Questioning

I will try to sum this up. This post shows that you and the movement are authoritarian. And that, coupled with the belief that you have the correct interptetation of the Bible, therefore the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, makes you and the movement DANGEROUS. You want CONTROL! NOT FREEDOM! I grew up in a fundamentalist family and community, and graduated from a Christian college, and worked in Christian agencies for 20 years. But there were things about our faith and the bible that did not add up. I became a student of how we got our Bible, and of the history of religions, including the Christian religion going back to the Sumerians and their cuneiform writtings which are the oldest known of mankind. These go back several centuries before the earliest Hebrew writings. All evidence led to my believing the creation and flood stories in Genesis were plagiarisms of Sumerian writings, which indicate gods (plural) created man in their image. Not just one god. There is no way after my years of study I can now believe the Bible is inerrant. Also in my study it was discovered the story of Jesus is plagiarism. However, I am a follower of Jesus because, as a behavioral and social scientist, I found his teaching is VALID. It is universal truth. Scientific evidence shows his precepts for mankind builds more harmony in society. Loving neighbor as self leads to the wellbeing of mankind through building each other up. It is helping everyone feel worthwhile which leads to a more healthy society. It is the antithesis of the doctrine of original sin, which I believe was a clever scheme to get humans to believe they are inferior, and will always need a "king" and "savior" to guide them. It has worked with many unaware people for thousands of years. That is why authoritiarians are against the broad education of the masses. After studying the Sumerian stories, I believe the scheme started even prior to the Hebrew writings. Jesus was suggesting a better way, and it got him killed. I am sure you are well meaning, but you and the movement are wanting to keep humans in subjection to your beliefs. And millions of others believe the subjection ideology is truth because it has been in circulation for thousands of Years. We can thank the Catholic church for that. After they teamed up with the Roman government, the power went to their heads, and eventually led to lkilling off their competition and forcefully indoctrinating the majority of people in the western world of that day and age. After a few hundred years, it became the unquestionable TRUTH. It was conditioned (programed) into our human brains. I invite all of you to do as I did. Pray that you may find and understand truth. And do an indepth study of the history of God/gods and religions. And I know what some of you are thinking. I am satan trying to lead you astray. That is part of the conditioning that was drilled into you to keep you from using the excelent brain you were given to think for yourself. If what I have written is censured or deleted, consider that is what cults do when they are feeling threatened. Remember, Jesus said the truth shall set you free. But if you do not open your mind to all information, you know not what you do not know. } |

The OT version of God was a wrathful, jealous, narcissistic, authoritarian God who had an eye for eye mentality. And he had people stoned to death for various reasons, like violating the sabbath, being rebellious, and committing adultry. He committed genocide with the flood, and after having the Israeli's slaughter the caananites, he had them save the young virgins, who were divided among the Israeli men with no instructions for how the virgins were to be used. And by the way, he violated his own 10 commandments in doing so, which I find extremely inconsistant. Is this the part of the Bible you are looking to establish a Christian nations laws on?? I certainly hope your group has in mind basing laws on the core of Jesus teaching which he summarized in Matthew 22 when he was asked about the greatest commandment. Love God, and neighbor as self. But I believe your group is authority and power minded. Not humanitarian like Jesus was. And for the record, I do not believe the Catholics should have attached the Jewish "Bible" to the teachings of Jesus. Therefore do not believe the Bible is inerrant, which is probably what your whole faith is based on. A whole other subject if you want to go there in another thread. That is a subject I am more familiar with. I don't want to answer for Slibhin, but I get my news from a variety of news sources, and agree with what she said about Israel and Biden. If your news source is Fox, I can see where you are coming from.

THANK YOU! Especially for the first and second callouts. I don't follow politics closely, but those agree with my observations. Israel is far from being a perfect angel.

Thank you for that statement. It ties in with what I said above about Old Testament thinking. Authoritarainism builds power, and power corupts. I believe Jesus recognized this and was suggesting a better way. The early churches were even somewhat "democratic", in that they chose their own "overseers", had some female "leaders", and established conferences in an effort to maintain unity. But the Catholic church slowly and cleaverly steered it back to male authoritarian rule. And in a sense, that is what Christian Nationalist are trying to do today. In his day Jesus was a radical liberal, and the authoritarians killed him.

