Yeah, I can see what you mean about it being more of a philosophy.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of pagan influence in commonly understood "Christianity." The dates of the birth and death of Christ came through Rome from that of several sun gods. The Bible says that the shepherds were grazing their sheep at night, which is a summer/autumn activity.
The Vulgate ten commandments differ from the KJV/Dead sea scrolls because Origin, the Vulgate translator, edited out the commandment that says not to pray to idols and split another in two. Origin came from a pagan background.
Then there's the seventh day/sun day change that was meant to unite Christian and Pagan Rome against the incoming "Barbarians."

Personally, I think that it matters most whether we're being honorable and trying to learn and follow the truth, no matter what church agrees with it. That's my definition of religion. Maybe that's a philosophy, too but I'm religious about it.

Smiles....just had to share the story below...way too beautiful not to share ..and goes right along with the topic of your thread.

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....This Is My Father’s World......

How does God want us to react to His creation? What does He want us to do?



First, God wants us to enjoy His creation—that’s why He made it so beautiful.

I’ve noticed this week how beautiful the pear trees have been, and the forsythia, and the redbud.

I’ve listened to the birds singing, and I’ve thought of a man named Maltbie Babcock.

He was a Presbyterian pastor near Niagara Falls—and he enjoyed hiking and running in the hills outside town.



He would tell his secretary, “I’m going out to see my Father’s world,”

then he would take off by himself, running or hiking a couple of miles into the countryside where he’d lose himself in nature.

Not surprisingly, he is the author of the great hymn, "This is My Father’s World."


This is my Father’s world,

and to my listening ears

All nature sings,

and round me rings

the music of the spheres.


This is my Father’s world:

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees,

of skies and seas;

His hand the wonders wrought.



The Lord wants us to enjoy His world. He made it for our benefit and for our pleasure.



All Creatures of our God and King

But second, God not only wants us to enjoy His creation, He wants us to praise and thank Him for it.

I remember when I was a boy going to the top of Roan Mountain with a group from our church.

From its high and lofty pinnacle, we watched the sun set in the distant West, setting the sky afire.

The shadows fell across ridge after ridge in the endless, ancient mountains.

Spontaneously someone began to sing the hymn, “How Great Thou Art,” and I’ve never forgotten the sense of awe and worship that filled our hearts as we gazed over God’s creation and sang His praise.



In my message today, I’d like to share with you the stories behind three of our great creation hymns.

My favorite of all the creation hymns was written long ago by the mystic Italian Priest, St. Francis of Assisi.

So many stories legends are arisen around St. Francis that it’s difficult to separate truth from fiction.

We know he was born in 1182 in central Italy, the son of a rich merchant.

After a scanty education, Francis joined the army and was captured in war.

He came to Christ shortly after his release, renounced his wealth, and began traveling about the countryside,

preaching the gospel, living simply, seeking to make Christ real to everyone he met.



Francis loved nature, and many stories spotlight his interaction with animals.

Once as he hiked through Italy’s Spoleto Valley, he came upon a flock of birds.

When they didn’t fly away, he decided to preach them a little sermon:

“My brother and sister birds,” he reportedly said,

“you should praise your Creator and always love Him.

He gave you feathers for clothes, wings to fly, and all other things you need.

It is God who made your home in thin, pure air. Without sowing or reaping, you receive God’s guidance and protection.”

The flock, it is said, then flew off rejoicing.



That perspective is reflected in a hymn Francis composed just before his death in 1225,

called, “Cantico di fratre sole”—“Song of Brother Sun.”

It exhorts all creation to worship God.
The sun and moon. All the birds. All the clouds. Wind and fire.

All men of tender heart. All creatures of our God and King.



Though written in 1225, an English version didn’t appear until 1919,

when Rev. William H. Draper decided to use it for a children’s worship festival in Leeds, England.



All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing,

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

O praise Him! O praise Him!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!



But is it sound theology to exhort birds and billowing clouds to lift their voices in praise?

Yes! “All Creatures of our God and King” simply restates an older hymn—Psalm 148—which says:



Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light….

You great sea creatures and all the depths;

Fire and hail, snow and clouds;

Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;

Mountains and all hills;

Fruitful trees and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle;

Creeping things and flying fowl…

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For His name alone is exalted… Praise the Lord!



Praise Ye The Lord, The King of Creation

My second favorite hymn is one that says, “Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.

Oh my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation.”

This hymn was written by Joachem Neander, born in 1650, whose father, grandfather, great-grandfather,

and great great-grandfather—all Joachem Neanders—had been preachers of the Gospel.

But as a student, Joachem was wild and rebellious.

At 20, he joined a group of students who descended on St. Martin’s Church in Bremen to ridicule and scoff the worshippers.

But the sermon that day by Rev. Theodore Under-Eyck arrested him and led to his conversion.

