I do not believe that God would condemn all non-christians to hell and damnation. It’s incomprehensible that God would have a soul born in, let’s say… China, where for a long time, there was no bible in that country and then God would condemn that person and all the other approx. 1 billion souls to eternal damnation and hell.

Although I was raised Catholic, I’ve had this exact same conversation with well intended individuals who felt that I would or possibly end up in hell for not believing in Jesus any longer yet still having a belief in God – apparently Jesus is key (which I also believed to be true for many years)
First – that’s between God and myself
Second – If you believe in Jesus and know that you are saved then why are you worried about someone else’s soul? If you know that you’re going to heaven – they why are you worried about my heathen ass? My soul really isn’t anyone else’s concern and if I’m wrong then that’s my problem – go back to point number one

From what I’ve been taught,everyone who already heard the Gospel and reject Christ will go to hell,but someone who hasn’t heard the Gospel yet,then it’s up to God for their judgement.
Although this year I’m questioning that teaching because I’ve seen people from another faith showing tremendous Godly aura from themselves (which Christians always called show Jesus through you).

Hello Neale Walsh,
No, I do not believe God would damn someone because of the path in which they found God. Jesus or not. actually i find the idea absurd.
Religion is man made which means it MUST be imperfect.IF people would accept this truth there would not be the fear and mania that we see today.

Hi Neale.
For most of my life, I’ve been what you might call a non-denominational Christian. I didn’t go to church because I am troubled by the institutional attitude towards gay people. No matter, I LOVE God. I don’t believe in hell, or demons and I can’t conceive of a God who would condemn me for being confused, uncertain or just plain stupid. I read and gained a great deal from your books and as a result of a meditation practice am now trying to incorporate Buddhist principles into my life. I’m still a Christian, and a Buddhist, and a Jew, and a Hindu – the list goes on, because where is God not? Some say that this is the pick and mix version of spirituality. Maybe it is. Will I go to hell for it? No. When I die I’m going to sit on God’s lap and ask him how he invented colours and rave about all the great music that was worth coming to earth for. He’s my Papa. What loving father would send his child to hell?

Hi Neale!
You hit the nail on the head: F E A R
I grew up in a strick Catholic household and we knew alot of fear! I went through 12 years of Catholic school and they instilled in us the FEAR OF GOD!!!!!
I feel if you are at peace with what you believe, then it’s right for you. If you believe because you are afraid not to, than that just doesn’t make sense. God is all loving. I don’t doubt that anymore. If these fundamentalists would just look at Jesus’s main message, “Love One Another”, then maybe they could chill out a bit. It’s kind of funny that he asked you, “What if you are wrong?”, when you could have asked him the same thing. People like that “play it safe” and adhere to what they’ve been forced to believe since they were young. I guess it’s not funny; it’s rather sad.

What about atheists? Do they go to hell?
http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/

It’s impossible to literally know what happens to us after we die until we’re dead. So I Choose beliefs that make my life more full of joy and love.

NEAL~~This is entirely off subject, but PLEASE READ IT:
Leonard Peltier, 63, Native American Activist and Prisoner #897637-132, has been incarcerated for the past 32 years for what the government claimed was the shooting deaths of two FBI Agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at Oglala, South Dakota on June 26, 1975. (Maybe you remember when this incident happened.)
After reading Peltier’s book, “Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance”, I too have come to believe that this man has been incarcerated without a fair opportunity to prove his innocence in an unbiased court of law.
Exculpatory evidence proving his innocence was disallowed in the original trial; there was evidence of jury intimidation at that trial; former Judges, Prosecutors and FBI Agents themselves noted evidence of improprieties occurring in the investigation and at trial, stating that “there was not one scintilla of evidence” to convict Peltier. Yet, after repeated appeals, he has been refused a new trial.
~Ramsey Clark was the lead attorney in the case at the time Peltier’s book was written in 1999.
~Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, “…it’s a gross miscarriage of justice…”
~The Dalai Llama, Robert Redford, and a host of Senators and Congressmen have called for investigations and a new trial. Yet, nothing happens. What’s going on here??
There is a website where you can learn more about the Peltier Story: lpdc@idir.net
YouTube has videos on this story, including a news interview with Peltier’s daughter and grandson after he was relocated from Leavenworth Prison to Terre Haute, IN three years ago.
The Bureau of Prisons lists his current address as:
Leonard Peltier #89637-132
USP Lewisburg
U.S. Penetentiary
P.O. Box 1000
Lewisburg, PA 17837
Peltier is up for parole again sometime in 2008. Will you, and the readers of this blog, please speak out on behalf of this man? If he is innocent, he deserves to be freed. And, at the very least, he deserves to have a fair and impartial trial.
Thank you for reading this. Please do what your heart leads you to do. Dara

I’ve heard all this before. This thought almost makes me think that it is more about Jesus and little about God. I believe there are many paths to God, even for the non-believers. What ever one you chose will get you there.

I believe in god. I believe Jesus had some great teachings, but so don’t a lot of other people, we just won’t listen because we don’t see the divinity in them. Hell does not exist, except the hell you create for yourself here on earth. NOBODY goes to hell, for the simple reason that there is no hell. I believe this with EVERYTHING THAT I AM. God is love and nothing else. And I think that we’ll all realize it sooner than later, even if that realization comes on one’s death bed, they’ll see. Because there no way they can not see . . . . eventually that is.
So NO, I do not need to be ‘saved’ through Jesus to “get” to heaven. But I do need to see the divine in myself so that I might save myself from the hell I could create right here, right now.
Always Love. All Ways (I have that tattooed on my ankles . .:o)

I’ve read a lot on Jesus and his teachings. I have a feeling he would say to us today, “You got me all wrong”:-)
The Sermon on the Mount was beautiful – spiritual art from a master.
Go to hell because you “just didn’t get it”? Didn’t take the time to wade through all the opinions to find your own? Nah – there is no hell. Oh there is – its in your mind.
Keep going Neale!

If you have read the Bible with an open heart, you would know that God wants all people to come to Him. If you reject Jesus, you reject God. But I am not the judge, God is. My job is to share the Good New with as many as will accept it.
Your goodness on earth has no bearing on your salvation. I firmly believe that there is only one path to heaven but I also believe that the one path has many lanes (churches) but the key is that Christ is the only fuel that will take you down that road. I also believe that God will give those who live in righteousness an opening, even at the moment of death, so that none could be denied the chance of Salvation.
Your friend is right, you have to ask yourself. “What if I am wrong?” Universalism is nice, but it will not save you.

I used to actually believe that every human being who does not accept Jesus as a saviour will be punished.
I stoped believing that 6 months ago when my boyfriend died in an accident.I was simply sick with worry about what is going to happen to his sweet,loving soul after death.He was not a perfect Christian and I was terrified that he will eventually end up in hell.That’s when I decided to suicide…because I didn’t want him to go through that torture alone.
But then I discovered Conversations with God and Home with God.That’s how I found my peace after his death.I still miss him A LOT ,but I’m sure he is happy where he is and I KNOW God loves him just the way he is.
God is too perfect to hurt someone like that.So I am not afraid of death because I know there will be there for me 2 energies who love me completely:God and my boyfriend

It is often proposed by Christian apologists that, if an individual is condemned to eternal damnation, it must be what the individual actually wants. God, therefore, cannot be accused of forcing a condition upon anyone.
That may be true in a particular sense, or within a certain point of view – but that leaves a lot of questions unanswered. For instance – what would be the point of an endless, terminal condition? Individuals cannot tolerate discomfort for very long. The discomfort of damnation would therefore become a “given” reality against which any efforts to modify or change or seek relief would simply be useless. The choice to sustain such an existence does not rest with the individual. You would think that after – say – one hundred billion gazillion umptillion forevers, God would stop being such a shithead and give the poor damned creature a break.
Or maybe not! “When we’ve been there 10 thousand years – bright shining as the sun – we’ve no less time to sing God’s praise – as when we’d first begun”
Yeah, God – burn them! They so richly deserve it!

While I absolutely LOVE your books and have been devouring them just as fast as I can get my hands on them, there is one thing I disagree with you about. We are not 3 part beings, we are 4 part beings: Spirit, Will, Heart, and Body. Spirit is our intellectual, higher self. The “ideas and decisions” part of ourselves. Will is our creative energy, the action taker, the part that “makes it so”. Heart is our guide, it shows us the way toward love and compassion and tells us which path to follow. And Body is the physical, our vehicle of expression. All of creation is God’s “body” and Jesus is God’s Heart made manifest, sent here (to the physical) by Spirit thru God’s Will to “show us the way”. Heart shows the way. Follow your Heart and it will never lead you astray. That is Jesus’s message. Through “heart” we will find our way back to the Source (God). We will find “heaven on earth” by following heart.
Spirit without Will cannot create; it can only be like a big logical computor having ideas that never come to fruition.
Will without Spirit would be reactive instead of active, creating randomly and without purpose or direction.
Spirit and Will without Heart would lack compassion and love, and be literally “heartless”.
Spirit, Will, and Heart without body can’t experience, and experience is the best teacher and how we and God evolve. So while Spirit thinks it’s so smart and Will feels so creatively powerful, Body takes a beating without Heart leading the way. So God sent Jesus to say “Hey! Follow me (heart)”. We just didn’t “get it”. So no, I don’t think we have to embrace Christian Doctrine to “save our souls”. We merely need to understand the message and listen to our hearts…Heart knows the way…

I have come across so many people like this man. It is difficult for many of us to let go our fear. We have lived our entire lives making mistakes and looking up for that bolt of lightening. I was raised in the Catholic church and I went to Catholic school where I was constantly chastized for asking questions like: “How could God create so many people from so many different places who speak so many languages then only create one way for them to understand him?” The nuns really liked: “If Jesus were born in Jerusalem, wouldn’t he speak a different language and how do we know we have translated his words correctly?” So I ask you, if God is the alpha and the omega, then what should you be saved from? And yes, in case you are wondering Sister Mary Agnes and I spent many a session late after school talking about my determination to ask so many questions.

Yes Neale, I do believe that to be true, because God said so. God wrote a book and has given us a PLUMB-LINE from which to measure all else to be true or not true. You can’t honestly say you believe in God but don’t believe in God’s word. That would be hypocritical. Your belief has to be based on a sound foundation or its all fiction, and you go where the wind takes you. God wrote a book and “All scripture is inspired by God” (2 tim 3:16). All 66 books-all of it. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). These are awesome books written by an awesome God who will totally change your life “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). So Neale, the question remains ‘what if you are wrong’? Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Our God is ALIVE, and only because He loves us does He warn “Enter through the narrow gate; For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)”

This is exactly the question that I asked myself when I was a child and teenager who had numerous international friends. I asked my mom. She referred me to the minister. “Will my friend from Japan really not go to heaven because she isn’t a Christian?” I couldn’t accept that a “heaven” would be so limited. And I still can’t fathom a God, in his traditional image, not being capable of loving and forgiving and welcoming all–the unbaptized babies, those from other countries with other beliefs–heck, from the church down the street. I am so grateful for having found a community of others who believe as I do, who see Love, not Fear. Who see heaven around me today. Here. Now. And what if I’m wrong? WHAT IF? I can sit around and worry and put myself in hell right now–or I can trust and live in love. That’s what I choose.

What I keep reading is that Jesus was a liar. People say they love what Jesus said but havn’t a clue what he is saying. He said,”I am the way, the truth, and the light, no one comes to the father except through me (Jesus)”. Either you believe that or the whole bible is a lie. His sacrifice was for nothing or never happened. We can all go about our business without fear of reprocussion. When we die, were dead …nothing more. But you know the bible is truth. It has already been written on your heart but accepting it means change. It means you will have to do things differently, think things differently, in essence, change who you are. Those things you justify in your mind but know in your heart are wrong will have to be expelled. It is easy to say, “I’m a good person, I don’t hurt anybody, why do I need to change”. It’s easy to swallow and if it was true we wouldn’t need Jesus or Neale or anyone else. Neale, I believe you know this too, but it’s not as profitable to say so. Not too many book sales by saying, Hey everyone the truth is already here and theres no need to buy my book. That is really what it is about for you is it not? If you do speak to God, ask Him why He would present a book that has remained unchanged, basically, for thousands of years that purports the coming of, the birth, death, and rising of a Messiah, a book that millions upon millions of people hold as truth and give it over to His People and not mean it? Ask him that Neale and get back to me. Enjoy your millions… I guess you’ve earned them.

According to a few biblical scholars I’ve studied who translate from the original text. Hell is not created until after the 1000 year period of Christ’s rule, after that time if you are still following Satan and refuse to accept Christ, your soul is thrown into the lake of fire and it is destroyed completely, never to live again. This is what it says, really.
Having said that, I don’t believe God condems us. We condem ourselves when we embrace ignorance, the word SIN comes from the word separation, when we separate ourselves from GOD we choose to live in darkness, we are not choosing to live from our higher self.
Our awareness, our conciousness is how we align our thoughts with God.
You can pound a book on a pulpit from now to eternity and get nowhere or you can feel the spirit move within you, take your direction from within, live as Christ. Remember, Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is within.

Why anyone would want to put their faith in a God that tortures souls is beyond me???? Didn’t Jesus come to earth to teach love???? He’s probably out there saying “OY Vay! They still don’t know what they’re doing.”
I once attended a workshop run by an ex priest named Ron Roth. He said while listening to priests talk about hell, he would think about the silliness of thinking fire could hurt if one did not have a body.
Sheilah

My god is a god of LOVE, I need not say more.

I once wrote an essay on christian attitudes to other world religions. It was my attempt to explore to arguements offered by Christian doctrine. I found no logical or coherant reason to believe this and nothing in my experience has ever convinced me otherwise. If god came to me and said “Christianity is the only way my son” I would demand an explanation.
As for the much trumpeted “I am the way,the truth and the light. No one comes to the father except through me”, i interpret this by first asking “Who exactly is the “I” the Jesus speaks of here anyway? If he means himself, then how does he define himself? As the son of god? What does that mean? How is the son of god defined? Whatever way you look at it, Jesus must have ultimately defined himself by what he felt, what he though and how he behaved. So I take this passage to mean “My behaviour is the truth, the light and the way. No one comes to the father except through following my example”

Jesus was a spiritual being having a human experience, not a human being having a spiritual experience. When he said “No one cometh to the Father except through me,” he meant through his level of consciousness. The consciousness is impersonal and can be adopted by anyone.
Christ consciousness, enlightenment, Oneness with the Divine… they are one and the same.
Notice he also taught not to worship any false idols, which includes his human own form or body. His central message was to go within for that is where you find the kingdom of God.
There are many paths which will guide you towards going within and no one true path, nor is any one path better than another.
It seems his key misunderstanding was believing that Jesus was referring to himself as a person instead of Jesus the Christ, the enlightened one, the particular level of consciousness which is something anyone can reach. =)
Ariel

Oh Dearest Neale,
I just finished writing…what seemed like a million words…in response to your post. A bug landed on my laptop. I blew it away and must have accidently pressed “DELETE”. It was gone. It seems that perhaps, this was not the time to get carried away and share words of my deep, deep love for Jesus…who has been the LOVE OF MY LIFE since I was a very little girl!
I will try to keep the words to a “minimum”…as the rest of my Story…which us Truly HIStory…continues to unfold in my bookwriting.
In sharing my personal beliefs about being BORN AGAIN…
As I relect and contemplate on that thought, I begin by asking myself…AM I BORN AGAIN? AM I A BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN?
In my opinion, these are two very different things. I can tell you that I was, indeed, BORN AGAIN (this past March 13th) BUT having read your post and how you were approached by that health insurance rep, in this moment, I WOULD NEVER PROFESS to being a BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN. If that means I must put myself INTO A BOX and SPREAD FEAR among people that may already be “SCARED TO DEATH”…then I certainly won’t profess that I am. The world CAN BE a very scary place to those whose lives are based on FEAR.
On March 13th I WAS, INDEED, BORN AGAIN… I WAS BORN AGAIN INTO LOVE.
The LOVE that I was BORN INTO WAS GOD/LOVE. That was the day that I first Experienced BECOMING ONE WITH GOD. Incidently, I believe in a Triune God…Father, Son and Holy Spirit. ALL GOOD. ALL GOD. However, this Experience of BEING BORN AGAIN had nothing to do with being SAVED as you described above.
Some would say that I took the step…I turned my life and my will over to Jesus…I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. So I guess that might mean that I became a BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN.
Well, that CANNOT BE TRUE…because you see…I’VE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN JESUS CHRIST. He’s ALWAYS BEEN MY LORD AND SAVIOR, ever since I was a little girl. I was quite introverted and came to know Jesus as my
“very best friend”. I’ve always KNOWN that I BELONGED TO HIM…so none of that was NEW. It wasn’t that I took a NEW STEP. I guess, I actually, sort of STEPPED BACK for the first time in my life, OPENED MY HEART AND SOUL and ALLOWED MYSELF TO EXPERIENCE THE WONDER, THE GENTLENESS, THE BEAUTY OF JESUS’ LOVE. I came to Experience it, rather just knowing of It…for THE VERY FIRST TIME in my life.
As a “weird little God kid” I’ve always asked myself…WWJD? For me, WWJD was more than just a logo or a cute little phrase. It was TRULY the deepest desire of my heart…to know the answer to that question.
THE SIMPLICITY OF MY SELF-TALK and the DEEPEST DESIRE OF MY HEART led me deeper and deeper into HIM/LOVE. I always wanted TO BE like Jesus. To emulate Jesus. To remain in the Christ-Consciousness MOMENT BY MOMENT. That is the WONDER, the JOY, the FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE that Experiencing Jesus has brought into my human life experience.
I continue to ask myself…WWJD?
In reflection of the topic…BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN…and what you shared…I asked myself things that I already knew about my SWEET JESUS.
I asked…
Would the Jesus that so many have come to know and love…go around spreading FEAR among ANY HUMAN BEINGS? I think NOT.
Would the Jesus that allowed Himself to suffer and die on the Cross for the LOVE OF HIS BROTHER’S and SISTER’S (us) go around saying HEY, LOOK AT ME…I AM THE SON OF GOD…LOOK WHAT I AM DOING FOR THE LOVE OF YOU AND FOR MY FATHER? I think NOT.
Would the Jesus that healed, held, hoped and compassionately taught OTHERS of His Father’s GREAT LOVE for ALL, want me to think of His Father as ONE WHO WILL CONDEMN ME if I DON’T think of Him as THE “ONLY WAY” TO THE FATHER, Creator of ALL? I think NOT.
Would the Jesus that gave praise, honor and glory to the Natural World of His Father’s Creation, limit THAT LOVE only to a certain FEW people who call themselves BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS? I think NOT.
And what about Nature? And what about the Cosmos? What about the Universe? What about It ALL?
It seems that BECAUSE WE ARE PEOPLE we seem to put some kind of a LIMIT ON GOD’S LOVE, limiting it to people. But that is NOT my belief that God’s Love is limited only to human beings.
We seem to think alot about GOD AND PEOPLE and that is OKAY…it’s all OKAY! In the context of this post, we are speaking of PEOPLE…but god love ALL THINGS!
For some reason it seems that GOD HAS GIVEN ME VERY BIG EYES! I look around the World and I SEE ALL OF THE PEOPLE…all of US.
Within that vision, I see ALL OF THE FLOWERS IN GOD’S GARDEN OF PEOPLE! So many different varieties…so many colors…so many differences. But ALL ARE FLOWERS IN THE SAME GARDEN…God’s Garden of Life.
It is my most loving opinion and belief that YES, JESUS IS GOD. JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD AND JESUS IS OUR BROTHER. You and me, WE ARE ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST! Further, it my belief that Jesus was/is God who came to Earth as a real HUMAN BEING. HE CAME TO SHOW US HOW TO LIVE IN LOVE.
Yes ALL FOR THE HONOR AND GLORY OF HIS FATHER…OUR FATHER, the Creator of It ALL.
I believe that Jesus would simply tell us to LOVE ONE ANOTHER…with the greatest LOVE that we can muster up in our hearts. I am called to BE LOVE.
It seems that when I AM BEING LOVE…I am naturally being kind, being loving, being understanding. I then naturally listen to others. I naturally offer a hand and support for others on this same journey called Life.
How blessed we are to be ON THE SAME JOURNEY and possess personal freedom to Experience and Choose to walk OUR OWN individual spiritual Paths. EVERYONES PATH, EVERYONES BELIEFS about GOD and WHO GOD IS…IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. IT IS PERSONAL CHOICE. YOU have yours and I have mine. IT TRULY IS ALL GOOD…ALL GOD!
In this NOW moment, I AM BORN AGAIN. In a sense (innocense), I AM BORN AGAIN…FURTHER INTO CHRIST. I AM BORN AGAIN…further into the Christ Consciousness and that is where I WANT TO BE…forever. That is WHO I AM and THAT IS THE STORY MY ETERNAL TRUTH.
Blessings to ALL,
Ronni

what happened to all the souls before Jesus even existed? Did they all go to hell because Jesus wasn’t born yet? I doubt it!

As a kid, I argued with my uncle, a Catholic priest. There were so many things I couldn’t ‘take on faith’ because they didn’t make sense.
God is perfect. To believe that God would make illogical demands or impose ‘punishments’ is to misunderstand the Greatness of God.
Jesus taught forgiveness. Jesus is God.
God is more beautiful than we can even imagine. God gave us love, laughter, light, music, trees, happiness, friendship, five senses, families, song, gratitude, breath, flowers, ice, mountains, stars, sand, fish, kittens, morning dew, wind, and love, love, love.
Jesus said that none of us would be lost; there is one way to the Father, and that Jesus is that Way. But how silly to take those words and believe He demanded we had to discover the truth of Jesus while we were still alive! (Though life is so much better when you have faith in God).
All of us will be welcomed with perfect love, as everyone who has gone before us has. EVERYONE!

The title of this blog is deceiving. Jesus IS God, even if you’ve heard different.
It’s odd if you think about it. Jesus preached love and forgiveness, yet the bible also speaks of wrath, retribution, the ‘lake of fire’ and condemnation. It condones slavery, bigamy, drowning enemies, and hate.
God is perfect; beyond our understanding perfect. There is nothing that is not love in our beautiful, perfect God. No reason to fear, no commands, no favorites.
Jesus said none of us would be lost. None means none. Because there is one way to God, through Jesus the Christ, that is not to say we must learn the truth of Jesus while we are alive. Each of us will be welcomed with love beyond our imagining, as all who have gone before us have. Yea!

Jesus said, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to ‘the father’ except through me.” What he meant was that in order to come into the kingdom of heaven you must be and declare that you are the way, you are the life, and you are the truth. Be it. Just like when God is talking in your book about ressurection–Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and God said, ‘how else do you think he did it?’

“So now, let me ask you…do you believe all human beings who do not accept Christ as their personal savior — that means all Jews, all Muslims, all Buddhists, all members of any faith tradition other than Christianity — are going to hell and damnation?”
Ridiculous. Why would God create all these multitudes of people…just to burn them all in Hell because of what faith they were raised in?? I mean, good grief, most of these people know no other culture and it isn’t even their fault!
I hate religious fundamentalism.
“Do I need to be saved?”
I think the only place people need saving is here. For instance, due to having come up in the world with a mentally ill parent, I was ill-equipped to make good choices in life and now I’m stuck in a career I’m not happy in and am a bad fit for. Because of the high student loans I couldn’t afford health insurance, and now after two major surgeries, I have debt piled so high that unless a miracle happens, I’m going to spend my life paying creditors and end up poor and homeless in my old age. I need a way to pay this debt and save for a future doing work *I* chose, that *I* want, that I like, and that I’m a good fit for. But although I’ve worked and worked and worked and worked and prayed and prayed to God for help, there’s no way into the work I want. I need help, and none seems to be coming.
I know everything will be fine after I’m dead. But a lonely old age in danger-level poverty really doesn’t appeal. I’m not making a contribution to the world this way, and the situation is good for no one.
I need saving now.

Born again?–each of us is reborn every day–How? becuse we are evolving–Why? in order to grow. Is Jesus the way and only way for salvation?–only if that is your belief. Are there other ways to seek and know God?–yes, unless you limit and constrain your awareness of God in your effort to know him. Where do most people meet God and grasp the reality of his holiness?–in their unmet needs, in the dark nights of their soul. What about Hell?–Well, what about it?–the most important concept for us to hold is that of a living loving Creator, one we call God–that is the truth we seek.

hi neale,
i used to believe that when i don’t accept jesus as my savior i would go to hell. but thanks to you and other people i have met that told me things aren’t so. i’m glad to be free and i have embraced a new religion of love. i believe in the end that’s what really matters. whether you have loved your fellowomen/men. but i’ve been beaten by my mother for joining the activities of other denominations because for her it was totally sinful to do so especially if the whole family has been raised as catholics.
now, i love my goddess. all ways true, loving, kind, generous, greatest goddess i’ve ever known. she’s all LOVE

I find some humor, Neale, in that you did happen to invite a part time Christian minister over to your home… to discuss (primarily of course), ‘Long Term Health Care’. And that as part of your discussions (before getting down to business), you should find yourselves entering into a subject of ‘eternal damnation’ (or not). That couldn’t have been by accident, but then my experience has been that God does have a wicked sense of humor, as do I.
I have chosen to embrace a reality in which everything serves my continuing evolution in some form or another. If asked to look at whether I might be wrong about something, I would in turn ask myself, is there something about my perspective, or the rigidity in which I am holding onto it, that if released, would allow for my growth? I might be convinced that I have it ‘right’ and argue my case with another, or I might choose to embrace that we are both right and that there can be no wrong. Going to war over words puts me into a state of conflict within and I am able to appreciate far more being at peace.

What if the preacher is wrong?? I was raised Catholic and taught the the same Lines by nuns. I remember asking a nun ” what about the indians ”
She replied: they are going to hell. Then I asked myself, what about other religions and people born before Christ. Those questions started my drift away from any religion. I believe the CWG books show God as He truly is.
Have a great 4th
Bill

When Jesus said “I AM the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except through me.” I believe he was speaking from a high level of awareness that he could in fact declare that. Krishna, Gautama Buddha, Enoch, Babaji, Moses, Mohammad, Abraham, Yogananda, all the great saints of the world, and ANY ONE can declare this coming from a high level of awareness.
This reminds me of the wonderful story of the three blind men and the elephant. One grabs a leg and says “I perceive that the elephant is like a tree.” The second grabs the trunk and says “No, no the elephant is like a large hose.” The third grabs the tail and says “you’re both wrong. The elephant is like a rope.” Actually, all three men were right, but because they only had a portion of the truth they had an entirely wrong idea of the whole elephant. This is the way it is with us. That portion that we have is correct, but we as a people have an entirely wrong idea of what the whole elephant looks like. There are many paths that lead to God. We can be in the kingdom of Heaven right now if we choose.
Love to all.

In essence, major religions consider the earth as just a battleground for men’s souls between the devil and God. Only a few will go to God, their members. Outside their narrow fences, there’s no salvation. In effect, they have declared the devil as the overwhelming winner.
Essentially, I was taught that Jesus gave only two commandments: Love God… Then, love your neighbor as yourself. There are rules on how to comply with No. 1. Unless you follow these rules, you might as well forget about No. 2. You’re lost anyway. On the other hand, if you comply fully with No. 1 you can forget about No. 2. You’re already saved.
I think God will not condemn because his love is unconditional. How could She inflict any kind of pain on any of Her creations? She will never say: if you love Me, I will love you; if not, you’re damned. She wouldn’t mind at all if we don’t recognize her as the one true God because, we can’t add or detract anything from His Glory. We can’t rouse up Her anger or contempt. He has none. Obviously, He is not the God whom we created in our image and likeness.

Hi Neale,
Well, I’ve had this conversation many times! For every Bible qoute they give me, I could give one back to counter and it would just go round and round endlessly. THen you get called the devil b/c ‘even the devil used scripture to tempt Jesus. It is fear though, you are right about that. After all, who wants to go to hell or risk going there? But, one of the most common phrases in the New Testament is “Be not afraid”
The most rational and comforting retort to this fear is at the end of Matthew, the last judgement. Christ does not ask if you believed in him, or if you went to church on Sunday, or if you went to confession. He simply notes the truth. Did you feed me when I was hungry, clothe me when naked, visit me when sick? These are basic human needs and it is all the Judge Jesus requires in this final moment.

As a life long Baptist, a seminary trained minister, and a hospice chaplain, I have come to peaceful understanding of the constant fear message of fundamentalists. Jesus is the Savior of the World and everybody who ever lived, whether they believe in Him or not. The second the spirit leaves the body, if not seconds before, the presence of a loving God surrounds the “soul”.
We see Him face to face and finally understand the truth.. the ONLY way to see God is to die and everybody dies. Perfect love destroys all fear and religion.
If evangelicals really believe the Bible, they too must know that when “ALL bow and All confess the Jesus is Lord”, that means ALL.
I believe Rev. Jerry Falwell and George Carlin are having a laugh and a hug in heaven today.
When I left my paid church position, I first listened to CWG audio book 1.I had been told to never read it or I was in danger of hell.
The freedom I had always sought was the freedom of a loving God, not a bi-polar diety with a cash flow problem.
God bless you Neale. Carry on. I hope to meet you someday.

Neale;
I was looking for the Interview with God site (couldn’t remember the name) when I ran across your web site. I think of all of us who read what you think, God is more interested than anyone. What comes to my mind is this: Jesus did say none of us comes to the Father except through him. I don’t think we really understand Jesus and his thinking, because to put a spin on his words of either/or just doesn’t fit his character. When I was a kid I had picture on my bedroom wall: “What happened to your hand?” What: people in heaven who never knew Jesus died for them? But would it not be just like God to save a bunch from every faith just for the fun of listening to them argue religion? Well, if anything, this is helping open my understanding of Jesus and his Father, and they’re a duo well worth knowing.
Blessings -
John

As a life long Baptist, a seminary trained minister, and a hospice chaplain, I have come to peaceful understanding of the constant fear message of fundamentalists. Jesus is the Savior of the World and everybody who ever lived, whether they believe in Him or not. The second the spirit leaves the body, if not seconds before, the presence of a loving God surrounds the “soul”.
We see Him face to face and finally understand the truth.. the ONLY way to see God is to die and everybody dies. Perfect love destroys all fear and religion.
If evangelicals really believe the Bible, they too must know that when “ALL bow and All confess the Jesus is Lord”, that means ALL.
I believe Rev. Jerry Falwell and George Carlin are having a laugh and a hug in heaven today.
When I left my paid church position, I first listened to CWG audio book 1.I had been told to never read it or I was in danger of hell.
The freedom I had always sought was the freedom of a loving God, not a bi-polar diety with a cash flow problem.
God bless you Neale. Carry on. I hope to meet you someday.

No.

I must say that I agree with the majority of the posters here. I broke away from organized religion as I could not fathom a God who would condemn everyone and everything to an eternal damnation pre-”BC” and after. If God is as loving as the “christian” concept says why would we be subjected to an eternal hell? It just doesn’t add up to me. After reading a lot of books on different religions and Neales’ CWG too all doctrine is basically the same. Do unto others. Live your life in a kind way. Do no harm. These are the basics. God is truly universal, he/she has many names. Choose the name you are comfortable with. He/She doesn’t care. I like “supreme being”. I have seen the supreme beings works many times in my life. Go to hell? I believe these are fear tactics from fundamentalists with miniscule minds who are too afraid to contemplate any other possibilities. What if??? Thanks for the opportunity to post and to see that you still strive to have an open mind after all these years. Keep up the good works Neale! Opening up the possibilities to one mind at a time!

Every single comment (including my first one) in response to Neale’s challenging question is quite predictable.
Looks like we are just gonna have to die to find out what’s what.

I have recently been going to a metaphysics group that takes much of what the bible says, specifically Christ, and applies it to metaphysics. Fascinating class.
Christ said, “the kingdom of heaven lies within” So where would hell be? You are always where you are, so if haven is within, hell would be an external experience, and heaven would be an internal experience.
We are condemned externally when we shut off the internal experience. For our experience is impacted by what we believe, which impacts how we act ect (Neale’s cycles of creation).
Do I think God condemns us? Absolutely not, we can only be condemned based on our own ideas on it, and our own limitations of limiting what God is through the conditioning of what so many religions teach us about God. God simply is, anything you say after God is… is a limitation.
But to answer the questions specifically knowing that the word Christ means “anointed” we have to ask anointed by what?
My understanding is it means by the inner spiritual energy, the essence of what some may call the Holy Spirit.
To accept “Christ” literally would simply be to accept the inner spiritual experience and to live it. To deny this is “hell on earth” but it is by no means eternal, you have eternity to change your mind, and if you don’t that’s fine to. The beauty is that until you accept it, you don’t realize how bad it was, so it didn’t seem like hell on earth. It is the law of opposites in reverse, to know something as hell you must experience heaven. The same reason for God to know him/her/it-self it had to split itself apart and the limit it’s awareness.

