood and its destruction. During that time, anyone who had wanted to believe Noah and God would have been welcomed in the Ark. But after all were in the Ark as per the Lord's instructions, the Lord shut them in. We read nowhere in the construction of the Ark about a handle on the door of the Ark. Only God could shut and open the door. It is the same way with God's salvation. Christ is the "Door" to God's salvation and this door has no handles. God alone can open it, and He opens it only in response to faith. Many denominations have tried to add handles to the "Door," but they are useless for God will not honor them. The Scriptures that undermine such teachings are to numerous to list, but this is one of my favorites.
In the case of the Pentecostals, the worst danger of their doctrines lies within the "when" it is applied. If they have been strongly indoctrinated with a long list of man made requirements before they come to Christ so that they feel they must believe in Jesus PLUS man-made handles, then, sadly, the "Door" will remain closed to them. This is because they will be coming to Christ with an additive of work. However, if they hear the Cross preached and they have no preconceived "handles," then their faith will open the "Door." The Pentecostal "do's and don't's" will then only be useless, cumbersome baggage in their walk of faith. The same applies to Catholics. Throughout the centuries, traditions of men have been added to the Catholic Church--traditions that would have been immediately rejected if the average Catholic had been privy to the Scriptures. But the priests kept the Word hidden in their monasteries and the words of the priests then became "law" for the average Catholic. Consequently, the deification of the pope, the praying to the virgin Mary, the confessionals, the inappropriate use of the Sacraments, and so much more, went unchallenged and became an integral part of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, if someone who was raised a Catholic comes to the foot of the Cross, trusting in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and that alone, then the "Door" of salvation will be open. But if they come to God trusting in the pope, or the prayers of the virgin Mary, or the partaking of some Sacrament, in infant baptism, or something that some priest has done: i.e., something that equals "work," well, then the "Door" will not open for their handle will not work. I included the Catholics among those who may need salvation for the reasons above and because I want them to leave this world having the confidence of the Apostle Paul. If, like Paul, they can say "...I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day," then the door has been opened for them. But if they do not have the Spirit of Christ bearing witness with their spirits that they are the Lord's, then they need to hear the words that will remove any handles that hang in the way. |
| Katya WROTE:
What do you think about the "Stigmata" move and about all this things at all? DON WROTE:Thanks for taking the time to WRAP with us. As to your question, I've read just enough on the subject to know that I don't want to read any more. Do yourself a favor and spend your reading time in the King James Version of the Bible. |
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