Abra--no worries--and you did not hijack the thread. I understand that conversations are going to drift and at times wander and if they bring up new points and topics along the way, who am I to complain? Thanks for the note though--appreciated. -Drew

Many people say that religions are just all alike.
Some people will say that each religion claims to be the one true religion...and that it really doesn't matter which one religion we follow.... cause they all will take us to the same place.

But what does God say in the Bible?

"Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12.

Actually..... NO other religion offer Eternal Life..thru Christ Jesus...only the Christian Bible speaks of this.

Also , only the bible says, " no man can come to the Father but by Me"..spoken by Jesus.


Even though man turned christianity into a religion; once more,christianity is about relationship , and not religion at all.


Man made religion in an attempt to reach God.
God sent Jesus, in an attempt to reach man.

Thru Jesus , we can have a restored relationship back with God.
God doesn't want religion from us....God wants a relationship with Us.

That is what true christianity is all a bout....it's about Relationship... and not religion at all.

Here's an article that explains :

~~~~~~~~~~

The Journey ...
Christian Religion/True Relationship
Christian Religion vs True Relationship

Please understand, I'm not selling "Christian religion" here. If anything, I still believe "religion" has kept more people from God than anything else in history.

Actually, I've discovered that true Christianity isn't a Christian religion at all - it's discovering and establishing a relationship with God. It's trusting in Jesus and what He did on the cross for you and me,1 not on what we can do for ourselves.2

"True Christianity" isn't about "organized religion." It's not about hierarchical structures, ornate buildings, flamboyant preachers, or traditional rules and rituals. In fact, let's just drop the "Christianity" label all together. Simply, it's pursuing and reconciling three basic questions of life:



Does God exist? If so, what am I going to do about it?


Is the Bible true? If so, what does that mean for me?


Who is Jesus? If he is who he claims to be, how will this reality change my life?


Again, it's not about the so-called "Christian religion" at all...

It's not about the man-made machine we know today as "Christianity"...

It's all about Jesus.

He's either the Son of God who offers the only true hope for the world, or he's not.

Done.



Know God Now!



1 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 -- Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
2 Ephesians 2:8-9 -- For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.




Copyright © 2002 - 2008 AllAboutTheJourney.org, All Rights Reserved.

The Bible is of one religion.

I think that is the point OP was making.

If you grew up somewhere where the Bible was not part of the popular culture, would you be doomed?

I think God speaks in places other than the Bible.

Basically this is total baloney MorningSong.

People can claim that “True Christianity” isn’t about organized religion until they are blue in the face, but there simply no grounds for that claim. It’s an unsupportable claim.

Why?

Because we’re talking about dogma here! True Christianity is a belief in the Bible, and that’s an organized collection of stories are believed to be the true word of God.

You can’t just point to Jesus and talk about who he claimed to be,…

First off, the whole idea is that Jesus stands on the shoulders of the entire Old Testament and the stories about the God of Abraham. Jesus has not authority of his own. He’s entirely dependent on the God of Abraham and the whole biblical picture.

So you can’t just point to Jesus and say, “This is True Christianity”, because Jesus is totally meaningless outside of the context of the entire biblical framework.

There have been many who tried to removed or separate Jesus from the biblical dogma, but that’s basically impossible to do without accepting that the gospels are totally distorted and contain more demagoguery than truth.

And that brings up another very important and very profound question,…



No! It’s not all about Jesus!

First off, we have absolutely no writings that came directly from Jesus. Everything we know about Jesus is hearsay. That is to say, that every written document that puts words in the mouth of Jesus was written by other people who are claiming that he said certain things.