I would never send anyone to eternal damnation. It therefore seems that I am more loving and compassionate than a God who does. This doesn’t make sense. God must therefore be the greatest love I can imagine, and this world must be the greatest world I could imagine – because God can certainly imagine what I can imagine, and God can certainly be as loving as me.

I’ve followed New Age beliefs most of my life but my life opened up astoundingly when I surrendered it to Jesus. In the metaphysical language that you use Neal, the sentence “only through Christ can you come to me,” is not about Jesus, literally, I don’t think. It’s that Jesus is a mystical portal to a God so vast we can’t comprehend Him. But to deeply understand what God is in our lives happens by SURRENDERING to him in the way that Jesus asks. You work through and in Him, not He works through you. Paul talks about this all the time. The problem with new age ideas is that they imply that the person is empowered with God, because He is a part of you. Now, those ideas seem all about the will and ego to me. Instead, I believe you are a part of Him, and that submission and surrender to God is the only way to completely experience Him. “Not my will, but thine.”

Of course god wont condemn them who arent christians

When I first read Conversations with God, I thought what a relief, for I never felt comfortable in the teachings/explanations. I don’t think that we were ever meant to worship Jesus as a lot of people do, but instead we were meant to follow God’s teaching that Jesus demonstrated. There have been many teachers sent by God, I think, and they didn’t stop with Jesus. Why? Because humanity has still not understood the message. No one is going to hell, nor does hell exist as a firey place.

What happened to the people B.C.?
I believe that Jesus was here to set an example of how to treat others and the world, ‘in a Godly’ manner, may be the best way I can put it. And I believe that ‘others’ wanted to stop that example, Jesus as a result set the ultimate example by truth being told and standing by that truth.
My Grandmother said that she was athiest, but I never knew her to miss church, didn’t matter what denomination. I believe she was agnostic, she never smoked, drank, didn’t curse, cared for all, never an unkind word (not that I heard), and she made little impact on the environment. At 90 yrs old she was babtized Jehovah Witness (sp?) and she ask if I was upset. I told her that where her heart leads she must follow but I will ask why.
She told me that she chose this religion because it was closed to what she lived as a child during the depression and it is where she was comfortable, but out of her fear she felt she had to make a decision. She also told me that they would rather not go door to door but this is how Jesus did it, so they to must ‘do their leg work’. I say this because she urged me to not turn them away but to speak my own truth and ask questions. My family was upset though, due to things that were given(?suposedly) to them by her that were actually to go to her deceased husbands family. (this we do not believe she would have done)
I now make it a practice to ask question, engage! Guess what, IT WORKS!! No matter the religion, no matter if family or stranger, 9 out of 10 times they are either speechless, asking questions of their own or we have a really great conversation.
Could ‘through Jesus’ mean by and through his example? Are you willing to set the example he set, stand up for truth, for what you believe, and stand for those who cannot for themselves?
Just a note, the religions in my immeadate family include:
Roman Catholic
Jehovah Witness
Christian
Agnostic
New Age
Morman
Babtist
Protestant (only know to me as ‘in protest of catholic chruch)
Spiritualist (Me — All paths lead to the same universal pool)
Most in my family agree on one point and that is when you die, you graduate and we like to make it a celebration. Then the living must go on with life, often remembering what we were gifted by the person when reflecting in conversation.
So I would like to know why in their differences they are so passionate, when on the simularities they cannot agree and why do so many passionately religious people treat others the way they do. All religions, I thought, speak of service and deeds toward others don’t they? All religions want the best for others or just their tribes?
Ok Neale, there’s my 2cents worth. I told my son once, I don’t believe (if you believe it’s a being) God is missing an ear, fingers, or any other parts because he sent them to hell. How can you remain whole if your missing parts? My boys now grown will tell you one thing, their not athiests! Agnostics maybe, but they believe all is possible and do not FEAR being wrong.

Hi Neale,
This is a great point you have made. The bible saying, “No one cometh to the Father except through me.” The me is the I within each one of us. The bible is greatly misinterpreted. Joe Vitale recommended to read Neville Goddard once for topics around the bible. Neville was a devoted christian and a metaphysical teacher.
If you get a chance please read his 14 page lecture at the link below, so next time when you go to get your health insurance you can maybe help expand your friend’s awareness.
http://realneville.com/pdf/at_your_command.pdf
Regards,
Ash

Once Saved by Faith of Jesus blood shed for us~~All Christians are considered as soldiers for Christ here on this earth. We are all responsible in a loving way to bring the lost people that don’t know of Jesus to be saved.
The bible is inspired by GOD which means he touched the men who wrote the bible. He gave them the thoughts and done what God told them to write. This bible is accurate and more real than people believe. Look at the bible with new eye’s and as the bible says challenge God. Give a tithe to him each week from your check which is putting God first in your life and all these things shall be added unto you; and see what he does. Read your bible daily and see him talk in your soul. Pray to him and he shall answer your prayers. Make a prayer journal so you can see them being answered and remember.
God loves his people but if they don’t love him and turn from God. God will turn from them and send them to hell. Christians are called to live a life of righteousness and be a new creature to live for Jesus out of love. To not return to their old ways. God will send missionaries to those outer countries to teach and preach the bible before the end days of his return. So everyone has a chance to make their own decision heaven or hell. That is why our church needs our tithes to send these people and save their soles.
May God Bless you!

What you seem to talk around is that it will be those who have a chance to hear God’s word, to know God’s plan for salvation and then reject Christ that will go to hell…NOT those who have never had the chance to hear or know. Just as a child who dies before the age of accountability or the child who is aborted, God gives mercy to those who never had the opportunity to accept Christ. Buddist, Muslims and others HAVE that opportunity and they reject God’s word. It is only in the rejection of Christ that one is condemmed.

Just keep loving.
No judgment.
No fear.
Just love.

When I think of religions I think of a mass of people who have not experienced something and take the word of a few people. then those few people are in control because they “know whats best ” for the mass. I believe that everyone should experience life for themselves and then see what they believe and not take someone elses words for it. Those institutions need the masses to blindly believe them in order to function thats why they oppose other religions or even worse those who want to experience for themselves(the atheist). please respond. the question that should be discussed is why do the mass not want to experience for themselves why do they want to sleep walk through life and be told what to think and how to think especially if “GOD” is in all of us we do have the ability but the “MASSES ” chooses not to.
tim14621

I have just read through a lotof the responses and I felt a recognizable theme. That is that most don’t believe that all others will be condemned if they aren’t a specifc religion. I was brought up in a baptist house, was forced to go to church early on but later I just did’t go. one reason is that the Bible we read thats so sacred was “edited” or CHANGED TO SOMETHING THAT BENEFITTED THOSE IN POWER” or WAS CHANGED SO THAT THE WORDS CAN MANIPULATE COMMON FOLKS” into believing what ever they wanted. Does anyone ever wonder about that? should that concern people that a tool or a book that powerful was manipulated and contorted and all these years later you want me to take this book and live by it word for word without experiencing these things for myself in 2008? I agree ther eare some great messages in the bible and even then people who have an angle will “lose sight ” on things from the bible that counter their own argument. they will quote something else from the bible that aids in their argument or side. this is all very interesting thank you for listening and I am an advocate for everyone to WAKE UP and find “god or whoever or Whatever you believe in; find that divine presence in yourself and this world will benefit from it.

When I read the question, one that has been asked many a time in my life as well…mostly by myself…what if I’m wrong about the information I’m receiving…what if I’m wrong to walk away from religion, what if I’m wrong about God?
My peace with it comes from within, comes from spirit…and from God if you will…that if I’m wrong to live my lifes journey, learning and sharing the Love that is within my soul, and apply it to my life, meeting each person and each situation with as much of my love and compation that I am able to, and this is not the right way…then I don’t want to know that God.
When I see the amount of fear that is within religion, and how that fear translates into the world…I simply want nothing to do with it…life is hard enough without a God that I must fear.
So if I’m wrong, I’m ok with that…because to live this life in a state of absolute fear of damnation isn’t living, so I choose to live a life where I can indeed find and live within Love.
Just a small portion of my take on Life.
Peace/Love…..Shannon

It’s interesting since I live in a rural bible belt and have observed that with out exception any religous comments never mention Jesus but almost always goes into revelations and a occasional mention of father Abraham. It does have me scratching my head since they profess they are christian. Needless to say I don”t ever discuss by spiritual path.
Love
Richard

TO GET TO HEAVEN, YOU MUST BELIEVE IN THE HOLY TRINITY THAT GOD, JESEUS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT ARE THE SAME ENITY BUT IN DIFFERENT FORMS. YES YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT JESUS AS YOUR CHRIST IN ORDER TO GET TO GOD AND HEAVEN AND TO ACCEPT THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A GIFT FROM GOD AND JESUS TO BE WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES HELPING YOU TO BE A GOOD CHRISTIAN.NOT ONLY DID JESUS SAY HE WAS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD, HE SAID WHEN YOU PRAY, PRAY IN HIS NAME TO GOD.BECAUSE THIS IS TRUE, WE MUST TRY TO EDUCATE OTHERS WHO DONT BELEIVE THIS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE AWARE OF IT BUT MUSY ALSO BRING THE WORD TO THOSE WHO DONT KNOW ABOUT JESUS.
WHITECLOUD

I perhaps would say: “Well, my friend, if I’m wrong I’ll take the risk and am glad to accept the consequences. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reflect on my beliefs. . . .”

Neale,
It’s the classic “fear of loss” sales technique that I learned in my early twenties…”If you don’t buy now, then it will never be available at this price again.” Sound familiar? Apparently, this insurance salesman has implemented this sales pitch into his view of Who God Is and What He Wants. Is this really how God has chosen to welcome us? Fear? I don’t believe that for a second. Is God really dangling a carrot stick in front of us? Geesh! Most views that people have about God are “learned”. Their society determines their religious thinking even though most won’t admit it. To develop an opinion outside of what is considered acceptable by those around us leads to ostracism. The view the insurance guy has of God today is not the same view people had 2500 years ago and I’m thinking it may even be different 2500 years from now. He would be in the minority 2500 years ago and looked on as an outcast. That’s too dangerous for him. As for the Bible, Job said things about who he thought God was. David said things about who he thought God was. Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and even Jesus had their views of God. I have mine. We are all welcomed by God with open arms at all times.

I think it would be good to share my story with you. I had been always deeply connected with God, but too very believing in Christianity and its faith to revengeful God. So I went to study theology. My purpose there was to reconnect all faiths together, and I remember when I was
saying – maybe it will be done, otherwise I will go mad.
First year was very hard for me, because I didn’t understand anything, what they were saying – but I was Christian faith, he he. All was in doubts…nothing for sure…I was just listening to doubts, what are heresies and so on. And I got my classmates that were all in some kind of Christian orders. And of course they were picking on me. When we went through subject called new age, it became even worse. Now it was strange that I was listening to new age music, that I like it. Again there were represented just questions if this is religion of Satan etc.
One night I had very strange dreams, they seemed so real. I was in my bathroom in which were broken pipes. There were my classmates and I was embarrassed because of that so I went to repair them, that they wouldn’t see that. When I was repairing them, some man appeared in it and I asked him, if he will help me to repair the pipes. And he said he will and he got the key to my house and that he got a message from God to me. Then I was asking him, if he is dead. And my brother appeared in room to. And he answered that he is and he is doing a good deeds, that he is an angel or “sel” ( I don’t know how do you spell that in English). And then he said, that God’s message is: “ I cannot go to Rome again with you.” I said, I really was in Rome once for real and twice in my dreams, but I I didn’t really understand what God was trying to say to me. Angel said to look at his eyes that he could see my dreams, and I did that.
What was next was a sound of explosion like in breaking of the sound wall, then entering into dark, black place through the top of my head (through my chakras), then one future event in my class, than again darkness and exit at the top of my head again. When I was in dreams again some force knocked me on a floor. And I remember my brother telling me that he was just looking at my dreams. But I was so shocked that I woke up.
That was very interesting to me, I had some very weird dreams, but not like that…and they were so real. That was interesting.
I just remember that my problem there was not even knowing, how you can describe God…for me it was very usual, very natural to talk to Myself and listen to a heart, but who is that God that they know…I didn’t know that God. And I just wanted to know him.
Later, I think for several months I had a dreams, when dead priest appeared, with whom I was very big friend. He was such a heart, always showing how much he love me, if others were picking on me, he just said, why I am special to him and so on. But he didn’t agree with nothing that was not Christian. Once was on some religious radio a song: Let gods hear…and he said, that he suggested to the radio, that they don’t play it.
Well one day he just died between taking a shower in a bathroom. I didn’t morn, because I knew, he is in a good place now. After two months from his dead he appeared in my dreams having a conversation with me. He came down in escort of two angels, who had wings like two separated parts of fire…yellow at a bottom and orange at the top…priest was in white and purple color, wearing the same thing as by a worship of holy body in monstrance.
When angels touched the floor, they changed into boy and a girl. Boy was not speaking, but girl did pretty much. I gave her a cookie but she said that it has no use to her…but she take it anyway.
The priest said that I can ask him whatever I want and quickly, because he doesn’t have much time. And to my surprise I asked him if reincarnation exists. Then a girl asked him what this is and he answered to her and then to me. He said, that it does and that they sent them to earth many times and that this is proved to be very useful in long run. Then I asked him if we reincarnate many times at the same time ( I don’t follow myself right now, because I don’t know, what kind of question this is), and a priest (Martin) said that in Slovenia are reincarnated 5 from 10 possible inhabitants , in world 5 from 15 and that I know, how it is if you send 16 of them into 15 possible.
Then he moved to my mom and told her, that big changes are coming into my life. And I said: “just like astrologers are saying” – and he was sitting all the time in joga position!!! He said, that I’m hiding something in my spirit and don’t want to come out and that I won’t end the study because I won’t do one of the subjects and that’s because of wanton and to much stress on knowledge, but that this (being a spiritual consultant) is what I will do in my life.
That was the end of second very real dreams that lasted for 5 minutes as he said it would.
I spoke of these dreams to one of my classmates and he asked me the same as you, Neal: what if that was a devil? What if you shouldn’t listen to it? And doubts got me. I just wanted to be a good Christian from that moment on. But something in my heart died..I was sure that I am doing the right thing to condemn myself and to go under judging Christian God. But it wasn’t a right way.
One day I went to a healer and he helped me to heal my heart, but doubts were still in me. So I went to one of Christian forums and I describe everything what was going on between me and healer…and again I fall. Because I believed that their interpretation of a Bible was right and that if I don’t repent I will go straight to hell. He he, we have some sense of humor, don’t we…I don’t know, why I was so afraid of that place, really…this Christian hell…and Jesus even tough about unconditional love that God had for us, khm…and we believe in hell. Great!
And my spirit was out of order then. I was in a middle of a crisis, really. So I went to Medjugorje and through inner feeling, when I looked at Jesus Christ in Oasis of peace, nailed on the cross all bloody with all of my faith, this peace came to me – room was filled with peace that was so bright, that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. And then God told me (through body senses), that I am Christ, that I am Jesus and that I am going through crucifixion. I was just saying I must be mad to think like this. That Jesus is very much holier and brighter than me. He he. But feeling stayed the same. When I walk out from this church, I suddenly felled like I am a gift for this place. And by a cross I felt like Mary. Very interesting, again.
And then I had even dreams with you Neal – several times you were bringing me to peace in my dreams. Once you offer me my body to communicate with God – you placed your thumb to the point in a middle of my eyes and then in a dark I was speaking with God.
Well, all this just because we cannot sense, that God is our inner energy and the self is in that energy, who is very bright white light.
Nobody can be saved otherwise but through me…that means that when we don’t have clean spirit, the only way we can heal it, that it is white again is through forgiveness and mercy, that Jesus (“God has healed”) represent to us. And if we feel unconditional love to everything and everyone, and unconditionally loved by God, that nothing (of course) is wrong with us. All is love and happiness. Everything that is not in that is wrong path we are taking, because love is beyond words, it is peace in us.
Love and peace,
Teja

Oops…a mistake: Once you offer me YOUR body to communicate with God!
sorry for my english, but i’m trying, hehe!
Bye,
Teja

I have a “born again” brother who is worried about my soul, too. We were raised Roman Catholic, but he “found Jesus” in a moment of deep despair. Ever since then, he is my brother, the preacher. At a family reunion a couple years ago, he had me in tears as he was berating me and insisting that the “We Are All One” concept and the New Spirituality beliefs I explained to him were basically the work of Satan (or something to that effect) and that I would go to Hell if I didn’t accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior (or something like that).
What I have come to realize is that otherwise rational people at all levels of education have a set of blinders on when it comes to religion. And yes, it is based on fear. Because if they were to question any of it(the Bible and all its stories), then their faith-view of life and the afterworld, their safety net, would all come tumbling down and shatter like Humpty Dumpty. And then what?
I used to AGONIZE over finding the RIGHT God, the TRUE God, the absolute TRUTH when it came to faith, but it was only because I was worried about the insurance man’s question, “but what if [I am] wrong?” I wanted a God/spirituality that could help me get through this life, but I was worried about the afterlife as my final test of what the Truth was.
After reading and praying and asking and dreaming and meditating and basically begging “God” for a sign, an answer, and after being bitterly disappointed in the realization that people have been LYING to me all my life about this religion crap (forgive me!), the answer I got was a sort of calm “knowing” in my heart and in my being that none of the lies were true and that everything will be okay. And that a lot of what Neale and others describe in their books is a lot closer to the Truth. What a relief.
Now, I don’t yet have a “knowing” about what really will happen the moment I die and for all eternity after that, but at least I am fairly certain there won’t be any Fires of Hell. I still wish for knowledge of the Truth and all that. But would I even belief it if it was set right in front of me? I entertain all the New Thought ideas and try to believe and put to use what I have learned, but being trapped here in this body on planet Earth and watching all the crazy humans (myself included) do their crazy human things makes it difficult some days.
Thank God (whatever that means!) for people like Neale Donald Walsch, who had the courage to question everything.
As far as my mental picture of God is concerned, It would be a sort of Universe-sized, all-permeating, all-enveloping Spirit that threads Us and Everything all together. And while It is in the Process of Creating Itself, it is learning what feels good and what doesn’t. What hurts and what heals. What’s important and what is expendable.
Over time, there have been those Great Humans who have tapped into this Spirit Source of Knowledge and transcribed their findings for the rest of us to read. And along the way, some other humans have diluted, embellished, and rewritten this knowledge to suit their own quests for power. (Maybe some of the Great Humans did that as well, to their own message, whether on purpose or because they were transcribing it through their own human filter. I think Neale talks about that in some of his books.) They also added a heaping scoop of fear to make sure the rest of us would follow.
Or–maybe the insurance salesman is right, and I’m wrong. I’d LOVE to talk to somebody on the other side to find out. I just hope there is an “other side.” But if not, well, then when I die I’ll just disappear and won’t know about it anyway. I think that’s the other reason people want to believe all this stuff. It’s because we have such a yearning instinct to live, and the thought of life ending when we die is just too much. It’s the Ego that is so afraid to let go.
Okay, I’ll stop now. I could go on and on and on because–and it’s the reason I’m here, reading this blog and responding–I’m am generally CONSUMED with this subject nowadays.
Peace to all.

I’ve been fighting with this issue within me since I started reading your books. Sometimes I would wake up and think you know what, maybe I should just do it this way (Muslim) because even if i’m wrong no harm no foul right? But if I take the other path (the grandest vision i’ve ever held about myself), there is a chance that I could be wrong and end up in hell. But I just find such contentment in this way of looking at God, that even if I went back, it would not be sincere in the very least.
I love God and I know that God loves me, I do not have to earn God’s love nor do I have to fight for it. Anyone that tells me otherwise- their opinion is wrong for me. It has taken me a while to get to this point, but I just ask myself, why would God want me to come to God through fear?
There’s this Sufi poet who once ran through the streets with a pail of water in one hand and a torch in the other, when asked why she replied: I go to put out the flames of Hell and set fire to heaven. And then she went on to say, Oh God if I come to you through fear of the hell fire than toss me in it and if I come to you for the sake of Heaven then banish me from it, But if I come to you because of my love for You, embrace me within it…

What really matters is not how we find God but that we find God.
The question is not whether we believe God, the question is whether we know about God.If we really knew what God wants and who God is, we would never think that non-christians, non-muslims etc would go to hell.How come can one think that God doesn’t love a person who does not belong to a specific religion. God created all of us. Again, God created all of us. This, alone, proves that God loves all of us. We do not believe God because somebody says He exists. We believe God because of whatever we can see when we look… It does not matter how we find Him.
And Neale, Dear Friend (this is how you call us:)) I totally agree with you…
I find God when I look into myself.
Love from Turkey.

Hi Neale
I wonder why you and many other new age writers don’t write and quote Islam. Islam by translation means “Surrender to the divine” and it is the only religion that has 5 meditations per day keeping you always with a very beautiful state of mind.
When one meditate once per day even for an hour or more, between two meditations many things arises and change in the self. When the meditation happens in the course of the whole day, it keeps one connected to this Divine spirit, the oneness in all things..
Salam (Peace)

I was raised in the Baptist church and as a teenager, chose to go 3 times per week. I was completely emersed in God. But I was raised in fear in my disfunctional home and raised in fear in the fundalmentalist church. The Bible left me asking so many questions that it could not answer. As an intelligent person, I find the Bible to be very contradicting and must be “interpreted”. My opinion now is that religion was used to rule people in early centuries and used today by judgemental people.
I believe Jesus wanted us to follow his teachings, not him. I don’t see most Christians being Christ-like. They live in fear, not love.
Neale, I found your inspired books to answer most of my questions that I had since childhood. My opinion is that if our relationship with God feels real and brings us inner peace, if it inspires us to be non-judgemental and more loving, and if it causes us to actually witness miracles in our lives due to our attitudes, then we are on to something ‘real’.
Thank you for not being afraid to constantly allow dialogue regarding your beliefs.
Kathy

Hello Neale.
Thank-you for asking…
You and I, and all of the members of Humanity’s Team who have incarnated on this planet at this time, have already been ‘saved’. This we know.
It was imperative that in this lifetime it occurred this way, instead of at our time of ‘death’, so that we could speak our truth and help educate others about the New Spirituality.
We know that when we cross over the only one judging us is us- and a judgment it is not- we will just evaluate and feel how others felt in our presence and behavior, so that we may choose our lessons for our next step of the journey.
God is not our authority. We are. He/she just lovingly helps oversee our higher self/soul purpose if/when we surrender ourselves to this truth.
We are blessed. Thank-you for continuing to have the courage to be one of the first to speak up- rest assured, many of us are waiting in the wings to follow.
Bless-you,
Wendy Mewhort

I have always taken great comfort in the presence of god. I have always felt loved and caressed by God. He/She will not leave me to my own defenses, I am not capable of running my life…. God knows this, I am never left alone. I know this to be true because I know this to be true. KAT

As a person growing up as a Jewish minority in a town that was predominantly Catholic/Christian I know how it feels to be questioned about my beliefs (or lack of…) I can remember two incidents: One time when I was in coll the brother of a friend of mine, who had just become a Born Again Christian, called me to suggest that I convert to Christianity because the end-times were near and that I would be suffering with the rest of humanity while all the Christians were whisked away when the Messiah returned. That did put some serious fear in me for a while.
The second incident that happened was a discussion with my sophomore roommate who had become a Pentecostal minister that year. She is a wonderful person who I like a lot. I can remember several times when she would come back to the room speaking in tongues after church. One day she asked me, in all sincerity and concern, if I would like to become a follower of Jesus Christ so that I can follow him to heaven and avoid the fires of hell. If I remember the conversation correctly, Jesus loves me and that’s why he’s giving me the choice of heaven versus eternal damnation. I thanked her for her concern but said that if I were to become a Christian it would be out of love for Jesus/God and not out of fear. To me it sounded like an insurance policy. And that insurance policy is one that was written by the Mob.
I don’t believe that prophets of any religion had that in mind. Moses, when he left Egypt brought along many people of other faiths who did not want to be slaves. And from what I can understand of Christ’s lessons was that he welcomed people to follow his example in living, not to worship him as THE son of God. Mohammed did not want Christians and Jews condemned. He respected other faiths as coming from God.
I know this is long but I felt strongly about this and am happy to have a place to speak. I don’t believe any one religion has the answers. God created the Universe and everything in it. By narrowing worship of that Creator to one religion we make God very, very small and that is not possible.

who is Jesus? What does christianity mean? I do not understand a single word what you are saying.. I can read write and speak English.. but yet I cannot comprehend a single line beyond my limited understanding. I really would love to .. but i still am unable to . Does that mean I shall still be condemned?
Till now I have experienced immense joy within my heart. till now I have been feeling safe. Till now I have been feeling worthy of being alive. Till now I have been feeling it is okay to fall down and get up. But now you are scaring me with the someone named as Jesus. Am I supoosed to suffocate myself to fearfull thoughts of hell and condemnation. I am totally disturbed now. Now I feel very insecure. Now I feel totally lost. Now I feel as if I need to keep having someone to constantly keep an eye on all what I am doing and that jitters me out of my natural state of mind. It makes me do right things at wrong moments. wrong desicions at right moments. Now I have completely lost it. Please help!
This is answer I would give to someone who scares us by the name of GOD.
God/source/soul-conscious/Jesus/Budha/Allah/Paramatma…. for me all are wonderful aspects of the same intention we all are knowingly or unknowingly relating to in oneness!!

When we die, the soul moves (spirit) moves
on to another life. But the will , body, and heart are stuck here. They do
not move at the same rate of speed as the spirit. So the spirit is off on
another level living an adventure and learning, but the other three parts of
myself are stuck here without this learning. So when the soul decides to
reincarnate and have another adventure it comes to earth with this amnesia.
The soul at least has some new knowledge, the other three parts do not. So
we keep reinventing the tire. Does not make sense to me. I caan even
understand that a lot of info has been given in other books, and may not
have to be repeated, but sometimes the connection between the two gets lost
without some co;nnecting link. Since we live here in this body, and it is
we that are feeling this intense life, I think our input to God should be
very important to the evolution of the soul.I like thye CWG books, but it is
almost like too mucch intellectual, and not enough connection to the
emotional to implement the knowledge. Make any sense. Owen

You are correct. FEAR is the key. Love casts out all fear. Without FEAR the fundamentalist argument falls apart. Bless you Neale.

Having been a Charismatic Born Again Minster Myself, I was De-Converted, in a word I just grew up.
Christianity is really a religion created out of fear and ego from the outside to in. Thinking that God is external, Christians have really created a God in our own Image and pass down from generation to generation. Then we decided that a set of text that we put together into a Bible was THE Word of God, thus solidifying our Fate to the God we created. We took something Deep and made it shallow and called it Deep.
I think its foolish and Childish that coming to God means coming through Jesus. But Get enough people to believe it or your version of it, will in most cases create a Institution built on Dogma.

Jamaica calling…thank you NDW for your books, ideas and feelings wedded to experience…
‘how could there be such a thing given the great diversity of life?’ is my usual response when dealing with this…was a good Catholic thru high school here in Jamaica, then began to question while at Catholic college in the US…since then your books and other experiences have helped me clarify much especially my pull between emotion and reason…with [Holmes'] Science of Mind plus all the other information out there in the last 20 to 30 years available to me, that ‘pull’ is no longer a problem…
living in an extremely violent yet fundamentalist/Christian country there’s no opening for many to even conceive ‘salvation’ without Jesus, much less no hell and devil…and even tho’ there are days and nights when fear niggles at me, I KNOW that there is so much more than we are sure of…
it does all come down to what we believe, and most people believe the childhood ideas/ rules for far too long without questioning from the place of their experience…and too the validation of their beliefs seem so often to come from emotion instead of a place of reason w/ emotion…
still have to get my copy of Happier Than God but I look for your blog every day here..
again thank you and keep on keeping on!

Hey there Neale,
First of all let me say that when it comes to 2 topics (religion and politics), many people can get real heated up discussing about their disagreements, and hence we get tonnes of opinions. What I’m writing here is not essentially a negative or positive comment. It’s the truthful observations that I make.
My simple two cents is this
Most people sense of themselves are built around their beliefs and values… when we start talking about something that threatens their beliefs, what happens is that their sense of self is being threatened, in other words their ego is threatened. People who have genuinely found Jesus and have their life turned around – their lives and sense of self is totally dependent on Jesus aka the Bible, the church, the Christian family. It’s indeed a crushing blow to anyone whose entire life and self-identity has been rooted in Christ, to hear others talk that maybe Christ is not the only way. So in the end, if we’re honest.. what is crushed? Jesus and his glory or God’s Sovereignity? Absolutely not! Will God be any lesser that I don’t choose His Jesus and end up in hell? Absolutely not. Ppl who profess that they stand up for God and God’s principle, what are they really standing up for? Look at it honestly – Themselves.. not God. Since when does God need us to stand up for him? And oh – we always hear the phrase – ‘serve God’. Since when does God need or want to be served? And if I don’t serve Him the way He expects me to (via Jesus / church/Blblical teaching) will He be sad or angry? It’s amazing how we can make God so human and so petty.
It’s the ego of the believer who’s crushed. His belief is challenged, it’s threatened. Hence, the debate, discussion, anger, resentment, fear, worry, hostility, and a very basic sense of belief that “There’s something wrong with me and everyone else and only Christ can fix it”.
If we’re honest, we can see that this belief creates a chasm between humanity – creates a “Us (children of God)” vs “Them (children of Devil)” mentality. In all honesty – whenever I converse or relate with most Christian esp born-again spirit-filled Christians, or fundamentalist.. I can sense this mentality from them.
Does it irk me? Nope. Just aroused my curiousity and start to think – why does this fella want me to embrace what he embraces? What makes him want this so much?
By the way – the same principle applies to people of all faiths – not just Christians. Also – I’m not disputing that Jesus may really be the way and the truth. That’s irrelevant here. I’m merely stating the mental and emotional state of believers of whatever faiths and why most people as a whole seem to be so vehemently wired into our own faiths and blind ourselves to other possibilities. Neither do I mean this as a negative connotation towards Christians.. it’s not a challenge to your faith or God. – I don’t think God can be challenged in anyway. haha. Often it’s the ego of God’s followers that are challenged. Like Peter and his indignant respond, but Jesus was totally calm and unperturbed.
Neale – “Love gives all and requires nothing” truly resonates with my heart.. I feel the truth in my very core. Thank you.