A few years later, he was the assistant preacher at that very church.



Joachem often took long walks near his home in Hochdal, Germany.

They were worship walks, and he frequently composed hymns as he strolled, singing them to the Lord.

He probably didn’t realize this was making him the first hymnwriter from the Calvinist branch of Protestantism.

When he was 30—the last year of his life—he composed this poem while battling tuberculosis:



Praise Ye The Lord, The Almighty, the King of Creation.

O my soul praise Him, for He is Thy health and Salvation.



One of Joachem’s favorite walking spots was a beautiful gorge a few miles from Dusseldorf.

The Dussel River flowed through the valley, and Joachim Neander so loved this spot that it eventually became named for him—Neander Valley.

The Old German word for “valley” was “tal” or “thal” with a silent “h.”

Two hundred years later, this valley was owned by Herr von Beckersdorf and was a profitable source for limestone, used in the manufacture of cement.

In 1856, miners discovered some caves, one of which contained human bones.

Beckersdorf took the bones to a local science teacher who speculated they belonged to a poor soul who had perished in Noah’s Flood.



But when William King, an Irish professor of anatomy, saw the bones, he claimed they were proof of evolution’s famous “missing link.”

Other Neanderthal fossils were found, and for many years they were used to “prove” Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Today we know the Neanderthal was fully human, an extinct people group of great strength.



But, as Marvin L. Lubenow put it in his book, Bones of Contention, “When Joachem Neander walked in his beautiful valley so many years ago,

he could not know that hundreds of years later his name would become world famous, not for his hymns celebrating creation,

but for a concept that he would have totally rejected: human evolution.”



I Sing the Mighty Power of God

And then we come to Isaac Watts, author if the great hymn,

“I Sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise;

That spread the flowing seas abroad,

that built the lofty skies.”



Isaac Watts’ father, Isaac Senior, was a clothier and a deacon in a church called Above Bar Congregational Church in Southampton, England.

He and his wife Sarah were “Dissenters”—Non-Anglicans—a treasonous offense in those days.

About the time Isaac Junior prematurely arrived, July 17, 1674, the elder Watts was arrested.

Sarah reportedly nursed her newborn while seated on a stone outside the prison.



In time Watts was released, and the young couple soon discovered they had a precocious child.

Young Isaac took to books almost from infancy. He learned Latin at age four, Greek at nine, and Hebrew at thirteen.

After his graduation from college in London, Isaac, about 19, returned home to Southampton and spent two more years at home.

One day he complained to his father about the dismal singing at church. Only versified arrangements of the Psalms were used.

Protestants in seventeenth century Europe were divided about hymns.

Though Martin Luther had taught his followers to sing hymns, John Calvin had allowed only the singing of Scriptures,

and this was the general sentiment in England.

But after a heated discussion, his father challenged Isaac to write a hymn for their church.



Drawing from Revelation 5, he did so.

Shortly thereafter, the brave congregation of Above Bar Congregational Church sang,

“Behold the Glories of the Lamb.”

This was the first of Isaac’s 600-plus hymns. Published in 1707, it’s been called the first English hymn designed for congregational use.

The church requested a new hymn each week, and Isaac, about 20, gladly complied.

Those two years in Southampton became the richest hymn-writing period in Isaac Watts’ life.

Though barely out of school, he composed hymns that are still sung nearly three centuries later, earning him the title, “Father of English Hymnody.”



After living at home for two years, Isaac moved back to London to tutor children in a wealthy family of Dissenters.

While there he joined Mark Lane Independent Chapel.

Soon he was asked to be a teacher in the church, and in 1698, he was hired as associate pastor.

There on his twenty-fourth birthday he preached his first sermon. In 1702, he became senior pastor of the church, a position he retained the rest of his life.

He was a brilliant Bible student, and his sermons brought the church to life.



In appearance, Isaac Watts was… well, odd. Standing five feet in his stockings,

he had an outsized head and prominent nose, and his skin was tallowy.

One woman, Elizabeth Singer, having never met him, fell in love with him through his hymns and poems, but when she saw him face-to-face, she was unsettled.

He fell in love with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to marry him, later saying, “I only wish I could admire the casket (jewelry box) as much as I admire the jewel.”



As Isaac Watts quietly pastored Mark Lane Chapel in London, the growing popularity of his hymns was causing a tempest.

“Christian congregations have shut out divinely inspired Psalms,” one man complained, “and taken in Watts’ flights of fancy.”

The issue of singing hymns versus Psalms split churches, including the one in Bedford, England, once pastored by John Bunyan.



We don’t know Isaac’s reactions. Dr. Samuel Johnson later reported that “by his natural temper he was quick of resentment;

but, by his established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and inoffensive.”

