Christianity is Imploding!

reply to post by Simplynoone


When you think about it, organised religion is a bit of a scurge because the adoption of a group belief set or doctrine just breads conflict.

I just had a thought. I think organised is sick because of the lazy factor. I think that everyone should ponder and think and philosophise toward producing their own beliefs, not subscribing to someone else's. This would produce a religionless world but one that is rife with debate and moral standard and Spcrates' self examined life. A world that rewards free thought and respect.

Morning Wolf .....I think thats (Free thought)the one thing that no one can take away from you ...no matter how much someone tries to brainwash you ..it is totally up to you to either take it or leave it ..

I read your post ..and I wish I knew what to say to you ...but I dont.
Seek and you will find ..ask in it shall be given you ...
I had to ask Lord are you real..or not ....I then had to wait for those answers.
And seek the truth as I waited from the sources that I thought would help me in understanding his way and the way of the world (Other beliefs that are contrary to the bible ... (yes my search included the bible and ancient texts of all sorts as comparing all beliefs) ...Your young ...I pray you find your way to truth ...dont be closed minded about anything (that includes the Lord of the bible) ............and I think you will find the answers ..


What gets me is just about everyone in here will tell you ...The bible is BS and not the truth and written by men ..but here READ this other book It is the truth ..... ..and they are also written by men ........
The bible was written by men filled with the spirit ..other books were written by men filled with other spirits .....how can they think their book is any more truth than the bible is ?Doesnt make sense to me .............

reply to post by MatrixProphet


Try watching the movie 'Zeitgeist'. It has been aggressively passed around the US and Europe lately for good reason. If you watch this movie, you will understand perhaps a little or alot more than you thought you did about the origins of religion and its 'practice' throughout history. Theological books on the matter of religion only go so far and certain 'parts' or 'truths' are ommitted for various reasons.
Man doesn't need a 'book' to know our Creator, our creators essence is found in nature....since nature is the making and revelation of our Creator, we should pay more attention to it.
Those who fear a collapse in 'traditional' religion are those who wish to control their intended 'subjects'.
One should ask themselves if they are a 'subject'? and if so...to whom?..and why?
One's religion is one's own business though if it begins to be used as a tool to divide mankind....or rather to divide and conquer a nation...those responsible for using religion for this purpose should be checked or put out of power...one way or another.

[Man doesn't need a 'book' to know our Creator, our creators essence is found in nature....since nature is the making and revelation of our Creator, we should pay more attention to it.]

I can agree with that partially
The only thing I would say is that I do believe that even nature has a blueprint ,have you ever seen Chariot of the Gods (I think that was what it was called)
And I dont know why our creator would not leave us some sort of map or diagram that we could find out more about him .(Like the bible and studying more about the moon stars,man and how he was created etc etc etc ) .All of them will give us a better understanding in my opinion of who he is how he thinks etc .

Now back to nature
I grew up on an island in Alaska where no one lived but a few familys.
I had no one to influence me except my mother,grandmother,aunts and uncles etc .They all lived there (came and went) they lived a hard life hunting and fishing for a living and then trying to survive the winters with no electric no running water no nadda .Liveing off the land almost completely.
So they were not real Godly people .And they didnt preach or anything like that .Sure God was mentioned a few times but only when they were drunk and fighting and they said that word (Yes you know which one lol) .
Well little ole me just loved the woods everything in them was HUGE in Alaska .And I would walk through the woods picking fresh berries picking flowers etc .And climb to the very top of those HUGE trees (yes I was a tomboy lol).When I would get to the very top I would look out and see the most beautiful pristeen land that I could not even imagine in my mind.
There was fresh snow usually and it was smooth and glistening in the sun,with no footprints and nothing wandering around to mess up the snow.
The mountains were so beautiful with the snow on the tops of the trees and the deep blue skys in the background that it would take my breath away.
After doing this several times I just cried out one day .Who made all of this,I knew that man could not have done this .It was at that moment I guess when I thought I actually heard the words ..I DID >comeing from somewhere.Thats when God came into my mind and ever since then I have been on a mission to learn as much about whoever it was that could have made such beauty .I wasnt dissappointed Because I believe I know now who did it (after 48 years of so much stuff happened to me and reading) I believe It was God .