Dear Neale,
I happened upon this thread when I am going through a strange period in my life.
All of the CWG books are familiar to me, and for some time I tried to apply the principles to my life. During that time I felt free and happy.
Recently I have tried to return to my RC faith, out of respect for my mum who recently died, but I no longer feel at home in that church. I have come to believe that we are all connected, brothers and sisters, despite religion, race or language.
Now I feel ostracised, if I don’t conform and follow the rules I face damnation and certainly won’t see my parents when I die.
I am a loving, caring person, I practice holisitic therapies which are frowned upon by the church. I am curious about other religions and wat to learn about all sorts of things, but the church disapproves.
At the moment I feel I am going out of my mind.
What do I do?
Gill

No one has mentioned the fact that Jesus is the Atonement. He wasn’t just a good man who taught love. He died for our sins and then 3 days later rose from the dead.
People died for this cause. The disciples were tortured mercilessly for what? A lie? Would you stand up and be tortured for a lie? These people KNEW who Jesus was.
Jesus was sent so that we could be forgiven. My belief is not based on fear, it’s based on gratitude. I believe Jesus is exactly who He said He was. Faith is what it all boils down to. Believing without proof. Jesus said the others were blessed because they did not need the proof that Thomas needed.
Jesus’ purpose was to save us. We had become so separated from God through sin and God being The Supreme can not associate with sin. But He loves us and wants us to know Him and the only way was to create an Atonement. Personally I think it’s magnificent.
We are supposed to worry about our own soul’s salvation, so there is really no point in arguing one belief over another. Either you believe or you don’t. I wouldn’t risk eternity myself. I am not missing one blessed thing by what I believe, as a matter of fact, peace eluded me until I finally opened my eyes to the truth.
Neale, you are a very intelligent man. I’m sure you have read the Bible. I’m sure if you are conversing with God that you are aware of Christ’s role for humanity. You must be careful as Satan is very intelligent as well and uses many tricks to pull people away from God. We are told to test the spirits to see if they are of God or not.
I loved your books! Especially the first CWG. There are 2 things that don’t sit well with MY soul though 1)That Christ was not the Messiah and 2)That we will not stand in judgement. But I am ok with judgement. I’m content that God knows I am doing the best that I can with what I know. And every day I learn something new. I am growing spiritually on a minute by minute basis. Blind faith is what I have and I am so thankful and so joyful and completely content with that. I am so blessed.
Christ died for me, there is no greater a sacrifice and that figures in the plan as well. Why did it have to be so gruesome? Why did he suffer so? He replaced sin (the vile, disgusting acts and thoughts that humans take such pleasure in). He did this willingly for me and for all. Choose to accept it or not. It’s not worth the risk to me. I don’t dare claim to have the answers of the great mysteries of God, but when we cease to exist in human form I believe that it will all become crystal clear. I want to hear those words “well done, my good and faithful servant”. And someone said why would God need servants? Well if He created everything doesn’t that give Him the right to call the shots? I’m just surprised that no one responded with Jesus’ purpose. Some take up for Him, but no one seems to really get the whole reason behind Jesus’ ministry. And with regard to those before Jesus and those who don’t ever hear of Jesus I agree with an earlier post: God is not some mega-tyrant he is merciful. Jesus is the truth, the way, the life (not a human to be worshipped, a spirit of love and light-a way of life). It’s not about the man. He had to come in man’s form so that we could understand. You must believe in supernatural things and most people don’t. My advice to anyone who is searching for peace: research some near death experience websites, read your Bible, pray a lot and ask God to show you the truth (and test it) and don’t ever take someone else’s word about scripture. Discern it for yourself. Man has a way of twisting scripture to suit his own agenda.
You are a fortunate man Neale that God has chosen you. If you are comfortable with that, why are you questioning any of it? Wasn’t God’s word to you enough? I respect you very much and even mentioned you in my newly published book because I think so highly of you and like I said I loved many of your books. So don’t think I am insulting you in any way, I’m just curious why you care what any of us think when you have access to God Himself?
With great love and respect,
Terry
P.S. Here is my link for the book I mentioned: http://www.freewebs.com/doesgodadvocatethesecret

Hello Neale,
Wow! Great question! The longer I live the LESS I know! I am in the process of rereading your books.(would you believe that I gave them away 2 years ago and then, suddenly, 2 weeks ago, I was compelled to buy them and REALLY read them.) Wonderful, freeing, awesome GOD that we are ALL part of !!
It is my viewpoint that religion and spirituality are completely separate. Religion desperately hangs on to its’ age-old beliefs while spirituality is PROGRESSIVE and there are many teachers in the same GODHEAD, Jesus, Buddah, Krishna, Mohammed, Bahahullah, etc.
A God who would give us free will, then punish us for exercising it, is a man -made god capable of temper tantrums as exhibited in the Bible. That is a HUMAN trait, not a very God-like trait. I am of the opinion(and hope) that there are going to be some earth shattering occurrences in this century that will rock religions on their foundations and forever change man’s concept of GOD and man’s concept of his destiny.
Hell is the boogie man held over our heads to get us to comply with man-made church doctrine. Heaven is the lollipop held out to us in a tantalizing fashion to keep us from really living the heaven in this existence that we so richly deserve, as beings who are part of God NOW! Our whole purpose as stated in your books, Neale, is to RE-REMEMBER who we are and that is that we are those subdivisions of God that HE talks about. All we need to do is get re-connected(actually we already are, we just aren’t conscious of it at this time in our evolution).
I have felt a great change in my perception already as a result of reading Book One(I have the new gift-edition of all 3) and a feeling of hope, love and joy and the knowledge that God is the great warmth in my being. He is within and I don’t have to look for HIM anymore, outside of myself. HE IS HERE and EVERYWHERE in the universe. He truly is the Great I AM and I AM NOT.
Thank God for progressive revelation! Open your spiritual eyes, people!! THat the ‘blind’ may see and the ‘deaf’ may hear.
Thanks, Neale, for the gift GOD gave you to share with all of us. I also loved the movie”Conversations With God” about your life leading up to the writing of the books with the actor,Henry Czerny playing you.
Sincerely,
Melanie

I saw you’ r movie last night, Conversations with God. I cried all the way. I was profoudly tuch by your own experience, I did not read your book yet, like I did not read the Bible yet. And I don’ t now if I will read the bible one day, but I will read your book because I just reserve it at the public library this morning.
I beleive in Life, in God, but not the one that religious try to proclaim as the right one. ( Sorry for my bad english I’ m french women, so try to be open about my syntaxe)…I respect Jesus a lot, has I respect spiritual men and women who leave their life with a spiritual soul. I respect boudhist philosophie, Indouhism one to and Christianism to as long has they don’ t try to keep us in ignorance.
Life, God, give us liberty. That’ s a great responsability. A lot of human being don’ t now wath it’ s mean, to be responsable for our life. God give us everything to be happy on heart. Everything.
Human being have problems with life, with death. They say they beleive but they don’ t. They use god to justify wars, poverty,violence agains childs and womens,discrimination between man and women, death, sickness, etc…( just think about the president Buch, who encourage wars, and he proclame that he beleive in God) Human being blame God for it, or they use God for making money, buy stuff they don’t realy need, instead of sharing and be angry againts violence, child abuse, or the power of the international économy how keeps countries in famines, violences and povrety…
That’ s not come from God, that’ s come from us who let those things happen. It’ s our choice. We are free to choose but we are not free to do all the things we want to do, because her own choice have an impact on others, as we like it or not. Individualist those not help to create a world of peace and love as God and life give us.
We create a materialist world that money became the God, without money we are nothing. Life his free. Human being need to heat, drink wather, have a place to live and sleep. Human being need to love, share , be love and give life. Today our world deceide if a human being doest not have money , this human being don’ t deserve to eat, to have a home to leave, and this human being don’ t deserve love, because without money nobody want’ s you in you’r life. If your pour it’ s your problem, if your sick it’ s your own problem to.
So we do the same thing with life after death, we deceide who can go in heaven and how can not go. We see God, Life with competition thought, with mental thought…God , it’ s not a picture, it’ s not a mental thing, either a fountain of material things. God it’ s life, it’ s freedom , but freedom in love, in sharing, in caring for all the human soul who deserve to eat, to love, to have a place for living in dignity and die in dignity to.
Religious makes wars in the name of God, discrimination between men and women still, child abuse, and keep people in afraid of death and God. Religious keep people in ignorance, comdamne sexuality to.
I beleive in God , in his love and I’ m beleive that there’ s bad people around us to, people who serve Satan, the darkness instead of ligtness, because darkness give more power to human being than lightness. When we serve lightness we need less things in our life, we care about other’ s and we are not afraid of death. When we serve darkness it’ s because we are afraid of death, afraid of Love and we don’ t wan’ t share, and we don’ t car about other’ s. That’ s the vision of our capitalist and money world.
I could say more but my english is not good as my french…
Praying, beleive, and trust..living the present time…and be free…

I wish I knew the answer to this question. I recently went to a slide show in my son-in-law’s and daughter’s church. He had returned from a mission trip to China and was showing pictures of his trip. He made the point over and over that all the people we were seeing on the screen were going to Hell because they didn’t know Jesus. I have such a hard time believeing this. Only God knows the answer to this question. How will we ever know? I know what the scriptures say and for me my faith is that my belief in Jesus and by his grace I hope to get to heaven. But I could never condem someone else to hell for not agreeing with me. My prayer is that there is a path for everyone to go to heaven who believes and want to have a life after death

REASON NUMBER 47 Why I’m Going To HELL…
NOT believing Jesus is the only way to heaven…that pretty much punches your one way ticket in just about every Christian circle.
Being a gay male… is reason enough in some cirles.
Long before I read CWG, (even as a child) I couldn’t believe
a loving God would damn EVERYONE who didn’t follow the Bible to the letter. It took me much longer to not feel damned for being gay (29 years).
I believe Christ’s message was Love, not fear. But until we actually feel the voice of God… saying something like, “yes, you are gay,” as I did, or “even Hitler went to Heaven,” as Neale did, fear will cause us to run or hide from the truth.
The love of God is the only thing that can overcome fear. From experience, I know God does not damn us, even as we are damning ourselves (with societie’s help of course).
Mark

Saved? From what? From some horrid place that, like us, is a creation of our Divine Source? So it’s a set-up of sorts? Just because we need to be tested, to prove something to God? He needs the validation, does he? All his ducks in a row, so to speak.
Are we to believe God, who loves us dearly, set this whole system up just to test our loyalty and goodness? No, wait, it has nothing to do with being good…it’s all to do with making the right choice. Sort of like a game show. While it makes things very uncomplicated, it’s not very imaginative for a Source who’s been known to do some pretty awesome things…
I don’t believe God needs anything from us, especially not some kind of blind loyalty. We’re meant to live joyfully, not fearfully, and I’m certain I’ll be able to do that without some religious authority telling me exactly what to do.
I’ll never understand the human need to basically negate great bunches of their family in order to define themselves as right or true. Black and white makes for easier coloring, I guess, but God created a multi-colored Universe. Thanks, God.

Wait….Jesus, another child of God, like me, has the capability, now that he is no longer in human-be-ing physical form, to “save” ME; my soul. And God sent him to us because…..he could not forgive us himself and needed someone else to do it? And forgive us for what? What are we being given exactly? I forgive people all the time, yet can still be angry with them. If Jesus forgives me, and God is still mad, do I still “go” to “hell”. Is it me, or do we always need a negative to distract us from the positive? Some would call this the devil. The name itself contains EVIL (d-evil). On the flip side, other side of the coin, what have you, reverse the letters and we LIVE, and LIVE-D.
Back to my soul: some believe our very own soul chooses this bodily form, with this particular family, to “learn” a particular lesson, or to have a type of experience…..that we forget who we really are. For-Get. Hmmm. GETTING to who we really are. AND somewhere I’ve read, “life is not for-getting, it’s for-giving” Once my soul leaves this earthly plane, would I not also re-member who I really am, and then no longer be in need of another soul (Jesus) to save my HUMAN mis-takes. And what is a mis-take? Do I get to re-act it out for the director of my movie? What if I have a compulsive disorder and I have difficulty stopping myself, no matter how hard I try? Does it really matter what the thing was that I did? REALLY?! If I forgot what my soul wanted (which was just the experience in the first place), and God gave us free will and CHOICE, then I really am nothing other than a child waiting to be punished, but if the favorite child forgives me (my big brother Jesus) then Dad will be ok with me too. Where’s mom? Oh, yea, she’s human with the rest of us.
I like the aspects about Jesus as an example of HOW to go abot accomplishing unconditional love right here on earth, as humanly possible. What keeps any of us from being a Messiah? The BELIEF that there is ONLY one, HE has already been here on earth, and that it’s im-possible to perform miracles. Wait…that really just read I’m-possible. Maybe That’s “magic”, a trick to the eye, because seeing is believing?? What if none of this is real anyway? What if all of this IS wrong? What if all of this is just a dream, we wake up, and there was NO concept of a God, a bible, a man named Jesus never existed. I’ve never actually ever thought of that one until just now.
I was trying to lead to the concept of Messiahs, in various forms…just that unconditional “loving-kindness”, genuine concern for other’s well-be-ing….does that qualify enough to be a Messiah, to want to help bring someone to their highest joy (sorry to bring up a different author, but a book that grabbed me years ago was “Illusions” by Richard Bach, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusions_(novel) ), let go of their “negative” We are made up of electical components too…I lean more towards each of us being a piece of the “collective” (Collective Soul, like each of us being a neuron in the brain/mind of “God”, all interacting with each other, working out this thing called the world/universe/heaven/hell) I’m nearing the end of my dream now, reading the beginning of Genesis, how there’s reference to an “us” and “we” before the “world” was created…….. I look up and see that I am in a mason jar; a child is looking in at me, telling me a set of rules so that HIS little world will run right…then I hear a louder voice behind him, calling him, “God, put your latest project and creation away now, it’s time for bed” I wonder if he later grew up to be a “king” and “ruled” “over” another “world” and there were other “lords” to be in competition with?

Discalimer : I grew up in a Hindu family upbringing.
I was taught that all religions are but ways that humans devised to control one another, that in their true essence, all of them were quite like different paths converging at the same point – God. Dad used to say – if you keep jumping one from one path to the other, you’re never going to get to the end of any – pick one and stick to it and then in the same breath he would add, I wonder if that is yet another form of control…..If God is the grandest aspiration of humankind, it is inconceivable that what your friend said has any iota of truth……..

Even reading you write is like listening to you, all though I have never heard your voice. I cannot answer this that you ask just yet, as I am only on Page 137 of book 1. Though it would be nice to believe as you do, and I am trying, trying every day….I still find myself asking myself “What if this whole book is wrong?” I mean what an amazing concept to be truly loved by God no matter what we have done and to no longer fear the vengful God most of us have grown up with!
But I am going to do what God says and read these books until I know them so well I can quote them effortlessly. And I just wanted to say thank you for what your book has already given me and thank you in advance for what I am sure is to come. Sorry I cannot join your circle, I am still a struggling college student! LOL (Someday)

“I need to look at this again. Do I need to be saved?”

Why do you need to doubt on this? The answer is simple NO.

And anyone else is entitled to his or her opinion.

Let them follow the feelings.

Dear God in me, in you, in US,
Wherever You are…
Whoever You are…
Whatever You mean to EACH ONE OF US…
THANK YOU “CREATOR” OF ALL THAT IS…FOR BEING HERE NOW…IN THIS PRECIOUS MOMENT…IN THIS PRECIOUS GOD SPACE.
It seems that our voices are all speaking different languages.
Dear God, allow us to KNOW that IT IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for that to occur…NOW AND FOREVER…BEING LOVE.
Cover us GOD with Your Unending Love. Allow that LOVE to, once and for ALL, PUT AN END TO THE FEAR.
I’ve read everyone’s post and, in this moment, I don’t know what else I can share, other than MY PRAYERS for US…one and all.
In God’s Peace,
Ronese

Hi.
This is exactly what bothers me…I was a member of this really modern Christian church and I thought they were pretty progressive, until I found out how they feel about gays. I’m not gay, but I have many gay friends and family members that I embrace. If I ever wanted to invite them to my chosen “house of worship”, I wanted them to feel beyond ‘accepted’…I wanted them to feel embraced there, too. I love our diversity – wouldn’t God as well???

When we truly and deeply follow Jesus, we see that he is all about love, compassion and forgiveness. When we surrender our false self (ego, pride, shame, fear) we can then become like Jesus. That is truly when we will know God and the image we are ALL created in.
After 9/11 and my husband called me to tell me that “there was an attack on the World Trade Center and all of our guys are dead” The only place I could go to was on my knees and for the very first time, I surrendered myself to God. I gave up control of things I never really had control of. I felt God’s love deep within me. I knew at that moment of surrender a peace I had never felt before. We are ALL created in the image of God. Jesus is a path for us to get there. We have so much to do here on earth and we need to let go of our darkness within so that the light of God will shine through.
With deep compassion to all of you, Tammy

*Om Compassion
Oh Dearest Tammy,
Thank you for your post.
Though my heart was not directly touched by 9/11, your post touched me deeply.
Your words reminded me of a song called CARRY THE LIGHT by Mark Harris. If you put “Carry The Light YOUTUBE Mark Harris” into your search engine, you will find the most BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE TO 9/11.
Also, the melody and lyrics are WONDERFUL too. An inspirational song that reminds us ALL to CARRY THE LIGHT!
In God’s Peace and Love,
Ronni xo

Jesus was jewish, does it mean if he did not accept himself as the savior he went to hell, No of course he did not go to hell. The more you think,or feel about it, “fundamentalism” the less it makes sense. Maybe the devil has the hard core Christians fooled, what then? Cwg says mine is not the way only a way, God bless all very deeply religious and people, for their way is a way. I will choose the the way where there is love for all not just me and my kind.

Neale,
If you believe that you will be condemned to hell, then of course you will be and if you don’t you won’t – you (God) told me that I choose to listen to you as your words reflect what is in my heart, rather than some religion that has never felt right to me, or made much sense and seems to be more about control, money and power than anything else. Although I do listen to myself the most and disagree with a few things you say – which I know you encourage, rather than tell me I will burn in hell for!
I am so grateful to you Neale, never in a million, billion, trillion years are you going anywhere but sweet heaven and I look forward to seeing you there
With much love,
Claire xx

There is nothing anyone needs to be saved from (except possibly Christian fundamentalism). There’s no hell, no Satan. Satan is the “boogie man” for religious people.

I, as a Catholic Christian, don’t believe that every single person who does not profess Jesus Christ as Lord will absolutely go to hell (though many may through willful ignorance; there may be some culpability for those who obstinately refuse to believe.) The forseeable problem with the ‘what if you’re wrong’ theory is that there is always someone with a different take or theology who thinks that their’s is the only way to nirvana, Heaven, etc. Even were you to accept Jesus as your Lord and Personal Savior, which version would you accept? [there are just about as many versions as there are believers who ever lived; ie, different interpretations of his central message(s).] One very popular and controversial pastor interprets the phrase ‘As long as you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me’ to be refering to the ethnic (Hebrew) brethren of Christ. Therefore if we don’t financially support Israel, we (the goats) will be separated from the sheep and spend an eternity in a lake of everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. What if someone comes along and tells me that if I don’t accept DeCat Stevens as my Lord and Personal Savior (I know he changed his name when he converted to Islam) I’ll spend eternity in Hell? I can say that I accept Jesus, and he can pose the question “Well, what if you’re wrong?” Now personally, I choose to take my chances with Jesus (Praise the Lord!!); but one would have to think that there’s a more genuine method of evangelization.
On somewhat of a different note, Neale, I find you to be a rather insightful man and do agree with you on several different aspects of spirituality (while disagreeing with you on several others, clinging to some of the same old ideas about God.) Some of the ancient doctrines and creeds that have survived throughout the millenia do have there place with millions of believers; were you to ask them many would probably tell you they actually strengthen their understanding of and personal relationship with the Divine.
Your blog after the sudden passings of Tim Russert and George Carlin brought tears to my eyes. I must confess that when your blog first came out I thought to myself “Oh brother; just what the world needs, some more ‘New Age’ crap. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to keep reading and found more similarity between us than I first though possible. Haven’t bought any of your books yet; guess I’ll keep waiting to see if God tells me to do so in one of our many conversations to come. This is something that just occured to me; you refer to you’re dialogue with Divinity as a single, ongoing conversation you’re in the middle of. Maybe mine is too and I just keep tuning in and out, giving an illusion of many different conversations. Hmmmmm

Neale….what you have tapped into is far beyond all Earthly Religions. Not one of them is “better” than the other….just different “skits” with different “costumes” at different “times”

I know this to be true, that there are many pathways to God and Heaven, not just through CHristianity (although that is what I grew up with) but many other religions, styles and beliefs. SOmeone asked do aethiests go to Heaven. My sister and brother-in-law are very hardworking people with all their heart in all the right places, but who do not believe in God. I believe that God will welcome them to Heaven and God’s place; they will just learn about the Lord a little later than some people, but obviously right “on time”!

hi , neale..
I am a former catholic , now a Unitarian..
I love the Divine in whatever form He/She chooses to manifest Himself/Herself .In Jesus , In Buddha , in Krishna , in her Goddess aspect . This Divine Being loves us all equally, deeply, truly, regardless ..I agree with you that the Christian Religion has turned from a religion of love to a religion of fear..I think this is very sad.
A Fundamentalist Christian once attended our service and delivered a sermon on Truth . Sadly , the sermon on Truth is based on his version of the truth.We are all very polite but I know we are all cringing in our seats the entire time.
I have a nagging suspicion that if Jesus comes today , he won’t be attending a Christian Church .And , No I don’t believe Jesus will condemn anybody to hell .It’s just not in his nature which I believe to be LOVE..

Oh my God…
This is too cool! Happy that we are still hanging around.
Reflections on INDEPENDENCE DAY weekend…
Finding FREEDOM within…
Within the context of all of these precious posts for your wonderful, comtemplative question..the answer to your question, Neale, came to me early this morning and with utmost clarity.
God is a Supreme Being.
Beyond the concepts of each of our individual perceptions of Whoever, Wherever, Whatever…God IS…lies THE ONE GREAT ETERNAL TRUTH.
GOD IS LOVE. LOVE IS GOD. GOD/LOVE.
Oh Neale, I can imagine what you felt when that rep (in all sincerity of heart) asked you…deeply…WHAT IF YOU’RE WRONG? I would have been taken by that too.
However, in THIS moment, I have come to understand that to simply be…THE FEAR FACTOR…that is SO prevelant in our world. And in THIS moment, it means nothing to me.
This is how I see it…
GOD IS SOMEWHERE OUT THERE or IN THERE or I AM (as I am learning) ACTUALLY GOD (Innocense…)
Oh my GOD! This is SO AMAZING!
Well, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things this weekend. Thank you, dearest Neale for the push. It was EXACTLY what my soul needed.
I am changed…
However, ONE thing DIDN’T change.
I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT GOD IS LOVE. It seems since I was 4 years old. I don’t know HOW I knew…I just did…so in accordance with what I’ve always KNOWN…I just went about my life acting accordingly.
GOD LOVE’S LOVE…
GOD’S LOVE is Plain and Simple LOVE…
GOD’S LOVE is PURE LOVE.
And GOD KNOWS WHERE THAT LOVE lies within us ALL. He knows.
GOD SEES RIGHT TO THE CORE OF OUR BEING…God IS the CORE OF OUR BEING.
In THIS Holy Moment…
I AM LOVE…
I AM…
I.
In closing, I just want you to know that this whole 4th of July Celebration…THE LONG HOLIDAY WEEKEND…has taken me to the HIGHEST POINT Of MY WONDERFUL, EXCITING SPIRITUAL JOURNEY.
THIS COLLECTION OF NOW MOMENTS has created the MOST WONDERFUL, GREATEST SPIRITUAL AWAKENING OF MY LIFE!
You have helped to bring me OUT of me.
And Neale, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT IS GETTING READY TO COME OUT!
My spiritual mentor once told me (though I never believed it) that GOD WAS GOING TO DO GREAT THINGS WITH ME…it seems that today I believe he was right.
In The Greatest Peace and Love…
Love Always,
Ronese/Ronni/Alice xo

Jesus and God are all about love. Man however came up with the dark side of everything on his own.

God said it, “The world is full of sleepwalkers.” That seems to be the only reason a discussion like this would exist.

Neal…
I almost didn’t open up the comments section to this posting for fear of having my blood pressure skyrocket. I was sure there would be a flood of arrogant, self-righteous responses that were discourteous and critical of you and your beliefs – I am always amazed at how mean and judgemental many “Christians” can be!
But, to my amazement, there was a plethera of responses that reflected an open-hearted, open-minded attitude about this issue. It made my spirit smile. I am a Christian pastor, and I certainly do not adhere to the christocentric outlook that permeates so much of the ultra-conservative/fundamentalist religous agenda. I CHOOSE to look to Jesus as MY guide and teacher who, in MY opinion, best embodies (incarnation!) the essence of God for ME.
I often wonder if Jesus ever intended for things to turn out the way they did in regard to what he started. I’m not entirely convinced that he wanted the spotlight focused on him. He spent his entire ministry trying to focus it on God. Deep in my soul I sense that Jesus’ heart has been saddened because of what we “Christians” have done “in his name,” and how we have used him to manipulate and control others in order to tame our own fears and insecurities.
Through Jesus, I have had my own “Conversations with God,” and truly believe that you have discovered the “kingdom” he spoke of.

Hi, dear Neal and dear friends.
I felt in love with you when I saw you in the Secret movie, when you so simply answered to the most important question of my life (there’s no blackboard in the sky with your name written … do you remember? it was so sweet, so heart-opening, I really don’t have the words for describe it). After that, I bought your Happier than God, and I know, I know, I’m sure, you are totally RIGHT.
Since I was a kid I knew they (priests, teachers, books) were wrong, I was nine-years-old when I asked my teacher at school: what if I am in heaven and see my beloved brother and parents in hell? how could I be happy?
The priest told me, you will be happy because you know that is right, it’s God’s justice… but he didn’t convince me, And now I know why, God is bigger and larger and greater than a single man’s mind, because He is as large and big and great than the whole Umankind, and so every color, every taste, every smell, every opinion, every religion and word and music, black and white, dark and light, all of these thing are In God, and So Be It.
Thank you, with great love
P.S. Apologize for my imperfect English…

Thank you all for your heartfelt and honest feelings. Jesus lived his life as a spiritual being, without his ego/false self getting in his way. I believe religion was never meant to divide us. That could not have been God’s plan. The Bible is full of myths, parables and metaphors which may not be true on the outside, but are profoundly true on the inside. I starting wondering just a few months ago why the Bible opens up with a grownup Adam and Eve. Why not as children?
I kept my mind open for a possible answer. Honestly – two days later I am on Beliefnet.com and the Daily Bible Verse was Matthew 18.2 – “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The Bible is all about love and forgiveness. It takes courage to look within ourselves and admit our mistakes and yet when we do, forgiveness comes. First for ourselves and then for others. Compassion is very close behind. I don’t want to ever forget that I am here to make this world a better place. I simply cannot do that if I am locked in fear and not pure love.
Also, Ronni – thank you for your very heartfelt comment to me about my 9/11 experience. You are so precious.
With love to all – Tammy

For what purpose would God have to condemn us to hell? It would be like condemning oneself to hell. I love Jesus with all of my heart, and believe him to have been an avatar who used his physical incarnation to manifest GodSelf. I believe that he indeed performed miracles like walking on water. I also believe there is no such thing as death and that Jesus is a living thing–alive today–whose essence is capable of moving through us right here, right now. Jesus taught these things I can do, you can do also.
Created in God’s image, we are given the tools to rise ourselves up.
Herein is what I believe God wants from us–nothing more than for us to experience the glory ourselves of being God, nothing more than to experience ourselves using the power of free will and choice to create into being the most joyous and grandest vision ever we held of ourselves.
It is a holographic universe–a heavenly house of One Mind. Our lives are God’s dreams. We are God dreaming God into physicality what we choose to experience.
How high do we want to soar?
Our experience of God is whatever we imagine it to be. If we choose to imagine God as separate and vengeful then a fear based reality will then become our experience of God. If we choose to see ourselves in unity with God who is all-loving and non-judgemental and compassionate then these will become our experience of God on earth as it is in heaven.
The best part is God is illimitable, forever changing, forever expanding and there is no end to what dreams may come.
Love God. Love Us. Sweet Dreams to All
Love and Peace,
Michelle

I personally don’t think that It might be so norrow minded …
There are more than ONE JESUS if we keep in prospect the differente geographical areas of the world.
Accept the Christ and you might enter to my Fathers house…, might mind something alse behond its gramathical meaning … .
Now, there is also the issues of ages; what happen with those Native Americcanas that died in the pits of the Spanish Inquicition, or their own Gods….? Are their souls comdemed any ways ….?

1 Corinthians 1 v 18 – 23
Isaiah 40 v 8
And Finally for Believers/Saints: Hebrews 10 v 39

Belief = Perception = Response = Reality. I truly believe that if we live and experience life according to our beliefs, then we will experience “death” according to our beliefs as well. Traditional Judeo Christians will see Jesus, or God. Others will see Allah, others a bright light. Who is to say there is not a “re-adjustment period” after death so that consciousness can re-align itself with the greater BE-ing that we are all a part of (I say this while understanding fully that time and space do not exist outside of the physical realm).
If we are in God and of God, and God is love, then how is it possible to even consider the idea of Hell? It purely and simply cannot exist in the afterlife – unless we have some semblance of conscious choice after this lifetime. In my experience Hell is that place I go to mentally when I am separated from All That Is, or Life itself. Since the idea of separation from Life/God is an illusion, then I have to say Hell is an Illusion as well.
One of the best definitions of fear that I have ever heard is “contemplation of a situation in which you believe you cannot cope”.
Indeed, the thought of eternal damnation and burning in some mythical hellfires for all of eternity brings up every thought of powerlessness I have ever entertained. However, I have been in many “threatening” situations in my life, such as car accidents and being held up at gunpoint, and felt no fear IN THE MOMENT when dealing with them. It wasn’t until the CONTEMPLATION of the situation afterwards that I actually felt the fear. It usually came on the heels of “OMG, what if . . . (this would have happened or that would have been different)”. The same goes for contemplation of a situation before it occurs.
What I have learned from experience is that fear is a veil. It is one of those golden opportunities that Neale talks about when discussing the Law of Opposites. When firewalking for the first time, I faced and felt every fear for survival I had ever felt before stepping onto the coals. After crossing them, all of the energy of the fear immediately transformed to joy. I was “high on life” for years afterwards.
To contemplate the idea of Hell is to consider a situation where one is completely ‘out of control’ (you believe you cannot cope). To believe in the idea of hell is to let fear rule you. Fear as a motivator is not my preference for living a joyful life. . .

Hi Neale. While the “hell or the highway” approach to relationship with God is prevalent in many Christian sects, there are those that don’t impose such a narrow view of the path. Thank God. Otherwise, I couldn’t call myself a Christian (and there are many that would question my qualifications I have, as you have, noticed that some people’s profession of faith has as much to do with fear of God as it does with being in relationship with God. I don’t have definitive answers. I’m OK with that.
Denise

I was raised in Christianity all of my life. I now see how my life was controlled by fear and how much of my life was robbed by that. It was an extremely huge thing in my life when I could no longer stand to silence the questions that burdened my heart for years. I chose to risk damnation (if indeed there were any) rather than follow something that didn’t make sense, out of fear. Although people who had previously valued my views and called me “Sister” suddenly turned on me and called me a heretic and claimed that “I never was saved at all”, now I have a relationship with God that is based on the absolute belief that HE IS LOVE (just like the Bible says) and not that He has a need to eternally punish anyone. At best, I might convince myself that people who commit murderous, violent or harmful acts deserve to be punished, but why for all of eternity? Wouldn’t a compassionate God merely make them cease to exist, thus removing the scourge? What’s with this angry for all eternity blasphemy? And the most inconceivable thing of all to me is: if God expects us to make such a life or death decision like our eternal harm… then why would he make it such a gamble? The more compassionate thing for a “Loving” God to do would be to make it a choice that is crystal clear “Do this or die”… and not have it thrown into a mix of so many other viable choices. For Christians, the choice seems clear but for a Jew, for example, to become a Christian would be a clearcut case of disobedience and idolatry. A Buddhist, A Hindu, A Muslim, A Jew (for example)…. all of these religions have morals and compassion and many of the same values as Christians… all of these would agree with Jesus’ message to love God, self and others. So the idea that God would say those who didn’t pick the longest straw out of the bunch of options (pretty confusing when you approach it unbiased) are eternally damned… that seems purely ‘evil’. The fallacy in Christianity is that other religions are blinded or evil. But many people are seeking God and goodness just the same as Christians. If God knows the heart of humanity (as the Bible says) then God COULD NOT send anyone to hell for following their heart and seeking truth instead of following something simply out of fear. It would be God’s fault for writing a test that was impossible to pass unless you were lucky, why punish someone for that? And why reward people who fearfully follow something they don’t really believe? I would rather risk hell to find God with all of my heart than follow something because I’m told to… Isn’t GOD SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE???? Here I am God, believing the BEST about you and about me… I am at peace, so be it.

Unless you’re the first person since Jesus to be perfect… yep, you need to be saved. Hopefully out of love and respect and desire to be in a relationship with God. But the approach and question posed seems backwards to me. Who is rejecting who if you don’t believe what Jesus said about himself – who he is and why he came? We all have choices to make about what we believe is true and what sources we trust to communicate that to us. Of course, God is the one to judge our hearts, motives and actions. That’s not my role or responsibility. At the same time, it doesn’t make sense to me to believe that every religious option gets you to the place in the end.

Will Jesus or God condemn us? Great question, but why are you asking people to vote?
Have you considered examining what God or Jesus have said? If someone wants to know what I will do, they should ask me. They don’t need to take a poll.
Because I believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, I look there. Obviously, if one does not believe the Bible to be inspired they might look elsewhere. Choose your source, if you believe there is one.
My question boils down to this: how can one determine the will of God? If it is by popular vote, then “God” is no more than an opinion poll. What can “He” offer if “He” is no more than a poll?
Polls do not determine the will of God. They determine the will or beliefs of those polled.
The author has placed his readers on a pointless path. In the end, he will not be able to say what God will do unless he searches His statements.
The author can only tell us what he prefers. That may or may not be “pleasant”, but it will not be meaningful, authoritative, or certain.

One additional thought… I’ve read a lot of the comments mentioning love and God being a God of love as the central factor, therefore God couldn’t and wouldn’t condemn anyone to hell or damnation (whatever those terms mean). But I wonder how you incorporate the justice aspect of love. Love isn’t love if it ignores or excuses wrong doing without consequences. That’s not what we do with our children (hopefully) and not what I believe God does with us.