I don't have time to respond to every point you have made in your posts, but will say this. My ideas of morality are more in line with the teachings of Jesus---not the stories and laws found in the Old Testament, which I refered to above. It seems a lot of your ideas (and of the movement you belong to) come from the OT, rather than Jesus. I do not want the USA to head in that direction.

Did Jesus have the division among Christians in mind when he said that??

Republic or democracy is splitting hairs. The president is elected to represent the people, not lead them, and If the majority doesn't want the president, he can be voted out of office. We have a form of democracy. I share your fear of that.

Isn't it great that we live in a country, and are on a forum where we are free to state our views?

I don't know how you measure morality, but from my years of study of Jesus and his teaching, and being a Behavioral Scientist, I would say he is the worst option we have.

Hmmm. Were our nations fathers given a test to see how many were actually Christians? Do you have the results of that test? And since Thomas Jefferson highly edited his Bible, I question how he would have come out on the test. And back to here and now, how is it that a LOT of Christians are NOT for Project 2025?? Do you regard them as not really being Christian?? If so, who has been given the job of determining who is Christian, and who is not?? If you have the answer to that question, maybe you can solve the HUGE problem of 3 major sects of Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox) and dozens and dozens of denominations, and all the independents who claim to be the true church. When Christians can't even unite themselves, how do you expect them to unite a nation?? It seems to me that becoming a christian nation would tend to divide our nation even further! Which sect, or denomination would we be?? Also, which Biblical "laws" would we follow? The teachings of Jesus? Or the Old Testament eye for eye thinking, and stoning children for being disobedient?? Or for gathering grain on the Sabbath, like Jesus had his followers to do?? Maybe it is just me, but it seems like deciding which Biblical laws we would follow would be one of the most chaotic and divisive endevors ever attempted in the halls of congress! I suggest we have complete separation of church and state. Let the churchs do their thing, and the state do their thing. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things that are God's.

Who said the nation was "dominated" by a majority of christians? Not me. I do agree that the largest number of religious people in the USA at this time claim to be Christian. And some would very much like to have domination over the nation. Hopefully that will not happen. Hopefully NO religion will ever have domination over us. History shows that combining religion with government is a huge mistake. Neither of the candidates is satan, or the devil, or what ever you want to call that concept. They are both human beings. And it is NOT their job to "lead" you anywhere. We live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and there job is to make sure you have the freedom to worship ANY God you want to worship. Or to not worship any god. Thinking a president "leads" us is thinking in authoritarian terms--not democratic. The president is our employee. Not our leader.

As far as I know, no one, not even God has appointed anyone on this earth to determne who is Christain and who is not. That "game" led to inquisitions in the middle ages. And that is missing my point which I made in the post above.

Each person has their own ideas as to what is "spiritual". I am looking at the big picture of the movement, Which involves overlapping religious beliefs with government, which in my mind is a very dangerous precidence. They are wanting to give more power to the administration which would upset the balance of power. It would be putting the president one step closer to being a dictator, and in a position to favor different religions. Think down the road a few years. Our demographics are changing. When/if Christians are no longer in the majority, do you want Muslims pushing their ideas into our government? I'll bet a lot more people would be concerned if Trump was claiming to be Muslim and Muslims were lining up for government positions. Does this help you see the dangerous precidence I am driving at??

I belive he would be the lessor of two "evils".

Amen to that statement! I am not here to argue with you, but will state my opinion as a retired Behavioral Scientist. I did evaluations of people from all walks of life for 36 years, and every professional in my field that I know agree with the following. Donald Trump is a grandiose, delusional, classical case of a narcissistic personality disorder. And may be showing signs of dementia. And these traits have grown worse, not better, since supposedly being converted. He has no business in the white house. But my main concerns are not Trump. The main concern is that the so called Christian Nationalist are using him to help catapult their people into positions of power if he gets elected. And there are some very wealthy and powerful people financing his campaign. Read PROJECT 2025 for the conditions and people they have lined up for power positions if Trump gets elected. These are NOT "love your neighbor as yourself" Christians. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand and hope it all goes away!