[edit on 2-9-2008 by Simplynoone]

That's a beautiful story. It explains your character a lot.
I like you.

[Man doesn't need a 'book' to know our Creator, our creators essence is found in nature....since nature is the making and revelation of our Creator, we should pay more attention to it.]

I can agree with that partially
The only thing I would say is that I do believe that even nature has a blueprint ,have you ever seen Chariot of the Gods (I think that was what it was called)
And I dont know why our creator would not leave us some sort of map or diagram that we could find out more about him .(Like the bible and studying more about the moon stars,man and how he was created etc etc etc ) .All of them will give us a better understanding in my opinion of who he is how he thinks etc .

But I can't help wonder if (if God exists) God really cares about us. I mean we may never have been the point of creation, just a by-product, in which case he would not bother to leave anything behind to inform us, all we would have is nature.

[edit on 9/2/2008 by Good Wolf]

reply to post by Good Wolf


Thank you Wolf
It was a beautiful experience
And as far as God not loving us
Living in Alaska which was the the most pristeen,but yet harshest environment almost in the world helped me to understand God a little better too .
The beauty of beholding it made my eyes gleam with joy and my heart race,I would also get a feeling of comfort knowing that anyone who made something this beautiful has got to love us .(And I was only about 5 at that time).And that if I were to fall out of that very very tall tree that somehow nature and God would soften my fall and see to it I didnt get hurt (yeah I know they may not either ) my point is that I trusted that anyone who created such beauty would have to love me enough to do just that .

Another thing I noticed was that God was beauty but he was also part of the wildness of the land (Alaska is rough by nature ) But everything had its purpose and everything happened for a reason and yet it all worked in unison to make it all what it was.Which was beautiful and it really is alot like love ,it takes two people to make love work,if only one of you is loving the other then it cant work.None of us would want someone who did not love us back would we ?And even though we love them with all our heart and beg to get them back maybe even do it for years and years and they just keep saying no just go away I dont need you and I dont want you and then they refuse to even speak to you again what would you do ? Eventually you would be forced to walk away and leave them alone wouldnt you ?God has not done that with anyone yet ,but someday we will force him to have to,then he will leave us to our own devices which we arnt very good alone are we ?We just all wanna fight and kill and hate and murder .

Hope that made sense.

PS Oh I wanted to say in your post over yonder>> lol that I am sorry for all my dots that I type when I am typing Im sorry it irritates you lol It is sort of a habit and shows that I am thinking (they are like pauses when I am thinking while typing ) I am trying not to do it now,Notice I didnt do it even once lol .

I forgot something I wanted to add
I would like to ask you why you would not believe that that same God who created everything (including you ) and breathed his breath of life in everything would not want to prune,and play with and interact with and care for the creation that he created?
I actually picture us like his garden.
And sometimes you even have to clip the plants to help them grow
You have to pluck up weeds and keep them out of your garden so they wont choke the plants which you spent so much time on .
make any sense ?

As far as a written word let me ask you ,
Would you leave your kids at home for the first time without writing down instructions (who to call in case of an emergency,what time they need to be in bed etc) .
Would you send your kids on a journey through the woods without writing out instructions of what to do if something happens and they get lost,and what they could eat or not eat if they got stuck there for long?
Would you send your kids (teens) to the big city to get something for you without sending a map ?
And since man was created by God and you have God within you then why do you find it so hard to believe that God would not have told some men who totally was into knowing their creator and listened intently to his voice inside of you (life is his breath or his spirit really) (I really do believe I heard his voice inside of me say that when I asked who made all of this awesome beauty) ....he told them to write this down when I tell it to you so your kids can know it too and your kids kids (Moses,Jeremiah,etc etc )
It was really him just passing down his legacy and his instructions to man.
Like you would do if you were writing your Biography.