If you believe the Bible,and accept it as truth,then that’s how you measure it’s truth agianst what other doctrines say.
everyone pretty much believe Jesus did walk this earth and peformed mircales,did good works.than why would he all the sudden be a lier, when he says that he and God are one in the same,and if you believe in my death on the cross and resurraction you will go to heaven,and that I AM the savior the only one.
If you believe that to be truth than that’s it.You don,t pick up another religion and think oh this can be truth as well ,then that would make the bible and the truth to be a lie.Think about it?

Hi .. just saw your blog and I’m in London but I’ve lived in many different places and met many kinds of people. I am also an ex-christian because from a young age (in the Baptist church),one of the main ways of getting people to become christians was the fear factor. There was also a lot of love too (especially when you were ‘new’) but the fear of hell sure got a lot of people to become christians mixed with their love for God. Then as I became older and moved around in different christian churches that were not Baptist, I noticed the same theme but under no circumstances am I saying that most christian churches are like this but there are quite a few. The hell factor and love for God is still a main theme for becoming a christian – this is not good.
I knew deep down in my heart that fear itself is evil and placing any kind of fear into anyone for any reason at all is evil. These genuine christians may not realise they are using an UNGODLY way to get people into the church because they are so eager for people to ‘find the truth’ but they use it nevertheless. This was one of the reasons I had to leave because sooner or later using ‘fear of hellfire’ to bring people to God backfires. And those who joined out of fear and love start to realise that they are not that much in love with God at all it’s only the FEAR and the need to belong that keeps them there…and this is how you get lukewarm churches.
As for myself – I know that GOD is everwhere, in me…around me…everywhere…and I am happy. True love between man and God does not need to focus on the fires of hell.
When the human spirit..the spirit that is inside every man and woman regardless of where they live or what language they speak …comes to GOD freely without fear.. it is real and it lasts forever. Whether you live in Japan, the Middle East, Australia, England, America, The Netherlands, China etc … the human soul has a need to connect to GOD who is UNIVERSAL and responds to that need for ONENESS.
You see… God belongs to No One …not christians, not buddhists, not muslims, not anyone. So no one religion can be the ONE WAY to God because GOD is not a possession. God is UNIVERSAL and open for all men regardless of how men attain this oneness. I have seen GOD in the eyes of muslims, in the eyes of christians, in the eyes of buddhists and in the eyes of those who are aware of their connection to God but do not belong to any religion.
If we try to control GOD … which is what religion in some cases is trying to do – the world will be lost. You cannot prescribe any chosen religion or pathway for those who seek GOD. Religion is just a symbol – a statement that says we are seeking God in togetherness – Once we get rid of our self importance and understand that we are all a part of GOD… hope will be found.
Those are my thoughts…

No, God will not condemn us. It is enough that we reap the consequences of our actions.
He did not drown the men, women and children who are not of Noah. He just ordered rain to fall for forty days and forty nights. He did not burn Sodom and Gomorrah after sparing Lot and two daughters. He just let loose a kind of volcanic eruption that buried or burnt the cursed place. He did not drown the Egyptians who were chasing Moses’ group across a sea. The Egyptians drowned themselves, including their horses, for going against the chosen people. The Hebrews always win battles because God is with them. Well… not always. Depending on His mood, He also allows their slaughter by their enemies. Some people insist that there’s no Ten Commandments in the Bible. It turns our that they are saying that Christianity is teaching a set of Commandments, other than the one found in the Bible. Reason? Unedited, the Bible version is too lengthy and cannot withstand close scrutiny.
So much for the Old Testament. Who is Jesus? Mt. 1:20 says of Mary “… She has conceived by the Holy Spirit…” Is the Holy Spirit and God the Father one and the same entity? Isn’t Jesus himself part of the Trinity? Evangelists traced Jesus’ roots. All arrived at Joseph. Why him, not Mary? Jesus said, my Father in Heaven do not live in man made temples. Why did he drove away people who were doing business by a temple? So much capital is made of Jesus sacrifice on the cross by people who believe that he brought Lazarus back to life. How could anything ever hurt him? Wasn’t it all for show, perhaps?
The Master taught only two commandments: Love God… and Love your neighbor as yourself. Christianity set up varying rules for complying with No. 1. Unless you pass this test, you might as well forget No. 2. You’re damned anyway. On the other hand, if you pass No. 1, forget about No. 2. You’re already saved.
I’m sorry that I had to pass on questions that bothered me for years, until I read the CwG books. I thank Neale for showing me that I was never alone. Will never be.

I guess I’m not smart enough to figure out this vast universe and all its mysteries like so many here. So I’ll heed the words of its creator Jesus like Simon Peter did in John 6:68. Many of Jesus’ deciples deserted him because he said something that offended them, and Jesus asked Simon of he was going to split too, he said “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life”.

mmm what brings me here? I was searching thru’ the net for some information of what I wish to write in my blog, suddenly brought me here when I wanted to write something about what I had believed all my years of life. My parents taught me about taoism, my childhood friends showed me a glimpse into Hinduism, my school showed me the way thru’ christ a for short while, my business into Thailand brought me to Buddhism and my quarrel with my wife brought me to buy a book called – conversation with GOD. – that was some 7 years ago. What a colorful life hehe… or some may say what a mess.hehe..
Your book has brought comfort and peace to me… it has brought a new way of thinking for me, being an asian chinese, it’s hard for me to accept those fundamentalistic religions, somehow I saw thru’ your book the true essence of all religions and at last I came to realise.
what Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
what Buddha said: take the middle path for that’s the only way.
Taoism’s Ying and Yang concept of for every positive path there is an exact negative path of the same length.
The words may differ, the concept and path may be difference but the essence of it all remains the same.
It’s all about our way’s of life. It’s all about the awareness of it that the way can be found and all of them are correct.
Conscious Awareness is the key to the Source.

People,
I just have a few comments to make on this discussion:
1. A lot of people on here talk about God being a God of love; He is, for sure, but there is one aspect of His character that the Bible talks about even more than love. HE IS HOLY. He cannot abide with sin, even if He wanted to, because of His holiness. Therefore, no one can enter into His presence if they have committed even one sin (sin is rebellion and disobedience, a breaking of God’s statutes and commandments. It doesn’t have to be overt actions, either; Jesus taught that it is what comes out of a man’s heart that makes him unclean.)
2. People have also talked about fear – Joshua said that “the FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And Hebrews 10:26-31 says “26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
3. As for condemnation, Jesus says in John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Jesus also says this in Matthew 7: 21-23 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
4. I know it is popular for people to say there are many paths to God, and all of the religions are just different ways to the same God. I have studied many of the world’s religions (Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Taoism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Zoroastrianism, Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses, to name a few). I can tell you confidently that these religions DO NOT worship the same God, and that many of them are just as exclusive as Christianity when it comes down to who will enter paradise, achieve total consciousness, enter Nirvana, achieve the Celestial heaven, and so forth. And the methods to get to the top level are just as diverse, so logically it is impossible to say all religions are just different pathways to the same God. The God that most of these religions worship is either capricious, the source of good AND evil, impersonal, uncaring, or always in the background. There is one thing that almost all other religions other than Christianity share, though, and that is the idea that the good works we do at least partially, if not fully, play into our salvation. Christianity is the ONLY religion that focuses on what God did for us, not for what we do for ourselves.
5. As for hell, Jesus actually had much more to say about hell than he did about heaven. He called it a place of “outer darkness where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus and his disciples also spent a lot of time casting out demons, so if there is no Satan, no hell, and no evil spiritual beings, what were they doing? What entered the swine and then caused them to run over the cliffs and drown? The reality is that there are created heavenly beings that exercised their free will, rebelled against God, and now are trapped here on earth awaiting the final day of judgement. Why does God wait? To allow every person to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and decide for himself/herself whether to accept the sacrifice Christ made on the cross to cover the penalties of their sins. If someone rejects Jesus, God does not condemn them, they condemn themselves. And God has too much respect for every person to not honor the choice they themselves made.
6. What makes Jesus different than other religious leaders and personalities such as Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Buddha, Confuscius, L. Ron Hubbard, Sun Myung Moon, or Neale for that matter? 3 things: 1) He claimed to be God Himself(I and the Father are One; before Abraham was, I am; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; I am the bread of life; he said to the Samaritan woman at the well that He was the Messiah “I am He”). 2) Atonement – no other religious leader has ever made a sacrifice that could pay the penalty for their own sins, let alone for yours. But the Bible says that Jesus paid the price for us once and for all, and that His sacrifice was sufficient to cover our sins and satisfy the wrath of God. No other religious leader can make such a claim. 3) Resurrection – I can tell you confidently that Mohammed, J. Smith, Buddha, Raja, L.ron Hubbard, and the like are all dead and buried in the ground. Jesus, on the other hand, was raised from the dead and even now sits at the right hand of God the Father. Christians serve and worship a risen savior, not a dead figurehead. When Jesus was asked, He didn’t propose an 8-point path to enlightment or 5 pillars to follow, He said “I AM (the bread of life, the light of the world, the way, etc.). He IS the way, and Acts 4:12 emphasizes this -”Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
I know that there will be a lot of people on this board who do not agree with the above, if the content of the previous messages are any indication. However, this is not my opinion, they are God’s words. He sent His word to guide us, and He sent His Son to save us from condemnation. Jesus gave this warning: “Whoever acknowledges me before men, he will I acknowledge before the Father and His holy angels. If anyone denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father and His angels.”
The choice is ours. God says that a man will reap what he sows. It is my prayer that everyone take a closer look at this man called Jesus and, after doing that, accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior.
Lee Stroebel has put out an excellent book and film, “The Case for Christ”, in which he examines the evidence for and against the biblical Jesus. Lee was an avowed atheist, and he researched this matter for 2 years before coming to the conclusion that Jesus is who the Bible says He is. I would encourage everyone to read the book or see the film – it will make a difference in how you see Jesus!
God Bless all of you,
Chief1989

You don’t need to be “saved”. They way I look at it is this. First off I don’t buy the whole sin thing. So, when Jesus says the only way to the Father is through me I believe he ment by living our lives like he lived his. Following Christs example of how he lived his life, treated people, etc. I don’t buy that I’m going to hell if I don’t believe Christ died for our sins. Christ died on the cross because he wanted to show us how serious he felt about what he was teaching. Jesus was a teacher just like Buddha and the like. I know it my seems my response is very choppy, but my brain is going a mile of minute with all the things I wish to express. LOL. It’s best to read Neale’s books for those of you who haven’t to get what I’m trying to say I guess. For years I never felt like I knew God. It wasn’t until I came across Neale’s book that a light went on inside my head and heart. “Yes, this is the God that I know and love and loves me without question. A Father/Mother that is loving, caring, understanding, patience, etc. Not one that is judgemental and threatening. Anywho. Have a great day!!

I fully agree with Lisa, we have to see thru’ the words in the book inorder to realize that what is written is for guidance and the substance or the what story is about and not what the incidence is about or else it doesn’t make any logical sense to all the billions of people out there… so as an asian what do I know about Romans, Jews or the English? Not much but that my fore-fathers have suffered during their colonization. For the bible to really appeal to all, we need to go thru’ the substance of the story and not the incident, as I see most of us are judging the incident and the physical materials rather then the substance or essence of the message. When I was in school, someone asked about who should live and die or why some people die earlier then others… something like that.. and when the pastor mentioned about what Jesus said, it make sense. “Taking a handful of seeds, he threw the seeds into the air, some dropped on dry land, some in the water some on fertile soil so there you are … a simple phrase explains all rather then to explain the real situation of people at that time, the words would be meaningless now.. but then those words from Jesus will be forever useable no matter where you live or who you are, it makes sense to us all. A natural phenomena with the right ingredients for life sustaining situation will decide your fate. You don’t expect Jesus to tell you.. you need to eat 2 slices of bread with milk, don’t take too much pork, drink clean water, don’t play on the horse path, etc.
Or for example what Buddha said, take the middle path… where is the middle path? – and budhha just strums his “sitha” the strings of the sitha in tune is the middle path” too tight it breaks.. too lose it doesn’t produce the sound. The perfect sound of music is in tune to the middle path between the extremes of both opposite effects. Without further tedious explanation, you can sense the message and apply it to every situation that arises. Taoism’s ancient philosophy of “what is long when there is no short” explains all the evils and good deeds for to have one… the other has to exist. It gives you a glimpse into the chaotic world of ours that there is peace when you understand what these teachers have been trying to tell us all.
Wake UP (born again, enlighten) and follow the “path” (thru’ Jesus, middle-path) and you will see the true source (GOD).
Well, I know it will not appeal to all, but that’s what and how I feel and live my life…with only happy thoughts no matter what effects my life have been thru’…

Lisa,
I appreciate your comments. I too know that it is not popular to think of God as a “judge.” We would all prefer that He be loving, gentle, kind, and accept all of us for who we are, and that there would be no punishment for any kind of disobedience. However, He would not really be God if He did that, would He? If you are a parent, do you not lay down boundaries for your children, and are there not consequences for them if they cross those boundaries?
Deuteronomy 25: 1-3 says this, “1 When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty. 2 If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves, 3 but he must not give him more than forty lashes. If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes.”
There is a whole book of the Bible titled “Judges”. One of the functions that Jesus performs in the end times is that of judging the nations. We may not like it, but we are all to be judged for what we’ve done, said, and thought. Hebrews 9: 27-28 says, “27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
Regarding that “sin thing” – You see, Lisa, holiness is a large part of God’s character, just as love is. He longs for all people to come to the saving knowledge of Christ as savior, for it was out of His great love for us that He sent Jesus to die for us as a ransom for our sins. God’s love demands mercy and grace, and God’s justice demands penalties for sin. Christ’s death on the cross was the meeting place of God’s mercy and justice. Justice demands death for sin (which is rebellion against God and His commandments), but mercy provides for a way to escape that punishment, through accepting Christ’s sacrifice and inviting Him to be the Lord of your life. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, and Isaiah 64:6 echoes that, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” None of us can be “good enough” on our own to earn our way into heaven. It is great to help the poor, be nice to everyone, and to not kill and steal and all of that, but Scripture makes it clear that our own works cannot and will not save us. The apostle Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 2:8 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.” Only by accepting God’s gift of grace, offered through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son Jesus, can we have any hope of eternal life. Read the latter parts of the Book of Revelation – God will stand in judgment of everyone, and if you stand before Him solely on the merits of your own good works, well, you know what they say about someone who acts as their own defense attorney – they have a fool for a client.
Believe me, Lisa, I have talked to many people who are agnostics or universalists, and it astonishes me how little thought they give of where they will end up after they die. Most of them put more thought they say, anyway) into where they are going to get the best price for bread, milk, or gas. That fascinates and saddens me, because you will never face a bigger decision in life than what you believe spiritually. Again, I know it is very comforting to think of God as a loving being who does not care what we do down here on earth, and will be accepting of us however we come to Him. If that was true, however, then there would have been no need for the flood of Noah, no need to rescue His people from the Egyptians, no need for Israel to have been oppressed by the Asyrians or Babylonians or Midianites or Philistines or the Romans. If you read the Old Testament, God used many nations to punish Israel for their unbelief and idolatry. If sin wasn’t that big of a deal, none of that would have been necessary.
Of course, if the “sin thing” was not a big deal, then Christ would not have had to die on the cross, because the Bible teaches that that is the express reason He DID come, to save us from our sins. Jesus prayed twice in the Garden of Gethsemane to His Father that if there was any other way to accomplish His mission, please just do it. But then He said, “not my will, but yours be done.” Lisa, He didn’t endure the cross to show us how important His teachings are, He died so that we could be reconciled to God. In the KJV Bible, Paul calls Jesus’ sacrifice a “propitiation”, which means that our sins are forgiven and removed from us, and the wrath of God, which is coming to punish all unrighteousness, is placated. God’s wrath is real, and Paul makes this plain both in Romans chapter 2 and in Colossians 3: 5-6, which states, “5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” Paul also tells us in Colossians 1 that our sins alienated us from God – “21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”
Lisa, all I can tell you is that God takes sin very seriously – so seriously that He allowed His only begotten Son to be beaten, tortured, and put to death in the most inhumane way mankind has ever devised. He did this to destroy the penalty of sin for those who accept Christ’s sacrifice, and to break its power over us. If God views sin as such a barrier to our relationship with Him that He was willing to have His son die in our place to reconcile us to Himself, shouldn’t we view it as a serious subject also?
Sorry to be so long, but these matters are vitally important. I am praying for you that you will encounter the risen Christ in all of His glory, and accept His sacrifice to pay the penalty of your own sin. Once you do that, He writes your name in His Book of Life, and you are His forever.
God bless,
Chief1989

If Jesus would have said and meant really that the unique way of being with God -and avoiding ‘hell’- was the christian fundamentalistic way for understanding him, He would be a very uncompasionate, selfish, intolerant, culture-centered, unfair, and abominable ‘God’…
Millions of africans, asians, native americans, and other people that never had the opportunity of hearing something about him, much less understand, or accept his ‘words’, would then be in hell, in the everlasting flames of pain and torture…
What a very nice and fair ‘God’…!
Of course, nobody that believes in the Love of God, could believe that, but many do, because they also believe in the “rage of God”,”the vengeance of the Lord” and “serving God with fear and trembling”…
After all, “those are God’s words in his Holy book”, no matter how debatable or questionable the book be…
It’s unbelievable that so many still believe that “no one comes to the Father but through Me”, means to believe a particular cultural story, and not a spiritual truth… As for example “nobody comes to the Father but through an experience like Mine…”.
(For not saying anything about translations, distortions, manipulation, and yes, false inventions of “holy scriptures”…)
And which is that experience?:
Unconditional Love…
But promoters of Fear will always look for a way for denying this and interpreting Love as conditional Rage, hatred, intolerance, and self-centerism…
Always claiming to know What God really Wants…
Blessings and Love

Victor,
Thanks for your comments! I suppose they echo what a lot of people feel when they first hear the Gospel message. However, I can assure you that the God who revealed Himself to us through the Bible is neither uncaring or incompassionate or unfair or unjust. He does not delight in the death of the wicked, but would rather that they turn (repent) and live – Ezekiel 33:11.
When the question of heaven, hell, and judgment come up, someone always asks, “What about the pygmy in deepest darkest Africa who never heard of Jesus? What will become of him?” God tells us in His Word over and over again that his judgments are right and true. So He makes amends for any who die who do not hear. He would never condemn any person who never had a chance to hear the Gospel. How does He do this? I don’t know for sure; it does say in Scripture that everyone is held accountable for the truth that has been revealed to them. Paul says in Romans 1: 18-20, “18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
From what I understand about this passage, we will all be judged by the truth that was revealed to us, either through nature or by the hearing of the Word. It is also my belief that everyone who died without having a chance to hear of Jesus will be physically resurrected during Jesus’ 1000-year reign after the tribulation, where they will have the chance to hear and either accept or reject it.
Psalm 33:4 – For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
Psalms 119:142 – Your righteousness is everlasting and your law is true.
Psalms 119:160 – All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.
John 17:17 – Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
People, when it comes to religion, asking which one is right and which one is wrong is the wrong question. There is the truth and there are falsehoods. Ask what is the truth!
What does God want? A lot of people here and elsewhere have debated and are debating that question. Can we really know? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding yes! What does God want from you and me? The answer is in His Word:
Leviticus 19:2 – “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.
1 Peter 1: 14-16 – 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
John 14: 23-24 – 23Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
Matthew 6: 31-33 – 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
That is what God wants – people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, obeying what He has commanded them, and doing the right things because they are the right things to do. Holiness and righteousness, that is what God wants from us. And that is only possible through having a personal relationship with Jesus. Anything else is simply a doctrine of works, and that will not get anyone into heaven. It might make them a great guy or gal here on earth, but it will not earn them the right to enter into paradise.
I hope that clears up some things for you, Victor. I ask you to more closely examine this Jesus of the Bible, and “be not faithless but believing!”
God bless you,
Chief1989

Thank you for your comments and blessings, Chief:
What you’ve said just leaves ‘out of heaven’ at 2/3 parts of Humanity that is not christian… Perhaps more…
If you add that christian fundamentalism is aproximately 1/4 of christianism, that leaves yet more people out, no matter that they also call themselves christians…
That appears to me as a very unlovely God, a God that condems his creations for having many “sacred books”, but only one ‘true’…
This is the epitome of cruelty, lack of compasion and understanding…
No matter how lovely, pure, honest and ‘good’ you are, if you don’t follow a particular understanding of God, of a very tiny part of the world, a very particular of cultural story, you’ll be condemned…
But I know what will be claimed:
- “The righteous laws of the Lord are perfect and true…”
- “… and some will say ‘lord. lord!’, and I will say, get away from me, evil doers…”
- “Wide is the way to ruin, narrow is the way to salvation”
(I’m quoting from my memory and from spanish…)
And many other excerps from the Bible just to justify that every other faith except mine is false.
However, even you say that there is some kind of exception:
“From what I understand about this passage, we will all be judged by the truth that was revealed to us, either through nature or by the hearing of the Word”
In other words, there is place in your mind about God’s mind, for nature to act and believe in a ‘christian’ way, although that nature never heard about Gospel, Bible or ‘the right word of the Lord’…
I have heard that answer many times: “oh, God is perfect and fair, I don’t know what he will do with people that have not known The Word, but he will…”
“But if you have known, you’ll have no excuse, so please convert, repent and receive Jesus as your only saviour, because if you don’t you’re risking your eternal salvation… And more, you are going right to the everlasting flames of hell…
For me, a God that claims that, is not God of Love at all, but a cruel ‘demon’…
I know, I know, you’ll quote dozens of verses of the Bible to say this and that, but the idea is always the same:
“Do as God commands, or…”
A God that kills -or makes others kill in his holy Name- hundred and thousands of people, including women, children, and babies, just because they were from the ‘bad’ place…
Many examples could be quoted of that in “the Holy Word”…
No matter how much blood, destruction, fear, and horror be described as God’s behaviour, ‘that is the Lord, and you better know it and obey Him…
(By the way, what’s his very true Holy Word: the Bible? (which one? the catholic one? the protestant one?, the Jehova’s Witnesses one?, etc.), the Koran?, the Torah?, the Vedas?, the Pali Canon?, the Maharabatha? the… )
As Neale said the clue of this is: FEAR
Not love…
Excuses for exclusivist and sectarian religions, and so, sectarian, and exclusivist behaviours… at the “image and likeness of God”…
Blessings

Victor,
Very thought-provoking responses. But as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun.” All of these ideas and philosophies have been debated for millenia. In the end you either believe or you don’t based on the evidence that is available. The Bible has stood the test of time, and has withstood every internal and external attack on it. Also, no archaelogical find to date has refuted its historocity. Many scientists and academians have set out to disprove it, and more likely than not those people have come to embrace Christianity.
God loves us, Victor, each one of us regardless of where we were born and raised, because we are all created in His image. He loves us so much that He is willing to risk our rejection by not forcing His love on us. He loves us so much that He sent His own Son to die in our place so that we could live with Him forever. He loves us so much that, if we choose not to follow Him, He respects that choice and gives us the eternity we have chosen for ourselves. Why didn’t He shower us with choices on how to find Him and dwell with Him eternally? Because there can only be one absolute truth. It is easy to say that all religions are but different paths to God, but when you really dig into the theological similarities and differences of the major (about eleven) and minor (myriad) religions, the differences are so great and the methods so asymmetrical and divergent that you can’t conclude that they all end up at the same place. Therefore, they can’t all be true. The truth is there can be only one absolute truth. God gave us the roadmap to get to Him; it is up to us to either accept it or reject it.
That may seem unfair, cruel, or inhumane to you. I’m sorry you feel that way, but I can’t help that. God is who He is, and His plans and purposes are perfect, right, and true. He always judges fairly, and His judgments are perfect. If you have a problem with that, that is between you and God.
I have no interest in having people “believe what I believe.” You can’t have “my” faith, for everyone is judged by their own faith. I don’t want you to have “my” truth, I want you to come to know the Truth, who is Jesus Christ. I can have many doctrinal difference with you, but we can both be saved. The ultimate is this: “That if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!
Have a great evening,
Chief1989

Victor,
One final thought before I go to bed. Jesus extends His invitation to everyone in this way: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whoever hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter in and dine with him and he with me.”
The invitation is open to everyone of every creed, color, and nation. I heard a pastor put it like this: “Jesus Christ did not just come to show us the way; HE is the way! He did not just teach us some truth; He IS the truth! He did not just leave us a manual to live by; He IS our life! Whatever the need of the human heart, Christ offers Himself as the solution. His eternal answer is “I am…”"
I can’t say it better than that.

regarding the idea of god as judge. Yes, “He” is. However, a child does not need a spanking to discover sticking his hand in a fire hurts.

Victor, you raised some good questions! I know that people here in America wonder why God would allow people from different cultures to go to hell because they weren’t raised in Christian homes or weren’t exposed to the message of Jesus Christ. I’ll try to shed some light on these things.
First of all, let’s set the premise. Either it’s true that we are sinners before a righteous God or it isn’t. It is either true that God would allow us a way to escape punishment or He wouldn’t. And if God does allow a way to escape, it would make sense that He would make it knowable. That’s the big difference, Victor, in Christianity versus other faiths. Christianity holds that not only is there a way of escape, you can know for sure that you have escaped God’s judgment. In other faiths that are based on works, such as Islam, you never really know whether you have been good enough to escape. You try to follow the rules the best you can and hope for the best when you die. To me, that is not a great way to live. I would rather know for sure whether I am under judgment or not, and Christianity is the only faith that allows that.
God must punish sin but allows Jesus to be our substitute, taking that punishment in our place. But we are required to accept that substitution in order for it to be effective. Think of it this way; if you were diagnosed with a fatal disease but were told there was a vaccine to cure it, wouldn’t you want it? But you have to give the doctors permission to use it before it can save you. If you refuse the vaccine – if you don’t believe it will save you – you will die. That is not unfairness or cruelty or subjectiveness, but a choice made by the patient.
Now, let’s say you were raised Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or whatever, and the culture you live in embraces that particular face. Were you unlucky? Did you just get the short end of the stick? Not at all! Victor, what you believe is directly under your control. You are not beholden to any belief system just because you were born into a specific culture or faith tradition. If you are born Jewish, does that mean you have to accept Judaism as your faith? No!! You are also not obligated to “live blindly”. God gives all of us two wonderful gifts: our ability to reason and our ability to research.
You know, for centuries many cultures believed that bloodletting was the cure for a variety of diseases. The fact that many cultures believed this in no way made it true that it cured anything. In fact, many times bloodletting simply weakened the patient and made it easier for them to succumb to whatever ailed them. The truth is ruthless – it never changes simply because one’s culture doesn’t hold to it.
Victor, you have the ability, like every other person, to look at evidence and compare and contrast claims and examine the facts. You may go to a doctor about an illness, and he may suggest a treatment. However, if you go to other doctors, they may have alternative treatments that they would suggest in place of the first opinion you got. It is your responsibility as the patient to look into the healing claims of each and see if they have the evidence to support their claims. I myself hold that Christianity is true, and it has the evidence to be justified as a true belief. You have the opportunity to investigate other belief systems and see if they hold true. That’s a great gift, Victor, and I hope you will exercise it.
I pray that we can at least agree that the truth is the truth, regardless of who holds it and that at least some truths can be investigated and known. If you agree to that, then the idea of a just God punishing sinners isn’t such a stretch. And if God is God, and God is merciful as well as just, then He would provide a way to escape that judgment. Christianity to me gives a satisfying response to how all those things can be true at the same time.
Let me know what you think of these ideas. I’m looking forward to your response.
Robert

Chris,
Interesting comment. However, it does not speak to the topic at hand. God judges sin, and sin is breaking His laws.
Here on earth, we criticize judges for being “too soft” or “coddling” criminals by not imposing harsh enough penalties. If a judge lets a crime go unpunished, we think of them as unjust and unfit for their job. God is the same way; he would not be just if He let any sin go unpunished. That might seem unfair to you, but you are not the creator of the universe. God, as a totally righteous being, cannot let even one sin pass unpunished. He MUST be just, that is His nature. Every man will be held accountable for any act of disobedience against God’s law.
If the above is true, then it stands to reason that by such a standard no one can survive God’s wrath. We are all guilty of doing and thinking wrong things. The great news is that not only is God a just God, He is a merciful and just God, too. So He does provide us a way that we can escape this punishment; He allows Jesus, through His sacrificial death, to take the punishment and judgment for our sin in our place. Jesus is like the close relative who sees you have a debt you cannot pay, so He pays the debt instead of you. Once your debt is paid, you are considered clean before God and can now have fellowship with Him. God maintains His righteousness and justice while still showing His grace and mercy.
I hope that clears it up for you, Chris.
God bless you!
Chief1989

Hi Robert, thank you very much for your thoughts about my comments
The point is this:
All what you and Chief have said is constructed in two premises, and you put them very well:
“Either it’s true that we are sinners before a righteous God or it isn’t”
For me, and for anything related to the God I know: a God of Unconditional Love, that has no sense at all.
Both premises are constructions of minds raised and convinced in/by fear:
- Humans are sinners from the very begining, from our very birth.
- God needs to punish sins, and therefore, the sinners.
The ‘prophets’, writers and translators of the ‘Holy books’, above all in mid-eastern cultures, created gods, and after some time, One God full of authoritarism, cruelty, absolutism, ego-centerism, jealousy, and needed of worshiping.
Yahveh -and therefore, ‘God’- is simply a descendant of mesopotamian-egyptian-cananean gods that needed to terrify ‘their’ people in order to make them be ‘in the right way’…
All in Old Testament is not other thing that the story of one terrorific, egoic, jealous, punitive, terrible, and homicide ‘god’ that tries to make people, and above all, his ‘chosen people’, to do ‘the right thing’. And he demands, terrorizes, destroys, kills, and commits every kind of genocide; and asks his ‘followers’ to do the same in his ‘holy’ name…
And if his followers don’t kill, destroy or threat others, they risk themselves to turn the ‘wrath of the Lord’ to themselves… As happened to Saul, for example…
And all this why?
Because Adam and Eve committed a terrible ‘sin’, and so, all humanity, all of us ared damned from birth without remedy, and for curing that ‘original sin’, we have to accept the only son of God that is correcting what his father did bad…
Moreover, that god in Genesis, accepts that he has failed (“and God repented to have created man…”), but his ‘wise’ solution is always the same: violence, terror, destruction and killing… There is no other way… He is God and he has the right to do what he wants…
But after one thousand years of killing, punishings, blood, suffering, and terror in his own ‘people’, -but more, in other peoples…-, God had a great idea:
“I will not punish forever the humanity, as that doesn´t seem to work well, and somebody has to pay in the deadly law I created; I know, Eureka!, I will kill my own son…!”
“The precious innocent blood of my unique holy son will pay for the sins of everybody…! I will make Him pay, but you know, as he is paying for all humanity, his suffering, pain, and dead, must be equivalently horrific…”
“Why? Because I stated that ‘the payment of sin is death’ -but not only death, somebody had the great idea after, that was everlasting suffering too… what a great idea…! -”
“So, my son will fix my mistakes…”
This does not talk about a loving, wise, and almighty God, this talks about a very malicious, evil, cruel, and needed of blood demon… Specially an egoic, unfair and irresponsable one…
Not even a simple man would act that way…
But the ‘holy writers’ and after them, many priests, have made believe, more than three thousand years ago, that this egoic and homicide demon of their creation is a ‘god’…
And you better believe it, or if not…
That’s the ‘god’ of millennia ago…!!!
No matter that the god that Jesus talks about seems to have taken a Course in Personal Betterment, and is very much loving, caring, and less terrifing that the one in Old Testament, but you know, God is Love and Mercy but also Punishment and vindictive ‘Justice’…: “Mine is the revenge!!!”
So, that’s the god in which millions believe even today, no matter how many efforts made Jesus and other elevated souls for showing us that god was not a killer punisher thirsty of worship, sacrifices, submissive obedience, and blood , but the Unconditional Loving Spirit, the All in All that is the servant of Us All…
Fundamentalistic religions -among christians, muslims, etc.- need and believe in that God…
But when you know in your heart that “God is light and there is no darkness in Him”, you realize that all the ‘Holy Books’ and all the doctrines that talk about the ‘wrath, revenge, and punishments of God’ are not true…
Those are just the beliefs of fear…
Blessings and Love for you all…
-

