My Church
Date: April 20, 2004 04:06AM
Dear Diesel: I am sorry that people are responding to you in such negative ways. And that you are doing the same. People on this board, who have been hurt by negative experiences in certain groups, are simply trying to help each other.
Your question: Does God control ALL things? Yes or no?
Reply: God is something beyong human ability to comprehend, so how can I say definiteively if GOd controls all things? I would not presume to say say: God does this, God does that; god is this, god is that.
Your question: Do we belong to the government or God?
Reply: Government is our contract with each other. We belong to each other. Andbeyond that, we belong to something more vast and wondrous that you might call God.
Your question: If teaching your children the way you believe is brainwashing, are not all parents guilty of brainwashing their children?
Reply: There is a big difference between education and brainwashing. Good education opens many possibilities, beliefs, and choices to the person being educated, and teaches a person how to learn. Brainwashing is a process that instills people with fear, insecurity, intolerance, and dependency.
Your question: If we are brainwashing our members by reading the Bible, is not the world being brainwashed by reading newspapers, watching TV, and gaining information in other media outlets?
Reply: I can choose what to believe, what to watch, what to question, and I can check facts when I watch/read/listen to the media. If children are being taught that the Bible is the only truth, then they do not have that choice to learn for themselves.
Your question: If God doesn't exist, why are prayers answered?
Reply: Who are we to say that God doesn't exist? We are talking about the way some churches abuse their power and authority.
Your question: If God doesn't exist, how are prophets able to fortell the future and speak things to people that noone but the person receiving the prohesy knew?
Reply: If I knew that, I'd be a prophet! But I don't see why a person couldn't have visions of the future. The Bhudda, Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed all were gifted with visions. So did many Native American shamans and other seekers. I'd say that the universality of visions and prophecy across many cultures and many eras would tend to confirm belief in God, and would also tend to make people see that while the forms of worship and the institutions humans create in the name of god (e.g. churches) may change, and may be flawed, that god him/her self must be infinitely loving and accepting, and not care about all these boundaries of gender, nationality, church, state, and history that we human make such a big deal out of. Isn't there room on the planet, and in your beliefs, to consider that?