From: andronicus451@gmail.com   
      
   John 4:23   
   But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship   
   the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.   
      
   * * *   
      
   What is the problem with the religions, and why the religious people are   
   often considered as the worst ones when compared with the atheists?   
      
   When we come to Biblical Israel, the tribe members were born in the   
   faith in God of Abraham, Israel and Jacob, and would suffer penalty   
   up to the stoning if preaching other gods.   
      
   In Christianity, there were radical measures to extinguish "pagan temples"   
   and heresies, using bloodshed and only to replace them with the generations   
   of people who did not wash.   
      
   In Islam, it is still punishable with death if someone leaves Islam.   
      
   This is why nobody abandons the religions, because they would have to   
   leave their zone of comfort. They simply degrade to a state of not believing   
   and keeping formal traditions, customs and empty sacraments without   
   the Holy Spirit of God. Often doing everything that atheists do, under   
   the excuse of grace.   
      
   The more their gruesome crimes increased, the more they insisted that   
   the are infallible, they have the key to reexamining the faith, and everything   
   else is heresy.   
      
   But this is no longer good enough for our Saviour.   
      
   What I heard today is would be want to live in a world that is not based   
   on the law and evidence, but on a personal opinion, experience and feelings?   
   Where a jury could condemn us to death based on how they FEEL   
   towards us, our political group, ethnicity or religion, rather than evidence   
   that we have committed any crime deserving death?   
      
   We need to base our faith on spiritual evidence. The established religions   
   have some source that is not based on human reasoning from the material   
   world but is supernatural: we see that both Moses and Jesus had   
   supernatural help in their ministry. With miracles that the pharaoh's priests   
   could not repeat, but they had to admit that it is the finger of God.   
      
   Ground up, it did not work. Atheist scientist failed to discover the   
   Creator from His Creation, and they believe in the "Blind Watchmaker"   
   building a complex watch with over fifty precise gears.   
      
   God doesn't want to force people to stay in faith by fear of death   
   or even the fear of Hell. The worshipper in Spirit and in truth would   
   first love God for what He is.   
      
   We would not really be pleased with a girl who would only love us   
   for our property, then get rid of us and bring another guy into our apartment,   
   and have bastard children?   
      
   Would we still be pleased with a woman who would not do this only   
   because of what the neighbours and the village might say, but otherwise   
   she sees no fault in conceiving with man who is not her husband while   
   she is married, and whom we'd need to have surveillance over for the   
   entire life?   
      
   God also would not bring such person into Heaven or Paradise, for faith   
   only our of fear of men or fear of death is of no value. This is why God   
   not only does not keep us in faith by fear, but also allows the enemy   
   to tempt us.   
      
   Hebrews 11:6   
   But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God   
   must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek   
   him.   
      
   Diligently seeking God ... what does it mean if one is in God's chosen people,   
   but keeps hating and killing and deceiving to get gold and wealth?   
   Is he superior to a Hindu teacher who seeks enlightenment and peace,   
   and lives modestly, only with the necessities for life?   
      
   James 1:26-27   
   26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,   
   but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and   
   undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and   
   widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.   
      
   1 Peter 4:18   
   And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the   
   sinner appear?   
      
   What is really making up for a true religion and spiritual path, that makes   
   them different from the false ones, useless ones, and the beliefs that   
   come from the enemy of our souls?   
      
   However cruel this might sound, God and Jesus allow false prophets   
   and false messiahs to come and deceive many - 1. to tests us, and   
   2. because we must learn spiritual discernment and critical thinking.   
      
   1 Corinthians 11:19   
   For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved   
   may be made manifest among you.   
      
   So God doesn't want burning of the heretics, honour murders of those   
   who abandon faith nor he censorship of "false news", he wants a generation who   
   will love Him for what He is - the Creator of life and Saviour from the   
   slavery of sin, death and Hades - and faithfully and critically reject all   
   others.   
      
   Worship of material idols eventually brings misery, the ultimate form   
   being the worship of machines, giant factories and the politicians -   
   and sacrificing for them.   
      
   Eventually, without true religion as the means of reconciliation, mankind   
   can only seek into deeper corruption, as there is no way of climbing up   
   after a fall, one can only fall deeper, and the Unmerciful one hates   
   the one who resist sin, makes them the worst sinners, and binds them   
   tighter into its slavery.   
      
   The true religion should be any that leads back, returning the soul to   
   the Creator. Worshiping female sexuality, male sexuality, human sacrifice,   
   or money, gold and wealth obviously do not count (Astarot, Baal, Moloch   
   and Mammon respectively).   
      
   There are also pointless superstitions such as choosing the statue of   
   a golden calf for to reach Heaven and making golems for delivery.   
   All of that miserably failed, again and again.   
      
   While we should fear God, it should not be the wrong kind of fear   
   as of the angry old man who watches every single move of ours, fault   
   finding.   
      
   But it doesn't even mean that we "do as we will".   
      
   The true path is somewhere in between.   
      
   The moment faith becomes institutionalised, the enemy starts to work   
   to convert it into his instrument, and bring his evil children on top.   
   They will not be called children of devil but i.e. "holy inquisition".   
      
   Religious institution without the Spirit of God is as useful for salvation of   
   the soul as an empty canister can not quench thirst if there is no water   
   left in it.   
      
   Being a member of an institutional religion is as useful for the   
   soul as being a permanent member of a pub: good people in a pub   
   remain good, and mean people in the pub remain evil - yet nobody is   
   converted more often than it happens with complete atheists.   
      
   in the LORD God Merciful, Longsuffering   
   Amen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)