It’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask whether or not Jesus actually said the things that are claimed in those stories, or weather those stories are a total distortion of what the man was trying to actually say.

So it’s absurd to say that it’s all about Jesus. It’s not anywhere close to being all about Jesus.

This is where many people who call themselves “Christians” go drastically wrong. They think precisely like this and so they support Christianity but what they are actually supporting whether they like it or not is the whole biblical picture!

You can’t separate Jesus from the rest of the Biblical picture.

Hell’s bells, if I could do that I might become a Jesus Freak myself. I could preach Pantheism in Jesus’ name!!!

You can’t do that!

Jesus is inexorably chained to the Old Testament and the God of Abraham, as well as to Revelations and the whole Biblical picture. Jesus stands on the shoulders of the God of Abraham and has no authority of his own outside of that.

In fact, the whole idea of Jesus dying to pay for man’s salvation is inexorably tied to the idea that God is appeased by blood sacrifices. Without that biblical demagoguery the death of Jesus would have no meaning.

You can’t point to Jesus and say, “That represents Christianity and the rest is moot”.

The idea that Jesus could die to pay for the sins of man is totally meaningless in that context.

As soon as you make any attempt to take Jesus off the shoulders of the God of Abraham and stand him on his own two feet he falls over to become a mere mortal man no different from Buddha or anyone else.

Jesus cannot stand on his own two feet. At least not in the context of having died for man’s salvation. Not in the context of being “The Savior”.

In order for Jesus to stand on his own he would be reduced to nothing more than a moral teacher without any divine power to save men from the wrath of any Judgmental God who is appeased by blood sacrifices.

Take away the need to appease a the Judgmental Godhead of the Old Testament with Blood Sacrifices and the crucifixion of Jesus has no value.

You can’t point to Jesus and say, “That’s Christianity”. It’s not a workable concept by itself. Not unless you’re willing to give up the whole Salvation Thing.

But if you do that, then you may as well preach Pantheism.

That statement contains the most wisdom of any I have read concerning the resourcefulness of what is proclaimed to be a perfect deity.

Guidance of individuals requires individual measure, according to individual circumstances.


'God' owns more than one taxi-cab...

I once ran across a new age religion who claims that Jesus is the captain of a space ship named "Hope." and that he goes by the name Sananda. A large number of people follow and believe this group.

This cult of course, could be a clever alien plot and it is connected to the New world order and the arrival of the anti-Christ who will claim to be Jesus/Sananda and who will fool a lot of Christians.

There seems to be another person who is a Christian, who has a different theory. I think it is very interesting. Her name is Sherry Shriner.

She believes the KJV purposely mistranslated the name of the Son of God from Yahushua to "Jesus" and that this "Jesus" being taught in the majority of churches today is not Yahushua Himself but Satan.

Now there is a new age cult that worships and follows this guy named "Sananda" who claims to be "Jesus." This is a group who worship these aliens who pretend to be Gods.

She believes that "there are 12 Apostles appointed by the Lord and not 13. Matthias replaced Judas, not Paul."

More of what she writes:

I believe that close to 99% of the false teachings in the churches today are based on Saul-Paul's teachings leading people astray http://www.justgivemethetruth.com

I believe Satan has an offspring on earth as quoted by Yahushua, the Apostles, and taught in Enoch known as the Serpent Seedline http://www.serpentseedline.com and that Saul-Paul was of this serpent seedline and the very one Yahushua warned us of before He left.

I believe Daniel's warning "they shall mingle with the seed of men" in Daniel 2:43 is the fulfillment of this seedline today http://www.thewatcherfiles.com http://www.serpentseedline.com

Her website articles are at:

http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/articles.htm

*******************************************************

I just discovered them today .. although I have briefly run across them before.

Again, she believes that Yahushua is God in the Flesh, who came to earth to redeem mankind was crucified on the cross and arose three days later defeating sin and death.