Interesting.
If you are correct, what does this Unconditional Living Spirit require of us, anything? Is there no punishment for evil, so that Adolph Hitler can reap the same rewards as me? From my conversations with people, and there are many people who believe in some sort of God that loves us unconditionally, what they are really believing in is something that does not hold us accountable for our own actions. I can live how I want, do what I want, and this Spirit “accepts” me for being me. It sounds great at first, but as you get deeper into it there rests a dissatisfaction for most folks. What is the reward for being good? Why should I strive to be kind and gracious to those around me? What about all of the darkness in the this world – where is the provision for that in the ULS? Are those people just experiencing barriers to their self-actualization?
Many people balk at the idea that they are sinners, and I realize that and sympathize with that. I struggled with that, too. But when you reduce people to their innermost being, study after study shows that they would do whatever it takes, be it cheat, lie, steal, and even kill, to get their own way, take revenge on, and enrich themselves at the expense of others. Those people who go around thinking that people are basically good and only need help and encouragement to fully unleash their goodness are not dealing with the reality that exists on this planet: people are generally self-serving, and many will do whatever it takes to get themselves ahead.
I don’t know what happened to you in your pursuit of the devine. You seem to have a lot of anger towards God, and you will never find true rest and peace for your soul until you work those things out. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. Moses said of Him, “Who is like unto you, O Lord? Thou are everlasting to everlasting.” One of the aspects of God’s character is that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is why His will and His morality do not “change with the times.” He is not a progressive or hip God, He says that this is the way my creations should act, and that never changes.
You spend a lot of time talking about genocide, killings, and the such. Men certainly have not needed God as an excuse to kill their fellow man. Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Jezebel, Pharoah, Herod the Great, Nero, Diocletian, and other infamous leaders of history certainly did not kill the tens and even hundreds of millions of people that they did in the name of God. Even today the genocide in Darfur goes on at the behest of the regime in Sudan. Sadam Hussein worked to rid the world of the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, even using gas and chemical weapons. Man is his own particular brand of evil.
It is true that God did direct His people to drive out other nations from the land of Canaan, and warfare was common for the Israelites in ancient times. Was this a directive from a cruel, inhumane God to slaughter innocent people? Never! The Egyptian army that was drowned in the Red Sea was marching to slaughter the Israelites. God warned Pharoah not to pursue them, but he did anyway, and got his just desserts. In driving out the Hittites, Amalekites, Philistines, Moabites, and others from Canaan, God was not committing mass murder but was using the Israelites to judge the other nations for the heinous crimes and lifestyles they were committing in the names of their “gods” like Baal. Worship of these gods often involved burning children alive as a sacrifice to fertility, a practice that God abhorred. And God did not visit sudden destruction on an unprepared foe – He often sent emissaries from the Israelites to talk to these other nations, used His prophets to call Israel and the nations around her to repent and turn back to Him (Jonah going to the Ninevites is a prime example), and pleaded with people to see the error of their ways and turn from their iniquities. The prophet Jeremiah preached for over 50 years before the Lord brought the judgment He had warned was coming.
You see, Victor, God is not vicious, cruel, malicious, or unfair. He always gives people a way out of His judgment. Of all the vicious, cruel acts you are thinking of, the vast majority of them happened only after the people had heard God’s call and rejected it, not once but many times. Abraham sparred with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, and God granted him his wishes. He told Jeremiah to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, and if he could find just ONE person who still honored God He would spare the city. You mentioned Saul – Saul was given an abundance of chances to prove himself, but when he consulted a medium about his future then disobeyed God with the Amalakites, God rejected him as king. He had been given a number of second chances to prove his worth, but each time he gave in to his own pride and ignorance.
I can’t help how you feel about God today – that is your business. But I do think you have a distorted view of who God is and a fundamental misunderstanding of His holy, righteous, and merciful nature. I urge you to take another look at the Scriptures, then take a look at Jesus, who He was and what He did for us. I think if you are honest with yourself, you will find a God that loves you so intensely it will make you cry, a God who yearns with all of His might that you might have fellowship with Him, and a God who with all of His being wants you to spend eternity with Him. The great prize that Paul talks about in Philippians 4 is that we get to spend eternity in God’s presence – that no longer will our faith be based on hope, but on sight.
That is what I wish for you, my friend, that you would encounter the true God of the universe, not some wishy-washy “god” who does not have power or dominion over its creation. Godspeed in your learning, sir.
Chief1989

Interesting.
If you are correct, what does this Unconditional Living Spirit require of us, anything? Is there no punishment for evil, so that Adolph Hitler can reap the same rewards as me? From my conversations with people, and there are many people who believe in some sort of God that loves us unconditionally, what they are really believing in is something that does not hold us accountable for our own actions. I can live how I want, do what I want, and this Spirit “accepts” me for being me. It sounds great at first, but as you get deeper into it there rests a dissatisfaction for most folks. What is the reward for being good? Why should I strive to be kind and gracious to those around me? What about all of the darkness in the this world – where is the provision for that in the ULS? Are those people just experiencing barriers to their self-actualization?
Many people balk at the idea that they are sinners, and I realize that and sympathize with that. I struggled with that, too. But when you reduce people to their innermost being, study after study shows that they would do whatever it takes, be it cheat, lie, steal, and even kill, to get their own way, take revenge on, and enrich themselves at the expense of others. Those people who go around thinking that people are basically good and only need help and encouragement to fully unleash their goodness are not dealing with the reality that exists on this planet: people are generally self-serving, and many will do whatever it takes to get themselves ahead.
I don’t know what happened to you in your pursuit of the devine. You seem to have a lot of anger towards God, and you will never find true rest and peace for your soul until you work those things out. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. Moses said of Him, “Who is like unto you, O Lord? Thou are everlasting to everlasting.” One of the aspects of God’s character is that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is why His will and His morality do not “change with the times.” He is not a progressive or hip God, He says that this is the way my creations should act, and that never changes.
You spend a lot of time talking about genocide, killings, and the such. Men certainly have not needed God as an excuse to kill their fellow man. Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Jezebel, Pharoah, Herod the Great, Nero, Diocletian, and other infamous leaders of history certainly did not kill the tens and even hundreds of millions of people that they did in the name of God. Even today the genocide in Darfur goes on at the behest of the regime in Sudan. Sadam Hussein worked to rid the world of the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, even using gas and chemical weapons. Man is his own particular brand of evil.
It is true that God did direct His people to drive out other nations from the land of Canaan, and warfare was common for the Israelites in ancient times. Was this a directive from a cruel, inhumane God to slaughter innocent people? Never! The Egyptian army that was drowned in the Red Sea was marching to slaughter the Israelites. God warned Pharoah not to pursue them, but he did anyway, and got his just desserts. In driving out the Hittites, Amalekites, Philistines, Moabites, and others from Canaan, God was not committing mass murder but was using the Israelites to judge the other nations for the heinous crimes and lifestyles they were committing in the names of their “gods” like Baal. Worship of these gods often involved burning children alive as a sacrifice to fertility, a practice that God abhorred. And God did not visit sudden destruction on an unprepared foe – He often sent emissaries from the Israelites to talk to these other nations, used His prophets to call Israel and the nations around her to repent and turn back to Him (Jonah going to the Ninevites is a prime example), and pleaded with people to see the error of their ways and turn from their iniquities. The prophet Jeremiah preached for over 50 years before the Lord brought the judgment He had warned was coming.
You see, Victor, God is not vicious, cruel, malicious, or unfair. He always gives people a way out of His judgment. Of all the vicious, cruel acts you are thinking of, the vast majority of them happened only after the people had heard God’s call and rejected it, not once but many times. Abraham sparred with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah, and God granted him his wishes. He told Jeremiah to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, and if he could find just ONE person who still honored God He would spare the city. You mentioned Saul – Saul was given an abundance of chances to prove himself, but when he consulted a medium about his future then disobeyed God with the Amalakites, God rejected him as king. He had been given a number of second chances to prove his worth, but each time he gave in to his own pride and ignorance.
I can’t help how you feel about God today – that is your business. But I do think you have a distorted view of who God is and a fundamental misunderstanding of His holy, righteous, and merciful nature. I urge you to take another look at the Scriptures, then take a look at Jesus, who He was and what He did for us. I think if you are honest with yourself, you will find a God that loves you so intensely it will make you cry, a God who yearns with all of His might that you might have fellowship with Him, and a God who with all of His being wants you to spend eternity with Him. The great prize that Paul talks about in Philippians 4 is that we get to spend eternity in God’s presence – that no longer will our faith be based on hope, but on sight.
That is what I wish for you, my friend, that you would encounter the true God of the universe, not some wishy-washy “god” who does not have power or dominion over its creation. Godspeed in your learning, sir.
Chief1989

Victor,
Very interesting. So you believe like I do that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”. That explains who God is, but there is another side to that coin. The existence of good necessitates that evil exists, as well. To deny that is to deny everything that has happened since the dawn of man. Also, we have had in this millenium very graphic reminders that natural disasters are our constant companions, with Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami, the Chinese earthquake, and the floods in the US. So we are continually faced with evil in our day-to-day lives, either the man-made variety or from nature.
How does your belief in an Unconditional Loving Spirit explain the misery mankind has dwelled in for millenia? How does the ULS deal with evil and malevolent human beings? If it loves us unconditionally, what is my motivation for being a good person or doing good things? How does it differentiate?
Look, I know the idea of a God or Spirit that loves us just for being us is attractive to a lot of people. I have talked to many people on just this subject, and while they wax effusive on the positive benefits of this kind of belief, I notice that they escape one little thing: accountability. Nowhere in their beliefs is the idea that they are held responsible for their actions. No, this divine being loves them and accepts them exactly how they are and how they act. Oh, they “try” to live moral lives and be good people and all of that, but all of that is said with a kind of smirk. Why? Because amazingly the ULS changes with the times, and the morals it accepts astoundingly mirror the morals that the culture embraces. And it is perfectly fine with “how we’re wired” and “how we roll”, and there is no need to change anything they say or do. Funny how that happens, isn’t it?
You may be fine with a God like that, Victor, but to me what you have really done is made mankind god. People have made god in their own image, rather than vice-versa. “Well, if I was God, this is how I would do things.” Sorry, but that is not the reality of the world we live in. God created us, and He has told us everything we need to know in order to know what He is like and what He wants from us. Even if you did not have the foggiest idea what the Scriptures say or who Jesus is, there is evidence in the creation all around us as to the nature of God. The Psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” There is order in the universe, and the heavens follow carefully constructed laws. This shows that God is not a God of chaos and disunity, but a God of order and purpose and direction. Do you wonder why people the world over value things like love, beauty, honesty, courage, and purity? It is not by accident, but because those things reflect who God is. When the Bible says that we were created in God’s image, it was not saying we look like God, but our innermost being was to reflect His character.
If you could follow the Ten Commandments perfectly, guess what would happen? You would be reflecting God’s character! When I show the love of Jesus by the things I say and do, guess what? That reflects God’s character! Why? For the reasons of showing the world who God is, what He is like, and being attractive enough to make other people want to be like that, too. If the fruits of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) were truly manifested in my life, people would see that and say, “wow, that’s different! And it’s better than what I have – I want what he has for myself!” That is what is supposed to attract people to the Gospel – not fear, not manipulation, but an honest rendering of Jesus’ love lived out in the lives of ordinary people that allows them to navigate through this world in an extraordinary way.
You talk about all of the killing that went on in the Old Testament. And there was abundant warfare. You also have to realize that some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen were active in that time period – Alexander the Great, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Medo-Persians, and the Asyrians, not to mention the Romans. Those empires were all about expanding and taking captives and slaves, so warfare, rebellions, and the like would be standard during those days. The nation of Israel came into contact with a number of different regional and world powers that were always looking to expand and take someone else’s territory. They were constantly on guard, and frequently at war with someone.
I think you are more bothered, though, by the thought that God led the Israelites to their “promised land” that was home to other peoples like the Hittites, Amalekites, Moabites, and Philistines. God had Israel drive out those nations, sometimes telling them to destroy both the people and all of their possessions utterly. Cruel, inhumane, and malicious, you are thinking? Not if you examine the context. God never waged war on innocent people, or visited destruction on the unwary. The nations that Israel fought with were heathen nations, worshipping other “gods” that were either fanciful constructs or demons like Molech and Baal. These people were extremely wicked and practiced child sacrifice, witchcraft, and other things that were abominable to God. If you read the accounts, God often sent emissaries or prophets to these people to try and get them to repent before He judged them. And yes, God does judge nations. He said He was judging the Egyptians for enslaving and oppressing the Israelites, and He used other armies like the Babylonians, Philistines, and Midianites to punish Israel for practicing idolatry and rejecting Him. But before that judgment came, Victor, God asked, begged, even pleaded with His people to turn and repent. Jeremiah alone preached for over 50 years begging the people to turn back to God before the Babylonians finally invaded. God was going to judge Nineveh for their wickedness, but He sent a reluctant Jonah to preach to them, and to Jonah’s surprise they repented and were spared.
I think if you review the episodes that make you so mad, Victor, you will find that God is giving the recipients of His wrath what they deserve. And He is not uncaring about their plight, as time after time He gives people reprieves and second and third and umpteen chances to mend the errors of their ways and turn to Him. That isn’t cruel, malicious, or unfair, Victor – it is justice, God’s holy, righteous, and perfect justice. He never executes judgment without first giving the people a way to escape that justice, and that is as true today as it was 5,000 years ago.
You spoke of revenge. It is different with God – He does not seek revenge, but avenges those, especially the poor, who have been wronged and oppressed. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Paul tells us in Romans to live at peace among everyone and save room for God’s wrath, which is coming because of all of the godlessness and wickedness in the world. Revenge is selfish and self-motivated; God’s wrath is holy and righteous.
And God reserves a very special place in His heart for the poor and oppressed. He gives warnings over and over throughout the Scriptures that we are to help those in need, especially widows and orphans, and the rich are never to take advantage of those less fortunate. Does that sound like a cruel and malevolent God to you, one that states over and over to be kind, generous, and lift up those who are poor? Not to me.
Anyway, that’s all I have time for right now. There is more to be said on the subject, of course, but it will have to wait.
The only thing I want for you this day, Victor, is for you to have an encounter with the true God of this universe, not some wishy-washy spirit that has no dominion or power over its creation. That definitely is not the God revealed in the Scriptures, through the prophets, and embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. THAT God, Yahweh, loves you, Victor, with an intensity that dwarfs the sun, moon, and stars. That God, Victor, wants with all of His love, grace, and mercy to have a personal fellowship with you. He wants with all of His being to have you live with Him in eternity. He wants and desires with all that He is for you to accept His free gift of grace offered in Christ, and for you to have a life here on earth that is not just life, but life to the full, basking in all of the riches of His grace and mercy. That is the God that I serve, worship, and praise, and it’s my prayer that you will come to know Him, too.
God bless, and peace be with you!
Chief1989

wow….a clash of the titans
have to salute to both Victor and Chief
I am speechless at the depth of your discussions here..
You know I use to think that things should be fair, God should be loving and fair to us all and much more.. fair to the majority of us…
and we try to judge righteousness by what the majority think is the rightful choice. I began to look at nature and realise that it is not at all true. 2/3 of the world may never heard of christianity or at all interested to know, well that doesn’t mean it is not the right path. It could be.
you know when you scoop a handful of sand and slowly let it out from your hands to fall on the ground, it forms a cone of course we all know its gravity that pulls the first mass down and when the first layer is fill up a 2nd layer will form then a 3rd and so on until a cone is form, like it or not we are all bound by certain natural forces, just like Jesus explained about throwing a handful of seeds which I suppose trying to explain to the simple mind people, there are forces at work that will decide our fate. How about a tiger running down a tender deer, you imagine the tiger’s teeth and fierce deadly claws pouncing on the flesh of the deer with blood oozing out in a horrible scramble the deer fighting for it’s life.. Would you say the tiger is the demon? and the soft vegetarian deer is the godly righteous animal or should GOD punish the tiger for taking another life?
Did you know that a Lion will fight for it’s territory of another lion and kills all it’s offsprings so that the female lions will have time to take of care of it’s new offspring? These are the laws of nature and there are many many more examples of survival instincts of every living thing that exist in the world of ours.
Yes, mankind is different as some would say but til this very day we are still fighting for survival, we are still fighting for teritorial rights, we are still govern by natural forces.
The pyramidal system of things govern by forces like the cone is visible in all our human endevours, the rich few and majority poors, the few smart people and mediocre majority, the system of our governments, the system of our religious classes, and many more…
Did God has anything to do with all this?
Or.
Did God just created the system of natural laws that governs everything. Now suddenly it all makes sense. Now I don’t need to find the answers as to why that good hearted man who stepped on a soap thrown down by his most loved grandson and died when he slips and fell in the bathroom. Now, I don’t need GOD to explain to me, that cute little girl who no knows nothing but love and happiness got run down by his loving dad’s car. A rushing mother reverses her car pinning her son to death against the wall. Ya, it sounds horrible and meaningless and there a million things happening right now in our world that makes no sense of what we are discussing here. Where is the loving GOD when you need them as they say.
The law of nature rules…and we are just a part of it in the whole mechanism of GOD’s plan whatever that is…
Fear and Love are the 2 GOD given forces of nature for life sustaining reasons…. its all up to YOU how you use it for your own survival.

You know what, Chief?
You’re absolutely right.
Seriously, I feel in my heart that your feelings are true, your beliefs are sincere, and your intention is very kind. And I thank you for that…
I just don’t agree.
I just think that the very primary premises and principles that guide your understanding don’t make sense to me and to any other that has a different basis.
I’ll give you some examples:
- I don’t believe that the Bible is the one and only ‘true word of God’, and much less perfect, infallible, and unerrant. Period. For me to believe that is disrispectful of other cultures, culture-centered, and selfish, for not mentioning, lacking of knowing about how influenced we are by the jewish-christian paradigm, and ignorant of other worldviews. And history has demostrated that this ignorance is paid with lots of bloodshed…
For me it doesn’t make sense that you quote to me dozens of verses of the Bible, just as you wouldn’t accept that a mormon tell you passages of The Book of Mormon, or a muslim, verses from the Koran.
Not only for the lot of inconsistences, absurdities, and obvious contradictions that christian fundamentalism sistematically and usually dismiss as ‘attacks to the Holy Word’, but also for the majority of its conception about God, Live and Human Beings…
And what are those conceptions? Here the other primary premises and principles:
- God is a sort of a frustrated, angry and furious guy, with the same temper, needs, and downs of many humans. And not the ‘better’ of them, but some of our most terrible behaviors: jealous, authoritarian, fanciful, fussy, egomaniac, tyrannical, and about all, really mad with his creation… A creation that not worked very well from the beginning, so, constantly he has to make vindiction, punishment, threats, commands, and if that not works, just ‘kill’em all…’. Sometimes he’s a little less cruel or thursty of power and dominion -as you said-, but never forgets to warn his and other people to be ‘fearful of God’, and serve him with “fear and tremor”. Jesus talked about a totally different kind of God, but fundamentalists seem not pay too much attention to him in that… They look a lot at ‘Yahweh of armies”, and “the terrible wrath of the Lord”…
- Life, what is life then, from that view? Life is a struggle for ‘Salvation’, which means avoid the everlasting hell created for that ‘Loving God’ for those who don’t obey his instructions, and ‘gain Heaven’. Who gain Heaven? It depends on your belief. If you are a fundamentalist christian, you just accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and that’s all. You are saved by that faith, not by deeds. If you are catholic christian, your deeds are very important. What deeds? It depends. You might have to observe the sacraments, be ‘good’, assist to mass, and above all, try to not die in “mortal sin”. If you are an adventist, well you have to observe the Sabbath. If you are mormon… If you are orthodox… If you are anglican… If you are a Jehovah witness… … … … And all of them claim to be guided for the one and only ‘Word of God’, the Bible…!!!
But… if you are muslim? You have to pray five times a day in Eastern direction, to make at least one peregrination, and study the Koran, etc. But fundamentalists say that muslims go to hell… And the same for buddists, and the same for Baha’Ullahs, and the same for shintoists, and the same for jews, and the same for hinduists, and the same for atheists… and if you are very fundamentalist, catholics go to hell too, and also adventists, and also mormons, and also orthodoxes, and also Jehovah Witnesses, and also unitarians, and also… … … …
- And what is Human Being in that view? A sinner. Just that. A guilty sinner. Just for being born. And nothing to do about that, but follow ‘the right path to God…? And which is that… It depends… Depends in the cultural tradition that feeds your faith… If you are muslim… if you are jew… … … … …
As I said before, “those premises are constructions of minds raised and convinced in/by fear:
- Humans are sinners from the very begining, from our very birth.
- God needs to punish sins, and therefore, the sinners.”
You have to accept that in order to embrace your faith…
You say that is the only way…
I say no, there is another way… There are another ways for undertanding God, Life and Humans.
Only in a view of God as demanding, dual, and vengeful -though you say it as “holy and righteous” ‘justice’-, you could justify all the bloodshed, crimes, wars, invasions, and genocide that God does in the Old Testament… And I remind you -as you seem to have forgotten- that this God does punish, destroy and kill innocent people in O.T… Or babies and little children are not innocent people? (you said “God never waged war on innocent people”). I have heard some preachers say: “Yes, brothers and sisters: cananean babies, egypt first-borns, and amalec children were also guilty, they deserved the wrath of the Lord, just because their fathers and all his contaminated-evil country… The sins of the fathers are paid by their descendants…” (!!!)
I hope you don’t share that way of thinking, but if you do, I understand… ‘That’s what God wants’…! -or wanted-.
Nothing about that would have any importance, if it was not a fact that christianism, after Jesus, committed the very same crimes, and even worst, that the Yahweh of Old Testament and his followers…
Religious wars, persecution of heretics, burning of witchs, the Crusades, persecution of jews, Inquisitions, anathema, tortures, executions, genocide of indians, slavery, racism, etc., etc., all of them “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”, “God wants it”, “Believe or die”; until today: “God commanded me to make war on Iraq” (George W. Bush)
Yes, that’s the God of “power and dominion”, that will kill or command to kill in his Holy Name …
That is the criminal and ‘loving’ ‘God’ that envisioned people three or four thousand years ago, and wrote ‘Holy Books’ full of blood, wars, sacrifices, crimes, revenge, dominion and oppresion, in his Name, and ‘inspired’so many wars, crimes,revenge, dominion and oppresion ’till this very day…
Oh…! But that ‘god’ loves you…!
But… that ‘god’ of ‘Love’ and Terror at the same time, isn’t the god that Is…?
No, not at all…
God would say: “you’ve taken me wrong…” Really, very wrong…
You ask the very same question any person makes to any religious man, and that has been answered so many times…
“The existence of good necessitates that evil exists, as well. To deny that is to deny everything that has happened since the dawn of man… How does your belief in an Unconditional Loving Spirit explain the misery mankind has dwelled in for millenia?”
["If that God that you say exists, how do you explain all the evil in the world...?" (Aren't you used to answer that...? )]
You have been very trained in a certain answer…
But that’s not my answer… I have another one…
But as this is very long already, I suggest you by now to read “Conversations with God”, “What God Wants”, and “Tomorrow’s God”, by the author of this blog…
If not, I assure you, any God, or any Devil, or any man will judge you…
And nobody else, either…
Be Blessed…

By the way… :
I don’t think that all the Bible is crime, blood, punishment, wrath, or comdemanation…
There are so many parts of it that are very beauty, poetic, spiritual, hopeful, , useful, and compasionated.
I would put it this way:
- Of Old Testament I would reject more or less 90%, would agree 10%
- Of New Testament I would reject more or less 65%, would accept 35%
You could say that this is too ittle, but I think that is more than any christian could possibly have really read of his Bible, in general terms…
I know also that fundamentalists will say: “you have to accept it All, or nothing, or will go directly to hell…”
Well, you know…

Thanks… I really learn so much about Christianity this few days…
I agree with Victor about Chief’s sincerity and beliefs, can really sense it…
I once heard that to believe is the shortest & simpliest way to anything.. but when you don’t that’s when the problem starts. That explains why the whole world is such a mess.
You know after reading all the above postings, I came to realise if we just brush aside the clouds from our eyes and for once clearly see what we are all discussing here and try to make in simple terms so that the majority of us can and will understand. I mean it is very clear for any religion or whatever to be popular or to appeal to the masses of mediorce people like me it must be simple enough to achieve or else it will never be achieved else then the rightfull path will be just a few well educated, well learned people like you.
GOD gave us the power of Choice, right?
Then GOD said – but there is ONLY ONE WAY and no other ways.
Sorry all will be in Hell for not taking THAT path.
Now, let’s make it simple and objective.
CHOOSE ME AND I LOVE YOU.
DON’T CHOOSE ME AND I HATE YOU
I just don’t understand in the place why give us the choice?
when there is no other way other then that ONE that MUST take.
OR
CHOOSE WISELY YOUR PATHS – SOME LEADS TO HEAVEN SOME LEADS TO HELL
Now that has more meaning as to why we are all given a choice.
Let’s say, Heaven is in the ARTIC circle.
Chief said “You must come to America first then pass thru’ the borders into Cananda, proceed to Alaksa and take that ferry, sorry there is only one ferry, the number AS9981 only this ferry will take you to Heaven, the real heaven, other ferries will take you to other jetties which is not the real one.
Now, Victor, let’s say he is staying in England and he said, OK the Artic circle is just above my country, I will just go to Norway, there are so many ferries to choose from and takes a ferry to heaven.
Chief said.. “oh no..You are wrong, you must come to America first, the real and only ferry is AS9981. Victor said.. ok.. can you tell me which jetty does AS9981 goes to,I will ask the captain to use this ferry no:EA8811 and divert over there. Chief: “No NO.. you can’t, its different, it has to be AS9981….there is no other choice but thru’ AS9981 don’t be fooled by that captain..
Let say Idolhunter is from Australia, GOSH! Heaven is in Artic circle? Can I, Can I go to the Antartica in replacement? It’s the same ice, same cold weather, it just the same thing u know.. Can I?
Do you see what is happening here…. do you see the resemblence of our topics but in different light?

Victor,
Thanks for your comments. I read and reread your statements several times, and yes, they are all questions that I have faced before. I am not going to respond to it all now, but I have just a few statements to make regarding them:
1) I never have and never will tell anyone they are going to hell. Why? Because it is not mine to judge regarding condemnation. All that I can do is point to what the Lord has said in His Word, and people have to make up their own minds what they believe. Whatever you believe in your heart, that is what you will be defending yourself with when you die.
2) No one is going to hell just because of an affiliation. Just because you are Catholic, Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, etc., that does not condemn you. In conversations I have had with people, many folks who say they are LDS or Catholic or Methodist or whatever don’t really know what the core beliefs of their particular sect or denomination are. What you believe about Jesus Christ either saves or condemns you according to the Bible.
3) You are absolutely right that many atrocities have been committed in the name of the Lord. Does that mean that God condoned it, or master-minded it? Not really. Just because someone does something “in the name of the Lord” doesn’t mean that the Lord commanded it. Far from it – both Paul and Peter, in their later epistles, command all Christians everywhere to leave in peace with each other and those around them. The Crusaders thought they were fighting to save the Holy Land from outsiders, but God never commanded them to save Palestine. The Jewish nation had already been defeated and scattered abroad after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. Similarly, the Inquisition was an ill-fated attempt to force a particular idea – that the Sabath HAD to be observed on Sunday – on people that you will not find anywhere in Scripture. However, Victor, you do not acknowledge that warfare, genocide, and pestilence have been committed by men on each down through the ages in the name of other religions as well, especially Islam, Shintoism, and humanism. And those marauding armies committed far worse atrocities than the OT Israelites, raping and pillaging as well as extermination. Christianity does not have a stranglehold on ill-advised adventures like this.
4) Finally, the way that Christianity was to be spread was not by the sword but by love. Paul put it this way; “Come, let us reason together.” He loved a good debate! I am a firm believer in that you cannot force or legislate morality and religion; you say your piece, answer any and all questions that come up, and let people decide for themselves what they want to believe. All that I can do is speak the truth, and live my life as to how I believe, and people have to decide for themselves whether Jesus is who He says He is. If He is, then He is the only name under heaven given to men by which we are saved. If He isn’t, He is either a liar or a lunatic and the Christian faith is worthless. It is up to each of you to either accept Him or not.
5) I have had countless people who were not Christian tell me that the Bible is just a bunch of myths and fairy tales, or that it is old and out of date, or that it is full of contrasts and contradictions. When I delved deeper into why they felt this way, the vast majority had not read even a tiny snippet of it, and had gotten their views secon-or third hand from the opinions of other people. The facts are these: the Bible was written over a 1,500 year period by approx 40 different authors from a variety of backgrounds. Yet it retains a remarkable continuity from beginning to end, and the theme remains the same throughout despite some passages being written hundreds of years apart. Throughout the ages various governments have tried to ban it or destroy it, and it has thrived. It is still the best-selling book in the world, and will continue to be long after people have forgotten about Neale Walsch. It’s historical narratives have been proven true time and again by archaelogical and historical finds. The people and places it lists are real: Xerxes, Ramses, Nebechednuzzar, Ahab, Jezebel, Alexander the Great, Darius, Herod, Pilate, the apostles, and yes, Jesus himself, have all been proved to have actually existed. The places the Bible mentions are all real places, from towns and cities and rivers to geographical areas and nations. The Bible, through intensive study, has been proven to be both internally and externally consistent. Many people believe that it has been changed over time, or that things were added or taken out as it was translated down through the ages. However, many studies have been done as to how the Scriptures were transmitted over time, and the result has been that both the Old and New Testaments have maintained their consistentcy, because it has been discovered that the people who copied it down took the utmost care to make sure it was duplicated exactly, with not a dot or line out of place. This degree of accuracy has been made evident by discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient writings, which when compared to modern translations proves the accuracy of the transmission process. The Bible has withstood the ravages of time, and has stood fast. Other religious manuscripts have not fared so well, and have been changed substantially down through the centuries. As one example, the Book of Mormon has undergone over 3,000 substantive changes since it originally came out in 1830. These reasons are why Christians the world over still revere the Bible as God’s holy word.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. In ending, the questions regarding any faith are these:
-Why do I believe what I believe?
-What evidence is there to support what I believe?
-Do I have complete assurance that I will end up in a good place?
-What if I’m wrong, and I die?
If you can live with your faith in the face of these questions, then so be it, be happy in your life, and I hope you are right, because when you die there are no second chances, no mulligans, no do-overs. God cannot be bribed, manipulated, brow-beaten, or made to change His mind. Paul puts it this way, “Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked, for what a man sows, that shall he also reap.”
God bless you!

Dear Idolhunter:
You put it very well, regarding God’s nature:
“CHOOSE ME AND I LOVE YOU.
DON’T CHOOSE ME AND I HATE YOU
I just don’t understand in the place why give us the choice?
when there is no other way other then that ONE that MUST take.”
Excellent point.
I replied in other topic -”¿Does God Love us,,,?”- the same thing to our friend, Chief:
Chief1989 wrote:
“Why, you ask, did God create these beings knowing that they may make bad choices? Why do we have children, knowing they may rebel against us and do bad things, run around with the wrong crowd, fail in school, get into drugs and alcohol, have unplanned pregnancies, and all of that? Because having children is a wonderful thing, and the bonds of love that are shared are more than worth the heartaches. Would you force your child to love you? What kind of relationship would that be if we HAD to love someone, even when we didn’t want to? That is why God created both the angels and mankind with free will – He certainly desires their love, fellowship, worship, and praise, but He wants those to be given freely, not forced. He wants us to love Him, worship Him, and praise Him because we DESIRE to do that, not because He crams it down our throats and forces it out of us. “…
…with the threat of hell and everlasting flames with Satan and his demons…
Very good questions…
You just missed one:
Would you force your child to love you, or otherwise punish them…? What kind of relationship would that be if we HAD to love someone, even when we didn’t want to, or if we were threaten with eternal damnation if we didn’t do so?
That’s the question. For me a central and nuclear one. So I’ll put it again (I would like to underline it, or put it greater or darker, but I don’t know how…):
WOULD YOU FORCE YOUR CHILD TO LOVE YOU, OR OTHERWISE PUNISH THEM…? WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WOULD THAT BE IF WE HAD TO LOVE SOMEONE, EVEN WHEN WE DIDN’T WANT TO, OR IF WE WERE THREATEN WITH ETERNAL DAMNATION IF WE DIDN’T DO SO?
Those who believe in the ‘two faced God’, think that this is the real nature of God:
“Love me, or I’ll destroy you and put you in everlasting torture”
What would we think about a a friend or wife that tell us that…?
Would we think that he or she really love us, or would we send him to a shrink…?
Surely, yes…
But this is the schizofrenic and dangerous ‘god’ in which our friends in fundamentalism, inspired in ‘holy books’ written by fearful people 3000 years ago, believe…
As Chief stated:
“Very interesting. So you believe like I do that “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”. That explains who God is, but there is another side to that coin. The existence of good necessitates that evil exists, as well.”
See? That’s the two faced ‘god’. A god for good, and a god for evil…
In the primary times of jewish religion, there really didn’t exist a ‘countepart’ for God -a ‘Devil’-, an alter ego, that competed with him, so, everything, good things and bad things were attributed to Elohim, El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, or afterwards, Yahweh… So, good and evil were caused by him; good things as prizes, bad things as punishments…
With the advance of assyrians and babylonians over israelites, part of their demons were adopted by jewish religion. That’s the reason that explains that Satan, or Lucifer, is almost not mentioned in Old Testament. In the Pentateuc -first five books of O.T.- Satan does not appear directly -but for later and erroneus interpretations of the ‘snake’, the ‘serpent’, etc.-. In the rest of O.T. appears in Job and other posterior writings, but very few…
But it was later that all the causes for evil were attributed to Lucifer or Satan. The almost equal power of Satan in relation to God, was a later doctrine.
But in spite of that, the bad side of ‘God’ couldn’t be removed completely, because people would not be in fear with him, and all the fear theology would fall down, so, this ‘bad side’ of God had to remain. And that bad side is more terrible in consequences. God will judge you and could send you to everlasting hell. Satan doesn’t. Satan just tempts you, and after receives you there, but is God who takes the decision.
So, this is the TWO FACED GOD that fear theology needs.
(“CHOOSE ME AND I LOVE YOU.
DON’T CHOOSE ME AND I HATE YOU”)
This is the theology of Duality.
But it has been written:
“I Am ONE”…
And the One God is absolutelly different.
Blessing and thanks.