With all due respect, sister simplynoone, some of us would NOT have met Jesus, if we didn't find out about Him from the Bible.
I grew up similarly, except instead of Alaskan wilderness, it was Georgia pines and Florida palmetto woods.
I didn't have a close relation to G-d, though.
I just caught squirrels and lizards and snakes.

reply to post by Clearskies


I didnt say I knew God or knew anything about him from that dayI only knew that he really did exist,or at least someone did whoever made all of that .
I didnt really have a close personal relationship with him either until way later in my life .after getting to the states ,running amok (kid in a candy store) lol.And going through pure hell .And of course in between those times people taught me about the bible and Jesus .I actually heard about Jesus right after we left our Island and went to live in a city in Alaska.Our neighbor asked if I wanted to go to church I said sure.I learned a little but I was still too young to understand anything .Then when I was about 8 I wanted to see if Jesus could bring back something from the dead or not.I had a bird who got hurt and then my cat tore him to shreds the first day the bird was better.I went and got a box and some tissue and tape and put him in it,taped the box up went outside found a spot and marked it with a marker (small small stick) telling NO ONE because I didnt want someone to do it just to fool me .I then prayed to that Jesus I heard about and said ..Lord if your real and that story is true then you can make this bird disappear from this box without anyone doing it but you .I believed that he would do it .I really did .I then forgot about it for a month or so and dug it up,The tape was still on it and so I opened it up and took out the tissue and there was nothing there but a feather ,yes one feather..
Long story short I went through alot and alot of years even after that to actually sit down and get to know him better by reading the bible .Then it even took years more for me to believe it all ...Something in me felt like it was the truth though and I was determined to find it ...

Looking back on it all I realized that if I had read that bible first before jumping out there ignoreing it all.I would not have had to learn it all the hard way Through all those horrible life lessons I had to learn .( I could have just read the bible about those people who learned things the hard way and the consequences they had to pay for those hard lessons ..I would have taken them as an example and had not walked that (my own way ) way at all,That was my fault I had to go through so much,I was too hard headed to care what his word said.I wanted to just do it all myself and figure it all out by myself (sure didnt find him in drugs or alcohol or abusive men or anything out here)
My way wasnt working at all thats about all I can say .

I could really tell you some stuff but heck it would take a whole book to tell it all.lol
And I would get in trouble here for bandwidth use LOL



[edit on 2-9-2008 by Simplynoone]

reply to post by Simplynoone



WOW!
That bird story is COOL!
My sister and I had a dog die and she was studying spells and stuff and she told me(I was only about 6) that if we did certain things and left a food bowl, it would come back. It didn't.

I didn't mean to come off as angry, I just am tired of EVERYONE saying that religion sux. You know what I mean?
If you're smart, you can weed out the good from the bad.

reply to post by oceanaut1

Try watching the movie 'Zeitgeist'. It has been aggressively passed around the US and Europe lately for good reason. If you watch this movie, you will understand perhaps a little or alot more than you thought you did about the origins of religion and its 'practice' throughout history. Theological books on the matter of religion only go so far and certain 'parts' or 'truths' are ommitted for various reasons.

I have seen Zeitgeist!! Thank you.

But books on discovery of Bible texts and omitted information is what I am most interested in. Those who have access, and are not just expressing opinions, but are like those of us on ATS who are denying ignorance and go so far as to defy ignorance, are those whom I am interested in learning from.

I enjoyed Zeitgeist but don't view it as doctrine. Thanks for your post!

Just a quick reply to wolf and matrix before i dont come back and it gets lost and im on the way out lunch....

Wolf no dont think it is rubbish. Just too much info is confusing, which is why i want to research it myself but didn't know where to start. I really liked esoteric agenda though.