She believes His salvation is available to all races and nations and that the New Covenant replaced the Old Testament seedline of Israel. Those who worship and follow Him are the "New Israel" regardless of seedline, race, or nation.

**************************************************

JB

MorningSong: The problem here is not an insignificant one. This is a bigger subject than this thread (and has me thinking about another) but you have somewhat ignored the question in my OP. I am actually not arguing at all that "all religions are the same," but rather that they are not. What I was asking is how one reconciles the fact that in certain parts of the world Christ's word is not taught, incorporated into the lives of its inhabitants, or in some cases even legal to teach--and how that squares with sending someone to an eternal hell, not so much because they did not know but because they could not have known.

It is called a "veil of ignorance" and it's not a shot at you in any way but basically it is a premise that argues---"You know nothing about your life, nothing about how much money you'll make or how successful you'll be. You know nothing about the land you will possess or about industry or resources." Now, create a fair tax code. Tough to do because you have no information.

I believe that the same hold true with a number or religions; especially Christianity and Islam. You are asking a person in Saudi Arabia to accept Jesus as his/her personal savior but they are under that veil of ignorance in that they just don't know. They'll never have the resources in a lifetime to study Christianity as you have in your living room with nothing more than a cold drink and a Google search bar.

So, that is really the question--not so much about what the Bible says (though that creates more problems than it solves in this particular situation) but basically about how in a modern age can we expect someone unexposed to "truth" to be found guilty of believing a lie. It is a moral contradiction of the worst kind.


-Drew

This is true in any age, not just in the modern age.

The biblical picture began with a God that was concerned about ‘good behavior’.

But it ends up being about a God who’s more concerned about which religion people believe in????

Something got drastically off track along the way.

Drew...in the soul of every man is a hunger for God...that God planted there.
.and God WILL somehow make himself known to all man.
God WILL give man that chance.
God is a merciful God..and will even reach into the back side of a desert , to reach man.

Jesus is for all....once more, Christianity is not a religion...yes we believe the Bible is the Word of God..but still christianity is a lifestyle....about a relationship....not a religion .
Man did that.

Abra...I never said it is ok to take Jesus out of the Bible and just discard the bible, like you are misunderstanding here. I just said that Christianity is a lifestyle...and the bible is our guide..our roadmap.and every word of that Bible is true.

Jesus is the Word.
That Bible is the Word of God.


I have shared here only as the Holy Spirit has led.
I am trusting now , that God, thru His Holy Spriit ,will do the rest now.
There is no need to say more.

Be Blessed Everyone.....Praying for all....and l Love you all

And Jesus Loves You All, Too.....

Well, like I say, you can’t blame that on man if you believe the Bible is the word of God.

Jesus’ crucifixion has no meaning outside of the entire ‘religion’.

It’s absolutely a ‘religion’ that is completely dependent upon a belief that a particular religious doctrine is true.

That would be like saying that Greek Mythology isn’t a mythology, it’s a relationship with Apollo, the son of Zeus.

But you'd have to believe in the whole story. Otherwise it makes no sense.

Same thing holds true for Jesus.

Actually I’m quite sure that a lot of Christians do feel precisely the way you do MorningSong.

But the point I’m trying to make is that this is notwhat the doctrine claims!

In order to believe the doctrine having a relationship with Jesus isn’t good enough. (well it might be good enough to save your own personal butt and supposedly be a free ticket into everlasting life)

But that’s totally beside the point. To reduce Christianity to nothing more than a means of saving personal butts from eternal damnation is to really blind oneself to what the doctrine is actually saying.

Bottom Lines,…

It makes no sense to believe in Jesus and not believe in a God who is appeased by blood sacrifices.

It makes no sense to believe in Jesus and not believe that God is at war with a fallen angel.

It makes no sense to believe in Jesus and not believe in the doomsday prophecy.

