Religion makes me sick

reply to post by sk0rpi0n

Remember Jesus said "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Youre missing the moral of the story. Just because you are ignorant of your master's wishes does not excuse you from being punished. You will still be punished because you should know the master's wishes at all times. Ignorance is no excuse, it never has been and it never will be. When you read the bible in it's entirety, from OT to NT, it tells you exactly what YAH is expecting of us and through him by default Yeshua Ha Meshiach (Jesus the Christ).

Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them

The key to unlocking all of this is in the complete bible, you use the NT to cross reference the OT. It used to be that you could get away with being ignorant when the priests were still sacrificing animals for burnt offerings, but that has changed since the Messiah's sacrifice.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that i know 100% that these people will perish if they do not accept Christ as savior, that is already written in the bible. What i am saying is that I am not willing to let any perish and for that reason i became a missionary baptist. I do what i can, and i let the cards fall where they will.

Faith without works is dead.
Works without Faith is dead.

Maybe you can grasp the meaning of this, but this is what the Holy Spirit has given for me to say. He knows more about this than i do.

I'll share what I believe though religious types don't usually like it because it is too simple.

Faith is what is required in and of itself. I don't think it matters so much what particulars you believe in terms of dogma, but rather that you discover a belief that allows you to embrace the divine directly. Words, dogma, prophets, messiahs, none of these through any form of written, oral, or other tradition can possibly even hope to even begin to resembly the vastness of whatever divinity is.

But faith matters for two reasons in my mind. It is both the willingness to search for the answers to those questions, looking inside and out, and that which provides us sustenance in a world that is trying.

But religion, by and large, isn't about that. My experience of it is that it is for people who are scared of their own lives, looking to avoid asking tough questions of themselves, and who prefer a prepackaged deal for salvation that doesn't require too much and allows them to feel superior. It's sad, but I see gangs as much like many religious groups across all religions. But religion is a political and social entity.

Faith, by contrast, must always be personal.

As far as the idea of being a true Christian, I would see it this way. If Jesus' sacrifice was real and was redemptive, then I think it would be universal for all men, not because of what tenets they accept, but because of the act itself. Religions always make themselves self-important, but I believe the truth is no religion holds the key to salvation, the perfect belief, or the best way to be, because there isn't one answer.

As much as that is hard for people to accept, that's what religious types miss, just like everyone else who gets caught up in their own version of an immutable truth. After all, if there was an immutable truth, that would mean God couldn't change his mind, which is the most ridiculous thing of all if you're going to believe any of this.