MJ's religious beliefs.

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Regarding quoting different parts all you have to do is write the code in front of the phrase, sentence or paragraph and the code at the end of the phrase, sentence or paragraph that you want to quote.

For example, without spaces:

[ Q U O T E = g i n v i d ; 3 4 3 8 8 1 7 ] blahblahblah fruit cake blahblah I am right blahblahblah they eat your sould like a vegetable blahblayou are wrong blahblahblah [ / Q U O T E ]

There is a difference in what you wrote. Being educated in what is happening politically and partaking of politics are two separate things. Just because you do not get involved in government does not mean you do not take the time to learn what is going on around you.

My point was that being eductaed not to be involved in politics like not voting for political parties isn't a good choice for the simple reason that if extreme right comes to power thanks to the voters, those who didn't vote have actually passively agreed, hence contributed, to be governed by such a government. That's why I said, if we do not take care of politics, the politics certainly will take care of us. We saw what happened with Hitler in power.

That is not true. They most certainly do not lead to the same end. By means of the Bible, Jesus spoke many times of opposing roads. One leading off to destruction, one on the opposite path. He says that one road is cramped and the other has few people on it. He never spoke as though all ways were different ways to the same point. But rather, spoke of there being only one way.

Oh, but what you are forgetting is the context. Jesus did not come to speak to Romans or peoples of other religions, did he? Jesus was a Jew and came to speak to the Jews, he said it himself. So, of course that he was speaking about one way but that one way is within his own Jewish religion that he was talking about. He never mentioned Hindus or Buddhists or Amerindians' religions, did he?

Of course those (the outsiders) who wanted to join were welcome, but they were not his focal point in his teaching. Jesus was teaching the Law not the Mahabharata. Yet the striking similarities among religions are present which indicates a high probability that the Bible wasn't the only collection of scriptures containing some of divine messages.

If the Bible was the only God's word as assumed by you, why isn't there anywhere in the world any trace of that same Bible to the peoples who actually had never heard about the Bible?

Not all Bible translations claim to be the "right" one. The only one I ever hear that about is TKJV. All Bible translations from those who have made a scholarly effort to translate accurately, have the same basic truths in them. They do not differ greatly. Some are more accurate than others. But that does not mean that they differ so greatly that rtuth is lost. (BTW you remind me of my teacher so much with that question.)

I am a teacher (among other things lol)

Usually today's main Christian branches admit that there are flaws in the Bible due to the lost original parts and lack of confirmed source. For example, it is logically assumed that none of the apostles wrote the Gospels, but by the scribes much later, minimum 60 to 70 years after Jesus's death (in other words more than half a century was nourished with imperfect oral transmissions before being put down on the paper.)

I am of a different opinion. The Bible was written physically by man, but was inspired directly by God.

Do you believe this to be 100% God's words without a slightest doubt or without questioning the veracity of these verses? How come there's such a huge contradiction? Is Lord = Satan? For example:

And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. (2 Samuel, 24:1)

compare to the exactly same event:

And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. (1 Cronicles, 21:1)

Also, do you believe this to be 100% God's words:

-Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. Exodus 19:13

-Achan ... took of the accursed thing. ... And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. ... So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Joshua 7:1-26

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her ... and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel's father shall say ... these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die. Deuteronomy 22:13-21

If there be found among you ... that ... hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them ... Then shalt thou ... stone them with stones, till they die. Deuteronomy 17:2-5


etc. etc.

Another question that I have and that I would like you to answer in all honesty with a yes or no:

Do you believe that I am influenced by Satan for not being Jehovah's Witness?

The scribe wrote according to God.

As far as I know none of the chapters in the Bible was preworded by "According to God" or "In the name of God".

The same goes for the Gopsels which are even not according to Jesus. It is clearly stated:

According to Matthew
According to Luke
According to Mark
According to John

By the way, anyone with good knowledge of a given religion can write a booklet and claim to be according to God.

God did create us all, and in the beginning of creation, there was only one way, one set of people. As man procreated, they were brought up in and adopted views contrary to what was God given. They created gods and created their own ways of life. But there were still those who were willing to comply and enter into an agreement to follow God's laws. Any, no matter what nation they were, who wanted to adopt these views could do so.

And that has been spread over how many years according to the Bible? In other words how old is the humanity according to your belief? It is important to answer this question if we want to discuss history and religions throughout history in order to be sure that we have same time reference.

No, by your own analogy, there are many gardens.

The fact that you say how can the roses in my garden be considered better than yours points to the existence of many gardens or at least more than one.

My analogy was that there is one big garden for everyone: Earth.

That big garden can be divided in smaller parts and each part can be taken care of by different people, but with the same love. The rose, indeed, will always be a rose if it's being taken care of with the same love.

In other parts of the world, there was no need for the division of that garden. For example American Indians believe(d) that the garden(s) do(es) not belong to us, but that we belong to her (Mother Nature, or Mother of humanity = Hawa = Eve).

I don't think anyone has it 100% either. When Jesus spoke to his disciples, some things he would not tell them because he said at that point they would not be able to understand. Therefore, at some points, even the disciples had misunderstandings about some things. But what exacerbates the problem is when people do not let the scriptures interpret themselves, but try to interpret them based on popular opinion. I do however think that based on the scriptures, I can say who I believe is closest. IMHO.

Jesus was not understood by his disciples usually when he was using the parables. The only two reasons that I see why Jesus used the parables are:

1) The unseen is difficult to describe with simple words, hence the parables helping to understand some situations

2) Jesus was not very welcome with his teachings that seemed going against the Jeish Law, despite the fact that he clearly stated that he did not come to change the Law.

I have thought about it very much. Do you know how hard a concept like gravity was to prove? Do you know how difficult it was to prove things like the make up of our solar system? Had this been a few hundred years ago on a forum, we could be arguing whether or not the sun was the center of the universe. And, we rightfully could not argue that because it is something that is discussed at depth then it cannot be true. It just shows that some things are harder to verify than others. It took until we got a powerful enough telescope to prove the make up of the solar system. We prove gravity by its effect. The Bible has many truths that have been proven. Some are going to take future events to verify it. But that doesn't necessarily nullify it as not true.

The Bible is very clear.

If that is true, then why did we need telescopes to prove aything? If the Bible was clear it wouldn't have been difficult to prove anything, especially things such as the Earth not being flat.

So, I am sorry, but I will have to disagree, the Bible is not very clear. There were too many stakes in the Christian history because of the lack of clarity leading to the condamnation of some scientists claiming the opposite to what is stated in the Bible.

I can see how that can effect this. But throughout history religions have almost always effected government. Whether you are talking about ancient Egypt, to the Babylonians, to Greece, even down to Rome and Indian groups, religion or at least spirituality has either influenced or been an integral part of government.

Throughout history religions have above all been used by the governments as a tool to unite people under the same state. Many people were forced to convert not for the sake of the truth, but because the governments imposed so. Europe would have never been Christian if the Romans hadn't decided to convert people by force. Consequently, today's Americans (who originally came from Europe) wouldn't have been Christians either. In other words, you'd probably been a pagan now if Romans hadn't decided to massively convert the population in Europe.