To say that Christianity can be reduced to a personal walk with Jesus is to simply say, “Look, I don’t give a damn whether it makes sense or not! I just want to get my butt into heaven!”

I just makes no sense pretend that it’s not a religion.

All your doing there is refusing to face the real issues and just pretending that as long as we believe in Jesus we can live in la la land.

It doesn’t work like that. You’re either going to believe in the whole story or you are just kidding yourself that you believe it in the first place.

You can’t just pretend to believe in Jesus whilst genuinely not believing all the rest of it. That’s a false belief. You’re just kidding yourself if that’s what you are doing. You’re pretending to believe in a religion that you truly don’t believe in because you were taught the belief is paramount.

Just like Drew stated in the OP.

You don’t even care whether the details makes sense. You’re willing to reject the whole concept of religion just to save your faith in Jesus (the paramount pivoting factor!)

But like I say, the whole idea that he died for you salvation is meaningless if you don’t also recognize and accept that the True God of this religious story is appeased by blood sacrifices. The True God of this story is the God of Abraham, (not Jesus!)

You seem to have actually accepted Jesus and rejected the actual God of Abraham. You put Jesus Before the God of Abraham!

Thou shalt not put any Gods before me!

There’s a bit of a paradox here when the son of this God become more important than the God himself.

Buy the way, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. If you want to believe in Jesus and ignore the rest that's fine with me.

I'm just explaning why your position appears to me to be totally meaningless.

And it also appears to be precisely as Drew suggested in the OP.

MorningSong--with due respect I think it tough not to consider Christianity a religion. In fact it is one of the biggest monotheistic religions the world has ever seen. Religion is defined as:

re·li·gion Audio Help /rɪˈlɪdʒən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ri-lij-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1.a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2.a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3.the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

I'll grant you that the definition above is just one definition and I will also grant you that there is an element of the "personal" in every faith. That you see Christianity as a relationship is more than your right but strictly speaking, it is a religion.

Whether it gets to every heart of every man is not clear. What is clear is that according to the Bible there is but one God, and only one way to partake in the enjoyment of heaven. It is not vague nor does it account for faiths that stray from it's Word.

All of this brings me back to the initial point which centered around how God holds responsible those who have with them nothing but a Qur'an and have never picked up a Bible? I guess you are right in that there is not much of a point left in beating this up. I guess I just sometimes feel like when people dig (not disrespectfully, but to question) elements of the Christian faith there reaches a point (all too often I feel) where the practitioner of Christianity falls back to, "God loves us all." I just wish that offered me even a small bit of confidence or comfort.

-Drew

well, parents don't necessarily raise all of their children exactly the same...

I raised all my children the same way,...

... nonexistently

true, and look what happened - none of them amounted to anything!

Well,... at least they didn't get in trouble with the law.

no, not like mine did.

Abra.... I see you still are not following what I was saying.

Ok....sure ..the world still looks at...and EVEN calls Christianity a religion.....but to us true Christians, TRUE Christianity is NOT about Religion....it is about RELATIONSHIP with the Father !!!

And this relationship with the Father is made possible ONLY thru our accepting Christ Jesus into our hearts,as our Lord and Saviour.

Also....Abra...I do not discount one single word of the bible...neither do any true christians.

I believe in Jesus ....and ...
I beleive that every single word of the Bible is true..I believe in the fellowship of believers....I believe in going to church...a place to worship God, and learn of Him, and further develop and grow in a relationship with God thru Christ Jesus.


God is NOT about Religion. God wants RELATIONSHIP with His people.
