Monday, September 7, 2009

The God of War Or Peace - Helping With Bible Problems

Here's two verses I found in the Bible that seem to contradict themselves but I'm sure that with a little creativity and manipulation, a good minister or religious scholar, could make some sense out of it.

Exodus 15:3 (New International Version) The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.

Romans 15:33 (New International Version) The God of peace be with you all. Amen.

The Lord is a warrior does not mean that he fights or kills, does it. According to the Old Testament, God killed plenty of people and even took out an entire city one time, flooded the earth to get rid of the evil and of course who could forget, that once we get into the New Testament, God killed his only begotten son Jesus. I don't know if I would really want this guy as my father.

It seems like he has a pretty bad temper on him but is extremely loving, caring and understanding. Are you confused yet, I am. Maybe I shouldn't be throwing the word I am around.

The God of peace states that he is a loving and understanding leader. This makes more sense to me because he did create the earth and everything around it. If I was for example, building a home to create a nice peaceful place to live, I wouldn't be thinking about destroing what I created. I would be thinking more along the lines of how I could take care of this creation.

It makes more sense to me that God would be peaceful but sometimes in order to have peace, we need to be a warrior. If God would have created us to be more compassionate, gave us plenty of food to eat, plenty of homes to live in, removed our sinful nature and of course who could forget, give us a purpose in life that is clearly understandable, I wouldn't see a need for warriors.

Maybe the God of peace is different than the Lord is a warrior. Thinking is a good thing, put your thinking caps on and start reading some of the Bible with an open mind.

Treated Fairly Christianity

You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing and personal development.

Greg is currently working on a spiritual video library filled with great movies on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Christianity Vs Works Based Religion

Over the centuries Christianity has grown immensely in popularity. I feel that why this has come to pass is because it is the only religious doctrine that is based solely on us praying in the name of Jesus to God to ask forgiveness for our sins, and forgiveness being granted by God. In John 14:5-6 (NKJV) Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. These two passages clearly instruct each of us to ask forgiveness of our sins in Jesus name.

Our Father in Heaven knew that no matter how hard mankind tried, because of our imperfections, we would always be sinners; and sinners are not permitted to enter His kingdom in heaven. In the Old Testament we can read how mankind, in general, kept falling short of Gods commandments, and how even when led by Moses, the people had weak days and could not sustain these commandments of the Living God on a continual basis. My conception of the Old Testament and other major religions portray to me that they are works based. God bridged this gap from the works based type in one sole act. He sent forth to earth His Son for all of mankind. This is best summarized by Jesus disciple John in the New Testament; John 3:16 (KJV) which says, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This is also reinforced by The New Testament in 1 John 2:1, 2:2 (NCV) which says, But if anyone does sin, we have a helper in the presence of the FatherJesus Christ, the One who is right. He is the way our sins are taken away, and not only our sins but the sins of all people. In my mindset only the New Testament of Christianity offers mankind the only feasible alternative.

The unique posture that Jesus Christ offers mankind in the New Testament of Bible is His covenant that He made with God, and is expressed by Jesus at the Last Supper, in the New Testament in Luke 22:19, 20 (NCV). Then Jesus took some bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to the apostles, saying, This is my body, which I am giving for you. Do this to remember me. In the same way, after supper, Jesus took the cup and said, This cup is the new agreement that God makes with His people. This new agreement begins with my blood which is poured out for you. From this point forward Christianity was born, and mankind truly had the way to enter heaven.

Jesus, during His crucifixion, said in Luke 23:34 (KJV), Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Alone, this selfless statement by Jesus, thinking only about us, in His ultimate anguish and pain of taking on all on the mankinds sins past, present and future during the crucifixion portrays the truest love that He had for all of mankind, and set the example for His Fathers second greatest commandment, Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Family-eStore will try to provide you with articles of interest to a Christian and patriotic way of life. The articles are written by Steven Coffman (Owner) of Family-eStore.com, (National Essay Contest) winner 1969. I am a person with strong Christian and patriotic beliefs. Tenacity, faith, and a belief in God, Country and Family are key components to success in life.

The Christian articles are only intended to bring you closer in your relationship to our Father in heaven. The Patriotic articles are only intended to show pride and patriotism to our Land of the free and home of the brave, (The United States of America). I hope that you enjoy and are enlightened by them.

Clearing a Space For You!

This time of the year is full of renewal, rebirth, growth, development, restoration, and cleansing. Along with the rest of nature, you tend to feel vibrant and inspired to clear things out and get a new start. It is a great time to clear away the past and plant new seeds for your life!

