Sunday, January 2, 2011

The First Sunday Of The New Year

Now, I'm not a preacher or anything of the sort, but I know what The Holy Bible says. And, I'm not going to preach on it, nor will I ever preach on it. I will however, post some verses and my thoughts on them. But, not today, today you get my view of religion and what it means to me and what my beliefs are.

There are quite a few things I find wrong with the religions of the world. But, they all boil down to two things, interpretation and hatred. All of the worlds religions are based on basically the same stories, myths and tales. Christians just use the stories in The Bible as the basis of their religion. Even within the Christian religions they have many interpretations of what it means. And, it can not be agreed upon as to what any of it truly means. Even within the Ten Commandments, some say they should be taken literally, some say "Well what it's really saying is...". I'm sorry people but you can't have it both ways, it's either literal or it's up for interpretation. Take the seventh commandment for example, it states "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13 KJV). Yup I quoted it. But, that doesn't say "Thou shalt not kill, unless....." It plainly states that you shouldn't kill anybody, which seems to me to be a direct statement, not open for interpretation. Yet we do, "Oh this guy killed a bus load of Jerry's Kids, with a couple Nuns and a Preacher driving, FRY HIM!!!" Well, would that really be the case? Now, I can hear you now the whole eye for an eye thing. Now here's the deal on that, most modern Christian religions, base their beliefs on the New Testament, and say the Old Testament is irrelevant. Now, if you know you're Bible or check it to see Exodus is the Second Book of the Old Testament. More trying to have it both ways. What most religions do is take The Bible and work out what is written there to fit their beliefs or what they want for themselves. Now I could take any religion and do some serious research into it and give you examples of what I'm talking about, but I'm not getting into how doctrine contradicts verse, or how each religion thinks the others are going to hell because they don't believe as we do. There are parts of The Bible that are left for interpretation, for no other reason than that they're vague in what it says. Take the eye for an eye passage contained in Exodus 21 it doesn't say how the eye should be paid, but that an eye should be PAID not taken. In fact the first verse of Exodus 21 is "Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them." This says JUDGMENTS. Now that says to me, that if you take my eye I am not to take yours, but the judgment shall be put upon you that yours be taken from you, not by me though.

This brings up another point on religion, judgment. I've heard a many preacher say you shouldn't judge anybody, but their religion itself judges, and they judge by preaching that if you don't follow our beliefs you will go to hell. So in a nut shell, you either take things as they're written in The Bible, or just throw it out.

The Ten Commandments
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2020&version=KJV

The Judgments
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2021&version=KJV

5 comments:

  1. Jeff,
    It's kind of like laws & how some look until they find a way to bend them so there are loop holes in them. As a kid I went to other churches so I could see what or how the religions was different. I noticed they all believed in God & read the bible. You are right about what you said! You know what I haven't found that one religion is better than another.
    Thanks for sharing this with all of us.
    Blessings,
    bsotf

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  2. Thanks BS, I have more on the subject that I have saved for another day. I just think it's crazy for people to say that this part is to be taken literally but this part is completely open to interpretation. I believe that you can't take the vision of the burning bush literally, and then say that one of the commandments didn't really mean thou shalt not kill.

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  3. What cranked your scooter on religion? :)

    I had a comment all written out and somehow it got deleted. (User error)

    Got to go check on something but I will be back.

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  4. ...The point you bring up about literal vs interpretation is one of the many reasons we have so many churches. Folks can't agree.
    I am no expert either, but I have been trying to understand the Bible better. The Biblegateway.com site is a great resource. Blueletterbible.org is another one; it helps with the Greek and Hebrew word using the Strong's definitions.
    Another strange thing to me is how good intentioned people can get in a biblical "discussion" that results in one or both turning completely away from God. Yet an Atheist can be trying to prove there is no God and get converted.

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  5. Yup, , Kipp, I have Biblegateway bookmarked on my comp. Another good site is religioustolerance.org. Personally I just go by what the Bible says, keeps it simple.

    and, what got my scooter going, was just thinking about how the organized religions work these days.

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