Dear Chief:
I love this conversation. And I’m very grateful for it.
I would like that this was a live conversation, so I could say really all what I have to say, that time and lengths don’t permit to do.
But it’s ok. I’ll try to answer briefly some of your points, first quoting them.
Chief said:
“2) No one is going to hell just because of an affiliation. Just because you are Catholic, Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, etc., that does not condemn you. In conversations I have had with people, many folks who say they are LDS or Catholic or Methodist or whatever don’t really know what the core beliefs of their particular sect or denomination are. What you believe about Jesus Christ either saves or condemns you according to the Bible.”
That’s not what many christians believe. I have read several books by fundamentalist writers that claim so. I ramember one author, Jose Holovathy that pointed very clearly: “all Priests, noons, Popes, Morony-lovers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, jewish, (etc., etc…)and all his followers are in hell and will go to hell, for they have failed in following the real and only truth of our Lord…!, don’t doubt about it!!!” -if I could quote the exact words I’d do- .
Perhaps you personally don’t agree with Mr. Holovathy, but that’s what he believes using “what the Lord has said in His Word”
Chief said:
“3) You are absolutely right that many atrocities have been committed in the name of the Lord. Does that mean that God condoned it, or master-minded it?”
Absolutely yes to the first one!!! (Are examples necessary…?)
Absolutely not for the second, but millions in history have claimed and believed that…!
Including Mr George W. Bush when he said that war on Iraq is a commandment of God to him… (for not mentioning again past things as Crusades, or so…)
“4) Finally, the way that Christianity was to be spread was not by the sword but by love.”
But sincerely, that’s not what Cristianity has thought, said and done in his +/- 1700 years of history… Study any honest History of Chrsitianism and you’ll see…
5) I have had countless people who were not Christian tell me that the Bible is just a bunch of myths and fairy tales, or that it is old and out of date, or that it is full of contrasts and contradictions.
Yes, and I know that oceans of ink had been spread to defend the Bible from their ‘attackers’, and that many christians believe that this is an avercome subject, but this is not accurate…
For only mentioning a minuscule example, we suppose that the Bible teaches that God is perfect, almighty and infallible, isn’t it?
But what about this?:
Genesis 6:11 :
” And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. ”
No comment…
But as I said before, this is not the point for me; the real points for me are two:
- If christians say that the Bible is the One and Only Holy Word of God (I ask again, by the way: ¿which Bible? The catholic one?, the Protestant One? the Jewish One…? the Witnesses One…? what traducion…? etc…), then which christian religion is the true One…???
There are hundred of christian religions and denominations that claim to follow “the real teachings of the Bible”, but do not agree one with another…
So, the conclusion is: or God -or his Holy Spirit- was not clear enough about his ‘Word’, for clearing the way for his ‘true adorers and worshippers’, or christianity has made a real mess of it…
- The other point, more fundamental for me is what I already pointed extensively before: the nature of God, Life, and Humans, that most of the Bible -and above all, his ‘interpreters’, shows as normative. In two words:
FEAR THEOLOGY
Those are the two main reasons because many people don’t agree with the Bible, not even his self-proclaimed followers…
Chief said:
“Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. In ending, the questions regarding any faith are these:
-Why do I believe what I believe?
-What evidence is there to support what I believe?
-Do I have complete assurance that I will end up in a good place?
-What if I’m wrong, and I die?
If you can live with your faith in the face of these questions, then so be it, be happy in your life, and I hope you are right, because when you die there are no second chances, no mulligans, no do-overs. God cannot be bribed, manipulated, brow-beaten, or made to change His mind. Paul puts it this way, “Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked, for what a man sows, that shall he also reap.” ”
Again, this shows us a theology of fear, a god that can condemn you eternally and without second chances, for the ‘sins’ of say 60. 70. or 80 years… Very fair and lovely, isn’t it?
For me, that’s not a god at all… That’s such an impostor…
See:
GOD HAS BEEN CALUMNIATED…
God has been calumniated too much, for too many time…
Finally, Chief said:
“God bless you!”
Yes, God blesses me, and blesses you…
Hugs and blessings

A little comment about this, idolhunter:
Idolhunter wrote:
“Let’s say, Heaven is in the ARTIC circle.
Chief said “You must come to America first then pass thru’ the borders into Cananda, proceed to Alaksa and take that ferry, sorry there is only one ferry, the number AS9981 only this ferry will take you to Heaven, the real heaven, other ferries will take you to other jetties which is not the real one.
Now, Victor, let’s say he is staying in England and he said, OK the Artic circle is just above my country, I will just go to Norway, there are so many ferries to choose from and takes a ferry to heaven.
Chief said.. “oh no..You are wrong, you must come to America first, the real and only ferry is AS9981. Victor said.. ok.. can you tell me which jetty does AS9981 goes to,I will ask the captain to use this ferry no:EA8811 and divert over there. Chief: “No NO.. you can’t, its different, it has to be AS9981….there is no other choice but thru’ AS9981 don’t be fooled by that captain..
Let say Idolhunter is from Australia, GOSH! Heaven is in Artic circle? Can I, Can I go to the Antartica in replacement? It’s the same ice, same cold weather, it just the same thing u know.. Can I?
Do you see what is happening here…. do you see the resemblence of our topics but in different light?”
In a new view of this, you don’t have to go anywhere, you are already there! You just don’t notice…
But I understand: in this case, the trip would be a process of redefining your vision and understandig…
So:
Ask yourself: what would propose a God of Love -not a fear impostor-?:
Would that God impose you, force you, or threaten you with one only ‘path’?
And would that path depend on a particular cultural history? And not others…?
Ask your heart and you’ll know…
Hugs and blessings

(The two previous posts have been posted by me, Victor)

Victor and Idolhunter, you make some salient points. But you are approaching them from the wrong perspective: in questioning God’s character, design, and actions, you are setting yourselves up (as the created) as morally and intellectualy superior to God (the creator).
In your view, we have a God that somehow creates a derivative, smaller creature (i.e. human) with a superior morality and better heart! So, when a person says “I refuse to worship such a heartless god” we have the absurdly strange situation in which the “effect” is somehow greater than/superior to the “cause”. You might want to read Aristotle’s discussion on causality, to see what problems this might include. Note that the analog of this, “I have a greater intelligence than the absolute source of all intelligence” makes the absurdity even clearer.
As a Christian, I have been bombarded with all kinds of questions that start with, “If your God is such a loving God, then why does He” and that is followed with all manner of things like let babies die, or allow so much evil and suffering in the world, or why did He wipe out entire nations in the Old Testament. And please don’t misunderstand me, those are extremely important questions that deserve answers. And I will attempt to answer them the best I can.
First, I want to look at the God of the Bible. Why do the OT and the NT God’s seem different? Was one mean, cruel, and angry, and the other full of peace and love?
At the very heart of these questions lies a fundamental misunderstanding of what both the Old and New Testaments reveal about the nature of God. Another way of expressing this same basic thought is when people say: “The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath while the God of the New Testament is a God of love.” The fact that the Bible is God’s progressive revelation of Himself to us through historical events and through His relationship with people throughout history might contribute to people’s misconceptions about what God is like in the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament. However, when one reads both the Old and the New Testaments it quickly becomes evident that God is not different from one Testament to another and that God’s wrath and His love are revealed in both Testaments.
For example, throughout the Old Testament, God is declared to be “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth” (Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 4:31; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:5; Psalm 86:15; Psalm 108:4; Psalm 145:8; Joel 2:13). Yet in the New Testament, God’s loving-kindness and mercy are manifested even more fully through the fact that “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Throughout the Old Testament, we also see God dealing with Israel much the same way a loving father deals with a child. When they willfully sinned against Him and began to worship idols, God would chastise them, yet each and every time He would deliver them once they had repented of their idolatry. This is much the same way that we see God dealing with Christians in the New Testament. For example, Hebrews 12:6 tells us that “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”
In a similar way, throughout the Old Testament we see God’s judgment and wrath poured out on unrepentant sinners. Likewise, in the New Testament, we see that the wrath of God is still “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). Even with just a quick reading of the New Testament, it quickly becomes evident that Jesus talks more about hell than He does heaven. So, clearly, God is not any different in the Old Testament than He is in the New Testament. God by His very nature is immutable (unchanging). While we might see one aspect of His nature revealed in certain passages of Scripture more than other aspects, He Himself does not change.
When one really begins to read and study the Bible, it becomes clear that God is not any different from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Even though the Bible is really sixty-six individual books, written on two (or possibly three) continents, in three different languages, over a period of approximately 1500 years, by more that 40 authors (who came from many walks of life), it remains one unified book from beginning to end without contradiction. In it we see how a loving, merciful, and just God deals with sinful men in all kinds of situations. Truly, the Bible is God’s love letter to mankind. God’s love for His creation, especially for mankind, is evident all through Scripture. Throughout the Bible we see God lovingly and mercifully calling people into a special relationship with Himself, not because they deserve it but because He is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness and truth. Yet we also see a holy and righteous God Who is the judge of all those who disobey His word and refuse to worship Him, instead turning to worship gods of their own creation, worshiping idols and other gods instead of worshiping the one and only true God (Romans 1).
Because of God’s righteous and holy character, all sin past, present, and future must be judged. Yet God in His infinite love has provided a payment for sin and a way of reconciliation so that sinful man can escape His wrath. We see this wonderful truth in verses like 1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” In the Old Testament, God provided a sacrificial system whereby atonement could be made for sin, but this sacrificial system was only temporary and merely looked forward to the coming of Jesus Christ who would die on the cross to make a real substitutionary atonement for sin. The Savior that was promised in the Old Testament is more fully revealed in the New Testament, and the ultimate expression of God’s love, the sending of His son Jesus Christ, is revealed in all its glory. Both the Old and the New Testaments were given “to make us wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). When we study them more closely, it really is evident that God is no different in the New Testament than He was in the Old Testament.
Now, you guys have chronicled a whole list of ills that God and Christianity have foisted upon the world. I believe you have taken a lot of these things out of context, but for sure there has been a lot of bloodshed over the years. But I believe that you are also leaving out two other sources of atrocity of the years: violence committed against Christians in the name of other faiths, and violence committed by men upon each other.
It has been estimated that the Roman Empire put to death over 5 million Christians between 80AD-320AD. Nero used to use live Christians as torches in his garden, covering them with tar, sticking them on poles, and lighting them on fire. And of course, the “games” in the Coliseum went from gladiator fights to having wild beasts eat criminals and Christians.
And today, about 300 Christians are killed every day for their faith. There are a number of countries in the world that outlaw Christianity (a number of the Muslim countries, as well as others like China) where you can lose your job, property, family, and even your life for saying you are a follower of Jesus. In many other countries it is illegal to proselytize, and anyone in that country who converts to Christianity is subject to the death penalty.
And as for men, we have killed each other, hunted animal species to extinction, and polluted our planet for thousands of years. Man is about the only species on earth that kills for sport. And many nations have exterminated or tried to exterminate other peoples throughout history. We have an example of that today, both in the Bosnia and in Sudan, where the Islamic government is trying to wipe out the southern tribes in the Darfur region.
And while everyone likes to harp on the Crusades, they conveniently forget that Mohammed ruthlessly pursued and killed his enemies on the Arabic peninsula and into northern Africa. Islam was spread in the early days mostly by the sword. And the atrocities that Japan, a Shintoist nation, perpetrated on China and Korea, which are Buddhist/Taoist, during WWII have not been given the publicity that Nazi Germany was, but Japan probably killed more Chinese and Koreans that the Germans did Jews.
What does all of this prove or mean? That God and Christianity certainly do not have a monopoly on people being cruel, mean, and vindictive to each other. We all moan and say, “Why can’t we all just get along?” We can’t and won’t as long as things like greed, lust, envy, jealousy, lying, malice, anger, and hate rule on earth. That, gentlemen, is why this world needs Jesus Christ.
I like the way it was put in the movie Superman Returns. Lois Lane had written a Pulitzer-Prize winning article titled “Why the World doesn’t need Superman.” Superman takes her up high above Metropolis and asks her what she hears. She says, “I don’t hear anything.” He replied, “Me, I hear everything. You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, but each day I hear people crying out for one.”
Your view of a non-judgmental, unconditional-loving, all-accepting god is a favorite view among intellectuals. It appeals to their idealism, that this world should be a utopia where everybody is happy and we all get along with one another and no one thinks or commits evil. That is the vision guys like Marx and Lenin had, a worker’s paradise. Unfortunately, the world in reality is not such a place, and never will be such a place until evil is destroyed. No matter how hard you try, there will still be people who are corrupted by power, money, sex, and the love of themselves. Have you ever watched NBC’s “To Catch A Predator?” The people who show up to have sex with minors are just low-life ne’er-do-wells, they are doctors, lawyers, white-collar workers, rabbis, husbands, fathers. Have you noticed the number of corporate CEOs going down lately? Greed for money, wealth, and power is alive and well on planet earth. Noticed how pornography litters the Internet? Notice that when wealthy pro athletes get into trouble, its usually late at night/early in the morning at strip clubs? Lust is alive and well on planet earth. Do you notice how these penny-ante dictators refuse to step down in the face of internal and international pressure, guys like Mugabe? Lust for power is alive and well on planet earth.
The world may deny it intellectually, but deep down people all over the world are hurting, hungry, depressed, lonely, and feel trapped by their circumstances. They are crying out for a savior. And God has provided one, in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus said that all we have to do is ask, seek, and knock, and we will find the answers we are looking for. That is my wish for you guys and others who read this blog.
Robert

I thought this article might interest those of you reading items on this board.
Is God Angry Anymore?
By Jim Elliff
When I was in public high school, we had to read part of a famous sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, by Jonathan Edwards. He graphically pictured sinners as spiders dangling by a thread over the fire of Hell. He also asserted that God is angrier at this moment with some who are living than with others who are already in Hell.
Do you believe that? Is God angry? I don’t believe my teacher thought so. When I later studied the Bible on the subject, I was surprised by what I found.
I learned that God’s anger is pure. The biblical command, “Be angry and sin not” reminds us that there is an anger that is justified. God always has this kind of perfect, holy anger.
The Apostle Paul said, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men?” Romans 1:18a
King David said, “God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psalm 7:11 (NKJV) And the Apostle John said, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” John 3:36
Note that these verses teach that God is not only angry with sin but also with the sinner. Since God sees everything (Hebrews 4:13), He evaluates perfectly. Whenever God is angry it is for holy reasons.
Sometimes we think of God as a judge sitting on the bench who passively issues sentences to guilty persons. But is God like this? The original words used for God’s anger are passionate words. Why? Because, unlike our court judges, God Himself has been sinned against.
Notice the emotion in Nahum 1, where God is identified as jealous, avenging and filled with wrath (verse 2). Verse 6 is even more pointed. “Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him.”
However, even in the midst of His fury, God is self-controlled. The Bible teaches that He is slow to anger (Nahum 1:3), and most of us learned long ago that God is love. But while a loving God certainly is willing to hold off His judgment, it is just as certain that He will judge sin.
Romans 2:5-6 describes it this way: “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’” In verse 16 of the same chapter it says that this will occur “on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.”
Why is God so angry? There are at least three reasons.
1. Because of the sheer number of your sins. If you were to sin only 10 times a day for one year, you would disobey God 3,650 times. But if you sinned 10 times a day for 15 years, you would sin 54,750 times! You are a professional sinner! Yet, how many times did Adam sin before he was cursed by God?
2. Because you have sinned against such an infinite God and high command. There are different levels of sin and punishment (Luke 10:12; 12:42-48). A crime is weighed according to the seriousness of the command and the stature of the person who is sinned against. It is one thing to disobey your coach at school. It is another thing to disobey a judge. It is one thing to turn in a late term paper. It is another thing to murder the president. The highest command is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” The greatest being is God. Each time you sin, you commit the highest crime against the greatest being! God ought to be angry.
3. Because you have sinned against God’s greatest act of love. Christ was sent into the world of men and women out of love (John 3:16). But many of your friends, and perhaps you also, have rejected Christ up to this very moment. This rebellion is a sin against compassion. Is it any wonder that God is angry with those who think little of His love?
How can you be rescued from this holy anger? Only through propitiation. But what does that mean?
The word “propitiation” (pro-pish-ee-ay-shun; sometimes translated, atonement) means this: Jesus fully satisfied the just anger of God for people like you by dying in your place, taking on himself all the wrath you deserve. We learn about this in Romans 3:24-25 and Hebrews 2:17. God’s just fury, indignation and anger for sins were poured out on Christ for every sinful person who will come to him by faith.
And that is great news!
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I think it was Chief1989 who said that God is the creator, so He gets to make the rules. When I make something, I want or expect it to act in a certain way. When my project doesn’t do what I made it to do, I get angry. I, like most of us, have been stabbed in the back by people I thought were my friends. I trusted them to act in a certain way, and when they didn’t, and their actions hurt me, I was angry. God, folks, is the same way. He created us, and wants us to act in a certain way. When we disobey, or give credit and glory that should be his to other idols or things, he is justified to be angry. That’s the way it is. If you don’t like it, well, I don’t know what to tell you. God is who he is, and you either accept that or you don’t. But just remember this: just because you have some problems accepting the God who is doesn’t make it right or acceptable to construct one you like better. Saying, “Well, MY god doesn’t do that” or “MY god loves me unconditionally” doesn’t make it true. There are a lot of people on this world who sincerely believe in one faith or another. They are devout and sincere, but being devout and sincere about a falsehood will not make it right or true.
Just my opinion….Turk182

Victor,
I have gone to great lengths on this blog to reveal what I believe about the nature of sin and God. I am still mystified, however, at what you truly believe because you have not made it clear.
-What do you believe about the nature of God and His relationship to man?
-If you were God, how would you react to faithlessness and evil in this world? If you had revealed yourself fully to man, yet many rejected or reviled you, and you were all-powerful, what would your reaction be?
-How do your beliefs reconcile love and goodness with the evils we see at work in the world?
I’m just curious how your belief system deals with what we see at work in men.
God bless you today!
Chief1989

Hi Chief1989,
I know you are the right person to ask this question..
I know you don’t seem to be interested in what I say for I am a infant when Christianity is concerned. My views are way too out because I come from an Asian background without much opportunity or choice to understand christianity the way you do. Well I don’t blame anyone or God for that matter. But what troubles me for a long time is this….
I did try to enter or follow the christian ways a long time ago, I even cried and with my whole-hearted limited mind accept Christ, it was a wonderful experience when I am with them trying to learn as much as I possible could but it didn’t last long…as I went deeper and deeper into it, I began to lose faith in it. It’s not easy over here you know in a muslim country and me born a Taoist as what was written on my birth certificate which I don’t even know what the hell is Taoism, I was aimless religiously, I learn bits and pieces from here and there but never going deeper into any one of them. At the most, when I am in trouble or in fear, I put my hands together look up into the sky and pray to GOD to show me the way, or to protect me. Sometimes I question GOD – what the hell I am doing here on earth.
Come to think of it… Who is MY GOD? my brain would flash glimpse of a Taoist deity, the goddess of mercy and Jesus, yes Jesus in some pictures I have seen.
When I look around me, my family, my friends, my country, I read news of the world, religiously, I felt lost, I could imagine the billions of others too – lost…
I always felt that surely there must be away out, there must a reason why we are here, what about the billions of others? why are they here?
You see and read about the simillarities of other’s experience, hey, they sounds more or less the same… sufferings, sadness, happiness, smiling faces then what? where are we going from here?
Sometimes I would ask childish questions – GOD Why can’t you just show me the way, tell me the way and I just follow. Why trick me and hide the ways and waste my time..What is it that you want from us?
then I thought GOD is almighty, why would GOD need us or want us, it doesn’t sound right or logical for such POWER to want something from an aimless human like us.
You know sometimes I see ants on my table moving around, sometimes I just ignored them, sometimes *smack* I slap on the table and a few ants died.. GOSH what if GOD was like us moody, no wonder accidents happens. If you ask me why I killed the ants… I just felt like it for no reasons…probably it irritates me at that particular moment. Then.. total shutdown, to hell with religion. I guess I have to find my own ways. I began to accept sufferings and happiness as it comes and goes like as if it is part and parcel of life itself. I attend funerals, taoist style, buddhist style, Indian style, Christian style, Muslim style. where the hell are they all going? You know in taoism, you can even bribe the GODs to enter heaven…no I wouldn’t say taoism, it’s not right for me to say that because I don’t even know how what it is all about. My mother would pray at the kitchen and they make sticky pies and she tells me, you know those sticky pies are for the heaven gate keeper… so they can’t talk bad about us on judgement day. Some temples gives out lottery numbers gosh! and people believe that they are holy numbers that will strike, and when they don’t strike, it not yet your time. be patient and people believe it…and this kind of people are by the millions…
Religion has gone nuts, people make them up for their own self-centered desires and beliefs. Even the christians that I know, theirs is the wrong way, ours is the right way but they use the same bible. I visited temples and monks too.. gosh some of them are swindlers and womenisers.. (some) not all..in some countries, monkhood is compulsory so you know…. YES, religion is good but its the people that misinterprete it..mmm back to square ONE.. I have to find my own way.
BUT which way?
The world is so corrupted including religion and yes christianity inclusive …is no excuse…
Again the problem is the people ….including me..
Now Chief1989 how many are there that will trully find the way to heaven…if it is thru’ Christ alone… I know you don’t have the answer, because it’s very subjective…
but on statistics say 1/3 of the world are christians and on a positive side on it, say 50% are trully followers of every footstep of Christ.
It means that comparitively very few will actually go to heaven because it’s not easy….
So am I right to say, HEAVEN IS ONLY MEANT FOR THE FAVOURITE FEW WHO TRULY UNDERSTANDS AND ACCEPT CHRIST.?
Well, my limited brain say YES
Believe me I am not here to make a mockery out of christainity…
so is every religion for that matter… heaven is only for the favourte few that truly understands and accept the faith.
I tried to blend into the christian world… because I want to find the way. Something that I can truly believe and follow.
but it’s so disheartening to see the squables and self-centered reasonings among them that makes me lose faith
To me personally, when one speaks and act for selfish reasons, I just cannot make myself to believe them. I can’t, it sounds fake!
all the religion I have known…says.. yes FREE WILL…God gave us FREE WILL…to choose.. but you do this I beat you and you do this I love you.
What Free will is that? isn’t it childish ….even my limited brain will know its kids play, isn’t it enough hurt to touch a boiling kettle and suffer the pain to know that we have learn not to touch it the next time?
Isn’t it enough to feel loved when I fall and my mother jumps and pick me up to see if I am hurt? That’s free will without rules, there is no rule that says a mother MUST love and make sure their offsprings are safe? NO…it just free will….that is the kind of thing I want to feel in religion.. if that is god’s way.. I m in…so is everyone on earth can…no matter what religion or race or whatever…PURE FREE WILL…
Maybe there is a purpose for us afterall, GOD gave us all the same FREE WILL — each and everyone of us, everything !
GOD sits back… OK… guys – I give you all MY POWERS – now show me what you got…
and there you are, a beautiful topsy turvy world of our own making for better or for worse…You want mars? you want the universe… take it if you can..I am not stopping you…
Could we be the feelers of GOD? – a tool of god’s creation in the process of creation. When did changes ever ever stopped?
What say you….?

Idolhunter,
I sat back and absorbed your comments for a while. First of all, thank you for being honest and forthright. A real dialogue can only begin once we let down our barriers and are open and honest about what we are feeling. And believe me, I am interested in what you have to say. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t take the time to answer you.
I will tell you that millions of people have rejected religion over the centuries due to the behavior of its constituents. I have heard it said, “The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then go out and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
IH, I am sorry if you have had contact with those kinds of people. I too have dealt with people in my life that were professing the Christian faith while at the same time being greedy, manipulative, and self-serving once they got out the door of the church. Believe me, that is not what God has called us to be like.
As far as who will get into heaven and who won’t, I don’t make judgments like that. I am not God, who in His wisdom has made provision for His children. I do believe that there is an “age of reason” or an “age of accountability” – Jewish leaders point to the age of 12 or 13 – and that all children under that age, regardless of where they have grown up, will enter into heaven. As for those who never had a chance to hear the Gospel, I believe that God will either judge them to the level of what has been revealed to them, or that those people simply retire to the grave when they die and will be physically resurrected during Christ’s 1000-year reign. There they will have the chance to hear about Jesus and decide for themselves. Who will be there and who won’t? God has that all in His hands, and the only thing He has told me to do is love Him, love my neighbors, and go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and teaching them all that He has commanded us. Now I do have the obligation to confront sin whereever I see, and my Christian brothers and sisters are supposed to hold me accountable so that I am living like I should.
You stated that you were saddened by the squabbles and self-centered behavior of the religious people around you. That, Idolhunter, points out man’s biggest problem, and incidentally the biggest problem that I have with theology held by people like Neale Walsch – that when we set out to serve ourselves, others suffer. And we, in the end, rarely find happiness or get what we want. And that is why many people have deathbed confessions – they look back over their lives, how they acted and all of the relationships they trashed over the years, and realize that they had lived lives according to a lie. They then turn to God, ask forgiveness, and are received into His paradise.
That is my main objection to Walsch’s theology of moral relativism – it all depends on me and you. God wants nothing, needs nothing, and our purpose here on earth is to enjoy it. “Celebrate! Play the game!” “Deny yourself nothing; self-denial is self-destruction.” “Need nothing, desire everything, choose what shows up.” In Walsch’s view, people should need nothing, and enjoy everything. “Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It is the highest betrayal.” In other words, forget about other people’s needs, feed you own. “Self-interest is the highest interest. Everything you do, do for yourself. This is true because you and all others are One. What you do for another, you therefore do for you. What you fail to do for another, you fail to do for you. What is good for another is good for you, and what is bad for another is bad for you.” Walsch’s idea is that do everything for yourself, in your own self-interest, because what is good for you is good for other people. I have never seen this concept work, because when people act in their own self-interest, the needs of others usually gets waylaid. You cannot serve others by serving yourself. In Jesus’ view, when you serve others, you are serving God, and He will bless you. It has been my experience that I am happiest and most content when doing things for other people and not pursuing my own desires.
Walsch’s “god” does not want our worship, does not need our obedience, and it is not necessary to serve him or worship him or praise him, or even to respect him or recognize him or accept him or acknowledge him.
There is no sin, there is no absolute truth (indeed, in Walsch’s theology, it’s impossible to know the truth), and there is no absolute right and wrong. Something is either “good” or “bad” in the sense of whether a person’s actions are useful in helping them achieve a particular objective. Hitler did nothing “wrong” in a moral sense, only in the sense that his actions did not help him achieve his objectives. Walsch says little about whether a person’s objectives can be right or wrong. You may rape and kill a child. You may destroy all life on our planet. But nothing is against God’s law, because God’s law is no law. A person’s only guide to whether an action was profitable or non-profitable? “‘Feeling good’ is your way of telling yourself that your last thought was truth, that your last word was wisdom, that your last action was love.”
Idolhunter, that is not the world in which I want to live, nor would that “god” be a God worthy of respect, honor, glory, and worship. Believing in the Unconditional Loving Spirit is just another incarnation of the old ’60s notion of “If it feels good, do it!” It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now. If God simply created the universe, wound it like an alarm clock, then sat back and watched it go without intervening in it, what kind of a God would He be? What would be the purpose of that? To create a universe and then say, “Here you go! Do whatever you want to whomever you want whenever you want!” Do you do that with children? Have you ever compared the results in education between a parent who took no care in their child’s schoolwork versus one who was very involved and helped and gave guidance to their child? I have, and it’s very significant, not only to the child’s grades and test performances, but to how they feel about themselves and relate to their schoolmates. I much rather would believe in a God who cared about His creation and intervened into it, giving guidance, comfort, and direction, than one that simply sat back and let things run their course.
I like to read Billy Graham’s column in my newspaper titled “My Answer”. Just about every week or so someone will ask, “Why should we pray for the world? Just look at the mess it’s in – evil seems to be winning on every front, and praying for the world doesn’t seem to be doing any good.” Billy’s answer is always the same – “Think about what the world would be like if we DIDN’T pray for it!”
I hope that answers some of your questions – I will have to go back and ponder your post some more. But I am praying for you, idolhunter, and I believe with all of my heart that God is seeking you out and calling you to Himself. He does not want you to be faithless, but believing. If you are looking for an example of who is living the Christian life, read the book of John or Mark and you will find your answer. Whenever we put our trust in other humans, they will fail us sometime or another, because they are not perfect and they fall. Put your trust in Jesus, for He is one that will not fail you, ever.
God bless, and keep searching and praying!
Chief1989

Turk182:
Your description of the ‘angry God’ is so perfect…!
I thought you were being ironical, but in your last sentences, I realized that you were not…
But, it doesn’t matter…, you did very well, good job!
You described with mastery the angry and furious ‘god of Love’ that says: “love me or I’ll beat you for eternity”…
Isn’t it, dear Idolhunter…?
And Idolhunter:
You wrote so beautiful and precious thoughts, feelings, and insights, that you provoked such beautiful thoughts, feelings and insights from Chief1989, including honest criticisms about christianism and christians, and more compassionate observations about hell and condemnation than many of his fellow-believers -as the Holowaty I mentioned before-… :
Chief wrote:
“As far as who will get into heaven and who won’t, I don’t make judgments like that”
But you’re right, idolhunter, most christians believe that more than 2/3 of humankind will go straight to hell, just because they’re jews, muslims, shintoists, new-agers, hinduists, taoists, pantheists, polytheists, atheists, shamanists, buddhists, mormons, and some include catholics, adventists, Jehova’s witnesses, anglicans, gnostics, orthodoxes, Urantia readers, and etc., etc., including also Conversation with God readers… ;-D
They believe that God is so, and so must be, and so be it…
So, dont worry too much about it, if you are inclined to believe in that ‘lovely god’, convert yourself rapidly; you just have to say with your mouth, mind and heart: “I accept sincerely, from my heart at Jesus as my Lord and saviour”, and that’ all, you’re ‘saved’. No matter that you don’t understand too much what that means, or what you do after it, incluiding doing ‘bad things’ after it; you’ll be saved, and little by little, as you pray and read the Bible, the Holy Ghost will guide you…
You will be saved but you’ll have to work a lot for being loyal and true…
If you are not inclined to believe in the God of anger, is almost the same, you’ll have to work a lot in growing yourself, but perhaps without “fear and trembling”, you will not be saved from nothing (because there is nothing from what being saved), or you’ll be saved anyway…
So, what do you choose?
Blessings and Love