Matrix thankyou for your kind replies. At times wisdom does come to me and i feel like i understand everything on a different level from human understanding. Its like a big story book in my mind where all pieces of puzzles fall into place, just not in words. Iw ill work on asking for more teachers to come to me.

reply to post by Simplynoone


I have an incredible respect, awe and wonder at the spetical of wilderness. Looking out my window now I can see the snow-capped permafrosted mountains a couple of kilometers that this valley is famous for.
I live in New Zealand which is famous for scenery.

New Zealand is also on the Ring of Fire- as are parts of the US. There are two spots on this ring that I want to point out:

Lake Taupo is New Zealand's biggest lake, and New Zealand's biggest volcano which is an understatement as it is a Super Volcano with an Explosivity Index of 7 (That's as big as they come!!!).
............................ In my tiny country?!


The other is Yellowstone National Park which is another supervolcano.

The reason I bring this up is, for all the beauty of nature it could get really ugly and violent when it wants, and it doesnt need to be provoked, cos it happens anyway.

Now Yellowstone is overdue for an eruption and just like Old Faithful geyser (which gets its name from its reliability), geology tells us that the super volcano is very consistant.

The point is that the nature that strikes us as pure beauty could whip every single living organism off of the face of the Earth in a second.
We are incredibly insignificant in the big picture of the cosmos.

My second point is that I'm not totally sold on the idea that there is a God in the first place as we talked about on the other thread.

And lastly, well, I am no Deity, but if I need not be sustained, was ethereal and all powerful, I really don't think I would much care about humanity in the same way that we are not conscience of the bacterium on our boidies.
I know that is not representative of a an actual gods opinion but it tells me that it is not out of the question.


Also I have heard the voice, a voice that I was convinced was God, but I'm not so taken anymore, I think it was me.

[edit on 9/2/2008 by Good Wolf]

Wolf I am really interested in that ring of fire..
I had a dream once about them so I had to look it up and I was fascinated by it
I have been to Yellowstone and even fed the bears from my moms car,we gave them twinkies and before we knew it we had about 6 bears around our car trying to reach in,it was scary then but we were used to bears when I was on that Island we had a dump in the back 20 lol and bears ate everything we dumped ,they were always just munching away never really noticing we were there ,we would even toss the trash sometimes so it hit the bears (hey we were kids what can I say lol) They never even flinched .
Then when I went in the woods to the berry bushes the bears would be rustling around in the bushes and they didnt bother me and I didnt bother them.
Bears are really big there so I would just pick a few berrys and slowly walk out of there so they didnt get spooked and see me lol .

reply to post by Simplynoone


Cool. It would be nice if man didnt impose so much on nature. If that were so, the grand Haast's Eagle would still exist. Would be a wonderful vision of grace to see those flying around the valley. They could carry off an full sized man, if they felt like it, but they wouldn't as their food was much bigger so it'd be like you and the bears.

We both seem to love the natural world, although I'm more science orientated but hey, to-may-to ta-ma-to.

A few points here: first, there is one common theme throughout the entire Bible, if you look for it - that theme is love. What did Jesus tell us? Love God, love your neighbor. That is how Jesus summarized the 10 Commandments, and it sums up what the Lord wants of us. In order to carry that out, we first have to understand what love is. There are aspects of love that we can't easily define or label, but let's look at what we can: sympathy, compassion, empathy, generosity, charity, sacrifice, forgiveness, remorse, repentance, companionship, the list goes on and on. These things, if you think about it, are ways to test the true depth of our love for God, and for one another. Look at a few of the Commandments, let's look at the "thou shalt not's". Why are they there? He told us "thou shalt not..." because it's clearly not loving to do those things. There's nothing loving about stealing, killing, coveting your neighbor's spouse or stuff (greed and lust). Graven images (idols) are a way for us to worship the crucifixes and pictures instead of God Himself. That's not too loving, is it?
Now, let's look at the "thou shalt's": honoring your mother and father: that's a gimme. They, in a sense, brought you into this world. Keep the Sabbath Holy, because that's the day we recognize that the Lord rested from creating the world, and we give thanks to Him for what He has done.