Here are a few easy ways to meet your cleansing needs:

The Space Within You

Fuel up! Think about creating your own cleansing experience to get rid of excess waste. Take advantage of all the great whole foods during this season. Add more fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds to your eating plan.

Express yourself. Journaling can help you know your Self and learn how to express your truth. You don't have to write a novel. A few words can go a long way and set you on the path to self-discovery.

Start exercising. Physical activities allow the body to sweat and rid itself of toxins. Movement will help clear your mind and focus on creating your life.

The Space You Are In

Surround yourself with beautiful things. Create a beautiful space with your new favorite color of the season. Spread some nature throughout your home with plants and flowers. Open up your blinds and let the sun shine in!

Clean out those closets. Remove things in your house or storage that you do not need. Keep the items that bring you joy and happiness.

Have a party! Encourage your loved ones to join you in celebrating renewal and growth. Share your desires, needs, and intentions. Cultivate an environment that is supporting and loving.

Like health, cleansing is not exclusively about how you eat, it's also about how you live! This is just a start.

What else can you do to renew yourself this season?

Takeyah A. Young is the Founder and Director of Core Connection Lifestyle, a company dedicated to providing life essentials for well-being and tools for balanced living. Through health counseling, lifestyle coaching, and sustainable living consulting, she serves as her clients' personal advocate for living an energized and passionate life. Takeyah's mission is to empower people to live their dreams in balance; connect the actions in their lives to their dreams; and inspire them to take living personally.

She is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor, Speaker, and Educator with a private practice offering assistance countrywide. She received her Bachelor's degree from Lincoln University (of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) and Masters degree from University of Maryland. Educated at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City, Takeyah is certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. To learn more about Core Connection Lifestyle, please visit http://www.core-connection.org

The information in this article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Following Old Religious Text - Religion

Most people tend to bury their head in the sand when it comes to problems with their family, community, job, government and of course religious beliefs. They don't want to hear the truth and often they can't see the truth. I have read many religious text, books and other literature, missing some very important parts and only when I reread the information, did I find what I have missed. Sometimes I have needed to read or listen to the same information over 30 times, before it becomes somewhat clear to me.

Most religions are living in the dark ages. From what I gather, Hinduism is over 4000 years old, Judaism is around 2500 years old, Christianity is 2000 years old and Islam is about 1400 years old. People are following information today that isn't necessarily applicable to modern times but often religious leaders can twist it around, add some verbiage, make a semi-educated judgment and now we have something we can follow. It just doesn't make sense.

Why do we put so much faith in religious books like the Bible, Torah, Bhagavad-Gita and Quran, when these books cannot be proven and often have many mistakes and errors. I know people that open these books very carefully and treat them like they are made from solid gold. They are books like any others but often people live their lives from the information inside, strictly and religiously. Often never straying from their beliefs, even though they're outdated and hard to follow.

Let me get to the bottom line here, have you researched your religion and if you have, do you have any questions that can't be answered? Do you read any of the religious text and often wonder or think to yourself, this doesn't seem to make sense, because you just read something else that was contradicting the last statement.

You can handle the truth about your religion. By reading this article, it tells me that you're on the Internet, can you go to a search engine and type in Bible contradictions, Torah contradictions, or whatever your beliefs are. I was searching for errors in the Bible and came upon a couple of pretty good web sites.

Use words like contradiction, problems, errors and see what websites you come up with.

Seek the wisdom and the truth shall set you free.

Hope in Religion

You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development.

Greg is currently working on a self help library filled with great subjects on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world. His views on religious freedom are slowly changing the way people think about institutional religion.

The God of War Or Peace - Helping With Bible Problems

Here's two verses I found in the Bible that seem to contradict themselves but I'm sure that with a little creativity and manipulation, a good minister or religious scholar, could make some sense out of it.

Exodus 15:3 (New International Version) The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.

Romans 15:33 (New International Version) The God of peace be with you all. Amen.

The Lord is a warrior does not mean that he fights or kills, does it. According to the Old Testament, God killed plenty of people and even took out an entire city one time, flooded the earth to get rid of the evil and of course who could forget, that once we get into the New Testament, God killed his only begotten son Jesus. I don't know if I would really want this guy as my father.

It seems like he has a pretty bad temper on him but is extremely loving, caring and understanding. Are you confused yet, I am. Maybe I shouldn't be throwing the word I am around.

