It's WAR in the Middle East!

To explain a little more. I tend to focus on the positives. Organized religion seems to always focus on the negatives. I like to remember that both Isaac and Ishmael together buried their father.

For me if god is all powerful, then he wrote the truth on my soul and I know right from wrong. You mentioned that portions of the bible were written down long after the fact. Well for me, watching life's events...I question who wrote them and why. I know what is written on my soul, and I feel it's rightness, it speaks not to who owns what piece of land or power, but how I treat others and wish them to treat me. And I think there are many others like me of many nationalities, born of slaves and rich people.

 

nicely put ... i agree the simple rule of treating others as I would like to be treated goes a long way.

On another note... A good article
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/2009119102548942367.html

 

i'll tell you what ~ i was pretty well against "organized religion," also. i thought, in a lot of ways, being around other believers is sort of detrimental to your understanding of what God has to say to you, in, and with, His Word.

i wasn't saved until later in my life, and by that time, i was a cig smoker, an herb smoker, a drinker, etc. i was, quite frankly, embarrassed and ashamed of myself, and didn't want to be around "real" Christian folks. But you know what? "REAL" Christian folks don't judge you ~ neither by what you are doing at the moment, nor by your past, NOR by what you might be getting ready to do. "REAL" Christian folks understand that you had some major issues before you were saved, and you did some horrible things. "REAL" Christians know that ANY sin (from a little lie to Mom about who got into the cookie jar, up to murder) is STILL sin, and that we ALL need Jesus' blood sacrifice to wash us clean from those sins.

Right now, as poor as we are, we don't go to church ~ i don't want to show up on someone's doorstep, needy of every material thing, and place an undue burden on the rest of the congregation. We also spend a lot of time up at the ranch, so a church "home" isn't really possible. What IS possible is for us to read our Bibles, discuss our thoughts about what we've read, and try to help each other understand what we read. And, since there are two of us, gathered in His Name, He's there. Even right now, with Dear snoozing away, just the fact that any other Christian might read this, think about it, and post back makes two of us, gathered in His Name.

~> Y'all are in church, right now, even if you don't know it!

As mentioned in another thread, our faith DOES show through our "works," but the beauty of it is that His Holy Spirit comes to live in you,

TO HELP YOU DO those works.

He doesn't want us struggling to try to do good things in His Name ~

He wants us to walk out, in Him, confident that the good things that He leads us to do, truly are good things.

The authors of the Books of the Bible were all God. i mean, look at the Dead Sea Scrolls ~ once they were found, a comparrison of them to what we had, proved to be 95%+ the exact same words, and 100% the same meaning.

It is accepted that Moses wrote the first 5 chapters of the Old Testament.

For more on the authorship, see this article:

http://www.allaboutthetruth.org/who-wrote-the-bible.htm

 

Galations 3:28:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

We can't hope that societies will save us if we don't live lifes that seek to save each other.

The biggest truth is the one we each hold within ourselves. I seek to do no harm, if you choose the same, than what harm can come but what is without ourselves. That may be great and fatal, but it's not something I will forever regret. If my life is cut short because I chose to do no harm, will the world go on...yes. Will I regret it....no. I will have made my individual choice and I will be comfortable with it.