But in 1712, Isaac suffered a breakdown from which he never fully recovered.

He asked his church to discontinue his salary; but they raised it and hired a co-pastor who assumed the bulk of the pastoral duties.

Watts remained as pastor the rest of his life, preaching whenever he could.



A wealthy couple in the church, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney, invited him to spend a week on their estate.

Isaac accepted—and lived with them until his death 36 years later. He enjoyed the children in the home, and in 1715, he published Divine and Moral Songs for Children.

It sold 80,000 copies in a year and has been selling ever since. In his preface, he said,

“Children of high and low degree, of the Church of England or Dissenters, baptized in infancy or not, may all join together in these songs.

And as I have endeavored to sink the language to the level of a child’s understanding… to profit all, if possible, and offend none.”



One hymn in this volume, intended for children, became popular with adults. Entitled,

“Praise for Creation and Providence,” it said:



I sing the mighty power of God,

that made the mountains rise,

That spread the flowing seas abroad,

and built the lofty skies.

I sing the wisdom that ordained

the sun to rule the day;

The moon shines full at God’s command,

and all the stars obey.



In 1739, Watts suffered a stroke that left him able to speak but unable to write.

A secretary was provided to transcribe his dictated poems and books, but over the next several years he became increasingly weak and bedridden.

He died on November 25, 1748, and is buried in Bunhill Fields in London.

In addition to his 600 hymns, he wrote 52 other works, including a book of logic widely used in the universities, and books on grammar, astronomy, philosophy, and geography.

But it’s his hymns—most of them written in his early twenties—for which we’re most grateful.



But in closing, I’d like to say that there is a third reason why God gave us such an awesome and glorious universe to live in.

Not only should we enjoy His creation and praise Him for it,

but we should let it lead us to Christ.

God gave us the natural revelation of His creation to prepare us for the special revelation of His Son.



He shows us His glory in the stars and sunlight,

and He shows us His grace in His Son. It’s put this way in John 1:



In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.



Do you need the Lord Jesus Christ today? Do you need His life and His light and His love and His lift?

The creator of the universe wants to be your own personal Savior and Lord. What a wonderful prospect!



Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation.

Oh my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation.

All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near.

Join me in glad adoration.


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We grant permission for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied for use .

I think nature has become a kid stuck in the middle of a divorce, Atheism and Christianity claim that "Science" proves their theology and get caught up in a soulless dissection rather than stopping to enjoy what's around us.
Of course the Atheist is going to see the wonders of evolution and the Christian is going to see a the wonders of God.
I only said it that way because I respect other people's right to their own opinion and hope that they do the same.

The religion that was spoon fed to me by my parents and society taught me nothing but brotherly hate.

Fortunately for me, I never learned those lessons and finally rejected the religion as being ungodly.

My current spirituality is self-constructed. So it's not teaching me anything since I'm the one who is creating it.

Although it's true that I use many principles and traditions from various cultures associated with Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Eastern Mysicism.

I found so much love in these tradition. And yes much of it is a love of creation. But the creator is the creation. We are what we create.

In fact, we creator ourselves by simply choosing what we will decide to believe in how we will decide to act.

I am without a doubt the creator of my soul.

I also co-create the universe with everyone else.

Unfortuantely the horrid religion that I was taught as a child preaches just the opposite. They would consider my current view on life as blaspheme against their egotistical God. They are sure that I will be condemned to eternal damnation for believing that I can actually be best friends with God.

But despite their blindness, I am best friends with God and I co-create with Her every day.

Creation is God's joy. And to be a co-creator with God is the most joyous thing a person can know.

God created us to be creators.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine in spite of the religious blowhards.

They won't blow out the flame of my light because my light is the light of God Herself.

I'm on a creative orgy this spring.

Well, ok, it's not quite spring yet, but for me it's already spiritually spring.

My study of Witchcraft and Shamanism has truly brought the Goddess into my life in ways that are more tangible than I ever dreamed possible.

And yes, it has brought the God into my life as well.

The Great Spirit is both yin and yang and I interact with the spirit on bother of these sensual fronts as well as directly via the spirit.

Sensuality is the stuff of creation!

Without sensuality there is no creation, and therefore no God.

Even God cannot exist without existence. I am God's God and that's precisely how it should be. A never-ending cycle of natural and supernatural co-creation of mutual love and respect.

I love God and God loves me.

It's a two-way street as it necessarily must be.

Ask Jeanniebean, she knows.

Perhaps god is nothing more then mother goddess Earth who we should be respecting and taking care off.

In other words god/goddess needs us more then we need him or her.

Another different perspective to look at if you like.

We take care of Earth and Earth will take care of us. A great mutual understanding of the god or godess we seem to believe in.

Hey where am I at? Some nice common sense discussions, what did you do with the general religion chat area?