The God of peace states that he is a loving and understanding leader. This makes more sense to me because he did create the earth and everything around it. If I was for example, building a home to create a nice peaceful place to live, I wouldn't be thinking about destroing what I created. I would be thinking more along the lines of how I could take care of this creation.

It makes more sense to me that God would be peaceful but sometimes in order to have peace, we need to be a warrior. If God would have created us to be more compassionate, gave us plenty of food to eat, plenty of homes to live in, removed our sinful nature and of course who could forget, give us a purpose in life that is clearly understandable, I wouldn't see a need for warriors.

Maybe the God of peace is different than the Lord is a warrior. Thinking is a good thing, put your thinking caps on and start reading some of the Bible with an open mind.

Treated Fairly Christianity

You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing and personal development.

Greg is currently working on a spiritual video library filled with great movies on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world.

The Greek Deity Known as Hestia

When one thinks to Greek Deities, Hestia, probably does not come to mind. Less dramatic than others, she still played an important role in Greek culture.

The Greek Deity Known as Hestia

In ancient Greece, fourteen Olympians made up the pantheon of gods that were worshiped by the Greeks. While some of these deities are extremely well-known today, such as Zeus, Aphrodite and Athena, others are less familiar. These gods, while not in the forefront of Greek mythology, still played a major part in the lives of the ancient Greeks. One of these is Hestia, the first and last born daughter of the Titan Chronos.

In pre-Olympic mythology, the story is told of how the Titans Chronos and Rhea had twelve children, destined to be the first twelve gods of Mount Olympus. Chronos was upset by the birth of his offspring, so he swallowed all of them except for the youngest, Zeus. Hestia was the first born of Chronos, therefore she was the first swallowed. After Zeus led a war against the Titans and won, Chronos was forced to disgorge his offspring, and Hestia, being swallowed first, came out last. In this way, she was both the first and last born daughter of Chronos.

Hestia is seen as the deity of the hearth, and of order and family. She was depicted as being virginal, and her name actually means home and hearth. The town hall (prytaneum) of every town had a public hearth, at which sacrifices and dedications were made to Hestia. It also was her official sanctuary. When a new village or colony was established, a flame from one of the existing hearths of Hestia was carried to that new place, and she was later seen as the governing power over the connection between colonies and mother cities.

While not the most active or strongest of the Greek pantheon, Hestia was worshiped in every house. Her altar was seen as being located in every home and public hearth, and she was also regarded as a model of virginity and chastity.

Richard Monk is with Facts Monk - a site with country facts about Greece.

Observer and the Observed

So quantum physics tells us that the observer causes the observed, or at the very least that the observer interferes with that which is being observed by the very process of observing it. Ive heard some people crying "heresy!" They do not like the idea that once the observer is not observing the observed, then the observed is not.

In my mind that misses a large, obvious point which makes the concept ludicrous. We are all one, god if you will, or at the very least energy, unseparated my anything other than atomic configuration which on a larger scale appears to create separation of bodies of mass. Since we know better, then theres a couple other points we cannot overlook.

Firstly, because we are all one energy field, for lack of a better term, there is no disappearance of anything when it is not being observed. Our human notion of not existing encapsulates anything not within the small frequency band our six physical senses can pick up. Perhaps the observer causes the observed to become a manifest, physical experience (to the observer), but the lack of observer in no way takes away the existence of that experience/being/energy.

Secondly, because all energy is the same, and we as apparently individual human beings are conscious, then its very difficult to imagine that any spec of the energy field of all-that-is could not be conscious. The type of consciousness may vary greatly, in an infinite number of ways, but is still basic consciousness nonetheless. For us to be conscious implies that everything is, that energy itself is consciousness. That ours is focused into a small amount of matter at the moment (exclusively, as far as what we deem our conscious mind is concerned) does not mean that every other piece of this energy shares that form of focalised consciousness.

If our rule of free will stands up, as it must, in that the law of attraction clearly states that we create our reality by what we think about, thereby allowing that to become part of our reality, then all forms of consciousness must inherit this same trait, although perhaps experentially very different. Therefore the observer cannot observe the observed unless the observed is also an observer that is observing the original observer.

With this understood, all observers are in fact by nature observed, as that which they are observing is also by nature observer. The process of observation therefore does not contain observed and observer, but both of those in both participants, or what I will now call observed(er).

I dont mean to shake rocky ground, but this places all new challenges on the understanding of the role of observer in the observed.

And having raised an issue without providing satisfactory resolution, I leave you now.

jonpeeoh (http://www.jonpeeoh.com) is a new web community devoted to raising consciousness, magick, and teaching others to take control of their powers as creators of their own reality.