Wow! Idolhunter, your post touched me as well. I read your earlier posts as well. Here is a sermon a well-known pastor gave after the Indonesian tsunami. It might answer some of your questions.
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Why the Tsunami?
By David Servant
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Everyone around the world who believes in God, whether Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or something else, seems to be asking the same question—Why? Why did God decree or permit a tsunami (and it must be one or the other, as there are no other possibilities for those who believe in an all-powerful God) to take the lives of well over 120,000 people in eleven nations? I’d like to make an attempt to answer that question as a Christian.
First, if you are among the very small percentage of people who believe that God was not powerful enough to prevent or stop the tsunami, then I hope you believe that God is at least powerful enough to be able to warn people of a coming tsunami in order to prevent their deaths. It is a well-publicized fact that very few animals perished in the recent tsunami, even in large game parks full of wildlife that were flooded inland for miles. In light of this fact, the deaths of tens of thousands of humans speak volumes. God spared animals but allowed multitudes of people to die. Scientists are wondering at the animals’ demonstration of their “sixth sense.” Whatever it was that warned the animals of the coming waves, God gave it to them, just as He gave them so many other unexplainable instincts. God could have prevented any human deaths just as easily.
Now on to the question of Why would God decree or permit a tsunami? Some Christians are saying that it is just a mystery that we can’t understand. That, however, is a means of avoiding what is obvious and is also a subtle insult against God. He has revealed His character quite thoroughly in the Bible. He has given us thousands of verses that reveal His motivations. He often does things, for example, motivated by love. He also does things motivated by anger and justice, which are outgrowths of His love. These motivations we understand without any difficulty.
Thus, to think that God has permitted or decreed the sudden tragic deaths of 120,000 people, one-third of whom were children, for a reason that is beyond our ability to understand, is to say that God is motivated at times by something other than love, justice, anger, and so on, something that He has not revealed about Himself during the thousands of years that He has been revealing Himself to humanity. That would seem rather odd. Are we really to believe that on December 26, 2004, God suddenly possessed a never-before-revealed motivation, and one that bears no resemblance to anything that has motivated Him for the past five thousand years?
Even in the case of a human killing another human, we rarely conclude that there was no motivation. The same is true for a person who does not prevent a death that he could easily prevent. In either case, if it is concluded that there was no motive, it is also concluded that the person is an insane madman. All of this is to say that if God had no motivation for decreeing or permitting that tsunami then He is no God at all. He is not worthy of worship or obedience. He is less than human. He’s insane. He’s a senseless madman.
Since God is not an insane madman, what might have been His motivation in decreeing or permitting the Indian Ocean tsunami?
I doubt anyone is thinking that God was motivated by love. When a human being is killed, we normally don’t suspect that the killer was motivated by love for the person he killed. Similarly, when a person could easily prevent someone’s death but doesn’t, we don’t think it is love that is motivating him.
How about anger for God’s motivation? Christians profess to believe in a God who once flooded the entire earth because of His anger, killing everyone but eight people. There are scores of examples in Scripture of God wiping out pagan nations and even His own people (Israel) because of His anger. He often takes credit in the Bible for earthquakes that are a result of His judgment (see Num. 16:23-24; Isa. 29:6; Jer. 10:10; Ezek. 38:19; Ps. 18:7; 77:18; Hag. 2:6; Luke 21:11; Acts 16:26; Rev. 6:12; 8:5; 11:13; 16:18). He has foretold of natural disasters that are yet to come upon the earth that will make the recent tsunami seem like a ripple in a wading pool. Why could not the recent tsunami be a manifestation of God’s anger? If it isn’t, then what part of God’s character does it manifest? What else might have been motivating Him?
But there are other questions: If God is angry, why is He angry?
God becomes angry because people don’t do what He says, like love Him with all their hearts and love their neighbor as themselves. His anger stems from His perfect righteousness, which is rooted in His love. All truly loving people hate injustice, and God isn’t any different, only His love is a perfect blend of justice and patience toward those who deserve His justice. If God does not ultimately react with justice against those who are selfish, He is not at all a loving God. What would you think of a parent who sits passively watching his older son assault his younger daughter? Love demands a reaction. Love demands that the guilty be punished. So the Bible tells us that God is angry every day (see Psalm 7:11). How could a loving and all-knowing God not be angry every day with what He sees on the earth?
But there are still other questions. For example, Why would the people around the costal areas of the Indian Ocean be targeted for wrath rather than some other part of the world? Should we conclude that they were more deserving?
Jesus once commented about two tragedies of His day, and He told His audience that they would be wrong to draw such a conclusion regarding those who died violent, untimely deaths. He made it crystal clear that those who perished were no greater sinners than those who survived. They were equally deserving of perishing, and Jesus warned those survivors, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (see Luke 13:1-9).
Thus we see that instead of wondering why so many people perished, we should be wondering why so many survived, including ourselves. Amazingly, 99.9981% of us are still breathing after the tsunami. Rather than pointing a finger of accusation at God and asking, “Why them?” we should be pointing our finger at ourselves and asking, “Why wasn’t it me?”
And there is, or course, only one head-spinning answer to that question: God’s mercy—unmerited, unearned and undeserved. While so many are amazed at the large numbers of deaths, we should be astonished that so many are still alive who are just as deserving as those who perished. Moreover, we should take heed to the warning that God has just sent to the whole world. Everyone should repent and give God His rightful place on the throne in their hearts.
But what about the children who perished? many wonder. Most of us who believe in a God who is fair consequently also believe that He does not hold children accountable until they approach adulthood, reaching an “age of accountability.” Thus Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to children (see Matt. 19:10). Every child who perished in the tsunami is now beholding the face of God. And although it is certainly impossible to judge all parents, is it not actually better for children to die and go to heaven rather than grow up under the influence of wicked parents who will lead them to hell? Moreover, every parent who is grieving over the loss of a child can have the hope of being reunited forever with that child if he or she will repent. What would be better as a parent—to spend your life with your child and then both go to hell, or lose a child and spend eternity together in God’s kingdom? God’s temporal judgments are often designed to warn people so they might avoid His eternal judgments. That is a motivation of love.
But why were people targeted who live in a region of the world that has had so little exposure to the Christian gospel? some Christians ask. They never had a chance to hear.
The apostle Paul would disagree, I’m afraid. He declares that no person has an excuse before God, because God is evangelizing every person every moment of his or her life. He is shouting at everyone through His amazing creation, revealing his divine nature and attributes (see Rom. 1:18-20). God has been preaching to the coastal people of the Indian Ocean through bananas, starfish, seagulls, and a million other daily miracles. According to Paul, everyone has heard God’s messages (see Rom. 10:18). God is not only shouting at people outwardly, but also inwardly, through their conscience (see Rom. 2:14-16). His message is the same every moment: “Repent!” People certainly become more adept at ignoring God’s voice within them as they grow older, but God never stops shouting. Scripture says He has written His laws in our hearts (see Rom. 2:14-16), and so everyone knows right from wrong, as proven by how often they condemn other people who do wrong. If you’ve ever found fault with anyone else, that proves you know right from wrong. We all thus stand self-condemned before God, condemning others for what we also do.
Don’t think for a moment that people all over the world haven’t heard God’s message. God has already revealed to everyone 95% of what He wants everyone to know. The gospel is just the final 5%, and God generally sends that message to people who are listening, at least to some degree, to the first 95% of His revelation. In fact, if they completely ignore that 95% because they’ve allowed their hearts to become so hard, He often makes attempts to soften their hearts before it is too late. Tsunamis are one way of softening hearts and restoring the fear of God. For those of us among the 99.9981% of the earth’s population who are still breathing after the tsunami, we currently have good reason to soften our hearts and fear the Lord. Has your heart been softened?
But what about Christians who perished in the tsunami?
First, please know that the recent tsunami hit areas that are populated by very few Christians.
Second, just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean he is a Christian by Gods appraisal. In the Jewish Bible, there is record of God killing lots of Jews who weren’t Jews by God’s definition, that is, they weren’t people who loved and obeyed Him. The same thing is true among professing Christians. Jesus asked, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). True Christians are those who have repented, who deny themselves, and who prove their love for God by obeying Him and loving their neighbor as themselves. False Christians are just as deserving of God’s wrath as anyone else, if not more. I’ve noticed that the so-called “Christian” nation of the United States has lately been experiencing a fairly sizeable dose of God’s wrath. We have given Muslims around the world good reason to call us “infidels.” Just visit your local movie theater to find out what we’re exporting to the world. And is it possible that God is not pleased with professing European and American Christians who indulge themselves at luxurious exotic resorts while they ignore the plight of the poor people who live in shacks and dress in rags just over the fences of those resorts? Are we really to think that a loving God can look at that passively? Didn’t Jesus speak often about these things?
That being said, only God knows the true spiritual state of every professing Christian around the Indian Ocean. Those who died among the professing Christians who were indeed holy followers of Christ are now happier than we could imagine, and they wouldn’t return to the earth if they were given the chance. They aren’t angry with God because of the tsunami. Their friends and family who remain on earth who are also true followers of Christ are surely having their faith tested like Job of old. Their reward will be just. Our prayers are with them.
Every day on the earth about 150,000 people die. It’s like a new Indian Ocean tsunami every day, but because it happens every day and is spread out all over the earth, it doesn’t make the news. God, however, is always trying to get our attention. Even as we look at our aging faces in the mirror each day, God is again trying to mercifully warn us that our final day is coming. There is nothing that is more important than being ready for that final day.
Please allow me one more minute. I know I haven’t even tried to answer every question. That would take a book. But let me write for a moment to readers who are sincere Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.
Jesus is undeniably an historical person. His contemporaries recorded His amazing life in the Bible. He claimed to be God, the one who created the universe, and He proved it by His miracles. He raised the dead, opened the eyes of the blind, and walked on water. They killed Him and three days later He came back to life, after having predicted all of it in advance. He also forgave the sins of repentant people.
Now you must decide in your own heart, Was Jesus who He claimed to be? Was and is He the Lord God? He promised everyone who would repent and believe in Him that He would forgive them and come to live in them by His Holy Spirit, enabling them to obey His commands. You can strive with all your ability to be a good person, but you will fail miserably. You can never be good enough to please God in your own strength. You must humble yourself, admit that you have been disobeying God’s voice in your heart, and call on Jesus to forgive you. He died for your sins, and He now lives to be your Lord (see Rom. 14:9). So repent. Make Jesus your Lord and Master. He will forgive you. He will come to live inside you. You will become a new person!
So thankful for His mercy,
David Servant
david@shepherdserve.org
——————————
I hope that answers some of your questions…Turk182

Dear Chief:
you wrote:
Victor,
“I have gone to great lengths on this blog to reveal what I believe about the nature of sin and God. I am still mystified, however, at what you truly believe because you have not made it clear.
-What do you believe about the nature of God and His relationship to man?
-If you were God, how would you react to faithlessness and evil in this world? If you had revealed yourself fully to man, yet many rejected or reviled you, and you were all-powerful, what would your reaction be?
-How do your beliefs reconcile love and goodness with the evils we see at work in the world?
I’m just curious how your belief system deals with what we see at work in men.
God bless you today!
Chief1989″
You’re right, you’ve done a very good job explaining what you believe, perhaps I don’t…
Briefly:
- I think that every human, every man and woman are One with God, and with every other. Not that so it will be, or that we are sinners from birth separated from God until we do what he wants and requires…
- Bad things and behaviors, and ‘evil’ are not ‘temptations of the Devil’ or consequences of our ‘evil nature’, but results of a culture of separation and therefore, lack of real Love for Life and everybody. Beliefs of separation theology has a lot to do with that.
- For what I see, you have read COnversations with God, but you have pretty many misunderstandings, and a lot of pre-conceptions from your belief system…
Ok, I’ll try to clarify some of them later…
Be Blessed

Some brief explanations:
Chief wrote:
- “In other words, forget about other people’s needs, feed you own. “Self-interest is the highest interest…Walsch’s idea is that do everything for yourself, in your own self-interest, because what is good for you is good for other people. I have never seen this concept work, because when people act in their own self-interest, the needs of others usually gets waylaid ”
A misunderstanding.
Conversations with God (CWG) makes clear that loving yourself is not the same that self-interest or much less, egoic interest. On the contrary, it explains insistently that this concept could be, and has been distorted for ungodly and selfish purposes…
CWG says that as we are all one, if you forget about other people’s needs, you’ll be forgetting yours too, because we are all part of the same body…
More over CWG claims that spirituality has nothing to do with ‘yourself’, but absolutely with others, with every other…
“Love your neighbor as yourself”
Chief wrote:
- ” Walsch’s “god” does not want our worship, does not need our obedience, and it is not necessary to serve him or worship him or praise him, or even to respect him or recognize him or accept him or acknowledge him.
There is no sin, there is no absolute truth (indeed, in Walsch’s theology, it’s impossible to know the truth), and there is no absolute right and wrong. Something is either “good” or “bad” in the sense of whether a person’s actions are useful in helping them achieve a particular objective.Hitler did nothing “wrong” in a moral sense, only in the sense that his actions did not help him achieve his objectives.”
Do you remember when it was a sin that women used pants -”male vests”-, or go to school, or have discovered face in church? Now it isn’t almost for nobody -though some still believe so…-
If god is almighty what would He need? Isn’t he the all in all?
Now in the last sentence, you have a misunderstanding.
Something is not either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in relation to a particular person, or his objectives… CWG says that we DEFINE COLLECTIVELY good or bad, in relation to what we declare our purposes are… It’s different.
If humankind says that we want a world in harmony, order, and happiness, then things as robbery, slavery, rape, or killing don’t work… In other words, these things would be ‘bad’, not as pre-detemined moral sentences a priori, but in relation to that purpose.
If humankind -or part of it- says that want power, dominion, and submission of others, then robbery, slavery, rape, or killing are very ok…
-By the way, very accurately what has been happening for some thousand years…-
Moreover, CWG says that in this sense, as what we are doing here is defining ourselves, “the worst ‘bad’ would be not to declare anything bad at all”…
So, it is not true that CWG says that “Hitler did nothing “wrong” in a moral sense, only in the sense that his actions did not help him achieve his objectives”. That’s a distorted understanding.
What CWG states in individual terms is that “nobody makes anything ‘wrong’ given his model of the world”… That’s very different…
Says that Hitler did what he thought was ‘good’ for his people, and many thousands believed him, not only in Germany, but also in USA, Italy, and many other places… But in terms of what humanity has defined as ‘human’, many in the world said no; Hitler ideas and actions were bad, very ‘bad’, given who we say we are…
Have we learnt that lesson? It seems that not totally. Look at Iraq, look at Guantanamo, look at dozens of secret prisons and concentration camps USA has in the world TODAY…
Anybody does anything wrong given his model of the world.
If your model says that God asks you to kill your brothers and friends, you’ll act as Mosed did… That’s a ‘good’ thing…
If your model of the world says that you have the right to invade other countries because they are ‘wicked’ and ‘evil’, and you are ‘the beatiful people of God’, you’ll do it in Canaan, 3000 thousand years ago, or in Iraq 5 years ago… That’s a ‘good’ thing…
If your model of the world says that one man must die for the good of all your people, you’ll kill Jesus, JFK, or Salvador Allende. That is a good thing…
If your model of the world says that heretics, sodomites, and pagans will not inheritate the Kingdom of the Lord and they are death convicted, you’ll burn them, stone them, hang them, decapitate them, and before that, torture them, very happily, because you’re doing the ‘very work of the Lord’. Those are very good, good things…
No matter that it is written:
“Thou shalt not kill”
Or not?
So, what were you saying about moral relativity?…
- Chief wrote:
“If God simply created the universe, would it like an alarm clock, then sat back and watched it go without intervening in it, what kind of a God would He be? What would be the purpose of that? To create a universe and then say, “Here you go! Do whatever you want to whomever you want whenever you want!”
Isn’t this las thing exactly what seems to happen? God doesn’t intervene at all never, and lets everybody do whatever they want. Need examples…?
This is exactly the argument argued for atheists and agnostics, so many times rejected by fundamentalists, when they ask:
“How does your God tolerate so much evil and injustice in the world, without intervening in order to avoid them ?”, and the answer is: “God gave us free will, and mankind makes their own decisions, and God let them be, but sinners will pay in the next world…”
So they ask: what kind of God is this…?
Specially when his threats and punishments don’t seem to work at all…
CWG states that until we don’t change our very core beliefs about God, Life, and Human Beings, we’ll continue creating what we’ve have been creating by some millenia: the world of fear, punishment, vengeance, war and domination, the world of Separation based on ideas and cultures, and religions of Separation.
CWG says that God is not an angry Being separated of us by millions of light years of distance, or by cause of our ‘sins’ -or Adam and Eve sins-.
So, God doesn’t sit back and watch the world without intervening… it is us who do that!… It’s Humankink who does that!
So, the question is not: oh God, where are you!?
The question God ‘asks’ from every heart is: “where is Humankind?”
“What do you decide? What do you choose? What are your intentions?
“What you choose I’ll ‘say so be it’, and never will judge you, but always will be there for helping you to do and be, what you decide… Individually and collectively, because, understand this: We are All One”
When we think, talk, and act as One body -with its many different parts-, the “Kingdom of Heavens”, the Shambhala, the Nirvana, will be near…
Where it has always been…
Blessings, Namaste, As Salaam Aleikum, Shalom

Quote from victor:
hey believe that God is so, and so must be, and so be it…
So, dont worry too much about it, if you are inclined to believe in that ‘lovely god’, convert yourself rapidly; you just have to say with your mouth, mind and heart: “I accept sincerely, from my heart at Jesus as my Lord and saviour”, and that’ all, you’re ‘saved’. No matter that you don’t understand too much what that means, or what you do after it, incluiding doing ‘bad things’ after it; you’ll be saved, and little by little, as you pray and read the Bible, the Holy Ghost will guide you…
You will be saved but you’ll have to work a lot for being loyal and true…
If you are not inclined to believe in the God of anger, is almost the same, you’ll have to work a lot in growing yourself, but perhaps without “fear and trembling”, you will not be saved from nothing (because there is nothing from what being saved), or you’ll be saved anyway…
So, what do you choose?
unquote:
mmmmm
Chief’s exam – If I Pass I get A if I fail I get an F
Victor’s exam – If I pass I get A if I fail I get an A
Chief’s school certificate – well, nothing new, you work for it you are entitle to an A, but if you don’t study and follow the studies, you fail with a F. It’s quite normal.. happiness and sadness
*scratch head?
Victor’s school certificate – You study or don’t study you are already entitled an A. mmmm looks empty and valueless but but you feel the comfort of going to school with fun and all smiles, no stress.. what the hack, pass or fail I get to enter the University
Happiness and happiness
Now the problem is where is the University?
Will they really accept Victor’s certificate?
what if they say sorry NO… you need to have Chief’s certificate.
Not that I really care for the moment, from this point of view, I don’t even attend the school lest a certificate.. for that matter..
but somehow I feel chief’s ways are very stressful..
while Victor’s ways you can feel a deep sense that you want to jump into the air and say “HAHAHAHAHA I am there already!!”

He, he… funny comment, Idolhunter…
But for making things clear:
I said:
“If you are not inclined to believe in the God of anger, is almost the same, you’ll have to work a lot in growing yourself, but perhaps without “fear and trembling”, you will not be saved from nothing (because there is nothing from what being saved), or you’ll be saved anyway…”
You’ll have to work a lot or little, depending of where do you come from, for being ‘happy’ in this world. The process of remembering who you really are, is not instantaneous or effortless -unless so be it made for you-
The difference with fundamentalist view is that you don’t have God in a tribunal deciding who goes to heaven amd who goes to everlasting hell for centuries without end, with Satan and his demons…
‘My’ way says that it is you who create heaven or hell here on earth, or anywhere, and in case you create hell, it has not to last forever and ever…
In fundamentalism, even when you’re saved, you have to struggle a lot for gaining your ‘prize’, and dealing with your very sinful nature over and over, and fighting against the Devil’s temptations, and trying to not get God mad with you, so he doesn’t have to punish you for your own good; and you have to serve him with fear and trembling…
In Oneness Spirituality, you have to deal with your misconceptions, with what you are used to, and with the beliefs of the world in it and in you, in Separation Paradygm. Not ‘sinful nature’, but question of not knowing, not remembering who you are really -a divine creature-.
Not really simple -unless it is…- . But definitely, you have God of your side unconditionally, without punishments or everlasting torment -what kind of God is that…???- , but with the Perfect Power of Love, that kicks out all Fear…
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
(Jn. 4:18)
So what you CHOOSE freely and without hided manipulations: A or F?
;-D
Blessings and Love

Victor and Idolhunter,
Nice banter, but I think Idolhunter, either intentionally or accidentally, nailed the issue – in the school of CWG, whether you study or not, you still get an A and still get the certificate. Seems empty and valueless…and it is.
Victor, do you really want a society where the majority rules, and whatever they decide is “good” becomes the letter of the law? Sorry, but the earth has tried that many times, and it never comes out good. Because you know the path those civilizations go down after adopting that philosophy? Oh, it starts out innocent enough, but then you have the loosening of sexual mores, acceptance of all kinds of different lifestyles, then practices like abortion, euthenasia, and the culling of all of the weak, old, and diseased from the population. Need proof? That is the road the Romans went down, as well as the Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Moabites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perrizites, Hivites, Babylonians, Asyrians, and Philistines. All of those at one time were mighty nations and empires, and every one went down to destruction. Why? Because almost to a one they used the model of human behavior that you are espousing.
Some of the nations I mentioned were among the ones the Israelites drove out when possessing the Promised Land. Were they cruelly swept aside, vast numbers of innocent people just minding their own business when the Hebrew juggernaut exploded upon them? Not at all; they were nations that God for years had been trying to repent, and their societies had grown increasingly wicked. They practiced child sacrifice (their idols would have outstretched hands that would be heated to red-hot, then infants placed in those hands as a fertility sacrifice), homosexuality and incestual relationships were common, prostitution in their idol temples was legal and rampant, and they followed the practices of killing the weak, sick, and old members among them. In other words, they had sunk so low that there was no turning back.
CWG embraces the collective unity and good, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing is it supposes that people are essentially good in their core nature, and that has not been bourne out over time. Do you think evolution is true? Then why have we not advanced – the very things that mankind has done from the beginning we are still doing now – greed, lust, violence, hate. If reincarnation is true, and the goal of reincarnation is to rid yourself of bad karma, then why is the world not a better place now than it was hundreds or thousands of years ago? If we are all on an upward path towards enlightenment or total consciousness, shouldn’t we notice that the behavior of human beings and our state in the world is trending upward? Yet in looking at the world and how it is today, that is not the case at all. The reality is that this world is not a better place at all than it was hundreds or thousands of years ago – I happen to believe in de-evolution, the process by which we are getting dumber as a species and utilizing less and less of our available brain power – heck, it isn’t a better place than it was twenty or thirty years ago! Our culture embraces violence (if you don’t believe that, look at how popular the movies like the Saw franchise are, especially with the younger generation) and sex and gossip (have you seen how many celebrity-following TV shows, magazines, and websites there are? It’ll boggle your mind!). Abortion is legal, assisted suicide is gaining ground, and euthenasia will not be far behind. Pornography is everywhere, and the three biggest money-making enterprises in the world are Arms (both legitimate and illegitimate), illegal drugs, and human slavery. Are you aware that the FBI states that more people are being brought into the United States as slaves than during colonial times? Only in many cases the slaves are women and children forced into sexual slavery. Did you know that Atlanta, GA is the number one place in North America for people to fly in to have sex with minors? Our culture is mirroring the great civilizations of the past, and that is not a good thing.
Well, I have to go, but I have a lot more to say on this subject. Idolhunter, you mentioned that you thought my way was stressful. You bet it is! Jesus said to His disciples, “Do not be troubled, and do not let your hearts be troubled. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Idolhunter, ask yourself what happens to the human spirit when all obstacles are removed from its path. It does not grow or soar, but becomes complacent, fat, and lazy. We have to have challenges and obstacles to overcome if we are to grow. Think about that.
God bless, and good evening!
Chief1989

Such a sermon attributed to David Servant posted here by Turk182 is so much a part of my growth, and drift from Christianity. It asks: Why could not the recent tsunami be a manifestation of God’s anger? My answer? Because God never gets angry! How can one talk of a perfect God who succumbs to anger?
“So the Bible tells us that God is angry every day (see Psalm 7:11). How could a loving and all-knowing God not be angry every day with what He sees on the earth?” God, so full of anger… Isn’t He pitiful? Anger is one of man’s imperfections. Is anger part of His perfection?
“…Christians profess to believe in a God who once flooded the entire earth because of His anger, killing everyone but eight people. There are scores of examples in Scripture of God wiping out pagan nations and even His own people (Israel) because of His anger. He often takes credit in the Bible for earthquakes that are a result of His judgment (see Num. 16:23-24; Isa. 29:6; Jer. 10:10; Ezek. 38:19; Ps. 18:7; 77:18; Hag. 2:6; Luke 21:11; Acts 16:26; Rev. 6:12; 8:5; 11:13; 16:18). He has foretold of natural disasters that are yet to come upon the earth that will make the recent tsunami seem like a ripple in a wading pool. Why could not the recent tsunami be a manifestation of God’s anger? If it isn’t, then what part of God’s character does it manifest? What else might have been motivating Him?”
Genocide is genocide. It’s not even punishment. It’s condemnation. It’s evil… even when done by God himself for any reason… even when victims were sufficiently warned. With such a vicious and despicable God how are we to judge Bush’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan? Is God so impotent that even with the endless extermination of peoples and nations to prove His prowess and to instill fear in the hearts of His hapless creations, man would still be as bad as they are? With so much more detractors than believers, who can say that His only Son, Jesus, did not die in vain?
Preachers make much about God’s warnings before inflicting harm. How did He warn Sodom and Gomorrah? The angels He sent to check whether the place is indeed evil were cowards. They could not even leave Lot’s house for fear of the people milling around! Anyway, why did He rely on their report? Isn’t He supposed to be all knowing?
DS justified the death of innocent children saying that they would be in heaven anyway. So why didn’t God chose the Christians instead of the Muslims? They would be better off in heaven, wouldn’t they? Then, the non-Christians would probably have more time to repent and perhaps find their way to Jesus.
This part of the sermon, I accept. “God has been preaching to the coastal people of the Indian Ocean through bananas, starfish, seagulls, and a million other daily miracles… God is not only shouting at people outwardly, but also inwardly, through their conscience…” Therefore, it is to Him that we must listen. Isn’t He better than books that are interpreted in as many ways as there are sects, preachers, imams, etc.
So what’s it about the tsunami? I’m not so sure. But surely, it’s not about 100,000 souls going to hell because they didn’t receive baptism from the Catholic Church or did not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I think it’s more about growth pains. For the Earth, for the people who perished because they didn’t really die but will take on new roles, and for all of us who show compassion and share our blessings with the survivors.

Tax,
In my opinion, the tsunami and related tragedies are not about people going to hell, nor necessarily about God’s judgment, although He certainly can use things like that to judge evil.
Here is the central message that I think about when I read about floods, earthquakes, and the like: 1) Death is certain and will come upon us all. Not matter how “good” you are, no matter how often you work out, no matter how careful or safety conscious you are, and no matter what breakthroughs medical science may make, we will all face physical death. There is no escape from it, and we do not know how it will strike us, through either natural means or an accident or natural disaster. 2) The lesson to be gleaned is that you need to make sure you are right with the Lord, because if something like the tsunami was to strike where you live, you are ready to meet your maker.
Tax, the legacy of the cross of Christ is this: physical death is certain. Even Jesus, God Incarnate, was physically killed in the body and did not escape death. That is something for which God has not provided for our escape or release from. However, spiritual death is not certain, and God has provided a way to escape it. That is the redemptive message of the cross, that although Christ had to die, His death paved the way for mankind to escape spiritual death as well. His resurrection firmly established that there is life after death, and that we could spend that life with God if we accepted the FREE gift of salvation offered through Jesus Christ.
People here on earth spend so much time and energy trying to avoid death and prolong their lives, and they spend tens of billions of dollars a year on drugs and exercise machines and gyms and tonics and diet plans and elective surgery trying to put off the inevitable. If only they would invest that kind of energy seeking the way to avoid spiritual death!
As far as anger, is anger always bad? Is it a sin to get angry? Anger is primal emotion that can be used for good or bad. Haven’t you felt a righteous anger when you saw an injustice being committed? When someone you knew was an evil person seemed to get ahead and succeed, even though you knew they were doing it by dishonest means? God’s anger is not like the anger that you feel when someone cuts you off in traffic, or when the candy machine doesn’t drop the selection you made, or when your wife used your credit card to buy hundreds of dollars of clothes that you couldn’t afford. There is a world of difference between God’s anger and our anger.
“‘My ways are not your ways, neither are My thoughts your thoughts’ says the Lord. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are My thoughts above your thoughts and My ways above your ways.’”
We have to be very careful about projecting our self-fueled emotions onto God. When He is angry, it is perfect and righteous and just. When I am angry, usually it’s over something petty and stupid. When He punishes and judges, it is with perfect righteousness, not out of vanity, cruelty, or out of spite. When He disciplines His children, it is out of perfect love, not out of anger or impatience or irritation. Again, you have to understand God’s nature to put these things into perspective.
Tax, I have talked to a lot of people over the years who questioned why God is like that or why He doesn’t do something or why He has to desire or command this or that. In the end, what it usually boiled down to was that these people were comfortable with the way they were living, and following God meant they would have to change some things in their lives and give up some things that they weren’t ready or willing to give up. And that is a hard thing to do, I make no bones about it. I used to swear and party and smoke pot and live by a very loose morality when I was a younger man, and at the time I thought I was living it up and having a marvelous time. But when I became a man (in Christ) I gave up childish things. Most of the behaviors that people cling to are ones that are at their core self-serving. Well, it’s not all about me.
I hope that helps you.
God bless!
Chief1989

Chief 1989,
I appreciate your concern. I know it’s genuine. But it’s like history repeating itself. It’s the same message I had to endure for years. Now I’m out of it. Thanks to Neale. Now I can face issues without fear and with more compassion… like you… like all the rest of us here.
First, let me give what you ask of Victor. I share his views, and that of Dave. Victor lays a foundation; Dave wrecks. Both are functions of construction. Sometimes it’s necessary to demolish existing structures before a new one can be built. Of course, I learn or remember much from the other posts as well, including yours.
Death is a common phenomena. We need no tsunami or earthquake to remind us of its certainty. I worry not about how I shall meet my Maker. He’s always with me, as I am with Him. I need nobody to command me to love myself because I am lovable… just like you… just like the rest of humanity. God created me as I am, therefore I am perfect, as all His creations are. This is why love is our nature.
If “…man fall short of the glory of God”, is intrinsically sinful and needs to be saved then indeed he will find difficulty in loving himself and others as well. Hence, there’s a need for a command, which includes a threat. This will of course reflect on the creator. How can you love a creator who creates evil or whose creations eventually turn sour as Satan, Adam and the rest of us presumably did? Hence, the need for a command and a threat. Love me… or else.
You say that the tsunami is not about judgment yet you say that “…we could spend that life with God if we accepted the FREE gift of salvation offered through Jesus Christ. Isn’t this a form of judgment? That unless you accept Him as your Lord and Savior you will certainly burn in hell? I hope I’m wrong.
You say that there’s a world of difference between God’s anger and our anger. Of course, there is. The most that our uncontrolled rage can do do is kill a dozen or two persons including ourselves. The Bible portrays a God who is licensed to exterminate as many nations as He may want to when angered. He makes the pot, so he can break it whenever He wants to, if He’s crazy enough to do that. Since it was perfectly alright for Him to accept Jesopath’s daughter when offered as a sacrifice, I think it was perfectly alright for Him as well to sacrifice His only Son. To appease whose anger? His!
You said: “The reality is that this world is not a better place at all than it was hundreds or thousands of years ago…” Maybe. But don’t forget that during all these years separation theology controls most of our beliefs and actions. It’s not fair to blame the new theology Victor spouses for what has happened in the past or in the present.
Congratulations for being at peace with yourself and your God. As I am with mine. May all of us be so. I am quite sure God wouldn’t mind. He accepts our frailties, if such be frailties. After all, we’re His creation, aren’t we? Relax Chief. God’s not anywhere near tearing down his clothes or pulling his hair in anger. He’s amused, smiling. As we should be. Always.