That is why JESUS is for ALL mankind.

THAT is why God said to go into the highways and byways...and tell the untold...not about another religion..but aBOUT Jesus...WHO CAME TO SAVE ALL MAN ...NOT TO CONVERT MAN INTO ANOTHER RELIGION!!!!!!~

TRUE CHRISTIANS LIFT UP JESUS...NOT RELIGION!!
THE WORLD IS SICK OF RELIGION.
THEY WANT THE TRUTH..THEIR EMPTY STARVING SOULS AREN'T GETTING IT FROM RELIGION... THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN FILL THE HUNGER AND THIRST IN EVERY MAN'S SOUL, IS JESUS ALONE..THE ONE WHO WAS SENT TO SAVE US AND MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR MAN TO BE BACK IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER!!!!.
YES..THE WORLD CALLS CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION..BUT WE ARE NOT NOT NOT ABOUT RELIGION..WE ARE ABOUT RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD..AND THIS RELATIONSHIP THRU ACCEPTING JESUS, IS FOR ALLL~~~

YOU JOIN JESUS..NOT A RELIGION!~!!!!!!!

Although Christianity was never meant to be a religion..some men HAVE turned christianity into just a dead religion...with no power of God moving whatsoever in some churches.

In these churches, SOME of the word of God is being preached ,but the Power of God is not there.
In fact, Jesus himself in not in some of these churches....cause they are dead.

LISTENING??

And that is why so many are disillusioned..cause they ave not...or....are not getting taught the full word of God .

Hence the reason some people look at christianity as a joke....cause they have been exposed to nothing but a dead church, somewhere in their lives.

But God is not dead..He is Power and Might and able to Save to the Uttermiost!!!
But you gotta get into a LIVE church, where the Power of God is moving and the WORD of God is being Preached!!

God is God!!!
And Power
And Might!!!
God spoke the world into existence.
SPOKE!!!
Vibations of sound ...spoken into existence !!
Get it?
Powerful...not some dead religiousity here !!

Folks here.....Hey..the Word is DEEP.
Open up that Bible and READ.....ask God to speak to your heart, and open your heart.so God can become real to you...cause God is REAL!!REAL!!!!REAL!!!


Lets Wake up...and once more..God is NOT a Religion..He is GOD ALMIGHTY!!!!
And God is about RELATIONSHIP with Us!!

May Spiritual Ears Be Opened This Day I Pray...in Jesus Name, Amen!!

Jeannie...there are many names to God BUT still ONE God(look under my profile , and dig up the post on the different names of God).

So....we christians call our Lord and Saviour Jesus ..some call him Yashua....people in mexico cal him Jesu....some call him Emanuel..some call him Jeshua Hammesshiah..etc etc etc.......

BUT SADLY ,you will ALWAYS have the RELGIOUS ZEALOTS out there...filled with nothing but religious spirits..who are sooo bound up in religion..that they will argue over the fact that Jesus should be called Yashua instead of Jesus.....and in fact, they even claim Jesus is satan's angel of light.
(Btw, Jeannie, this group you talk about , does NOT call themselves christians).

Personally, I have no time for religious spirits. .... I just bind that spirit of religion amd erring spirits off the relgious zealots , in the Name of Jesus, and keep lifting up Jesus...and telling the untold of what Jesus did for us..of How Jesus Loves us and Came to Save Us!!!!

BUT you will NEVER see these religious zealots trying to get people saved..no.. they are tooo busy about the letter of the law..and how that Jesus should be called by a certian Name !!
And the devil stands by and laughs...cause that is just what the devil loves to see....us arguing over petty nonsense!!!!
Sad

Why....there are even some" christians "that REFUSE to even celebrate christmas, cause it is celebrated on the 25th.... ..but because some people are soo caugth up in RELIGION< , they refuse to even celebrate Christ's birth on that day....or on any day at all......and thay have no joy whatsoever in their lives!!
I mean, who cares about a day.... we should celebrate jesus everyday ..AND NOT JUST ON ONE DAY, anywaY!!
Amen??


AND if some people want to call Jesus Yeshua, that is fine also.
God doesn't mind.....cause truthfully, God is MORE concerned if Jesus lives in your heart!!!!!!

The point is.. I am sure God would NOT want man arguing over this petty nonsense....but againm, the devil just LOVES to see this kind of religious bondage on man in some churches.
Sad!!!

Let's get our eyes fixed on Jesus, not on religous arguments.

The bible says, if JESUS be Lifted Up, He shall draww ALL men to Him"

Listening?

The Bible did NOT say to lift up religion...but to Lift up JESUS!!!!!!!~