But is that the whole story? Of course not. In fact, the classic question is "why would a loving God allow suffering?" Well, think about it: it's easy to love someone when times are good, isn't it? If God always bails you out when you screw up, or instantly gives you everything you want when you want it, it would be really easy to love Him, wouldn't it? But did your mom and dad always give you everything you wanted? Of course not, because then you would have become spoiled brats who honestly believed you were entitled to whatever you want, and that the world owes you a living. The same is true of the Lord. But again, it goes further than that. He doesn't always bail us out because sometimes the only way we can learn (gain new wisdom) is through experience. When we learned how to ride a bike, we fell and skinned our knees a few times, didn't we? When we dated in high school, we had our hearts broken, didn't we? But we learned from that. Same is true in every aspect of life. When someone is suffering, it's the people who truly love him/her that show sympathy, that offer help or comfort. It's easy to make friends when your bank account has a 6-figure balance. But your true friends are those who still love you when you're living in a cruddy trailer and you're on the verge of bankruptcy, among other possible problems. The ones who abandon you when you lose everything were never your friends to begin with - they never really loved you, so it's questionable whether they are true Christians.

What does it mean to be a true Christian? Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Live and let live. Give without any thought of "what's in it for me." Recognize your own flaws and work to correct them. Repenting of your sins and accepting the Lord's forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice is not enough - you still are responsible for what you do. Be slow to criticize - especially if it's about a flaw that you have also - don't be a hypocrite. Don't be greedy. Stand up for what is RIGHT, even if it's not popular.

You're right that there is much corruption in the church, but as individual Christians, we need to recognize that, and refuse to follow those we know to be corrupt. Follow your own conscience (which is really the Holy Spirit inside you). Keep your focus on the Lord. May God bless and protect you.

Rentacop that post explained it all in a nutshell
That was beautiful
Thank you

reply to post by rentacop1976

What does it mean to be a true Christian? Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Live and let live. Give without any thought of "what's in it for me." Recognize your own flaws and work to correct them. Repenting of your sins and accepting the Lord's forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice is not enough - you still are responsible for what you do. Be slow to criticize - especially if it's about a flaw that you have also - don't be a hypocrite. Don't be greedy. Stand up for what is RIGHT, even if it's not popular.

You're right that there is much corruption in the church, but as individual Christians, we need to recognize that, and refuse to follow those we know to be corrupt. Follow your own conscience (which is really the Holy Spirit inside you). Keep your focus on the Lord. May God bless and protect you.

Yes, and I appreciate what you wrote and agree with most of what you said. And if the churches were filled with like minded thinking and love, we wouldn't be talking about this subject and I certainly would not have written it.

Unfortunately it is human nature to apply our limited life experience to everyone and most everything around us. I have been blessed or cursed with the opposite. I have tremendous life experience and see the Christian world through different glasses. I use to be idealistic and altruistic as yourself, but am no longer.

Add to that - I am curious and hungry for enlightenment. I am a searcher and have found that the well is dry in all religion. I have not heard anything new from any of the religious in too many decades to count. I can no longer be content reasoning the way you did, but I respect it! Thank you!

While following God through science I was amazed at what I found in biology class.

All of the traits the bible describes as the "flesh" which is inherently evil, have an evolutionary basis. The example I draw is nature itself. One might say "survival of the fittest" but this is a gross oversimplification, and it is more reasonable to say "survival of the most adaptable".

The "flesh" is the lying, stealing, manipulating, killing, etc. etc. All these things and more we find in most of nature, apart from the harmonious wildernesses. The "flesh", I found, is the main driving force used by an organism to ensure it passes on the gauntlet to the nest generation.

So integral is "flesh" in nature that crows can actually lie to one another!
Amazing.