Tax,
Thanks for your comments. However, you regard Neale’s insights into “separation theology” and the “new theology” that Victor espouses as something new. They’re not; the beliefs that Neale received “by revelation” are in fact ancient, and retreads of various theologies that lived and died hundreds and thousands of years ago. The idea that we are “one” with the universe and/or nature exists in several dozen different belief systems ranging from Eastern to Native American to Innuit. Neale’s CwG offers nothing new under the sun.
People are perfect? Do you live on this planet? Have you ever met someone who was perfect, who never had an illicit thought, never spoke an unkind word, and never did anything remotely naughty? I sure haven’t. And I have met plenty of people whose only love was themselves. Love is most definitely not the nature of mankind as a whole.
A person who gets angry can only kill, at most, a couple of dozen? Didn’t Hitler kill 6 million Jews? Didn’t Pol Pot exterminate 2 million of his fellow Cambodians? Didn’t Attila the Hun wipe out hundreds of thousands during his scourge? Didn’t Vlad the Impaler kill thousands in Romania to satisfy his blood lust?
God indeed has “license” to do whatever He wants with His creation. However, He does not kill with impunity, exterminate whole nations without a second thought, and dish out violence and death in a crazed, uncontrolled fashion as you suggest. I would suggest that you go back to the Biblical accounts, starting with Deuteronomy 7, and read for yourself rather than taking someone else’s word for it. The nations that the Israelites drove out or destroyed were not innocent, peace-loving peoples, but societies that had become so depraved in their practices that they had no recourse but to wipe them out lest they infect others on earth. If I have an infection in a wound, I take action to stamp it out, lest it fester, spread, grow, and threaten other parts of my body. As you know, any infection left untreated can ultimately kill you. Those societies, like the Amorites, Amalekites, and Jebusites, had heard the word of the Lord, either ignored or rejected it several times over, and debased themselves by entering into, condoning, and accepting horrible practices among themselves. Therefore, God chose to cleanse the earth of them rather than let them fester, grow, and infect other parts of the world. Does that sound harsh and unloving to you? Letting that particular type of society grow in influence and stature would be worse for all concerned.
It is like the FBI dealing with a terrorist threat; if it grows and seems likely to cause real damage to people and property, they will take it down. I was in the United States Navy; upon entering the service, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Most of the time the patrols are routine, but you do get called to action from time to time to deal with things that are operating outside the recognized rules, and you may be called to use force to neutralize those threats if worst comes to worst. God certainly gave people a number of chances to turn and repent before He issued judgment – and yes, as sovereign Creator of the universe, that is His right to judge as He sees fit.
Tax, I do care about people, what they believe, and I care about the truth. And that truth has been twisted and perverted ever since the creation of the world. Man has remade God in his own image thousands of times over the millenia, and CwG is just another example of that. The CwG deity and view of humanity simply do not fit the evidence that is out there to be seen. If man’s true nature was to love creation, love self, and love one another, then there would not be more than 70 wars and border disputes going on today (Iraq and Afghanistan are only 2 of a multitude of conflicts raging out there, folks), and we would not be dealing with the Darfur situation, and human slavery would not be the 3rd biggest money-making enterprise in the world, and police would not get called every 10 seconds to break up a domestic dispute, and suicide would not be the 2nd-leading cause of death among teenagers. Every day I flip on the TV and there are more children missing, more murders, rapes, beatings, and robberies, more human misery. I’m sorry, but your vision of what the world is supposed to be like with all of us one with the Unconditional Loving Spirit simply does not fit with what has really transpired in human history. Man simply is not perfect, there is no reincarnation, and there are dark spiritual forces out there trying to trip us up. And God, although I’m sure He smiles often, is not amused by all of this. And yes, Tax, He is angry whenever He sees someone leading others astray by spreading messages that cannot save and false gospels that have no redemptive power. His anger burns against anything that gets in the way of people discovering the true path to Him, through His Son Jesus. And He is angry with societies that call good evil and evil good, and condone and accept and perform practices that are detestable to Him. That is not what He intended for His creation at all, but He puts up with it. Why? For our sakes, and our sakes only. He holds back His judgment so that every person possible can hear the gospel message and make the choice for themselves.
You have a problem with a God who is angry, and that is understandable. But you are projecting your kind of anger onto Him, and that is an error. His anger is not like ours, as I said before. Your response indicated to me you do not have an understanding of that, which is okay. To you, He is a raving madman crazy with bloodlust, ready to hurl out His lightning bolts at the slightest provocation. That is not the Biblical picture: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished’.
That is why a God who is Perfect, Holy, and Just has to have both love and justice in His character. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t love a poor person and not help them; you can’t love someone who has been mistreated and not want for them to see justice; you can’t love someone who has been wronged and not want to see their tormentor brought to justice. It can’t be done, and to deny that God punishes sin is to deny that God exists.
John put it this way in his epistle, “7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
Did you get that, Tax? If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, the truth (which Neale stresses so much that we have to find, although he doesn’t give much direction on how we’re supposed to do that) is not in us, and we make God out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives. That is the reality of our situation. We are not perfect, there is such a thing as sin, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is the long, short, and wide of it. Anything else is not the truth and has no power to save your soul.
I know this was long, so if you made it this far, thanks! God bless you, and have a great evening!
Chief1989

Tax,
Thanks for your comments. However, you regard Neale’s insights into “separation theology” and the “new theology” that Victor espouses as something new. They’re not; the beliefs that Neale received “by revelation” are in fact ancient, and retreads of various theologies that lived and died hundreds and thousands of years ago. The idea that we are “one” with the universe and/or nature exists in several dozen different belief systems ranging from Eastern to Native American to Innuit. Neale’s CwG offers nothing new under the sun.
People are perfect? Do you live on this planet? Have you ever met someone who was perfect, who never had an illicit thought, never spoke an unkind word, and never did anything remotely naughty? I sure haven’t. And I have met plenty of people whose only love was themselves. Love is most definitely not the nature of mankind as a whole.
A person who gets angry can only kill, at most, a couple of dozen? Didn’t Hitler kill 6 million Jews? Didn’t Pol Pot exterminate 2 million of his fellow Cambodians? Didn’t Attila the Hun wipe out hundreds of thousands during his scourge? Didn’t Vlad the Impaler kill thousands in Romania to satisfy his blood lust?
God indeed has “license” to do whatever He wants with His creation. However, He does not kill with impunity, exterminate whole nations without a second thought, and dish out violence and death in a crazed, uncontrolled fashion as you suggest. I would suggest that you go back to the Biblical accounts, starting with Deuteronomy 7, and read for yourself rather than taking someone else’s word for it. The nations that the Israelites drove out or destroyed were not innocent, peace-loving peoples, but societies that had become so depraved in their practices that they had no recourse but to wipe them out lest they infect others on earth. If I have an infection in a wound, I take action to stamp it out, lest it fester, spread, grow, and threaten other parts of my body. As you know, any infection left untreated can ultimately kill you. Those societies, like the Amorites, Amalekites, and Jebusites, had heard the word of the Lord, either ignored or rejected it several times over, and debased themselves by entering into, condoning, and accepting horrible practices among themselves. Therefore, God chose to cleanse the earth of them rather than let them fester, grow, and infect other parts of the world. Does that sound harsh and unloving to you? Letting that particular type of society grow in influence and stature would be worse for all concerned.
It is like the FBI dealing with a terrorist threat; if it grows and seems likely to cause real damage to people and property, they will take it down. I was in the United States Navy; upon entering the service, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Most of the time the patrols are routine, but you do get called to action from time to time to deal with things that are operating outside the recognized rules, and you may be called to use force to neutralize those threats if worst comes to worst. God certainly gave people a number of chances to turn and repent before He issued judgment – and yes, as sovereign Creator of the universe, that is His right to judge as He sees fit.
Tax, I do care about people, what they believe, and I care about the truth. And that truth has been twisted and perverted ever since the creation of the world. Man has remade God in his own image thousands of times over the millenia, and CwG is just another example of that. The CwG deity and view of humanity simply do not fit the evidence that is out there to be seen. If man’s true nature was to love creation, love self, and love one another, then there would not be more than 70 wars and border disputes going on today (Iraq and Afghanistan are only 2 of a multitude of conflicts raging out there, folks), and we would not be dealing with the Darfur situation, and human slavery would not be the 3rd biggest money-making enterprise in the world, and police would not get called every 10 seconds to break up a domestic dispute, and suicide would not be the 2nd-leading cause of death among teenagers. Every day I flip on the TV and there are more children missing, more murders, rapes, beatings, and robberies, more human misery. I’m sorry, but your vision of what the world is supposed to be like with all of us one with the Unconditional Loving Spirit simply does not fit with what has really transpired in human history. Man simply is not perfect, there is no reincarnation, and there are dark spiritual forces out there trying to trip us up. And God, although I’m sure He smiles often, is not amused by all of this. And yes, Tax, He is angry whenever He sees someone leading others astray by spreading messages that cannot save and false gospels that have no redemptive power. His anger burns against anything that gets in the way of people discovering the true path to Him, through His Son Jesus. And He is angry with societies that call good evil and evil good, and condone and accept and perform practices that are detestable to Him. That is not what He intended for His creation at all, but He puts up with it. Why? For our sakes, and our sakes only. He holds back His judgment so that every person possible can hear the gospel message and make the choice for themselves.
You have a problem with a God who is angry, and that is understandable. But you are projecting your kind of anger onto Him, and that is an error. His anger is not like ours, as I said before. Your response indicated to me you do not have an understanding of that, which is okay. To you, He is a raving madman crazy with bloodlust, ready to hurl out His lightning bolts at the slightest provocation. That is not the Biblical picture: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished’.
That is why a God who is Perfect, Holy, and Just has to have both love and justice in His character. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t love a poor person and not help them; you can’t love someone who has been mistreated and not want for them to see justice; you can’t love someone who has been wronged and not want to see their tormentor brought to justice. It can’t be done, and to deny that God punishes sin is to deny that God exists.
John put it this way in his epistle, “7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
Did you get that, Tax? If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, the truth (which Neale stresses so much that we have to find, although he doesn’t give much direction on how we’re supposed to do that) is not in us, and we make God out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives. That is the reality of our situation. We are not perfect, there is such a thing as sin, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is the long, short, and wide of it. Anything else is not the truth and has no power to save your soul.
I know this was long, so if you made it this far, thanks! God bless you, and have a great evening!
Chief1989

Tax,
Separation theology controls all our thoughts and actions? I don’t think so. Maybe for some in the western hemisphere, but certainly not for a large percentage of the earth. Separation theology did not drive Nero or Diocletian, nor did it the Mongol hordes, Attila the Hun, or the Holocaust. Pol Pot did not kill 2 million of his fellow Cambodians in the name of separation theology, nor did Stalin when he killed millions in the purge after WWII. The Japanese did not kill millions of Chinese and Koreans in the name of God, either. Tax, look at any society, be it in the east, west, north, or south – people have always sought to take advantage of those around them. In the Viking society, the raiding parties would set out and destroy the villages that they were plundering. Warring Native American tribes would often try and wipe out or enslave neighboring nations. The Aztec empire was built on the blood of lesser peoples in Mexico, as were the Mayan and Inca nations in Central and South America. You try to attribute gross slaughter to God only, and forget that mankind has excelled at this kind of thing since the beginning, and normally he didn’t need a religious reason to rape, plunder, enslave, and murder.
And no, I don’t think God smiles or is amused by this type of behavior. He did not create the world or us to end up where we are at. He has, however, put up with it (that is NOT the same thing as agreed with or condoned, Tax!) over the centuries for the sake of His Son and for all who are honestly seeking Him. In Lamentations Jeremiah tells us, “It is by the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness!” Your comments about His anger lead me to believe you really do not understand the difference between man’s petty and selfish anger and God’s holy, righteous anger – there is a world of difference! God is not uncontrolled, He is not blood-crazed or maniacal, and He is not unjust. He is angry because people have rejected the truth and embraced lies, false teachings (as I believe CwG to be) and all manner of idolatry. In this culture today both in the US and abroad people worship and idolize sex, money, power, social status, and celebrity. God is left on the outside, like an insurance policy that people want to whip out when the things they really trust let them down.
And I don’t blame the “new theology” – which in fact is a retread of philosophies that have been around for thousands of years – for what has happened past or present. What I do blame it for is misleading perhaps millions of people in their pursuit of and understanding of God. And this theology utterly fails to explain the evidence that is out there, and cannot explain what has happened in human history. People are perfect? Our true nature is love? That is not borne out in the human experience. There is a reason that Jesus told His disciples – “A new command I give you; that you must love one another”. Why would He command something if it was our true nature? The reason – it is not our nature at all to consider other people’s needs before our own. The main human drives – survival, sex, hunger – are at the base of them selfish and self-seeking. It takes EFFORT to deny yourself and serve others first, and that fact is in your face every day of every year.
If love was truly our inner nature, would we be faced with the epidemics of murder, rape, domestic violence, and human slavery that we see in the world? Would the trafficking of people for sex and slavery be the 3rd-biggest money-making enterprise in the world? Would suicide be the 2nd-leading cause of death among young people? Would dictatorships deny their citizens of basic aid after tragedies, and bar aid groups from coming in and helping to distribute food, water, and shelter? Would 300 Christians be put to death a day for their faith if love ruled in human hearts?
I’m sorry to say this, Tax, but human beings are far from perfect, and love does not rule in most of our hearts. In Jeremiah 19 the prophet says about the human heart, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” The human race is not innately good, and human beings do not intrinsicly seek out to do good and serve others. Loving others and holding their needs above our own is a LEARNED trait, not an INHERITED one! That is why the gift of the Holy Spirit is so critical upon conversion, so He can guide us to do that which is against our spiritual nature but well-known to our own selfish, sinful nature.
Paul puts it this way in Galatians 5 – “16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
19The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
Watching the news, reading the newspaper, just going out and observing people at the mall or amusement park or office building, what kind of behaviors do you see the most? Watch parents at a Little League game; what kind of behavior do they exhibit? I used to referee Youth Basketball games for the Boys & Girls club, but I don’t anymore. I didn’t stop because of the kids, but because of the constant abuse from the parents! They would cuss, they would threaten, they would carry on, right in front of their kids and mine. And this in a supposedly upscale environment.
Anyway, you get the point. To summarize, I will quote John from his epistle in 1 John 1: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
IF WE CLAIM TO BE WITHOUT SIN, WE DECEIVE OURSELVES AND THE TRUTH IS NOT IN US. IF WE CLAIM WE HAVE NOT SINNED, WE MAKE HIM (GOD) OUT TO BE A LIAR AND HIS WORD HAS NO PLACE IN OUR LIVES.
That is the reality of our human situation, Tax. We sinned, God has to judge sin, He provided a way to pay our penalty Himself, and He offers that way to everyone who will believe. If someone comes along and says, “Sin? Don’t worry about sin, there’s no such thing!” that person is a liar and is leading you down the pathway to destruction. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, so it is my obligation to share the truth and pray that it takes hold in your mind and heart.
Have a good evening, Tax, and God bless you and yours!
Chief1989

Without offending anyone, I think that there is too much scripture and too much orthodoxy being used here. While of course I can provide no physical evidence and indeed verbal communication is very inadequate in describing truth, I believe that our biggest problem is that we take things too seriously. Realizing that many will disagree, my feeling is that we are merely characters in the “mind” of God. And because God is utter perfection itself, it somehow decided to partially experience itself through us. But our physical existence is nothing more than a dream, and ultimate reality is quite different than physical existence. So religions, sects, denominations etc. are in reality inconsequential. We are all one and have our existence in the “mind” of God. As William Shakespeare stated it so well : ” the whole world is a stage and we are all players in it…”. Again, realizing that our languages are inadequate to describe truth, I would nonetheless refer anyone interested in reading The Kybalion. It is available online. After reading this short book many years ago, I have found its ideas and conclusions as the closest that language can come in describing who we are.

Hello Tax:
Thank you very much for your comments…
You have done very well explaining what I would call the ‘nonsense God’:
The unique way that Separation Theology had some sense is if God is in some way powerless, so he has to demonstrate it by his anger, threats, punishment, and genocides…
But after all, without effect, isn`t it, Chief?
As Chief has stated this world has been and is crazy with all the thousands of years of Separation Theologies, be christian, jewish, muslim, mongolian or ancient Roman or greek…
Separation theology is not only jewish-christian, Chief, Separation theology is almost universal, and as Neale says, Separation Theology, creates, Separation Cosmology, and this creates Seaparation Politics and Sociology, and Economy, and this Separation Paradygm creates madness in the end. Where we are all living…
So, Separation theologies have been a real failure, not only because the ‘blood of Christ’, or the punishments of Yahweh, or the works of Hercules or Atlas, or the miracles of Jupiter, had been unable to heal the world, but on the contrary: ARE THE TRUE AND ROOT CAUSE OF ITS MADNESS AND INSANITY…
Separation theology in all its forms produce Separation Cultures, because at the begining, start from the Separated God…
A nonsense God that creates nonsense religions that create nonsense societies.
Certainly Oneness Spirituality has been visualized, revealed, and sometimes, lived, for some, but then they have been accused as heretics, pantheists, atheists, pagans, renegades, gnostics, satanists, witchs, shamanists, polytheist, and anathemas; so usually they’ve ended stoned, decapitated, burned, hanged, in a cross, or killed in any way, in the name of the Lord…
So, the time has come for Oneness Spirituality to have a chance…
Blessings to all

We all seem to be on a one track mind here about human kind and GOD, well nothing wrong with that after all we are discussing on this issue. Now let’s see what we all make of this when we expand our discussion further into more unknowns that we could not possible decipher in our short span of our physical life.
Now I am no scientist or an expert on astronomy, but from my limited brain thinking after reading about them either in my school geography subject or from magazines or the newspapers. The universe is so huge.. Unimaginably big with an infinite number of galaxies that we humans have discovered that we are not the center of everything but merely a small tiny planet in our solar system, in our galaxy, in our own milky way,etc…
Now that is already way out of what our simple mind can accept, now we also hear of things like a spec of dust has a few trillion atoms and atoms now can be splitted further to into smaller item of unimaginable sizes.
Now, from the above, what do we actually see or realize?
Diversification, GOD’s creation is so so so so diversified and we are no more then a speck of dust in the whole creation process of GOD’s purpose of ???? I have no words to put it.
My mouth is now wide open and my mind is now blank…..
Mum shouted… “Idolhunter!!!” , your breakfast is ready, quick go and eat before it gets cold… “yes. Mum” mmmm back to reality, I got to eat, so that I can have enough energy to think and walk and go to work so that I can have a life to live so that one day, I will find a wife get married and have children.
I purposely talk about the universe and the atoms then wake myself up to the reality of daily life.
What was all that about? How am I to connect my simple reality of life to the unknown trillions of billions of things out there. One thing I know immediately is that, it’s not meant for this simple life of ours to decipher. It is no concern of ours to know, if even if you know, so what, what has it got to do with my breakfast on the table when I m hungry.
Nothing!!
But then why is it that I am given the mind or brain to think of such things? Yet it doesn’t seem to have any direct concern to this physical life of say 100 years on this earth.
Somehow, deep down inside, I could feel a reason, a reason for it… logically as in all things we thought, each experience of ours thru’ the thousands years of life of human, one upon the other we share and gradually learn something new into the unknown as we had when each of us humans being led into this diversified world of ours with all kinds of random and criteria of things, we build our knowledge base, even in ways to live, be it Christ’s ways, Buddhist ways, or Gandhi’s ways or scientific discoveries, religious discoveries, we move and change with time…
MY MIND.. deep in me., I cannot bluff myself..… I cannot seem to accept there is only ONE way into this eternal life of ours.. WHY.. WHY give us such immense mysteries and such immense diversifications and directions of life but only ONE genuine path into his diverse kingdom? WHY give me all the abilities to chose and experience but demands me that I MUST search that one route, that one way, that one streams and to block all other streams to flow astray from his kingdom and to punish us for missing it with our limited minds to truly decipher what it has in store for us? My limited brain here need not see far, just watching my children, my friends, my neighbors, I know it will be a pin in a hay stack of a billion barns to search and with a limited time period which needs no mathematical calculation to know it is impossible for the world to attain what GOD want of us to find. OR maybe there wasn’t any path to find?
I just don’t know… I just cannot accept it as a fact. An objective question…
ONE objective question with a trillion answers to choose and I must question every one of them to understand and make a decision within this life time. It’s just impossible for me.

I said:
“The unique way that Separation Theology had some sense is if God is in some way powerless, so he has to demonstrate it by his anger, threats, punishment, and genocides…”
And by ‘Salvation’
A ‘Salvation’ that has to be invented, because something ran wrong in God’s plan…
Remember Genesis 6?:
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
An example of the powerless, erratic, nonsense ‘god’…

There was a time in my life, I felt some peace around me when the whole world of mine was collapsing litterally….
Let’s see if it rings a bell to you…
As we all know, east and west our minds and upbringings comes from different roots.
I was asked to sit down in a tranquil place where we can concentrate…
then he said try to listen to your own breathing… try to listen to the sounds of your surroundings… it’s true, we never actually take the trouble to do that consciously. I know, you will be thinking… ah its some kind of meditation trick or buddhist philosophy to trick ourselves to brainwash or something… Maybe… maybe not…
There is no tricks or funny mumbling chants that I have to say…
No… but then when I m in that state…of peacefulness… I was ask questions… simple straight forward questions…
let’s say.. you were at the beach…when these questions were asked..
do you hear the waves splashing?
yes..
do you think it will still splash if you were not listening to it?
*suddenly I sense a trick question..then for a moment I said …yes…
*thinking to myself since I have seen it so many times… they never stopped splashing at the beach…” so naturally I will say yes
How do you know that it will still splash when you were not listening?
I began to smile… hehe.. I knew he was going to ask me that… and I answered just as I had thought earlier… because I have never seen it before that it stopped splashing…
Good…now you know it has nothing to do with you. right?
YES…
You have no control of it right?
Yes.
Now let’s move in closer, you hear your own breathing?
YES
Does your brain consciously tells you to breathe?
Do you hear your brain or mind saying… now inhale.. exhale. now inhale again.. exhale.
so I try to be smart, yes.. I can tell it to when I want…hahaa
but I know what is he trying to tell me… I know we don’t really control our breathing… it is done subconsciously for the rest of our lives..its on automation.
so the answer is YES, we have no control of it
Now the question comes – when you sleep, does it continue to breathe?
YES of course or I would be dead…
right – YOU have no control of it…. right?
YES…..
NOw let’s get more intimate….
What is your name?
Idolhunter…. (*just for the sake of discussion)
Who gave you this name?
my parents gave it to me when I was born (*say Idolhunter was my real given name for the sake of discussion)
Will it change you in anyway if I say now you are Mr. John
No… I will still be who I am… the same person… probably my friends will laugh at me…when I acknowledge that..
So that means, you are not idolhunter and not john, right?
mmmmmmm come to think of it… hehe.. he has a point….
because I just said I will be who I am no matter what name you give me.
You see the name of the game is to peel off each layer and layers of fixed thinking of ours..
So WHO AM I?
NOTHING BUT JUST A THOUGHT !!!
The moment, you take away the thought, nothing exist
Now let’s put it together the whole sequence…
Your existence is your very thought of the present thinking.
That is all that matters and everything else will fall into place..or doesn’t fall into place… so what… it has nothing to do with you anyway….hehehe
Now even an illiterate, a farmer, a labourer, an accountant, a businessman, a scholar will understands this without much analysis that there is something out there that controls and we are mere thoughts in the process that is part of the system that governs us for whatever process that maybe, our requirement is to live… by any means and continue producing thoughts so as to exist.
I know it sounds way out of topic, way out of western philosophy but this is something that millions believe and live by it taking the middle path of things in every sense to find peace in thoughts.

Oneness Theology is not new, under the context that there’s nothing we can say or do that hasn’t been said or done before. I consider it new because it’s only now that it’s getting widespread acceptance, considering the sales of the books on the subject. Indeed, the idea of oneness of all is found in many ancient teachings. Interestingly enough Albert Einstein who’s not known as a guru of sorts was credited with this statement, “The idea of separateness is but an illusion. No man is an island because everyone and everything is connected to each other in one way or another.” This, of course, is not his exact words nor do I remember how he expanded on this. It just occurred to me that all matter, including man or woman is made up of molecules and molecules are made of atoms. This connects with a guru who said that God knows every sparrow that falls because He is that sparrow. Yoga is about paying home a visit or being one with the Universe whenever one chooses to. Buddhists, please check me out on this.
Chief wrote: “A person who gets angry can only kill, at most, a couple of dozen? Didn’t Hitler kill 6 million Jews? Didn’t Pol Pot exterminate 2 million of his fellow Cambodians? Didn’t Attila the Hun wipe out hundreds of thousands during his scourge? Didn’t Vlad the Impaler kill thousands in Romania to satisfy his blood lust?” Chief, do you think anyone who believes that, God and I are one, would be capable of such atrocities?
Let me make one thing clear, these leaders, including Hitler did not kill people out of anger. Unlike your God. They did those hideous acts because it was what they thought was right, given the conditions they were in at that time. If you have Hitler’s genes, was raised and educated the way he was, etc. wouldn’t you have done exactly what he did. God, the real God, understands. How could he be angry? What happened to your God’s daily anger? Did it make us any better during the last 10 thousand years or more? Do you think another God-caused holocaust, tsunami or genocide will make us any better? Do you think sending another Son would save more people than Jesus did?
Chief wrote: “As far as who will get into heaven and who won’t, I don’t make judgments like that.” Yet you say it’s only through Jesus that we are saved! I think I understand. You’re just quoting the Bible. It’s the Book that makes judgments, not you! I thought you agree with your book. You do? Then say it loud and clear. Only those who accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior will be saved, the rest be damned!
You wrote: “… I am obliged to share you the truth…” Nice try at scaring me. Oneness culture does not oblige anybody to do anything to others. One simply does it out of joy and love for oneself. Chief, your God’s no liar. He doesn’t exist. He’s an ancient fantasy Separation Theology passes off as true.

Tax,
You started out as a quite reasonable fellow, but your statements have become more caustic as time has gone on. This will be my last reply to you, for Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not cast your pearls before swine”. I have spoken not my own words, but the words of the Living God. Your “god” of oneness is a myth, and even Einstein, although he was not a Christian persay, spoke of the existence of a divine creator as a fact.
You have a problem with Jesus being the only way to redemption. Well, know this, and know you it well! Scripture is very clear that “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which men shall be saved”. Those are not my words, but the words of Him who is holy and true. If you have a problem with this, if it seems to narrow to you, then your argument is with God, not me. But you can turn off your computer to shut me out, Tax. Or you can refuse to acknowledge me in your posts. You can’t do that to God, “for nothing in all creation is hidden from His sight”. He has revealed Himself to you, in creation, in the Bible, and through His Son. If you reject that, then God loves you enough to respect your choice and honor your rejection. You and you alone will bear the responsibility of it.
Jesus Christ was a real person, not a story or a myth. His death and the actions of His followers in the months following the resurrection were recorded not only in Scripture but by the Jewish historian Josephus and by several Roman historians. Over 500 people witnessed the resurrected Christ before He ascended into heaven. History records that the disciples scattered the night Jesus was arrested, and only John was present at the crucifixion. They met in secret, locking doors and windows because they were afraid they were next to be arrested and executed. And yet, shortly after the resurrection, these 11 men came out of hiding and boldly went up and down the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming Jesus and Him crucified. What changed their minds? Only the fact that they KNEW Christ had risen from the dead explains their behavior, because every one of them except for John died martyrs deaths (they were stoned, beheaded, crucified, speared, and run through with swords). If the resurrection is a lie, there is no way they would have preached it even unto their own deaths, because only an insane person would die for what he knew was a lie. No, Tax, Jesus’ life is a historical FACT. His death is a historical FACT, witnessed by thousands of people. His resurrection is also a FACT, witnessed again by hundreds and attested to by the Holy Spirit, who comes to live within the heart of every believer who accepts Christ as Lord.
Peter said this about Jesus in his serman on the day of Pentecost – “”Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25David said about him:
” ‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
27because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
28You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
29″Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 33Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,
” ‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
35until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.” ‘
36″Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Indeed, let all of the world be assured of this: God has made this Jesus both Lord and Christ!
Am I trying to scare you, Tax? Not really. But fear of God brings wisdom and understanding to who He is and what He has done for us. In Revelation 15 the saints sing -
“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the ages.
4Who will not fear you, O Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
Amen! God has revealed His righteous acts, and they are in plain sight for everyone to see. It says, Tax, that in heaven there will be people of every nation, every tribe, every kindred. So you see, wherever people live on earth, they are not excluded from the heavenly realms nor robbed of the fellowship of God. Did you know that the Christian church in China numbers over 100 million, and that in the face of intense persecution? Or that there is an underground revival going on in a number of Muslim countries like Indonesia, Turkey, Yemen, and several North African nations? That India has a growing church that is showing God’s love and mercy to the Hindus? Wherever people regard the gospel of Christ with open hearts and a teachable spirit, there are souls being won and names being written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Tax, my first remarks may have been harsh, and I am sorry for that. But the reality is that many people just want to mock and scoff, and have hardened their hearts to the presentation of the Gospel. My heart breaks for them, and I pray for them, but they are the ones that make the choice and then have to live with it. God reaches out to them again and again, because another trustworthy saying is that God does not want anyone to perish, but to come to the knowledge of the truth. That is why I post on here like I do.
Peace to you, my friend.
Chief1989

Chief, I don’t mean to piggyback on what you said, but here is an article that might clarify the subject for Tax:
Question: “Is Jesus the only way to Heaven?”
Answer: “I’m basically a good person, so I’ll go to heaven.” “OK, so I do some bad things, but I do more good things, so I’ll go to heaven.” “God won’t send me to hell just because I don’t live by the Bible. Times have changed!” “Only really bad people like child molesters and murderers go to hell.”
These are all common rationales among most people, but the truth is, they are all lies. Satan, the ruler of the world, plants these thoughts in our heads. He, and anyone who follows his ways, is an enemy to God (1Pet 5:8). Satan always disguises himself as good (2 Corinthians 11:14), but he has control over all the minds that do not belong to God. “Satan, the god of this evil world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe, so they are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News that is shining upon them. They don’t understand the message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
It is a lie to believe that God doesn’t care about small sins, and that hell is reserved for “bad people.” All sin separates us from God, even a “little white lie”. Everyone has sinned, and no one is good enough to get to heaven on their own (Romans 3:23). Getting into heaven is not based on whether our good outweighs our bad; we will all lose out if that is the case. “And if they are saved by God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s wonderful kindness would not be what it really is – free and undeserved” (Romans 11:6). We can do nothing good to earn our way to heaven (Titus 3:5).
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way” (Matthew 7:13). Even if everyone is living a life of sin, and trusting in God is not popular, God will not excuse it. “You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God” (Ephesians 2:2).
When God created the world, it was perfect. Everything was good. Then he made Adam and Eve, and gave them their own free will, so they would have a choice whether to follow and obey God or not. But Adam and Eve, the very first people God made, were tempted by Satan to disobey God, and they sinned. This separated them (and everyone that came after them, including us) from being able to have a close relationship with God. He is perfect, and holy, and must judge sin. As sinners, we couldn’t make it there on our own. So, God made a way that we could be united with Him in heaven. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Jesus was born so that He could teach us the way and die for our sins so that we would not have to. Three days after His death, He rose from the grave (Romans 4:25), proving Himself victorious over death. He bridged the gap between God and man so that we may have a personal relationship with Him if we would only believe.
“And this is the way to have eternal life – to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth” (John 17:3). Most people believe in God, even Satan does. But to receive salvation, we must turn to God, form a personal relationship, turn away from our sins, and follow Him. We must trust in Jesus with everything we have and everything we do. “We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this way, no matter who we are or what we have done” (Romans 3:22). The Bible teaches that there is no other way to salvation than through Christ. Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is the only way of salvation because He is the only One who can pay our sin penalty (Romans 6:23). No other religion teaches the depth or seriousness of sin and its consequences. No other religion offers the infinite payment of sin that only Jesus Christ could provide. No other “religious founder” was God become man (John 1:1,14) – the only way an infinite debt could be paid. Jesus had to be God so that He could pay our debt. Jesus had to be man so He could die. Salvation is available only through faith in Jesus Christ! “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Amen and amen…Robert

Will Jesus condemn us? Will God?
To a buddhist, No..
To a Taoist..definte no, because Jesus was not even born yet.
To a Muslim, NO..
To all other faiths and religion – No.
But to christians – the FEAR lingers, could be a yes could be a no.
My answers will make me very unpopular with the fundamentalist but I have no other ways to put it until you are willing to see thru’ the veil of FEAR of your own thinking to seek the truth of what you read.
Due to the diversified upbringing of human kind we have to move up to a level of understanding to seek why my answers are as above.
It is not a right or a wrong but it is what I am exposed to or experienced as GOD intended in my personal journey to seek.
God bless everyone here..
just plain observation
May God bless us all….

Where there is ignorance of God, The human ego runs wild. We are all gods… you all just dont know it yet. Jesus came to show you how to get back to God, how to accept who you are in God…did he not say beware of those Religious leaders that love to pray in public, those that bind up the kingdom and hide knowledge for themselves, and those that seek the scripture think there is salvation in it? No matter what you think, there is nothing to be saved from, except maybe yourself and your ways of thinking that are contrary to finding the kingdom of God inside you. Jesus was God, you are god too..Why do you think he said take up your cross daily(you have to be willing to die to who you think you are)and follow him(become god) He took the sin of not knowing God away by living the life that was totally devoted to becoming God…why is blaspheme against the holy spirit the only unforgivable sin? Thats because you are denying the god that is in you…be taught by the Spirit of God(isnt that what Jesus said? Call no one your father on earth for their is only one father. People will worship God in Spirit and truth. I know it sounds weird at first but this is the good news, that you are god.

Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. Now sin does have a price, so if you dont accept Jesus payment for it, you will have to pay for it, with death in hell and eventually in the lake of fire. It doesnt matter what your opinion is the bible is right.(King James bible)