reply to post by windword
Thanks for your reply, and good to know that you freely admitted now that you are not an atheist, and believed in a divine being higher than yourself.
Regardless if you have issues or not with 'my' God, in truth, it is only the same God you and I had been acknowledging, worshipping and following. If
not, either you or me would be sitting in prison right now, for if the teachings are wrong, we would have been astry or even dead by now.
I believed that I can understand your condemnation of organized religion.
When as a teenager, I sought for fellowship and attended church. But at an young age, I began questioning the often asking of tithes, which is not the
central tenet of the religion. My suspicisions was realized when the pastor and head was hauled up by the courts for corruption cases.
I can understand the church needs money, for without funds, it would not be able to pay for rents, adminstration and reaching out projects. But as the
investigations were transparent, It made me realized how much of the wealth had been hoarded up, and administrators' salary exceedingly well, and
worse, how little had been used for reaching out projects.
This was no isolated incident, but on a larger scale worldwide, that does not only involve christianity, but islam, judaisim, buddhism, hinduism and
every mainstream religion as well. And then you have cases of religious leaders siding with the national powers for personal wealth, power, pretige
and gain, neglecting the very holy books or mis-interpretating them to justify their actions, that propelled them to become community leaders, which
makes a religious faithful sad, to see how low religion had stooped to by some.
But there are others whom held true to what religion was supposed to be - a fellowship for members old and new, to share, discuss and debate over
issues, not just religion by societal ones as well, so as to find ways to contribute towards better tried and tested solutions for the community and
society to progress and evolve.
The true church, mosque, synagogue, temple, etc are not meant as pulpits of authoritarianism, but a gathering hall for religious faithfuls to
congregate and understand the teaching better by sharing and discussing for solutions to meet and overcome the daily problems of living.
In the past, it had to be authoritative, because majority were not educated, but that system had proven how minds could be twisted by a selfish agenda
filled few who either wilfully or ignorantly twisted religion for their own gains. But with today's interconnected world and better education, those
places of gathering must change and evolve.
There is much to do for the religious leaders of all mainsteam religions now, to win back the faithfuls to form the backbone of their community, first
by acknowledging their mistakes, then correcting them and adapt to the changes that progress had brought to society, but not by losing the essence of
religion and its tenets itself.
It is only by being honest examples of the religion can we ever hope to save humanity, flawed as we but no mortal is perfect anyway, not by outward
hypocritical forms, but from the heart.
It is my hope that you may one day make an attempt at fellowship, to share, to discuss, to debate and find out more about the God thay you profess to
have faith in, for He is the same God we all had been honoring and trying to follow his moral and ethical guidelines laid down for centuries. No
mortal is a genuis in every subject, and it is only by sharing can we all learn and discern wisely more from each other's help.
edit on
27-1-2013 by SeekerofTruth101 because: (no reason given)