It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by Garfee
As usual the hate filled, intolerant, illogical, fear-mongering religious nut bars are attacking a thread like this with baseless diatribe and garbage.
You are members of a CULT. Dont you get it?
Originally posted by Faith2011
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT IN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION!
Of the reasons Christians disagree, an inadequate knowledge of what the Bible teaches tops the list. If many more Christians learned to interpret the Bible in context, quite a few denominational differences could disappear.
A much better unity will result by going to the Bible and studying it in all it's contexts, allowing it to teach us. The test of what is true should not be denominational creeds or doctrinal statements. What we believe should not be based on tradition, church history, personal opinion, wishful thinking, prejudice, bias, or unquestioning acceptance of what we have been taught. The final test of truth is the accurate interpretation of the Bible in any area it touches upon. God has shared with man a part of His infinite knowledge. We must find out what He meant by what He said.
Only by finding out what God meant by what He said can we begin to do His will and have real unity with Him and fellow Christians. We must begin with a teachable, humble attitude, willing to change, realizing how much we don't know and God does. Then once we have correctly ascertained the will of God from the Word of God, don't ask "should we obey it", just obey it. As the missionary leader, C. T. Studd, said: "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then nothing is too great for me to do for Him".
originally posted by: Shadowflux
Christianity – A Religion of Death
Part I – The Doctrine of Death
Christianity is easily one of the most popular religions in the world today. At 2.1 billion, Christians comprise about 33% of the world’s population and this faith is also the most widely practiced religion in America. While many people claim allegiance to the doctrines of the Christian church, the truth is that very few people truly understand it’s teachings or the implications of what is preached in it’s churches. Many people operate under the false assumption that Christianity is a religion of peace, love and openness but a brief study of some of it’s central beliefs will show this to be false.
The most fundamental belief of most Christians, especially those claiming to be “born again”, is the idea that Christ will come again to judge the sinners of the world and bring his true followers into an everlasting paradise. This isn’t the doctrine taught to new converts as they are usually presented with a very simple understanding of Christ and his teachings as recorded in the Gospels. This doctrine of the second coming of Christ is reserved for those “true believers”, those followers who have proven themselves as true disciples of the Christian Church.
The reason why this belief in the second coming is so critical to the belief system of modern Christians is because it reinforces the true nature of the religion as a whole. Far from being a religion of peace, love and life, the Christian Church teaches a doctrine of division and death. The concept of the second coming, of the Tribulation and the Rapture, is so necessary because it legitimizes the obvious divisiveness of many of the Church’s teachings. A proper understanding of this doctrine of death is so important because it sheds light upon the true nature of the Christian Church and many of it’s followers.
Many people who lack a proper understanding of the true nature of what is called Christianity find it hard to reconcile the actions of Christians with the supposed belief system they follow. This is because they have bought into the idea that Christianity is a religion of love yet they see it’s followers spewing hate and condemning those around them. Were they to connect the obvious clues with that which is spouted from the pulpit, they would soon come to understand Christians as following a doctrine of death and praying for the destruction of the world.
Christians believe that the period of time directly preceding the second coming is known as “The Tribulation”. This period of tribulation is, in fact, a period of great horror and destruction, of agony and suffering for all man kind. It is during this Tribulation that Christians believe all the sinners of the world will be punished and tortured, that empires will fall and all will be destroyed. This is the “Salvation of the World” that the Christian Church speaks of. What many people don’t understand is that Christians aren’t simply waiting around for the second coming but they are actively praying for it and doing everything in their power to make it happen.