How many of you are actually Christians?

[MannyAnalogue]

Feonixis

Amen.

[MizzLSD]

I second that

Yay Feo!

[disciple12]

In John 1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and withour Him was not anythng made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth n darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There wa a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came to for a witnessto bear witness of the Light, that all men through Him might believeHe (John) was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own (creation), and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name...

[disciple12]

He came unto His own (creation), and His own received Him not.

I see this everyday...through words and actions and beliefs of others that His own (creation) has received Him not. People will believe and call it a miracle that an idol will bleed or cry or some weird phenom that is conjured, but they will not receive the True Creator, or His words.

None other religion or idol has healed me of physical disabilites, or has healed me emotionally or spiritually. I tried a couple of three others. All He requires is that I love Him. The first teaching is to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. To love Him, more than the biggest idol I know of...ourselves. We love the thoughts, ideas and philosophies of others more than we love His words. We worship anything, but Him.

[Glorybound]

Ok, Switchback... my first reaction would be to laugh at you because of the ignorance you're perpetuating... but that would just be rude (not that you aren't).

Here is something to consider. If there is great teaching in knowledge, and you give that knowledge to a generation simply for what it is; knowledge, it will benefit the first few generations but then over time it will be lost. But if you transform that knowledge discovered to help people into a religion then it will stick. This is the purpose of religion, not to divide people. Over time, however, all of these petty sects have divided even among Christians (those who choose to follow Christ) with their arguments getting pettier and pettier... until you get to the point of online forums where people post questions about religion and then get angry and frustrated with the people who respond to them.

*ahem*

Anyways, further beyond that, if you still follow the belief that god is a bearded man floating in the sky watching down on us, you are living in the past. As man progresses through the ages we are able to grasp a better understanding of these things for instance; the world is round.

I'm not here to tell you what to believe in, but if you actually believe that it is a christian duty to spread the word of god to all the peoples of the world, then I just feel I should address this with you because I want the best for the people of the world even if sometimes my actions don't show.

When Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the light" and when he makes the statement that he is the only way to get to heaven, or to be with the holy father, or whichever interpretation you choose, doesn't it make more sense that he was just telling us to be like him than to just latch on to his name and get a free ticket to heaven?

I seriously hope you consider these concepts.
Peace be with you

[hazelflame]

Glorybound,
So Im curious on what you say Jesus being the light...Does that mean that he is just & only a "Symbol" of how we should be? and that he did NOT die for our Sins? Your saying he just died in VAIN??

I guess Heaven & hell doesnt Exist either. Well, I guess I have nothing to look forward to after this Life!!

[Feonixis]

hazel, he didn't say that at all . and glory, i think that was very eloquently put.

[BlueHeart]

Hi everyone,

Hazelflames jesus did die for our sins.we want to be like Jesus because he was faithful to God till the end.Also, through Jesus we come to know God better.Jesus is a perfect reflection of his father.Jesus was sensitive to the needs of others.Also a man of tender warmth and deep feelings.People found him approachable and kind.Even children felt comfortable being around him.(Mark 10:13-16).He hated corruption and injustice.(mathew 21:12,13).

Heaven does exist.Hell is mentioned in the bible.

[Glorybound]

In no way was I saying that Jesus didn't exist, or that he did exist and died in vain. This is huge...

Christianity basically as it was in it's earlier days would have been divided into two sects in thinking that
A: Jesus is divine
or
B: Jesus is a man

The bible clearly states that Jesus was in fact a man, and the whole idea that he died on the cross is based around this single thought. That Jesus as a man could live the life of a man and show us the way to live as man through being one of us. But some people in power do not want you to think this way, they want you to believe that Jesus was absolutely and completely perfect and therefore impossible to ever be able to measure up to. It is a fact that entire books have been completely removed from the Bible, and I believe it is in order to hide Christ's most human moments, and other powerful and liberating secrets.

Anybody can be like Christ. You needn't to have ever heard of him or his teachings or know who he is, because he lived out of compassion and love, and that is how we should all be living in the first place. Yet this is impossible when at the same time we are teaching that this one man alone is the key to eternal love, happiness, heaven, or whatever. This is how religious wars are made.

We have to see, collectively, as a people that all people are one and that we are all from the same source; God. And that in order to get back to him we have to start living in this way.

This is impossible if we believe that we must go around to all of the other cultures of the world telling them that they and their authorities are wrong and that they need to change their ways, and that if they don't they are bound to suffer eternal pain and misery, instead of greeting them with love and acceptance and teaching them to do the same, which actually, in the poorest most isolated countries, they already know how to do far better than we and we should be learning from THEM.

Most importantly as Christians, we need to stop pretending to have all the answers. Because we don't.

Peace and Love

[hazelflame]

Originally Posted by Glorybound

When Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the light" and when he makes the statement that he is the only way to get to heaven, or to be with the holy father, or whichever interpretation you choose,

doesn't it make more sense that he was just telling us to be like him than to just latch on to his name and get a free ticket to heaven?

Glorybound,
Is saying Jesus DID NOT DIE for our SINS or We dont have to believe JESUS in order to get to HEAVEN